Purpose, Vision, & Values

Adams State University promotes accessible educational opportunities that empowers individuals. We do this by meeting students where they are and striving to deliver a rigorous curriculum that develops the whole student, aligning academic experiences with 21st century skills and the limitless potential for intellectual growth.

• Embrace servingness through culturally-responsive and inclusive instruction for diverse learners and support for first-generation students to encourage the realization of professional ambitions.
• Explore new and emerging academic degree programs and learning experiences for students and broaden credential pathways for opportunities supporting career enhancement and degree completion.
• Bolster communication to increase community relationships and improve guidance structures for student success.
• Increase completion rates–retention, persistence, attainment–to ensure consistent course availability, and promote access to academic and support resources for overall academic efficiency.
• Increase access to professional development through various modalities to encourage instructional and support approaches that support high-impact practices, place-based learning, and student-driven research.
• Improve assessment procedures and program review processes to incorporate data mindedness and reflect on student learning and persistence.
• Instill the importance of lifelong learning that begins with the intentional building of community from the first-year experience, through degree programs, into successful alumni.

Adams State University encourages the personal and professional development of its students. We place students first through opportunities that enhance and support the holistic student experience and inspire belonging. We promote opportunities that lead to career preparedness and a productive citizenry that change lives, families, and communities.

• Foster servingness through multicultural awareness, understanding, and encounters with difference.
• Continue best and innovative practices in recruitment strategies and wrap-around services to enhance the student experience, particularly for first-generation and underrepresented students to bolster retention rates and student persistence.
• Reinforce the importance of communication to nurture a culture of caring and greater inclusion of student voice to make well-informed decisions that fully realize the Adams Experience.
• Utilize academic, social, and wellness support with greater efficiency to advance completion rates.
• Encourage and promote professional development opportunities for faculty and staff to amplify the student experience through best and current practices in higher education.
• Support assessment through data mindedness to ensure quality for co- and extra-curricular student programming and the student experience.
• Empower students to seek community and build connections among faculty, staff, and students.

Adams State University recognizes that flourishing people are its greatest strength and supports opportunities for their growth and leadership. It views modern facilities, efficient technology, and financial assets as a necessity for institutional success and commits to strategic, systemic, and sustainable solutions that optimize the best use of resources.

• Elevate our commitment to servingness through intentional investments that build capacity and address campus needs to improve and expand facilities, technology, and scholarships.
• Investigate and implement innovative practices for improving the efficiency and sustainability of the built environment of campus and continue to adopt and expand emerging technological infrastructure.
• Strengthen consistent and cohesive communication to promote attentiveness and transparency across campus and technological systems to ensure attention is directed towards efficient solutions.
• Improve efficiency in the use of resources and support of investments in physical infrastructure and technology to promote health, safety, and security of all.
• Incorporate and expand professional development opportunities that promote efficiency and best practices.
• Increase the use of data, and information for proactive decision-making in efforts to improve the efficiency and optimization of data mindedness in realizing sustainable people-centered practices.
• Leverage the benefit of community by reducing silos, facilitating cross-training, and empowering people.

Adams State University acknowledges and embraces Alamosa and the San Luis Valley as a vital part of its rural identity. We work together with the community to foster meaningful connections and impact that will bring prosperity to the region.

• Cultivate servingness to increase cultural awareness and competency through opportunities that elevate thoughtful understanding of the rich culture and history of the region.
• Utilize innovation to identify strategies and resources that will support the economic development of the San Luis Valley and promote improved social outcomes.
• Adopt communication strategies that better promote opportunities for residents throughout Southern Colorado to creatively collaborate, engage, and connect with the work of the institution and its faculty as the Valley’s campus.
• Forge durable partnerships to expand pathways and pipelines into the university and out to the workforce for the promotion of greater efficiency in the student transition to post-graduation success.
• Invite community members to campus to pursue professional development opportunities and fulfill their career and personal ambitions for lifelong growth.
• Leverage data mindedness to identify place-based and other learning opportunities.
• Reinforce community by expanding beyond the university’s reach to heighten connections and advance belonging for all.