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Contents

 

1. Introduction

 

2. Mission and Strategic Vision Statements

 

3. Description of Strategic Objectives

 

4. Strategic Objectives and Initiatives

 

 

  

 

HJ International Graduate School for Peace and Public Leadership

2025 – 2030 Strategic Plan

“Serving our Students and Impacting the World

through Peace and Public Leadership”

 

I.       Introduction

The HJI 2025-2030 Strategic Plan, “Serving our Students and Impacting the World through Peace and Public Leadership,” builds on the foundation of our 50-year legacy as an institution committed to the highest standards of excellence in graduate education in areas of religion, ministry, peace, and public leadership. At this time in our institution’s history a number of significant developments converge, including the addition of the Master of Arts in Peace Studies in 2022, the change of our name from Unification Theological Seminary to HJ International Graduate School for Peace and Public Leadership in 2023, the successful reaccreditation with MSCHE in 2024, and the prospective move of our main campus from 4 West 43rd Street to a newly renovated campus at 481 Eighth Avenue in Manhattan in 2025.

These developments represent the forward-looking vision that animates not only our Board of Trustees, President, faculty staff, and alumni, but also the longstanding and steadfast commitment of our Founder and our sponsoring church, Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. All of these core stakeholders are united in the effort to assure that this institution’s future will be even brighter than its past.

This document represents the work of the entire HJI community, as all stakeholders have been afforded the opportunity to review and offer helpful input into the development of the 2025-2030 Strategic Plan. While there are indeed aspects of continuity with the strategic objectives of our most recent Strategic Plan, there are also new directions aimed at strengthening the institution during what is an exciting yet challenging time for higher education, with the development of improved distance learning platforms and the AI revolution, on the one hand, and demographic challenges mixed with a highly competitive market, on the other hand.

With this in mind, the 2025-2030 Strategic Plan identifies four Strategic Objectives that are not only responsive to contemporary challenges, but also aimed at strengthening HJI’s capacities in serving its students, providing impactful thought leadership, building partnerships, and generating support to assure its future.

The four Strategic Objectives including in the 2025-2030 Strategic Plan are as follows:

  1. Provide resources that equip students to become transformational leaders who serve the public good
  2. Expand the reputation of HJI as a center of innovative academic inquiry and thought leadership
  3. Expand and strengthen partnerships and institutional affiliations
  4. Generate support that contributes to HJI’s mission, strategic plan, and financial health

The 2025-2030 Strategic Plan offers detailed descriptions of these strategic objectives. For each Strategic Objective there is a set of Strategic Initiatives, as well as timetables for completion, identification of responsible personnel, resource and budget requirements, and measures of success. Furthermore, the plan includes an assessment timetable and an assessment plan which identifies specific performance targets along with an explanation of the data collection process that will be coordinated by the Office of Institutional Research.

HJI, building on its 50-year legacy, is now poised to launch its “next 50 years.” With this Strategic Plan we seek to move forward steadily, sustainably, and boldly as a premier, faith-based graduate school committed to preparing its students to become transformative public leaders who impact the world.

II. Mission and Strategic Vision Statements

 

HJI Mission Statement

HJ International Graduate School for Peace and Public Leadership provides advanced academic and professional education for current and future leaders of the Unification community and all faiths, that seeks to enhance their relationship with God, their effectiveness in ministry, public leadership, and interreligious peacebuilding. As a home of thought, we strive to foster deeper understanding, contextualization and application of the Unification worldview within a world of diverse faiths.

Strategic Vision

HJI will be recognized as a widely-respected center of excellence in graduate-level academic and professional education offered in a vibrant intellectual environment that prioritizes teaching, research, and thought leadership aimed at making lasting and positive impact on the wider society and world.

III.     Description of Strategic Objectives

  1. Provide resources that equip students to become transformational leaders who serve the public good

With its roots in the peace-centered vision of the FFWPU, HJI has, from its inception, been committed to equipping its students with the resources that prepare them for roles in public leadership in a wide variety of professional and academic fields. From its inception and throughout its 50-year history, education has an intrinsically moral and spiritual purpose or goal, broadly understood as peace. During the decades when our programs were primarily theological in nature, there was always the understanding that by acquiring a deeper understanding of religion, philosophy, history, sacred scripture, and ethics one could apply such learning to a wide range of ministries, evidenced in the achievements of our alumni across the world. The addition of the Peace Studies program in 2022 and the change of our name in 2023, represented an inflection point in the history of our institution. As we move forward, in consultation with our core stakeholders, we seek to strengthen our institutional resources as related to our curriculum, our faculty, and our commitment to student success in both the classroom and the career.

