The new Strategic Planning Team, which includes 65 members of the campus community, has been established to develop the new strategic plan for the UW campus, which was last updated in 2017.
The team will split into groups of 3-4 people and meet with about 5 units each, for a total of about 80 dialogues, as well as 10 workshop presentations, from now through April.
“We put out a call to campus and we said, ‘do you know someone who is invested in our future, someone who’s invested in our success and really believes in Wyoming’,” Anne Alexander, the Vice Provost for Strategic Planning and Initiatives for Academic Affairs, said.
“It’s been a challenging environment and there are so many people that I care about,” Honors college dean and team member Peter Parolin said. “If I can be part of an endeavor that’s going to help lift us up and build a good future for us, I’m in.”
Parolin said that the strategic planning team is an opportunity to bring together a diverse group of people and collaborate across campus.
“We all live in our own little places on campus, so we’re not always talking with each other as much as we want to,” Parolin said.
“I think that by bringing together people from so many different parts of campus this strategic planning group has the potential to teach us all a lot about the university that we work at.”
Alexander said that ASUW was contacted for nominations in an effort to include more student voices in the planning process.
“Usually, strategic planning groups are 10-15 people, but because we’ve had so much change and volatility, and complexity from budget and pandemic and leadership changes, we really wanted to tap into some of these really incredible folks and have them be part of this process,” Alexander said.
“I wanted a chance to help all students’ voices be heard in the whole process of restructuring,” ASUW senator Bradley Bowles said. “Students can offer a lot of insight from a different perspective than faculty because they see things that could be improved within departments.”
Alexander said the goal for strategic planning “is to look forward to the future and think about how you as an institution want to evolve into your next iteration.”
Alexander said this goal will include looking at the structures and processes needed for the university to function, make changes, and further aligning the university with its mission as Wyoming’s land grant and flagship institution.
“We’re trying to decide what direction are we headed in: what are the priorities that we have what are the values that we live by. If you do that work well, then down the road the decisions that you have to make become easier,” Parolin said.
Within the team is a Strategic Planning Council whose main task will be to write the strategic plan.
Alexander said this process will include creating multiple drafts and getting feedback from campus members and people from around Wyoming, including from town halls and professional associations.
“[the council] will also be responsible for identifying a resourcing plan so that we can actually hit the goals, so that we can build out the kind of budgetary goals that we’ll need to hit our targets and also and implementation team,” Alexander said.
Alexander said that one of the important tasks set before the strategic planning team is to have dialogues between different academic units and their partners.
“This is a way to diversify the people who get to hear from our colleagues and get to facilitate the dialogues,” Alexander said.
Bowles said that he appreciated the chance to hear from different people.
“I really wanted to talk to a lot of people and get their insight on it,” Bowles said.
Alexander also said that the strategic planning team will also reach out to recognized student organizations (RSOs) and other forms of student leadership within colleges to discuss the strategic plan and the future of the university.
Alexander said that the current timeline for the strategic plan is to have it approved by the board of trustees by November of 2022, although the schedule is flexible.
