University of Wisconsin-Platteville Strategic Plan

Strategic Plan

(Updated Spring, 2008)

VISION

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville strives to be one of the finest public undergraduate teaching universities in the upper Midwest, with programs which focus on the total development of each student, which ensure graduates' abilities to make a successful transition from college to career. These programs provide a solid foundation for lifelong learning and responsible global citizenship. In addition, the university serves as a major center for cultural and outreach activities.

BASIC VALUES

To realize its vision, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville embraces and is guided by the following values:

excellence in undergraduate education and graduate programs;
liberal education as a basis for lifelong learning, growth, and professional development;
the pursuit of knowledge and its practical application, and applied research;
ethical behavior;
students as the primary focus of university activities;
respect for individual differences and support for the development of all students, faculty, and staff;
people as the source of strength, reputation, and vitality;
learning and development which occur inside and outside the classroom; and
service to the community, the state of Wisconsin, and society.

THEME: High Quality Education

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville recognizes that students learn in different ways and that education is a dynamic process. Faculty and staff will take a leadership role in developing a creative, exciting, and effective learning environment. Resources will be dedicated to support the innovation and risk-taking necessary to achieve this goal. Teaching designed to enhance learning by all students and to meet their continuing and changing needs will be expected, supported, and rewarded. The university will create and maintain a community of colleagues who share the process of establishing high quality teaching practices and a culture of continuous assessment and improvement of such practices.

Initiatives:

Recognize the crucial and central role played by liberal studies in preparing students to become thoughtful and insightful citizens skilled in analytical and critical thinking.
Recognize and support practices responsive to the continuing and changing needs of both traditional and non-traditional students.
Support the development and implementation of instruments to assess basic skills, liberal studies, and academic programs.
Utilize the Teaching Excellence Center as a clearinghouse for resources, information, and opportunities to enhance teaching and learning.
Recognize and support outstanding and innovative teaching both in and out of the classroom.
Recognize and support practices that encourage and reward students for high academic achievement.
Actively develop the curriculum to prepare students to live and work in a global, diverse, and technological society.
Require the development of computer literacy skills supported by excellent facilities and technical assistance.
Require that administrators develop a process to support initiatives that incorporate new knowledge into teaching.
Make teaching facilities the highest priority in building, maintenance, and remodeling projects, gathering substantial input from current and potential users and attending to flexibility of use.
Recognize and support the pivotal role of print, multi-media and electronic materials and information technology in our society and their role in the acquisition, construction, and transmission of knowledge.
Support the development and implementation of strategies and methods to improve communication to students concerning academic progress.

THEME: Academic Advising

The academic advising process is to be a value-added experience for both the student and the advisor as they form an interactive partnership. The advisor will be understanding and caring of student needs in order to help the student obtain the maximum benefit from the educational opportunities offered at the university. The advisor will assist the student in the consideration of life goals by linking interests, skills, abilities, and values to careers, the world of work, and lifelong learning. The student will be an active participant, responsibly engaged throughout the process.

Initiatives:

Enhance academic advising to increase access, accuracy, faculty-student interaction and efficiency.
Assess student and advisor needs by surveying students and faculty about current advising services and expectations.
Develop and enhance advising materials, services, and programs to better serve the needs of students.
Develop advising workshops for both new and continuing faculty that help to address students' advising needs and concerns.
Support, recognize, and reward faculty for advising excellence.
Improve communication among faculty, staff, and students about academic requirements, academic progress, policies, and procedures including changes which affect the quality of advising.
Promote the use of developmental advising strategies and activities.
Involve faculty, recognized for advising excellence, in sharing advising information and resources with new and continuing faculty.

THEME: Human Resources

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville recognizes that all members of the university community contribute to the success of the institution.

Initiatives:

Ensure academic quality by recruiting, employing, and rewarding highly qualified experts in their fields.
Review, refine, and improve all processes for evaluation of personnel.
Increase the interaction and improve the communication among the various units of the university.
Encourage a collaborative style of management.
Encourage the continued development of mentoring programs for faculty and staff.
Recruit, employ, and retain a diverse faculty and staff ensuring equal employment and educational opportunity for all qualified persons.
Recognize and support the concepts of wellness and health and provide an employee assistance program.
Provide appropriate information technology, including high quality training and support.
Continue to address salary issues to achieve equity internally and become competitive with peer institutions.
Recognize and support efforts to maintain balance between personal and professional life.

THEME: Scholarly and Professional Development

The acquisition, discovery, and application of knowledge are fundamental to the university as a community of scholars and teachers. The University of Wisconsin-Platteville recognizes the complementary relationship which exists between teaching and scholarly and professional development on the part of its faculty and staff. The university pledges itself to support scholarly activity, including applied research, scholarship, and creative endeavors which support its undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

Initiatives:

Encourage, support, evaluate, and reward scholarly and professional development activities.
Promote development of faculty-student mentoring in applied research and creative endeavors.
Encourage and support faculty and staff in the development of externally funded grant proposals through the assistance of the Office of Sponsored Programs.
Ensure that research involving human subjects meets ethical standards appropriate to such research and complies with applicable state and federal regulations.
Promote the dissemination of undergraduate research and creative endeavors.
Provide internal funding opportunities for faculty and staff to engage in short-term pedagogical and applied research as well as projects intended to improve the curriculum.
Encourage the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).
Recognize and reward faculty and staff for outstanding research.