  1. Expand the reputation of HJI as a center of innovative academic inquiry and thought leadership

Since its founding in 1975, and based on the guidance of its Founders, who brought to the institution a profoundly rich tradition of spirituality bound closely to intellectual inquiry aimed at a collaborative search for solutions to global challenges, HJI has sought to positively impact our world. The wide range of initiatives that our Founders established over several decades—in areas such as the sciences, the media, the arts, interfaith, and humanitarian service—evidence this same commitment. This tradition is carried forward at HJI as work to encourage and support our faculty and students in their research, publications, and active engagement with the wider society and world. This effort includes the convening of various conferences and programs that bring diverse perspectives to the platform and it includes regular participation in the programs, professional societies and initiatives of other institutions and organizations. Building on this foundation, HJI is deeply committed to creative and respectful dialogue with the wider world of theological reflection and intellectual inquiry that aspires to improve the human condition. 

  1. Expand and strengthen partnerships and institutional affiliations

HJI has a natural set of partners that derive from its partnership with the FFWPU and its affiliated organizations, such as the Universal Peace Federation, the Women’s Federation for World Peace, and Youth and Students for Peace. These partnerships enhance the global footprint of HJI and provide a wide range of opportunities, both professional and academic, for our students. HJI is now set on a course to expand the field of partnerships to include other non-governmental organizations, faith-based organizations, interfaith associations, other academic institutions, and intergovernmental organizations, including at the United Nations. At the same time, this extension of outreach allows HJI to affirm and reinforce its institutional culture of inclusion and mutual respect for persons from various national, cultural, religious backgrounds. It also contributes to our enrollment and admissions objectives, allowing our institution to operate at maximum efficiency.

  1. Generate support that contributes to HJI’s mission, strategic plan, and financial health

As HJI arrives at its 50th anniversary, it is poised to reinvigorate its alumni base and accentuate its development efforts. During the period of the celebration of the 50th anniversary (2025-2027)—from the founding in 1975 to the first graduating class in 1977—HJI will launch an ambitious development initiative. Alongside and integral to a new Development Office will be the reestablishment of an Office of Alumni Relations, to strengthen ties with HJI graduates and deepen their commitment and investment in HJI’s future. Such efforts will contribute to and help assure the success of this strategic plan going forward.

IV.     Strategic Objectives and Initiatives

  1. Provide resources that equip students to become transformational leaders who serve the public good
    1. Provide program and curriculum resources to facilitate a peace and leadership focus in consultation with core stakeholders’ leadership training and priorities
    2. Provide faculty resources aligned with HJI mission and strategic objectives
  • Provide career planning, internships, post-graduate placement, field experience, co-curricular and extracurricular enrichment aligned with students’ personal and career development as transformational leaders

  1. Expand the reputation of HJI as a center of innovative academic inquiry and thought leadership
    1. Encourage and promote faculty and student research, publications, and participation in professional societies and academic associations related to their areas of expertise
    2. Convene and/or co-convene local and international programs that accent HJI’s unique strengths in contributing to public intellectual discourse
  • Underscore the unique insights and contributions of the Unification tradition to peace and public leadership
  1. Improve digital profile and external communications

  1. Expand and strengthen partnerships and institutional affiliations
    1. Cultivate partnerships with other academic and civil society institutions
    2. Cultivate partnerships with other NGOs and FBOs, including ecumenical and interfaith associations and civil society organizations related to the United Nations
  • Strengthen an institutional culture of inclusion and mutual respect for students and leaders from diverse faith traditions, nationalities, or professional backgrounds that share a dedication to peace and principled public leadership
  1. Leverage internal and external partnerships to enhance enrollment objectives that allow the institution to operate at optimal effectiveness

  1. Generate support that contributes to HJI’s mission, strategic plan, and financial health
    1. Implement a successful fundraising campaign from 2025-2028 in honor of HJI’s 50th anniversary
    2. Reestablish office of alumni relations and office of development