Process & Timelines

What we’ve done and where we’re going:

In fall 2021, we focused on Phase One of our academic strategic planning roadmap. The Office of the Provost intends to solicit input and facilitate collaboration across the entirety of the office’s purview, which includes all colleges and units reporting to an assistant or vice provost and the faculty, academic staff and support staff within. 

Accordingly, we conducted a summit with deans and another with assistant and vice provosts and assistant and associate deans. We also finished an environmental and landscape analysis. Subcommittees of the Academic Strategic Plan Implementation Team synthesized patterns from both summits into Interest Areas that align with the six core themes from the University’s Strategic Plan. Interest Areas were our first step in getting specific about the actions and initiatives we will take to implement the strategic plan.

During our virtual Idea summit, those in attendance prioritized the 162 ideas and interest areas submitted to our Idea Submission Survey by narrowing down, and combining similar ideas. We had 430 individuals register for this event. More than 300 attend our webinar and 230 participated in our working group activity. During the working group activity, commitments were made to transition the prioritized ideas into formal proposals that were submitted to the Office of the Provost on April 11. 

You can review the prioritized list of ideas that came out of our Idea Summit by looking at our Interest Areas page. Only the ideas that were selected by the working groups to move toward a proposal (using the mandatory framework) are listed on our website. This did not preclude anyone from submitting a proposal. Those who wanted to submit were able to connect with the Strategic Planning Implementation Team to request updates or new ideas to be placed on the list.  

Proposal were drafted using the mandatory three-page proposal template. Each proposal was drafted meeting one or more of the following criteria:  

• Campus-wide 
• High impact 
• Foundational 
• Inclusive of outreach, engagement, and extension efforts 
• In pursuit of bold new opportunities 
• A revamp of existing projects/processes 
• Inclusive of multiple units, colleges or departments 

Proposals were due on April 11, 2022. On April 14, the Office of the Provost hosted a virtual Proposal Summit. During this time, anyone who submitted a proposal had the opportunity to present a five-minute presentation to the campus community on their proposal. The focus for the day was on the big ideas being discussed. Those in attendance were asked to keep an open mind and listen only. We did not ask the community to engage with presenters with questions or comments. This event provided us an opportunity to value and elevate the work of contributors and projects leads, amplifying proposal ideas by sharing with the broader Provost Office community.