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Dear A-State Family,
When I arrived on our campus in 2017, I was often approached (both privately and publicly) by faculty/staff members, students, and alumni who expressed in various ways “A-State needs to figure out who we are.” In addition to the recent leadership change, many of you felt like Arkansas State was “adrift.” While we could justifiably point with pride to the many changes that improved A-State over the years, some of you expressed concern that changes had not been made strategically. We actually had a strategic plan in place, but many worried that it had not been developed through principles of shared governance.
We spent our first 18 months together focused on managing the FY18 budget shortfall and shoring up much needed attention to the 3R’s - retention, recruiting, and relationships. We have achieved many great things together in that time -- ranging from some of our best fundraising years, hallmark moments like our first named college, and major public-private construction projects.
Academically, we have expanded our online enrollments (at around 5,000 students, we are the largest online program in the state), transitioned to a new Provost, and celebrated recognition by the US News and World Report as the top university in Arkansas regarding undergraduate teaching and in social mobility (a measure of the success of our financially challenged students). A-State’s Carnegie Classification was changed from M1 (Master's Colleges and Universities: Larger programs) to R2 (Doctoral Universities - High Research Activity) status, which puts us now in the same category as Baylor, SMU, TCU, Memphis, Tulsa, Villanova, and Wake Forest. This also resulted in USN&WR changing our classification from a regional university to a national university (grouping us with 399 other institutions classified at that top level). We've made great early strides with administrative reorganization, reset our college structure, and for the past three years, brought in extremely well-prepared students to A-State.
BUT… our university – like every university in the country – is facing significant challenges. Higher education as we know it is changing dramatically as we speak. Technology is driving a lot of that change – even on our campus. Last spring, for example, 42% of the graduating class was composed of students in our online program. Technology is not just changing how people learn, but it is changing what people learn, as we adapt to better prepare our students for the future economy. For a glimpse into our shared future, I encourage you to read Robot Proof (the library has several copies on reserve and it is also available electronically).
The university of tomorrow will not look like the university of today. We have to decide as a university family how best to prepare for the “new normal” that is in front of us. There are a number of questions that we need to answer. What does it mean to be an R2 institution? If we want to retain that status, how will we have to adjust what we are doing? What current A-State degree/research programs set us apart from other institutions and, with some investment, could make A-State more attractive to future staff, faculty, and students? What academic niche could A-State consider adding that would make it more distinctive? How can we capitalize on the unique resources we have at A-State (our Mexico campus, our geographic location, our hotel and convention center, our farm, our connection to the robust regional agriculture and manufacturing sector, our relationship with the NYIT medical school on our campus, our large online program)? How can we make sure that A-State remains a great place to work, to live, and to attend? How can we ensure that we hold up our end of the bargain with our students – to make sure that every student who attends A-State is given every opportunity to succeed (as defined by retention, persistence, learning, graduation, and preparation for life after A-State)?
These questions (and many more) will need to be answered by us as we move forward. That is the reason why we have been spending 2019 building our A-State Strategic Plan. This effort has been led so far by your strategic planning steering committee (AState.edu/StrategicPlan/Committee/). For the past eight months, the Steering Committee has collaborated with focus groups to create a draft of goals for us to begin considering. My charge to them was to balance being bold with being realistic. They have developed five goals that I believe capture that well -- click here to review our first draft. My sense is that the key word throughout this new plan is “invest,” with a focus on how best to marshal our resources to invest in our people and in our shared future.
Now it is time for all of us to weigh in on their work. This is a draft of our goals, not an end result. Every one of us needs to have our voice heard on this plan. To that end, we will begin this month to hold listening sessions on the plan to seek input from the A-State community on our shared future. While our focus groups last spring were oriented around themes, the town hall meetings this fall will be oriented around constituencies. We will schedule opportunities for faculty/staff members, students, and our alumni/community members to come together to discuss the goals that have been proposed by the Steering Committee. I have asked Dr. Summer Deprow and Dr. Russ Hannah to take the lead as internal co-chairs on the committee to organize these town hall meetings. I will start off each town hall meeting by describing the state of the university and higher education to provide context for the proposed plan. Then, we will provide opportunities for attendees to address/amend the five goals. Please be on the lookout for news about when/where the strategic planning town hall meetings will be held. These are important opportunities for all of us to determine where A-State goes from here. I look forward to completing our strategic plan this fall and putting the plan into action in the spring of 2020.
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