The development of Our UMBC: A Strategic Plan for Advancing Excellence is founded upon a broadly inclusive process. Discussions about focus areas for planning began at the 2013 University Retreat and continued through a series of 35 conversations with nearly 800 faculty, staff, students, and alumni this past fall. Based on this campus input, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee has identified four planning focus areas widely viewed as drivers of future success for UMBC:
The Student Experience
Primary goal: Create vibrant, exceptional, and comprehensive undergraduate and graduate student experiences that integrate in and out of classroom learning to prepare graduates for meaningful careers and civic and personal lives.
Innovative Curriculum and Pedagogy
Primary Goal: Develop innovative curricula and academic programs that support and enhance the success of our undergraduate and graduate students and prepare them for meaningful careers, lifelong learning, and engaged citizenship; and thereby maintain and enhance our position as a national leader in undergraduate and graduate education.
Collective Impact in Research, Scholarship and Creative Achievement
Primary goal: Elevate UMBC as a nationally recognized and regionally relevant research university. The key drivers in achieving this goal are: creating an inclusive environment for faculty and students, developing excellence in new intellectual frontiers, and fostering multidisciplinary and inter-institutional approaches that build research, scholarship, and creative achievement across the campus.
Community and Extended Connection
Primary goals: 1) Build, nurture, and extend relationships among diverse internal and external communities and partners to enrich campus life, local neighborhoods, the State, and the surrounding region. 2) Foster innovative problem-solving and responsible entrepreneurship through strategic partnerships with alumni, government agencies, businesses, and community-based organizations to create a sustainable and prosperous future for all.
Each focus area will be addressed in depth by a strategy group from March 2014 through April 2015.
Strategy groups will be responsible for engaging campus and external stakeholders in this next stage of planning work.
In addition, a Foundations Work Group will develop recommendations to continue to build the strong foundations necessary for UMBC to grow and thrive. The work group will address people, resources, policies and procedures, facilities, IT, and environmental sustainability. Its work will include reviewing current status, identifying pain points, and proposing opportunities for improvement in these areas.
Senior advisors and consultants will also be available to work with individual strategy groups on more specific matters pertaining to foundational infrastructure.
The strategy group work comes as the campus prepares for 2016 and UMBC’s 50th anniversary, creating a unique opportunity to reflect on accomplishments and challenges while developing strategies to advance excellence at UMBC and support future development of the campus.
STRATEGY GROUP LEADERSHIP
The Student Experience
Co-chaired by Kim Leisey, Associate Vice President, Student Affairs, and Devin Hagerty, Professor, Political Science, and Program Director, Global Studies
Innovative Curriculum and Pedagogy
Co-chaired by Carole McCann, Professor and Chair, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Jeffrey Leips, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences
Collective Impact in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Achievement
Co-chaired by Aryya Gangopadhyay, Professor and Chair, Information Systems, and John Schumacher, Associate Professor, Graduate Program Director, Sociology and Anthropology
Community and Extended Connection
Co-chaired by Steve Bradley, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director, Visual Arts, and Mavis Sanders, Professor, Education
UNIFORM CHARGES FOR ALL GROUPS
The uniform charges to all groups reflect the Guiding Principles for Planning established at the outset of the planning process by the President’s Council and shared governance leaders.
Consistent with our commitment to inclusion, strategy groups are charged to serve as agents of responsibility, and, in this role, are expected to align the group’s work with current and future interests of the campus community, the State, and the nation. Each strategy group is charged to:
• Identify stakeholders in the focus area and analyze stakeholder interests and influence;
• Incorporate information analysis into the process, including environmental scans and analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to the focus area;
• Engage all stakeholders in interactive and continuous communications about the focus area and the strategy group’s work;
• Define excellence as it relates to the focus area;
• Align strategies with UMBC’s mission, vision, and values;
• Align strategies with USM, State, and national priorities, as well as global opportunities;
• Be forward-thinking and creative in developing strategies for UMBC in the focus area;
• Identify infrastructure for successful and sustainable implementation of strategies for this area: people, resources, policies, procedures, technology, facilities, and campus commitment to environmental sustainability;
• Identify opportunities for partnerships that can advance strategies in the focus area, drawing on campus, USM, and broader community assets and relationships;
• Identify opportunities for external support in the focus area;
• Consider potential impact of strategies on UMBC’s visibility and reputation.
SPECIFIC RESEARCH QUESTIONS FOR EACH GROUP
The Student Experience
• What roles do safety, sense of community and belonging, and campus pride play in students’ experiences?
• What are the student experiences that influence preparation for the lifespan and the careers of undergraduate and graduate students? What roles do civic agency, academic support, health, and fitness play in this preparation?
• What is the current compositional diversity of UMBC? What is the impact of UMBC’s compositional diversity and multiculturalism on undergraduate and graduate student experiences?
• What are the experiences that influence students’ learning about culture and preparation for participation in global citizenship?
• What are the experiences of undergraduate and graduate students with interactions, delivery of service and care of campus offices, units, departments, faculty, and staff?
