Advancing Quality of Life: Finding the Thread That Connects a College

Client: Auburn University, College of Human Sciences
Industry: Higher education (land-grant college)

The challenge

Auburn University’s College of Human Sciences does work that touches people’s lives every day. Its students study nutrition, hospitality, human development, consumer and design sciences, and global education. Its researchers and Extension teams work with families and communities across Alabama and beyond.

But the college had always planned five years at a time. Each plan was a list of goals written by committee, with no single idea tying the work together. Departments sat in different buildings and, without meaning to, worked in silos. Research too often ended with a report to the funder and no story about what it meant for the public. And when a plan was finished, the real question was what happened next.

When Auburn University set its own course to 2035, the Dean wanted something different: the college’s first ten-year plan, built from the voices of the people who live it, and connected to where the university is headed.

What we did

We listened first

Before writing a word, we listened. We sat down with every unit and center on campus, from the Hunger Solutions Institute to the Horst Schulze School of Hospitality Management. We ran a strategy session with the planning committee and ten working sessions, each one walking through Auburn University’s five goals and asking what they meant for the college. We surveyed students in every year.

In all, more than 60 stakeholders took part in listening sessions and focus groups, and 131 students, faculty, staff and advisory board members gave input. That’s twice the voices behind the college’s last plan.

We found the thread

Underneath all of those conversations was one idea. Whether we were talking with a first-year student, a researcher or an Extension agent, the work came back to the same place: making people’s lives better.

So we named it. Advancing Quality of Life became the core value at the center of the plan.

It isn’t a slogan. It describes what the college does: research, teaching and outreach that improve health, families, communities and everyday life. And it describes how the college does it: the way faculty teach, the way staff support students, the way the college shows up for the people it serves. It holds true for students, faculty and staff alike, which is why it carries through every part of the college.

We built everything out from that core

Around Advancing Quality of Life we built five guiding principles, and five pillars that turn the idea into action:

Empowering Pathways: the student experience, from career readiness to a multi-tiered mentorship ecosystem.
Driving Human Sciences: research and creative scholarship that improves quality of life and strengthens communities.
Connecting for Impact: Extension, outreach and partnerships that take the work beyond campus.
Foundations in Motion: the spaces, systems and support that make the work possible.
Illuminating Our Story: telling the college’s story so its impact is seen and felt.

Together they hold 22 initiatives and 57 actions. Every initiative ties back to Advancing Quality of Life, and every one maps to an Auburn University 2035 goal. The college’s daily work now lines up with where the university is going.

We wrote it with them, not for them

We drafted each pillar alongside the faculty and staff who lead it. Pillar leads pushed back, sharpened the language and made the plan their own. Where units had concerns about parts of the university’s direction, we worked those through openly instead of papering over them. The result reads like the college, because the college wrote it.

The result

The College of Human Sciences now has its first ten-year strategic plan, to 2035, built on one idea everyone in the college recognizes:

One core value, Advancing Quality of Life, that connects what the college does with how it does it.
Five pillars, 22 initiatives and 57 actions, each tied to that core and to Auburn University’s 2035 goals.
Twice the voices of the last plan: more than 60 stakeholders and 131 students, faculty, staff and advisory board members.
A ten-year horizon in place of five, so the college can build toward something, not just check boxes.

Most of all, the college has a thread that runs through every classroom, lab and Extension office: a way for every person in it to see how their work connects to the whole.

Since then

The plan was delivered in May 2025. Since then, the thread has been showing up everywhere:

The core value, in the Dean’s own words. At the 32nd International Quality of Life Awards in Washington, D.C., Dean Susan Hubbard described the evening as being about “lifting others higher than ourselves and advancing quality of life for all.” More than 300 guests attended, the largest crowd in the event’s history.
Foundations in Motion. The college broke ground on the Barbara Drummond Thorne Academic and Research Facility in February 2026, a 138,000-square-foot home for teaching, research and collaboration opening in 2027. Alumnus Dan Arnold gave $10 million to the college.
Empowering Pathways. The college welcomed a record-breaking freshman class. Its pre-health pathway, which started with seven students, now serves about 150. More than 130 scholarships were awarded last year.
Driving Human Sciences. Researchers secured a $2.73 million sleep research grant, alongside major grants in healthy relationships and AI-integrated design.

In the Dean’s words, it has been “one of transformation” for the college.

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