Institutional Facts, Mission, Values, Strategic Plan

The university's campus, in the heart of the Pocono Mountains and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, is located less than two hours away from both New York City and Philadelphia. With an enrollment of over 5,636, ESU's student body is made up of students from 27 states and 3 countries, the majority of ESU undergraduate students are from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and approximately 45.7% reside on campus.

In Fall 2023, 16.8% of students were Hispanic, 18.7% were African American, 3.9% were Multiracial, 1.9% were Asian, 0.1% were American Indian or Alaskan Native, and 0.1% were Pacific Islander. 2.3% of students were an unknown race or ethnicity, while 1.0% were international students. The highest enrolled academic programs at ESU are Business Management, Biological Sciences, Psychology, Sociology (Criminal Justice, Social Work, and Sociology), and Exercise Science. Ninety-two percent of the university's full-time permanent instructional faculty members hold terminal degrees possible in their academic fields.

ESU is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

During the 2017 Academic Year, the SPIRIT (Strategic Plan Innovation, Renewal, and Implementation Team) group was created with the mission to help envision our University's goals for the years leading to 2020. The members of this group consisted of faculty, staff and administration.

From the SPIRIT group and campus input, the University's strategic plan now called "Students First: Empowering Innovation through Collaboration 2017-2020" was released to the campus after approval by Council of Trustees on December 7, 2017. The University community remains extremely grateful to all that participated in the process, including our campus-wide round table discussions. The strategic plan is a representation of our entire campus community and each of you plays an integral role in its success and our future as an institution.

As part of past President Welsh's succession plan and working through the academic disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic, the decision was made to extend the "Students First: Empowering Innovation through Collaboration 2017-2020". This extension provided the additional time needed to assess the University in a post-pandemic world and allow for a full-scale strategic planning process under the leadership of the next president of East Stroudsburg University. A new strategic plan campus committee is currently working on an updated plan under the leadership of President Kenneth Long.