OneGW IN ACTION | GW Strategic Framework

This action plan is phase one of the framework’s implementation and outlines initiatives that will unfold over the next three years.

Advancing OneGW in Action

GW's people, academic programs, research enterprise, and partnerships give us extraordinary capacity. We must now organize and support our varied endeavors so their collective impact exceeds the sum of their parts and fully realizes our shared ambitions.

This will require creative leadership and engagement, targeted financial investment, policy and process changes, and the time, expertise, and effort of people across GW. Your ideas and commitment have brought us to this moment, and your continued involvement will turn the initiatives below into meaningful progress for our students, our scholarship, and our university.

This plan draws on the extensive community engagement reflected in these working groups and initiatives:

Academic & Career Advising

D.C. Experiences

Interdisciplinary Research Ecosystem

Foundational Excellence Initiative

AI@GW Mapping Exercise

When developing this plan, university leadership reviewed these ideas together and assessed their potential impact, connections, resource needs, and timing. Informed by continued community engagement, this review shaped a coordinated set of initiatives to advance our shared ambitions, use available resources thoughtfully, and sequence the work strategically over the next three years.

Priority One: Generate Scholarship with Impact

Advancing trustworthy AI (TAI) research: Transforming GW TAI into a university-level institute that will serve as an engine of impactful interdisciplinary research on trustworthy AI in systems and for society.

Status: Ongoing, Learn More

Strengthening research infrastructure, compliance, and faculty support: Expanding the practical support faculty need to pursue cutting-edge research and manage complex collaborations.

Status: Implementation Begins Fall 2026

Building a seed-funding framework: Developing the structure, processes, and resources needed to invest in faculty and their ideas, beginning with planning grants that help teams create collaborations and position promising concepts for larger interdisciplinary research opportunities.

Status: Implementation Begins Fall 2026, accelerating in Fall 2027

Enhancing innovation and entrepreneurship: Consolidating and reorganizing GW’s existing innovation and entrepreneurship efforts to strengthen their collective impact.

Status: Initiative Planning Begins Spring 2027

Expanding capacity for external partnerships and collaboration: Connecting GW’s expertise with opportunities and collaborators beyond the university, supported by the Provost’s Office and coordination with a new D.C. Experiences Hub.

Status: Initiative Planning Begins Fall 2027

Priority Two: Prepare Students to Be Strong and Resilient Leaders

Expanding access through GW’s Revolutionary Promise: Expanding student access and affordability by currently guaranteeing full tuition for eligible families earning $100,000 or less and at least half tuition for those earning up to $150,000, while pursuing philanthropic support to extend the program’s reach and broaden eligibility.

Status: Ongoing, Learn More

Preparing students for an AI-enabled workforce: Developing a roadmap to expand AI-related skills and competencies across disciplines through redesigned curriculum and career development resources, helping students use AI effectively and responsibly in their future careers.

Status: Ongoing, Learn More

Creating a D.C. Experiences Hub: Creating a university hub that connects students in every school to distinctive internship, research, civic, and cultural opportunities across Washington, D.C.; draws on GW's alumni network to mentor students and open doors; and directly supports faculty in incorporating D.C.-based experiential learning into their courses.

Status: Initiative Planning Begins Spring 2027

Supporting faculty in course and curriculum redesign: Providing faculty with the support and resources to keep courses relevant to today’s needs, including support for collaborative projects, D.C.-based experiences, project-based learning, and more evident linkages between curriculum and the specific capabilities students need for their careers.

Status: Implementation Begins Spring 2027

Expanding advising capacity and retention: Improve both the availability and quality of advising resources by hiring additional advisors in the highest-need units, reorganizing the advising job family to create clearer pathways for advisors’ career growth, and enhancing advisors’ professional development. We will also deploy AI and other technologies to streamline routine tasks, allowing advisors to devote more time to personalized guidance, academic planning, and students’ career preparation.

