2025-2030 Strategic Framework
Learn more about our progress in other areas
Be Ready for Anything
Increase our ability to adapt to changing conditions, threats, and needs
1. Assess organizational structure and operations and make improvements where needed
- ACLS reviewed our organizational chart and operations and decided to bring International Programs and US Programs under the leadership of a Chief Programs Officer, Christopher Thornton. We welcomed to ACLS the Mellon Mays Graduate Programs, which had been hosted by the SSRC for many years, and we placed these programs, together with the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, in IDEA (Intentional Design for an Equitable Academy). We also hired an additional Communications staffer and revived the Chief of Staff post.
2. Review and revise our governance
- ACLS revised our governance at the Annual Meeting in spring 2025, consolidating the Board’s oversight of our finances, placing Board membership in its hands (following best practice at nonprofits), and placing society membership in the hands of the Executive Committee of the Delegates and the Board. Learn more about governance at ACLS.
3. Respond to the needs of member societies and institutions and assist in their efforts to thrive and make a greater impact
- ACLS hired a consultant to support learned societies seeking to improve their business models and established a series of leadership programs for society board members and the CEO (Conference of Executive Officers), to strengthen society governance. We also held a series of public forums for the Delegates, curated by our Director of Member Society Relations Camilo Villalpando, and developed a new Listserv and Sharepoint site for delegates to facilitate ongoing dialogue and education.
- We supported learned societies in promoting equity, inclusion, and justice in their fields through the Intention Foundry Microgrant program. In March 2026, we announced twenty grants supporting society projects that advance equity and well-being for scholars who disproportionately experience precarity in their fields.
If precarity increasingly characterizes the higher education landscape that we navigate—a reality that even those at the most elite of institutions are now experiencing—then collaboration grounded in interdependence, rather than competition, can offer a promising path forward.”
Keyanah Nurse, Senior Program Officer for Intentional Design for an Equitable Academy (IDEA)
4. Strengthen our financial sustainability by diversifying our sources of funding
- ACLS has strengthened relationships with existing funders and pursued relationships with new ones to ensure our resilience and stability. In the FY25-26 year, we initiated three new projects with new and existing funders:
5. Ensure that our convenings are timely and responsive to the needs of our community
- ACLS will hold a revised Annual Meeting in Cambridge in spring 2027 and in Oakland in 2028.
- In 2025-2026, we held several events to connect and bolster scholars, meeting them where they are across the US:
ACLS Strategic Framework 2025-2030
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