UTRGV has released a comprehensive report on progress of the Transforming Our World Strategic Plan, which for the first time includes data on performance measures identified in the plan as well as other metrics.
Mark Kaswan, a political science associate professor and Academic Affairs Faculty Fellow for Strategic Initiatives, said the report details everything the university has undertaken since the launch of the strategic plan in Fall 2017.
“As part of that, the university undertook a number of significant initiatives, including the strategic enrollment initiative,” Kaswan said. “We had a grant program, where we funded various research and other activities that were related to the strategic plan, and in each of the core priorities and other areas of focus identified in the strategic plan, there were various initiatives and activities that were undertaken to implement and move us forward on our mission and help us realize our goals.”
Core priorities in the report, which was released Feb. 28, are
Student Success: A new institution-level Student Success Steering Committee will work with college-level Student Success Teams (SSTs). Each college SST will develop Promise Programs that offer students a guaranteed four-year path to degree completion.
Research and Creative Works: New professional opportunities have been added to help existing faculty strengthen their research.
Health and Medical Education: The division of Health Affairs has initiated new master-level degree programs with the University of Houston in public health and bioinformatics.
Expanding Educational Opportunity: A new initiative has been launched to expand the use of open educational resources in the classroom to address the high cost of textbooks.
Community Engagement: The Office of Community Engagement and Economic Development helped document strengths and identify gaps in UTRGV’s institutional infrastructure related to Community Engagement as a core priority, giving the committee a better understanding of areas in need of improvement to help build a culture of community engagement at UTRGV.
Campus Climate and Professional Development: A new number of professional development opportunities have been added for both faculty and staff as well as increased the number of awards given to faculty and staff. These opportunities include the Association of College and University Educators Professional Development, Texas Academic Leadership Academy and Penn State Academic Leadership Academy.
Becoming a Bilingual, Biliterate and Bicultural Institution: The institution pursued three broad key initiatives during the 2018-2019 academic year: Support development of coursework, incentive research and engage community.
Globalization: The Office of Global Engagement has organized events with international themes on campus, providing funding for research and programming on international themes and establishing partnership with universities around the world.
Sustainability: The Office for Sustainability will collaborate with partners both within and outside of the university to institutionalize sustainable development across the campus.
Rebecca Gadson, dean of students and associate vice president for Student Life, said a strategic plan for an organization or institution helps identify core priorities.
“Oftentimes strategic plans are, ‘What are other big things we’re going to do for the next five years or 10 years?’” Gadson said. “Sometimes, it’s longer than that, but that’s in essence, it’s to be able to bring people together to identify as a community what the key priorities are that’s being shared across the community.”
She said the report is an opportunity for the campus community to feel connected to what is a living process, not just a document that outlines the areas of focus, vision and mission.
“It really is talking about how the campus community is engaged in bringing or advancing our institution’s goals and objectives,” Gadson said. “I think that’s really the meaning for the value of the report, is that people are informed, people are involved and it’s a way to engage and continue discussion.”
Patricia McHatton, executive vice president for Academic Affairs, Student Success and P-16 Integration, said the report is a concrete example of how the institution embraces the strategic plan and demonstrates beliefs in holding accountable to ensure that the committee follows through on what they identify as important for the university.
“We will be working on the next comprehensive report for this academic year, which will be out in fall of this year,” McHatton said. “So, again, this will be
a continuous monitoring of our work and our efforts. We will, at some point, think about what’s the next step for the strategic plan.”
