Destination 2040

Our
Flight
Path

The 2025-30 Strategic Plan

For Ball State University

Read The Strategic Plan (PDF)

Ball State University is building on the momentum of Destination 2040: Our Flight Path with the next iteration of our strategic plan. Guided by a committee appointed by President Geoffrey S. Mearns in Spring 2024, this refreshed plan reflects the insights, priorities, and aspirations of our campus community. A significant milestone in this process is the release of the approved plan—shaped by your thoughtful feedback. Thank you to all who contributed your ideas, time, and perspective.

Our Mission

We engage students in educational, research, and creative experiences that empower our graduates to have fulfilling careers and meaningful lives enriched by lifelong learning and service, while we enhance the economic, environmental, and social vitality of our community, our state, and our world.

Our Enduring Values

Excellence. We commit to excel in all that we do.

Innovation. We commit to be creative, responsive, and progressive.

Courage. We commit to set ambitious goals and to take the risks necessary to achieve those goals.

Integrity. We commit to be honest, ethical, authentic, and accessible.

Inclusiveness. We commit to respect different cultural experiences and intellectual perspectives in all people.

Social responsibility. We commit to act for the benefit of society at large.

Gratitude. We commit to express appreciation to other people and to demonstrate our gratitude through our actions.

Goal 1

Undergraduate Excellence and Innovation

Our University provides a premier on-campus undergraduate experience.

Goal 2

Graduate Education and Lifetime Learning

Our University expands its reach and impact along the continuum of human development by serving graduate students and other adults throughout their lifetime educational journeys and by anticipating and responding to workforce needs.

Goal 3

Community Engagement and Impact

As a community-engaged institution, our University mobilizes and leads partnerships that revitalize and sustain our city and our region.

Goal 4

Scholarship and Societal Impact

As a public research institution, our University recruits, retains, and supports outstanding faculty and staff who engage in scholarship—of discovery, integration, application, and teaching—that enhances pedagogy and curriculum, that attracts external resources, or that enhances the lives of other people.

Goal 5

Inclusiveness and Institutional Effectiveness

Our University is distinguished for inclusiveness and for institutional effectiveness across all dimensions of our work and for having a vibrant culture of wellbeing that enables all of our faculty and staff to find fulfillment in their work and meaning in their lives.