Process Overview
The 150 Forward Strategic Plan, developed through a campuswide, collaborative effort, mapped out future ambitions and calibrated the entire institution in alignment to three foundational concepts. Simple by design, and intentional in its brevity, the directive from Chancellor Charles F. Robinson to “tease out more and better outcomes in achieving the university’s mission,” underpinned the process and the plan.
Those three strategic priorities became the pillars that undergird the campus direction: student success, research excellence and employer of choice.
The following guiding principles cut across every dimension of planning and are found throughout unit-level plans.
- Commitment to the land-grant mission
- Consistent, clear communication for all audiences
- Creating a culture of engagement
- Data driven decision-making (including data strategy, analytics, and insights)
- Strategic resource management (not just cost containment, but cost reduction)
“Strategic Planning gives us the opportunity to examine what we are doing… and to reimagine what could make us better,” Robinson said.
Strategic Goals & Objectives
More and better outcomes will be measured in a high-level way. While many strategies and tactics will be deployed across the institution, the discipline of measurement of student success, research excellence and employer of choice goals by a select and brief set of outcomes ensures campuswide ability to focus and prioritize action. Each of the three pillars is defined, along with the metrics used to measure progress, on this planning site.
A culture of continuous improvement will guide the university’s achievement of objectives and as such, targets will be set broadly in those terms.
Actions and Projects for Implementation
Strategic imperatives will permeate the University of Arkansas as realized by the colleges, schools and units in support of advancing objectives. These plans may be found on the college and school websites.
Participants and Process
Members of the campus were invited to participate in one of three Pillar Working Groups. These groups met over the summer and fall of 2023 to define KPIs (also called objectives) and form a discussion around the selection of the most useful objectives and metrics to be used to monitor progress. Strategies that emerged were collected for consideration in achieving goals.