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Strategic Plan

UCLA For Life

Overview

UCLA for Life is a strategic initiative that reimagines the university’s educational mission as a lifelong partnership with learners. It seeks to elevate and expand UCLA’s educational offerings to meet the complex, rapidly evolving demands of the 21st-century learner, whether traditional students, mid-career professionals, or returning alumni. By embracing innovation and inclusivity, UCLA for Life positions the university as a global leader in accessible, forward-looking education.

Goals

Continuing Education: UCLA will expand its reach and impact by developing an open, flexible ecosystem that enables individuals to engage with learning at every stage of life. The objective is to build a lifelong learning ecosystem that expands access and integrates seamlessly with the broader university.

  • Expand access to professional development, upskilling, and lifelong learning programs that align with the needs of Los Angeles and beyond.
  • Build seamless pathways between continuing education and degree-granting programs to create coherent academic and career journeys.
  • Connect with Los Angeles by operationalizing UCLA Downtown as a modern, accessible hub for continuing and professional education, community engagement, and workforce partnerships.

Pedagogical Innovation: To remain at the forefront of higher education, UCLA will invest in cutting-edge teaching strategies and technologies that enhance learning outcomes and instructional effectiveness. The objective is to elevate UCLA teaching through instructional design, learning science, and technology.

  • Improve classrooms and learning environments across campus to support hybrid, digital, and immersive teaching models.
  • Support faculty through instructional design services and training to elevate teaching quality.
  • Leverage artificial intelligence and emerging technologies to personalize learning, improve student success and increase instructional efficiency.

Expected Outcomes

  • Brand Power: A single UCLA for Life identity amplifies trust, reputation and discoverability.
  • Operational Efficiency: Shared platforms, instructional design, marketing, and learner services reduce duplication and costs.
  • Student Experience: UCLA is seamless for learners, whether accessing a boot camp downtown, a summer certificate online or a main-campus degree.

Implementation
Planning Leads

To be announced.

Meets Goal 4: Elevate how we teach

In response to a changing world — and an evolving teaching and learning landscape — the time is right for UCLA to modernize its instructional practices to stay at the forefront of excellence in education. Leveraging expertise and motivation, UCLA is well positioned to advance inclusive teaching practices by strengthening programs that support and incentivize continuous improvement and innovation in instruction, making intentional, research-informed, and equity-affirming changes to our teaching and learning enterprise, and re-envisioning how we evaluate and celebrate teaching excellence.