President unveils Campbell University’s five-year Strategic Plan

President unveils Campbell University's five-year Strategic Plan

Document to lay the groundwork toward increased 'renewal, growth and recognition' by 2031

Campbell President Dr. William M. Downs fulfilled a Day 1 promise this week with the public release of the University's strategic plan, a document he hopes will "clearly and succinctly map out a set of institutional priorities that will guide us into a bright future."

Campbell University 2026-2031: A Strategic Plan for Renewal, Growth and Recognition was unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees on Jan. 28. The plan is the work of a 12-person committee to chart a pathway to "more fully and faithfully realize our existing institutional mission," Downs said in a letter to the Campbell community on Feb. 4.

"The challenges and opportunities we face require our immediate attention, and it was imperative to set our vision to paper so that we could then get busy fixing, building and growing," Downs said. "I have preached 'controlled urgency' since my first day at Campbell, and that has been our approach to completing this major strategic task."

Downs became Campbell University's sixth president on July 1, 2025, and one of his first actions as president was creating the committee that oversaw the creation of the new plan. Over the course of months, the group administered a survey that generated more than two thousand responses from alumni, students, administrators, trustees and faculty and staff. Those responses shaped the conversations in three 90-minute town halls held during the fall that led to open discussion from faculty, students and staff. Downs also hosted 10 hour-long listening sessions with units across the campus to draft the plan's strategic priorities.

Those priorities, broadly, will focus on enrollment growth, financial strength, community impact and identity. They were the same priorities Downs said were communicated to him during the interview process before becoming Campbell's president.

"Trustees, alumni, students and staff all made it abundantly clear that these were institutional priorities. Those early signals were subsequently reinforced throughout my first months at Campbell in conversations across campus and in our broader community. They then reappeared in the survey data analyzed by our planning committee." Downs said. "Settling on these four themes as the core pillars of Campbell's new Strategic Plan was perhaps the easiest part of our work … everything we heard and everything we now know tells us that our University's future hinges on enrollment growth, robust financial health, constructive engagement with the community and a sharpened understanding of our identity."

In his letter to the Campbell community, Downs laid out several scenarios of what Campbell will look like in the next five years as a result of the Strategic Plan. Campbell, he said, will be home to more students from its backyard and across the nation and the world. More students will continue their education at Campbell after beginning in community colleges, and pathways toward a graduate education at Campbell will be better defined.

Also in five years, Campbell will be well into its most ambitious, comprehensive fundraising campaign to date, and the financial health of the institution will be more sound. Campbell will have also "secured and sustained a broad reputation as a Christ-centered institution of higher education" and a gathering place for people from all backgrounds who wish to live, learn and grow in a thriving Christian community.

"Campbell will be better and stronger in 2031 if we have become a destination of first choice for more students. Increased enrollment means that we have become more closely aligned with what prospective students want, with what employers need, and what our society demands," Downs said. "Enrollment growth, increased philanthropic support, greater fiscal discipline and more aggressive pursuit of external funding will enhance our financial health. A financially healthy Campbell is one that provides students with the services they expect, one that compensates its employees appropriately, and one that has the means to realize its dreams."

Downs said a university that dares to "dream big" is one that will become inextricably linked to the fortunes of its surrounding community. He said Campbell can and should be a partner and a catalyst for progress in the Triangle region.

"Campbell will be better and stronger in 2031, because we will define ourselves not by explaining who we are not, but by confidently knowing precisely who we are," he added. "Put all these things together and Campbell at the close of this initial five-year plan will be better off because it will be busy faithfully fulfilling the mission we have all been blessed to inherit."