Murray State University President Bob Davies is moving forward with his strategic planning process.
Davies presented his 2015-2022 Strategic Plan for improving the institution today at MSU's Freed Curd Auditorium.
The plan comes with the vision statement "Murray State University is the University of Choice."
Davies says research committees are tasked with assembling and researching the university’s needs and wants in four key areas: Academic Excellence, Student Success, Community Engagement Planning, and Scholarship and Creative Thought.
Davies says transparency and diversity will play major parts in the planning process.
"We have four broad themes, they are not four, mutual exclusive themes, they will build off one another," said Davies. "The diversity and inclusion efforts of the institution are not just limited to one office, they’re throughout the entire university as well as those things too will resonate throughout the entire strategic planning process."
In his presentation, Davies listed MSU's advantages he perceived over other competing schools but also noted several challenges the university faces including a decreasing market size and freshman enrollment, the increased number of students needing remedial courses and potential future declines in graduation and retention rates.
Davies says the university's strategic plan will be data-driven, consist of specific and measurable outcomes, include thoughtful dialogue in an inclusive environment and will be reviewed annually.
"We will do an annual review of this," said Davies. "You can’t just do a plan and never come back to it. Part of our work is building into a systemic culture of planning and setting goals and measuring and seeing how we’re going about achieving those goals. That goes back to the process as being just as important as the plan itself. It’s important that we continue to plan and set stretch goals, be innovated to reach those goals and get measures so we know how we are doing."
An executive committee will oversee conversation between the committees and make reports back to the president's office.
The executive committee includes:
- Co-chairs: Tim Todd and Bob Jackson
Leaders for the four strategic initiatives:
- Academic Excellence: Dina Byers
- Student Success: Fred Dietz
- Scholarship, Research and Creative Thought: Murphy Smith
- Community Engagement: Brian Van Horn
Other members include:
- Jay Morgan
- Jackie Dudley
- Don Robertson
- Jim Carter
- Michael Dobbs
- Rory Goggins
- Laura Lohr
- Phil Schooley
- (a faculty regent will be added once elected.
Renee Fister, Kelley Wezner, Catherine Sivills and Mary Bradley will serve as logistic and staff support.
The committees' town hall meetings are as scheduled:
- Academic Excellence meets Monday, Nov 3 at 2pm in Mason Hall Auditorium
- Student Success meets Wednesday, Oct 29 at 2pm in Wrather Auditorium
- Scholarship, Research and Creative Thought meets Friday, Oct 24 at 3:30pm in Business Building 404
- Community Engagement meets Wednesday, Nov 5 at 2:30pm in Business Building 104
The committees are scheduled to present a comprehensive strategic plan to the Board of Regents for approval in June 2015.
A new website will go live Friday, Oct 17 and will feature updated details of each the committees’ responsibility and decisions as well as an online suggestion box for community input with the option of anonymity.
