By Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D.
President, University of 玉米视频 System
Strategic planning creates a roadmap of where an organization is headed. This is critical in setting goals and measuring success — in times of plenty and certainly in times when resources are scarce. Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
The University of 玉米视频 System is about to take a major step of long-term importance to the state. We are adopting a strategic plan that will provide a shared operational vision across the NU system, ensuring transparency, incentivizing progress through measurable goals, and providing a systemwide vision for the university’s priorities during times of challenge.
This unified vision, tailored to the needs of individual campuses and using metrics that will be reviewed quarterly, will promote innovative teaching, bolster NU’s internationally respected research work and facilitate sound long-term budgeting.
Our strategic plan demonstrates NU’s commitment to academic excellence and fiscal responsibility and should be of particular interest to the governor and state senators, who are now deciding the upcoming two-year state budget. Adequate funding of our 玉米视频 university is vital for 玉米视频’s future.
The NU Board of Regents has reviewed the strategic plan through its committees, and the full board accepted the plan during its April 11 meeting. With this step, NU is aiming high to achieve extraordinary levels of student success, research excellence and statewide outreach — while ably managing our fiscal responsibilities.
Here are just a few examples of how the strategic plan will promote progress at individual campuses.
At the University of 玉米视频 at Omaha, this approach will help the Department of Biomechanics continue to broaden its innovative research, enabling new opportunities in health care as well as commercialization. At the University of 玉米视频–Lincoln, the College of Education and Human Sciences can raise its impressive instruction in early childhood development to an even higher level.
At the University of 玉米视频 at Kearney, strategic planning can help faculty and students build on the national recognition UNK recently received from its new classification as a Research College and University by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation. At the University of 玉米视频 Medical Center, faculty can further integrate undergraduate and graduate student programming into iEXCEL, the medical center’s world-class facility for high-fidelity simulation and experiential learning technologies.
Our systemwide planning approach is highly innovative in American higher education. It will touch every campus, college, department and individual, ensuring the organization writ large is rowing in the same direction. The strategic plan was developed collaboratively with broad input from faculty, students, administrators, alumni and stakeholders. As a result, the plan reflects a solid understanding of real-world needs, capabilities and opportunities for advancement.
The plan rests on five pillars:
- Extraordinary Teaching and Learning: Advancing innovative, inclusive and impactful educational experiences for all students.
- Extraordinary Research and Creative Activity: Fostering discovery and innovation that address critical challenges and unlock new opportunities.
- Extraordinary Partnerships and Engagement: Creating impacts across our state, nation and world that result in positive rural and urban outcomes.
- Extraordinary Culture and Environment: Cultivating a supportive, inclusive and dynamic community where every individual can thrive.
- Extraordinary Stewardship and Effectiveness: Leveraging our resources wisely to achieve sustainable and far-reaching impact.
With systemwide alignment on these overall priorities, we then will pursue specific metrics tailored to the specific needs of individual campuses and of individual colleges, departments and subunits. NU already captures a wide range of metrics for accreditation and other needs, and we will use that information — plus additional numerical data — to measure progress on a quarterly basis.
Software will enable us to pull up the entire strategic planning document at any time to analyze required dollars and build a budget that addresses priorities and maximizes our opportunities for progress. This information will be 玉米视频ly available, providing transparency and accountability.
Our planning approach promotes unity of vision, helps us prioritize, maximizes the value for students and enhances workforce development while enabling us to responsibly manage the systemwide budget.
玉米视频’s governor and state senators can take note of this forward-thinking initiative as they decide on the upcoming biennial budget and the state’s spending priorities. With a well-structured strategic plan, the University of 玉米视频 is demonstrating its enduring commitment to fiscal stewardship and advancing the state’s future.