A shared vision for Clare's future
As Clare looks forward to its 700th anniversary in 2026, the College has embarked on an exercise to refresh its strategic vision. Put simply, how should the College respond to the challenges and opportunities of our own time (as we have in each of the past seven centuries) while remaining true to our founding principles?
Between November 2022 and the end of January 2023, all members of the Clare community – students, staff, Fellows and alumni – were invited to give their responses to an online questionnaire. The response was overwhelming: nearly 2500 alumni took the time to complete the survey, together with very large numbers of students, staff and Fellows. This is believed to be one of the largest consultative exercises ever conducted by a Cambridge college.
The College’s Strategic Vision Working Group is using the survey responses to identify the key themes that will guide and shape Clare in its eighth century. Specific topics are being workshopped with focus groups of students, staff, Fellows and alumni during the course of 2023. The plan is for the final Strategic Vision document and action plan to be approved by the Governing Body and published in early 2024.
Here are some of the initial findings so far:
Values
The top 3 values that respondents thought should define Clare are: excellence; equality, diversity and inclusion (placed in the top 3 by all four groups); openness and fairness.
Future strengths
Respondents were asked to select up to 3 areas which they would like Clare to be known for in the future. The clear favourites were: academic excellence; a supportive and nurturing environment; an excellent student experience.
Student body
There was overwhelming support for maintaining the current balance between undergraduates and graduate students.
Life after graduation
Respondents thought that Clare prepared its students ‘moderately well’ for life after graduation, although younger alumni – those who have the most recent experience of entering the jobs market – were less favourable. This is an area that the College wishes to prioritise.
Communications
All four groups thought that the current level of communications was ‘about right’, with a particularly high degree of satisfaction expressed by alumni. The three most popular areas for further communication were: academic achievements; Fellows’ research; environmental sustainability. We will seek to address these areas in future editions of Clare News and the Review.
Spending priorities
In an era of financial pressures, there was strong support from all four groups for prioritising expenditure in the following areas: bursaries and hardship; increasing the pay of our lowest-paid staff; maintaining the supervision system of small-group College
teaching.
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