This past Monday PennWest University released a draft of their strategic plan for the next three years (2023-2026), which highlights the University’s priorities of student success and learning, as well as investing in our community of educators. 

The plan focuses on continuous innovation, academic quality, and empowering environments to create career-ready leaders. The creation of this plan has taken place over the last nine months, with involvement from students, faculty, and staff. The strategies and initiatives that are described in the plan were generated through five committees that focused on academics, students, DEI, employees, and region. 

The University’s values of learning, growth, inclusion, collaboration, and culture are central to the plan, as well as central to the PennWest culture as a whole. As a part of this strategic plan, PennWest aims to support the academic needs of first year students and beyond, recruit and retain high-quality faculty, cultivate widespread culture of assessment, and develop a cohesive support system that networks all stakeholders, including students and families, faculty, staff, and university administration. The plan also aims to create a welcoming and diverse campus culture that celebrates a sense of belonging, and plans to do this through investing in the personal and social development of its students. 

Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to review the PDF version of the plan that has been sent via email, so there can be an understanding of the work generated. The email also provides a link to provide feedback regarding the plan draft. The link will be available until Friday, May 12. 

Feedback from the university community will be considered before the plan becomes finalized by the Cabinet. Members of the institutional effectiveness team will then begin working with appropriate units to build assessment plans to follow up on this work throughout the summer months. In the Fall semester, the official strategic plan will be launched and a University Planning Council will be created to track and monitor the progress of the initiatives in the plan. 

Any questions or concerns about the process can be directed to one of the co-chairs of the Strategic Planning Leadership Team: Jim Wertz, Doug Battleson, and Susanne Fenske.