Given the daunting challenges facing Lebanon and the MENA region and our increasingly connected world, AUB cannot rely purely on its legacy of excellence and impact, impressive though it is. Like any successful, sustainable institution, the university must keep moving forward to ensure it renews its purpose and relevance in a rapidly unfolding future. At the dawn of AUB’s second 150 years, with new senior leadership and a new direction, the time was right to begin enacting substantive, systemic changes that would position the university for even greater leaps forward in the future.
VITAL 2030 was proposed as AUB’s strategic vision. The result of three years of intensive engagement with stakeholders across the institution, the new strategic vision seeks to ensure AUB’s future success, relevance, and sustainability over the next decade and beyond. VITAL is a mnemonic for five themes, which allow the university to focus energy and resources, strengthen operations strategically, bring all stakeholders together towards common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes, and course-correct when necessary.
VITAL 2030 and the campus master plan for 2030 were developed in tandem with multi-stakeholder engagement, with each framework able to inform the other, while also taking into account the objectives of the five-year $650 million BOLDLY AUB capital campaign launched in 2017, whose priorities are to enrich education and research, foster interdisciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship, enhance healthcare, solidify community relevance, and ensure sustainability.