Regent College Launches New Strategic Plan
Following 16 months of collaborative effort by members of Regent College’s staff, faculty, students, and Board of Governors, the Board has unanimously approved a new strategic plan. Titled “Shift,” the plan covers the years 2024–2026.
Earl Phillips, Chair of the Board of Governors, remarked: “I am grateful for the strong collaboration, careful thinking, and prayerful discernment undertaken by the Regent community in shaping the strategic plan. Our new plan sets a clear direction for the College and establishes critical priorities in pursuing our core mission. By God’s grace, we are making choices designed to enable Regent to flourish in the years ahead.”
Regent College’s mission is to cultivate intelligent, vigorous, and joyful commitment to Jesus Christ, His church, and His world. “We started the planning process by thinking deeply about our mission,” explained President Jeff Greenman. “Equipping the whole people of God for thoughtful and creative integration of Christian faith into every area of life remains at the heart of our vision. Our sense is that the need for Regent-style theological education is greater than ever. We have enthusiastically renewed Regent’s historic calling to offer biblically grounded, Christ-centred, and transformational learning. Our commitment to historic Christian orthodoxy is unwavering.”
Regent College’s plan’s strategic imperative is to “Expand missional impact by deepening students’ experience of holistic transformation, increasing participation in educational offerings, and gaining financial sustainability.”
The plan is framed in terms of six interrelated priorities. We’ve presented these priorities below, along with comments from members of Regent’s leadership team.
Priority 1: Healthy Community
Pursue relational, spiritual, and governance health as a Christ-centred community.
“Vibrant Christian ministry flows from a spiritually and relationally healthy community of people who are striving together to know and follow Jesus. We want the quality of our conversations to be a hallmark of the College’s culture. We have also discerned God’s leading us to significant steps to foster a culture where all of our students have a deep sense of belonging and full participation in the Regent community, which is an amazing gathering of people who reflect the rich diversity of the Kingdom of God.”
—President Jeff Greenman
Priority 2: Grow Enrollment
Increase participation in renewed and expanded academic programs.
“Enrollment is a significant challenge for us, as it is for so many theological schools these days. We believe the best way forward is to remain strongly committed to in-person, residential learning. While many theological schools have moved to entirely online offerings, we will continue to offer most of our courses in a dual-delivery model, with students on campus joined by online students for real-time classroom experiences. We are complementing this approach with strengthened online-only offerings. And we will continue to explore other delivery models, such as our highly successful low-residency MA in Leadership, Theology and Society.”
—Paul Spilsbury, Vice President & Academic Dean
Priority 3: Deepen Formation
Deepen students’ experience of spiritual formation as part of their holistic, transformative education in community.
“We’re focused on more than just bringing more students to Regent. We’re also dedicated to the quality of their transformative learning experience. A number of new initiatives are aimed at giving students more opportunities for spiritual formation and vocational discernment while they pursue their studies.”
—Paul Spilsbury, Vice President & Academic Dean
Priority 4: Extend Impact
Extend our impact serving Regent alumni, donors, and the church worldwide.
“Regent has so much that we can offer to people who want to learn and grow, and want to renew or update their knowledge and skills, without the demands of being in a degree program. We are moving to significantly expand our capacity to offer high-quality lifelong learning and continuing education to our alumni and to the church worldwide. ”
—President Jeff Greenman
Priority 5: Achieve Sustainability
Accelerate resource development toward long-term financial sustainability.
“We are committed to good stewardship of the resources that God brings to us. In addition to strengthening existing revenue streams tied to our core programming, we anticipate being able to grow our endowment through the sale of our parking lot for the development of new neighbourhood housing. This will have the added benefit of providing two floors of apartments set aside for Regent students.”
—Linda Josh, Director of Finance
Priority 6: Fresh Expression
Engage internal and external audiences with fresh expressions of Regent’s theological identity and core mission.
“I’m excited to support the College’s strategy to reach more people with our faculty’s distinctive approach to Christian thinking and engagement with contemporary issues. One important project is a new website, which we will launch in due course. This will include a new section designed to share articles, videos, and other accessible yet deeply thoughtful resources from the Regent community. We look forward to sharing the fruit of some outstanding faculty research projects in the years ahead.”
—Jeremy Stewart, Director of Communications & Public Engagement
Finally, Chairman Earl Phillips noted the cohesiveness of the plan. “These six priorities all work together and reinforce each other, enabling us to grow and expand as we provide outstanding Christian theological formation for the whole people of God. I invite friends of the College to join us in praying for God’s continued guidance and provision.”