• How does faculty and staff infrastructure impact student experiences?
Innovative Curriculum and Pedagogy
• How does the current profile of our faculty, students, and mix of programs compare with our aspirational peers, and how does this profile align with the University’s mission? What approaches used by peers might UMBC adopt to strike an appropriate balance between in- and out-of-state students, the distribution of students among programs, and demographic characteristics such as gender and socio-economic status to better align our student profile with the University’s mission in the future?
• What are the lessons learned from studies of retention and graduation rates at UMBC and elsewhere, and how can this information guide us to increase student success by
developing innovative programs, curricula, classroom practices, and instructional modes at the undergraduate and graduate levels?
• What measures of success for students have we used in addition to retention and graduation rates? What should we use as the critical measures of academic success? How can we use assessment of these critical measures to support continuous improvement of student learning outcomes at UMBC?
• What are the current best practices in innovative curriculum and pedagogy at our peer institutions and nationally? How have UMBC programs leveraged resources, partnerships, technology, and innovations to enhance student learning? What additions would be needed
to significantly improve student learning and how should they be prioritized? What specific opportunities and challenges related to classrooms, infrastructure, technology support, and faculty development exist to support curricular and pedagogical innovations and partnerships across the curriculum?
• Drawing on national best practices, how can UMBC balance supporting existing academic programs and the development of new programs? What metrics can we use to track whether we have achieved the appropriate balance as well as the best mix of academic fields and degree levels/options?
• Drawing on national best practices, what is the appropriate balance between supporting the instructional duties of the faculty in: 1) areas of existing strength, 2) areas that need strengthening, and 3) areas of academic innovation? How can new support and the reallocation/redesign of existing support be used to enhance classroom infrastructure, technology, and faculty development in all three areas? What best practices in faculty reward and recognition, including P&T and prestigious awards, can UMBC utilize to support high quality teaching and encourage curricular and pedagogical innovation?
Research, Scholarship, and Creative Achievement
• What are UMBC’s current strengths in research, scholarship, and creative activities and the potential areas of growth?
• What are the selected areas of research, scholarship, and creative activities that with targeted investment will elevate UMBC’s national prominence in the next five years?
• How do we utilize and extend our connections with local communities and regional assets to build on our strengths in research, scholarship, and creative achievement?
• How do we promote, sustain, and grow multi-disciplinary and inter-institutional initiatives to maximize collective impact of our research, scholarship, and creative activities?
• What priorities and metrics should be used to track progress and success in our goal to enhance UMBC’s research, scholarship, and creative activities?
• What resources are needed to attain our goals in research, scholarship, and creative activities?
Community and Extended Connection
• How can UMBC build upon and maximize our growing and evolving campus, community, and regional partnerships that foster economic and cultural growth? Specifically, how can UMBC build upon the success of campus centers and academic and co-curricular initiatives that have fostered relationships off campus with alumni, community partners, and cultural organizations? What are the weaknesses within these initiatives that could be strengthened?
• How can UMBC develop research and educational partnerships with government agencies at the federal, State, and local levels to retain and expand existing businesses and to support the development of new ones that stimulate innovation and economic growth?
• How can UMBC better encourage, motivate, build the capacity of, and reward faculty, staff, and students for their facilitation and leadership of extended connections and partnerships?
• How can UMBC be a more effective partner with economically underserved communities to solve complex social and environmental problems?
• How can UMBC more effectively communicate contributions, successes, and achievements that benefit the region to on-campus and off-campus audiences (e.g., alumni, current and future students, government officials, community partners, and businesses)?
• What are the best practices for fostering, developing, and sustaining productive partnerships on and off campus that peer universities have employed, and from which we might learn?
• What personnel, technology, and other resources are necessary to create a campus-wide system to record and track partnerships and engagement with the community, as well as evaluate their effectiveness and impact for diverse constituencies (e.g., faculty, students, community partners, surrounding neighborhoods, the state, and the region)?
STRATEGY GROUP DELIVERABLES
Strategy group work plan: Due April 14, 2014
Mid-point written report: Due June 30, 2014
• Summary of stakeholder analysis
• Stakeholder engagement plan
• Environmental scan highlights
• Proposed discussion questions for focus at University Retreat
Final recommendations: Due April 15, 2015
• High-level summary of most important information analysis findings for the focus area
• Concise narrative responding to uniform charge elements and research questions
• Recommendations
Strategic goals – bold, aspirational ideas that inspire the next level of success in focus area.
Strategic objectives – means of achieving or moving toward strategic goals.
Resources – realistic plan to address objectives.
Practices and policies – organizational changes needed to address objectives.
Metrics – specific performance targets and timelines providing measurable outcomes information
STRATEGY GROUP SUPPORT
• Information analysis support will be provided by the Office of Institutional Research, Analysis and Decision Support.
• Campus community and stakeholder engagement support will be provided by the Office of Institutional Advancement.
• Meeting scheduling support will be provided by the Division of Academic Affairs.
• Each group will be matched with a volunteer recorder.
