A Letter from the President - Vision and Aspirations
Our vision is to embody the words of Pope Francis: “Good education plants seeds when we are young, and these continue to bear fruit throughout life” (Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 213).
As a Catholic Diocesan College, we aspire to be nationally recognized for our liberal arts education and dedication to preparing students for life! We are an academically rigorous, supportive, and joyful community.
Pope Francis, in his Laudato Si’ said, “Good education plants seeds when we are young, and these continue to bear fruit throughout life.” Carroll is committed to not only planting seeds but harvesting a garden of future leaders, scientists, poets, writers, doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, religious leaders, and the new great thinkers of our society.
The College will grow its enrollment by an additional 270 students by the year 2027. This will be done by strengthening the student experience through enrollment in high demand fields, creating new attractive and high-quality academic programs, supporting the Liberal Arts, focusing on continuous quality improvement with respect to retention and completion, leveraging new partnerships with nonprofit, healthcare, industry, and other educational institutions, and diversifying our revenue streams. Carroll College must continue to be trustworthy stewards of blessings and resources as we build a financially sustainable future.
Through the power of the liberal arts, the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, and by offering programs that equip students for life, we will be viewed as the first choice for Montana high school students and will attract a diverse community of students and employees from across the United States who are interested in a challenging and rigorous education, service and social justice, outreach, and leadership training that takes place in the classroom, labs, clinics, forests, rivers, fields, courts, government, our Tribal nations, churches, and abroad.
We will provide opportunities for our students to excel in academics, co-curricular activities, intramurals, and athletics, preparing a “mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind in a healthy body). We will increase our impact as a nationally-recognized undergraduate liberal arts institution while strategically expanding into graduate and post-baccalaureate educational opportunities with a special focus in healthcare and other high demand fields.
Throughout the history of Carroll College, our successes have been supported by generous partners. We hope to continue that tradition as we design and launch a comprehensive fundraising campaign to aid us in fulfilling the promises in this Strategic Plan. This campaign will support academic growth and excellence, endowed scholarships that enable student success, and funding to strengthen Carroll College’s competitive edge.
We will leverage our role as a Catholic Diocesan college, and, as Pope Saint John Paul II charged us, to remain a “beacon to the Church in the Northwest,” to form our students so they are pillars of our Church and our nation.
This plan presents the pathway forward. We hope that you will join us.
John E. Cech, Ph.D.
President