Strategic Plan

Core Values

• Academic excellence
• Respect, trust and mutual understanding
• Equality, diversity & inclusiveness
• Restless curiosity

Our Vision for the future

• Wolfson College is an international, egalitarian and inclusive community of scholars.
• It is the College of choice for world-class academics, mature students and returning learners.
• It offers excellence in teaching and support, allowing every member of the College to realise their full potential.
• Its diversity helps foster new perspectives and new insights in every field of research and scholarship.
• It has a vibrant cultural and sporting life, enriched by the range of experiences of its members.
• Wolfson’s active and engaged Fellowship underpins and enhances the college experience.
• It values its strong links with partners both within and beyond Cambridge and with its world-wide community of members and supporters.
• It celebrates its pioneering, cosmopolitan spirit in everything it does.

Education and learning

Wolfson College will support all its students to achieve their highest potential.

• Undergraduate students will receive excellent teaching through the development and maintenance of a cohort of outstanding supervisors and Directors of Studies, who have the skills to support undergraduates who come from diverse educational backgrounds.
• The primary responsibility for the academic achievement of graduate students lies with the department. However, the College will enhance their learning by offering structured support for students’ academic and personal development at all levels - mature undergraduate, Masters (full- and part-time) and PhD - to offer an integrated programme from admission to graduation.
• It will develop new systems for monitoring the progress of students, and cohorts of students, and establish targets for educational achievement at undergraduate, Masters, and PhD level.
• It will engage in continuous improvement of its provision for all students, based on enhanced systems for obtaining student feedback.
• It will develop plans, and a fund-raising campaign, for a purpose-built “Centre for Teaching and Learning”.

Student recruitment

Wolfson College will recruit the best students across a broad subject base at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

• There is no intention to increase overall student numbers. But the College will aim to increase the number of applicants for each undergraduate and PhD place, to widen its choice and build a more diverse community in which the representation of women and BME students matches the UK population.
• It will adopt a proactive approach to initiatives to attract mature undergraduates, including first-time university applicants and returners to learning.
• 70% of its full-time student body will be enrolled on courses of at least three years and its full-time postgraduate community will evolve to comprise 60% doctoral students and 40%students taking Masters and other one-year courses. Those Masters students who continue to a PhD will remain at Wolfson.
• It will offer generous bursaries, targeted to meet these strategic objectives.

Student experience

Wolfson College will foster strong engagement, a sense of belonging, and community spirit throughout its diverse and integrated student body which will build a relationship that extends beyond the students’ time at Wolfson.

• It will develop its social, communal, and academic facilities, beginning with the refurbishment of the Club Room with a daytime cafe and provision of a new Common Room. This will be followed by improvement of the environment of the Library.
• It will provide regular and comprehensive communications to its students (including part-time students) about academic, personal, financial and career-related support.
• It will develop and promote well-being initiatives, initially focussing on sport and a student garden.
• It will enhance its facilities for families and for students with disabilities, and make new facilities available for students who live out of College.
• It will assess the specific needs of part-time students in order to determine how to provide them with a meaningful and rewarding experience of College life. It will continue to refurbish and upgrade living accommodation.

Governance, Fellowship and membership

The Fellowship, and broader senior membership of Wolfson College, will be an engaged and dynamic community of scholars, senior University managers, and leaders in the wider community.

• Wolfson will elect Fellows strategically so that the Governing Body will become more representative of the major disciplines in the University and of gender and other protected characteristics.
• It will increase the number of University Teaching Officers in its Fellowship.
• It will clarify the benefits and expectations of Fellowship and offer a welcoming, accessible working environment for Fellows.
• It will enhance its support for Junior Research Fellows and early career academics in particular.
• New Fellows will receive a planned induction into College, to enable them to participate fully in College life.
• It will seek to give College Research Associates (CRAs) more opportunity to engage in College life and to give them more support. The number of researchers offered College membership will be adjusted accordingly.
• Within its democratic structures it will provide more opportunities for Fellows to be involved in the self-government of the College in accordance with an expectation that they should contribute in at least two areas of College life.
• It will develop the Senior Membership category, promoting greater engagement within the College, the University and the wider community.

Intellectual and cultural life

Wolfson College will offer a vibrant intellectual and cultural life for all its members which reflects its mission and values and complements its teaching and research.

• It will organise a comprehensive, coordinated annual programme of events – including music, art, talks and symposia – which will be well communicated, internally and externally.
• It will increasingly plan annual events around a cross-disciplinary theme chosen, after consultation with the membership, to provide topicality, coherence and challenge.
• It will offer events and programmes to complement those of local partners e.g. Festival of Ideas, Science Festival etc., so as to raise its profile in the local community. International and National events (e.g. International Women’s Day, Black History Month) will be marked with events in College.
• It will consider the needs of such events and activities in planning the development of its social spaces and other facilities.

External relationships

Wolfson College will encourage active partnerships across sectors and specialisms which are mutually beneficial and reflect its values.

• It will strengthen its alumni networks, by recognising students as alumni from admission, by launching a new electronic portal and through other innovative means which facilitate access to services, events, and support.
• It will develop distinctive external activities which add value for students, and promote interaction tailored to the achievements and know-how of the broader membership, starting with an initiative in Entrepreneurialism.
• It will foster a leadership role in the University in areas that further its core academic activities and will strive to be well connected with all University Departments.
• The College will foster interactions with cultural and research institutions within Cambridge and the rest of the UK, with HE institutions in the UK and overseas, and with philanthropists and charitable foundations which support our core values of academic excellence and diversity.

September 2018