Reach Higher 2025 is an open invitation to the entire Grand Valley State University community to join together in our shared mission and vision as we strategically plan forward through 2025 and beyond. Guided by our shared values, Lakers Reach Higher together to ensure continued academic excellence, service to our students and community, and organizational accountability.

Encourage active questioning and problem solving to improve lives and strengthen communities. Building on our strong foundation of a liberal education and commitment to teaching excellence, we strive to provide opportunities that integrate theory and practice towards personal transformation and career success. Active scholarship, creative expression, and relevant co-curricular experiences drive learners toward fulfillment, prosperity, and justice.

Foster and sustain a sense of belonging, promote diversity and respect, and address systemic issues that impact outcomes for those who have been historically excluded from higher education. Inclusion and equity are experienced through our physical campuses and in digital environments, as well as our interpersonal, institutional, and community engagements.

Puts ideas into practice, drives us toward excellence, and represents our forward- thinking mindset. We value entrepreneurship, risk taking, and interdisciplinary collaboration that solves local, regional, and global problems and advances the common good.

Drives us to be accountable to ourselves and to others. Integrity moves us to actively pursue and sustain quality educational experiences rooted in research and evidence, and to be excellent stewards of our communities, resources, and planet.

Support people, planet, and prosperity. We think and act on a global basis. Our efforts at supporting the well-being of individuals, groups, and ecosystems are important locally, nationally, and globally—all of which are interconnected and interdependent.

Watch the video below to learn how stakeholders from across the university worked together to ensure that the Reach Higher 2025 strategic plan will help Grand Valley be prepared to meet the most pressing challenges facing the future of higher education.