Status: Implementation Begins Spring 2027

Expanding team-based and project-based learning: Creating more opportunities for students to work in teams on real-world projects, applying their academic knowledge and building collaboration, problem-solving, and career-relevant skills. This work will draw on GW’s distinctive location and connections, beginning with project-based learning pilots in the GW School of Business and the College of Professional Studies.

Status: Implementation Begins Summer 2027 (starting with project-based learning pilots)

Renovating residence halls: Advancing an established schedule of residence hall improvements through regular updates to strengthen the places where students live and build community.

Status: Ongoing, Learn More

Reintroducing resident advisors: Launching a new hybrid residential staffing model that places live-in resident advisors in first- and second-year residence halls to strengthen peer mentorship, leadership development, and community within residential life.

Status: Ongoing, Learn More

Priority Three: Strengthen Our Foundation for Excellence

Streamlining the hiring process: Redesigning the university-wide hiring process to eliminate unnecessary steps and make hiring actions faster and easier.

Status: Initiative Planning Begins Fall 2026

Redesigning the budget model and aligning financial processes: Rebuilding our budget model and processes to connect resource decisions with our strategic priorities and long-term financial sustainability.

Status: Ongoing, Learn More

Redesigning procurement and strategic sourcing: Modernizing purchasing procedures, harnessing GW’s collective buying power, and simplifying expense payments and reimbursements.

Status: Initiative Planning Begins Spring 2027

Providing AI guidance and resources for faculty, staff, and students: Making policies, use cases, resources, tools, training, and support easier to access so faculty, staff, and students can make informed decisions about whether, when, and how AI is used in teaching, learning, and their work, with the goals of empowering our community, clarifying expectations, and strengthening trust.

Status: Ongoing, Learn More

Introducing third-party insurance billing at the Student Health Center: Accepting third-party insurance to generate resources that can expand and enhance student health services, with privacy safeguards and student choice for billing sensitive services.

Status: Initiative Planning Begins Fall 2026

Planning GW’s next campaign: Developing a fundraising campaign that will inspire philanthropic support for the strategic framework and advance our shared ambitions for student success and research.

Status: Planning Underway

Connecting Across Priorities

This action plan is organized around the framework's three priorities, but several key throughlines are integrated across the entire effort. These unifying threads are critical to accelerating GW's progress toward improving student success and expanding impactful research.

Financial sustainability

GW, like most institutions of higher education, is navigating a convergence of headwinds with serious financial implications. These include declining enrollment, uncertainty about federal funding, and rising operating costs. The initiatives above strategically inform and sequence our investments and resource allocations, contain costs in key areas, and generate new revenue in others to help manage and mitigate these challenges.

AI’s growing influence on how we live, work, and learn

While the university’s core mission remains unchanged, we have an obligation to prepare students with the knowledge, skills, and judgment to navigate an AI-enabled world and workforce. The initiatives above will help us fulfill that obligation while also providing clear policies, guidance, and resources so our community can make informed decisions about whether, when, and how to use AI in support of our mission.

Removing “sand from the gears”

Several initiatives outline above aim to simplify processes, reduce administrative burden, and clarify responsibilities to make our work more efficient and allow our community to focus on what matters most.

A Plan That Grows with Our Progress

Together with additional initiatives and investments across GW’s schools and units, this work will bring the framework to life over the next three years. The initiatives outlined here represent only part of that broader effort. Across the university, members of the GW community will continue to identify and lead work rooted in the framework’s priorities, drawing on their expertise and the needs and opportunities within their own schools, departments, and units.

This will take all of us. We will align our resources and everyday efforts with these shared priorities. Where work contributes to our shared goals, we will strengthen it and extend its impact through targeted investments. Where processes or systems create barriers, we will improve or redesign them. Where activities no longer sufficiently advance these goals, we will rethink or discontinue them and redirect resources.

Additional initiatives may emerge, and our approach and timing may change as we assess progress, respond to evolving conditions, and identify opportunities and funding sources. As implementation proceeds, we will share progress, new initiatives, and opportunities to participate through this page.

The ideas we generate, the discoveries we advance, and the ways our students thrive at GW and beyond will demonstrate what we can accomplish together as OneGW.