Mission
CalArts is a multidisciplinary community of artists.
Our ongoing educational endeavor is grounded in openness, experimentation, critical engagement, and creative freedom.
Through artistic practice, we transform ourselves, each other, and the
world.
Values
Agency ● Empathy ● Persistence ● Distinction ● Equity ● Rigor ● Diversity ● Inclusivity ● Social ● Justice ●
Agency ● Empathy ● Persistence ● Distinction ● Equity ● Rigor ● Diversity ● Inclusivity ● Social ● Justice ●
Agency ● Empathy ● Persistence ● Distinction ● Equity ● Rigor ● Diversity ● Inclusivity ● Social ● Justice ●
Introduction
Pillars
Shaping CalArts Future is a forward-looking, insight-driven roadmap that builds on CalArts’ extraordinary legacy, and defines a vision for our future. It is not a manifesto or a founding constitution, but rather a guide to help us achieve our most pressing, unified organizational goals, and ensure that our next 50 years will be even more bold and sustainable than our last.
The framework is meant to be a living document, one that continues to evolve and come to life in close collaboration between CalArts’ faculty, staff, students, alumnx, and Trustees.
The below Pillars are the overarching themes and questions that we sought to answer in our Strategic Framework.
How do we maximize the transformative quality of our distinctive multidisciplinary arts education for all who engage with CalArts?
How can we expand the impact of our unique educaitonal mission by broadening access to CalArts?
How do we ensure the long-term vitality of CalArts?
Goals
Goals are sustainable ambitions that guide our direction for the next 5-10 years. Objectives are measurable steps that CalArts can take to achieve that goal.
Goal 1 
Identify and implement the most sustainable, relevant, and mission-driven scale and structure for CalArts.
Relevant Strategic Pillars
Center the Educational Experience
Remove Barriers to Access
Shape Our Sustainable Future
Objective 1A: Partner with faculty, staff, and student leadership to evaluate and explore how the size and structure of CalArts can best reinforce the mission, accessibility, longevity, and impact of the Institute.
Objective 1B: Engage faculty leadership to explore and develop flexible, innovative, and responsive curricular models to broaden access and maximize student achievement.
Objective 1C: Establish additional vehicles for pedagogical innovation, exploration, and model development, facilitated by faculty leadership.
Objective 1D: Strengthen the global strategy for CalArts’ community, programs, and curricula.
Goal 2
Diversify and increase earned and contributed revenue sources in order to decrease CalArts’ operational reliance on tuition, thereby reducing the net price for our neediest students.
Relevant Strategic Pillars
Remove Barriers to Access
Shape Our Sustainable Future
Objective 2A: Adopt rigorous, structured, and targeted fundraising strategies to create ongoing, broad philanthropic support for CalArts.
Objective 2B: Undertake a series of major comprehensive campaigns to call attention to our priorities and our fundraising achievements.
Objective 2C: Launch independent structures for pursuing earned revenue to support CalArts’ core educational mission.
Goal 3
Foster an inclusive, empathic, and community-centered culture.
Relevant Strategic Pillars
Center the Educational Experience
Shape Our Sustainable Future
Objective 3A: Strengthen the community’s cultural competencies to better reflect and welcome CalArts’ diverse population and foster a sense of belonging.
Objective 3B: Increase the representational diversity of our faculty, staff, students, administration, and Trustees.
Objective 3C: Directly support the health and welfare of students, staff, and faculty on campus.
Objective 3D: Nurture enduring, community-centered connections between the Institute and its alumnx.
Objective 3E: Practice and support long-term trust within the CalArts community through transparency, accountability, and shared governance processes for informed, inclusive, and expeditious decision-making.
Goal 4
Renew CalArts’ campus to respond to current needs and future vision as well as strengthen our commitment to environmental sustainability.
Relevant Strategic Pillars
Center the Educational Experience
Shape Our Sustainable Future
Objective 4A: Create short-term projects to improve the campus experience in advance of a major master planning effort.
Objective 4B: Undertake a comprehensive site analysis and master planning process to assess the opportunities and challenges of CalArts’ existing campus and facilities.
Objective 4C: Seek and obtain the appropriate local, County, and State regulatory permission to renovate and expand CalArts’ entire 60+ acre Valencia campus.
Objective 4D: Develop and execute designs for CalArts’ campus that respond to the ideal and forward-looking ambitions of its community of artists and to enable mission-centric institutional growth.
Goal 5
Support the work of CalArts’ community of artists beyond campus.
Relevant Strategic Pillars
Remove Barriers to Access
Shape Our Sustainable Future
Objective 5A: Prepare students and recent alumnx comprehensively for life and work after CalArts.
Objective 5B: Enhance resources and opportunities for faculty and staff professional development.
Objective 5C: Increase the connectivity between CalArts and the creative communities and audiences in Santa Clarita, greater Los Angeles, and beyond.
Goal 6
Expand CalArts’ community of artists and collaborators by broadening the awareness and reach of the Institute both domestically and internationally.
Relevant Strategic Pillars
Center the Educational Experience
Remove Barriers to Access
Shape Our Sustainable Future
Objective 6A: Refine the Institutional approach to external communications and marketing to more effectively demonstrate CalArts' compelling narrative and distinct areas of impact.
Objective 6B: Explore sustainable and mission-driven partnerships, relationships, and collaborations with creative and educational organizations.
Objective 6C: Create and sustain city, county, state, and federal relationships to advance CalArts’ mission.
Objective 6D: Develop approaches that enable the Institute to play a more active role in local and national conversations facing higher education and the arts.
Objective 6E: Fuel and maintain the strong reputation of CalArts’ programs through continuing recruitment and retention of innovative faculty, which thereby continues to attract the most qualified and creative students.
Goal 7
Improve operational processes and budgetary management throughout the Institute.
Relevant Strategic Pillars
Center the Educational Experience
Remove Barriers to Access
Shape Our Sustainable Future
Objective 7A: Build the practices, processes, and tools for data- and research-informed decision making across CalArts.
Objective 7B: Increase transparency and expand the understanding of budgetary spending across administrative departments, schools, and programs.
Objective 7C: Evaluate operational processes, resources, and infrastructure for greater efficiency and service.
Timeline
Discovery
In October 2018, CalArts embarked on its ambitious Strategic Visioning Project. The initial phase engaged the entire CalArts community in a dialogue about its past and present — and what the Institute’s trajectory might look like for the next 50-years.
Investigation
In September 2019, CalArts released the Opportunity Assessment Report, which is a future-focused, insight-driven summary of the greatest opportunities for CalArts as well as the potential challenges facing the Institute today.
Visioning
In January 2020, after several months of thoughtful debate and discussion with the entire community, CalArts unveiled its new mission statement. The new mission guided the development of the strategic framework.
Shaping CalArts Future
In March 2021, after a disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic, CalArts unveiled its online strategic framework that lists immediate goals, objectives, and tactics of an actionable plan for the next 5 to 10 years.
Priorities
Strategic Priorities Roadmap: 2023-2024
Strategic Priorities Roadmap: 2022-2023
Shaping
CalArts
Future
Shaping
CalArts
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Shaping
CalArts
Future
© 2021 California Institute of the Arts 
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