NMHU Vision
As a comprehensive university federally designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), we transform lives by creating opportunities for all students to learn, lead, and shape a more vibrant and connected future for our communities and our world.
NMHU Mission
As an open-access university, our mission is to connect with, care for, and graduate our undergraduate and graduate students. Highlands provides opportunities to attain an exceptional curricular and co-curricular education by fostering creativity, critical thinking, and research in the liberal arts, sciences, and professions.
Goal 1: Establish Highlands as a leader in delivering an innovative, interdisciplinary, and experiential education.
Objective 1: Develop new curriculum and regularly update existing curriculum to reflect both the backgrounds and futures of Highlands students, while fostering critical thinking, content mastery, and alignment with higher education partners and emerging local, regional, national, and global trends.
Objective 2: Foster undergraduate and graduate research, scholarship, and innovation by encouraging student participation in collaborative scholarly or creative activities by increasing resources, and mentorship opportunities across all disciplines.
Objective 3: Invest in faculty development and teaching innovation by providing professional development that aligns with institutional goals and includes training in innovative and inclusive teaching, the use of cost-effective educational resources, and program development.
Objective 4: Embed internships, service-learning, and fieldwork into the curriculum to promote workforce readiness and real-world engagement, and develop modular, stackable credentials to improve career outcomes and opportunities.
Objective 5: Develop and support interdisciplinary degrees and signature programs that build enrollment and align with faculty strengths and community needs.
Goal 2: Enhance holistic student success and wellbeing through comprehensive and integrated services that develop all dimensions of wellness, social engagement, employment preparedness, and address basic needs to support students’ academic excellence.
Objective 1: Provide data-informed, equitable resources and services for student wellbeing and success, such as peer mentoring, midterm performance alerts, and proactive advising.
Objective 2: Foster an environment in which all students feel a sense of belonging and connectedness to the campus community, with specific outreach and culturally competent support for Indigenous, international, and rural students.
Objective 3: Ensure all students have numerous and effective opportunities to develop necessary skills to be successful in post-graduation careers and experiences, by incorporating self-directed learning and career-linked exploration.
Goal 3: Engage with the community as a collaboration between Highlands and the local, regional, state, national, and global community in the exchange of knowledge and resources through partnership, reciprocity, and service.
Objective 1: Contribute to the greater good of a diverse society by grounding our processes in mutual respect and compassion, local knowledge, and the co-creation of common goals and outcomes.
Objective 2: Critically address societal issues across systems through the knowledge, values, and skills gained and employed, and to effect positive social change on the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of society.
Objective 3: Expand access to Highlands by inviting community members to engage in learning spaces such as guest lectures, class visits, and student showcases.
Objective 4: Advance curriculum and teaching, including community- and place-based learning projects aligned with local revitalization and sustainability.
Objective 5: Prepare engaged, educated citizens in democratic discourse and practices.
Goal 4: Promote student enrollment, completion, and the allocation of resources across the Las Vegas campus, centers, online programs, and dual credit program, by optimizing institutional capacity and promoting fiscal sustainability.
Objective 1: Optimize academic programming based on student interest and workforce needs of New Mexico, the region, and beyond.
Objective 2: Elevate Highlands’ Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and aspiring Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution (NASNTI) statuses to develop strategic partnerships that maintain and increase enrollment and engagement.
Objective 3: Establish a comprehensive retention plan to provide equitable and culturally informed access to and completion of education.
Goal 5: Foster a culture that celebrates the achievement of goals and encourages collaboration for organizational success by prioritizing the transparency and clarity of operational processes, defining roles and responsibilities, establishing accountability, and ensuring consistent use of common language.
Objective 1: Ensure authority is vested at the appropriate levels within the organization and empower employees to take ownership of their responsibilities.
Objective 2: Evaluate, improve, and document processes, following best practices and automating where possible, while identifying and eliminating workflow duplication.
Objective 3: Conduct a university-wide review of software systems to identify and remove duplication, explore integration opportunities, and enhance overall efficiency.
Objective 4: Conduct regular evaluations to ensure alignment with Highlands’ strategic goals and values.
Objective 5: Promote and reward data-informed decision-making, realistic planning, and the setting of achievable goals based on relevant data.
In fall 2024, Highlands President Neil Woolf charged the University-Wide Strategic Planning Committee to develop the 2030 NMHU Strategic Plan. The committee's charge is to review the 2025 strategic plan and to create the new strategic plan for the next five-year cycle. The committee is composed of members of representative bodies of the various cross-sections of the university such as students, staff, faculty, administration, and community members.
During the fall of 2024, the committee identified five areas of strategic goals: academic excellence, holistic student success, community engagement, strategic student enrollment, and improving organization processes. In January and February 2025, the committee drafted objectives for each of these goals. Advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion principles are intentionally infused throughout the objectives for these goals. The next step in the process is gather feedback from the campus community and community stakeholders on these draft objectives.