THEME: Student Development

Student development involves experiences, opportunities, and education both in and out of the classroom. The University of Wisconsin-Platteville recognizes that students have many developmental needs, including academic, social, physical, emotional, and professional.

Initiatives:

Create a supportive environment for all students.
Provide state-of-the-art facilities and equipment to support programs and student needs.
Recruit, admit, and retain a diverse student body ensuring equal employment and educational opportunity for all qualified persons.
Improve student orientation programs, with emphasis on the freshman year experience.
Encourage and promote activities that focus on student wellness.
Encourage student mentoring programs.
Expand and enhance student leadership initiatives.
Engage students in the community through service learning, including senior projects, co ops, internships and other professional work experiences.
Encourage and support student growth through participation in extracurricular and co-curricular activities.
Provide students with intercultural opportunities to become global citizens.

THEME: Culture

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville strives to reflect and celebrate the unity and diversity of people. Through its cultural activities, the university seeks to foster imagination and creativity for the enjoyment and enlightenment of the university and regional communities.

Initiatives:

Recognize and support the role of the arts and letters in preserving cultural elements of the past and understanding the present.
Provide increased international educational experiences for students.
Promote increased awareness of ethnic and cultural diversity through the curriculum, study abroad opportunities, and domestic and international exchange programs.
Recognize and support the performing and visual arts, essential components of a university education.
Encourage and support student involvement as artists and as members of the audience.
Serve as the cultural center for the arts for Southwest Wisconsin.
Promote the understanding and expression of various viewpoints, beliefs, and cultures.
Serve as a resource for Southwest Wisconsin in promoting greater international awareness.

Theme: Human Diversity

Embracing ethnic, racial and other diversity of humanity is an ethical and practical necessity. To this end, all students, faculty, and staff will cultivate an in-depth knowledge and appreciation of the experiences, perspectives, and understandings of the life of diverse groups, particularly those that have been, and still are, marginalized and underrepresented due to race, ethnicity, gender, class, and other factors; recognize in society, others, and themselves the various guises and levels of racism, sexism, and other discriminators that foster division and inequality; and assume mutual responsibility for addressing needs of historically disadvantaged groups to enhance the racial and ethnic diversity of the institution and enable all members of the university community to function effectively in an increasingly diverse world.

Initiatives:

Enhance and expand outreach, recruitment, and support programs to raise the proportion of students of color, women students and other underrepresented students on campus and at a distance including increasing the percentages of these groups in academic programs in which they are currently underrepresented.
Enhance and expand outreach, recruitment, and support programs to raise the proportion of people of color, women and other underrepresented people in faculty and staff positions in job categories where they are currently underrepresented.
Continue and expand academic content, courses, and programs that provide comprehensive instruction about people of color, women, and others who experience disadvantage and exclusion and that challenge racism, sexism, heterosexism, ablism and religious intolerance.
Promote an appreciation of human diversity in varied programming, cultural events, and activities, including student organizations.
Establish an accessible working environment and educational setting and overall campus climate for diverse students, faculty, and staff that promote participation and positive interaction among diverse groups.
Encourage and support students of color and white students in interactions where they can express their viewpoints and communicate on the issues of racism, while encouraging and supporting all students to communicate on issues of sexism, heterosexism, and ablism.
Continue to provide workshops and other instruction for employees and student leaders under the leadership of people of color and others with expertise to identify, challenge, and root out racism and mitigate its damaging effects on the university community and to promote cross- cultural interaction and in-depth understanding of other races, ethnicities, and cultures.
Offer programs to train community leaders about comprehensive racism, sexism, heterosexism and ablism and about practices that are effective in working with diverse populations.
Continually assess the effectiveness of employee recruitment, selection, development, performance review, and reward processes in achieving diversity goals, taking corrective action as necessary.

THEME: Outreach

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville engages and serves individuals, organizations, and communities beyond its campus by providing continuing education, off-campus degree programs, and expertise throughout Wisconsin, with specific focus on Southwest Wisconsin.

Initiatives:

Develop partnerships with each college and the graduate school to plan and expand outreach offerings and off-campus degree programs.
Engage in and promote regional and statewide initiatives that focus on economic and workforce development for high priority segments of the State of Wisconsin and the Tri-State Region, such as the Tri-State Initiative, the Wisconsin Agricultural Stewardship Initiative, and the Fox Valley and Rock County Engineering Initiatives.
Provide services to Wisconsin citizens though cooperative work with UW-Extension and the Office of Continuing Education.
Research emerging and unmet educational needs that can be addressed through collaborative programs.
Recognize and reward participation of faculty and staff in university outreach activities.
Recognize and encourage imaginative and innovative outreach programs to encourage women, minorities, and non-traditional students to pursue careers in programs in which they are under-represented.
Improve institutional ability to centralize identification of the university’s constituent groups to coordinate campus engagement efforts, and to communicate more widely the impact of campus engagement activities.

THEME: Distance Education

In a rapidly evolving knowledge-based economy, UW-Platteville is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of the increasing number of non-traditional students with a need to access high quality educational programs and superior student services in an off-campus setting. To meet this great and growing need, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville is committed to providing the necessary administrative, technological, instructional, student services, and design support to serve learners faculty, and staff involved with distance education.

Initiatives:

Create learner-friendly and effective distance education environments to meet the educational needs of non-traditional students.
Work with partners, both internal and external, to maintain and upgrade the technical infrastructure and technologies needed to offer high quality courses, certificates, and programs offered at a distance.
Offer degree completion and professional enrichment programs which support the workforce needs of the State of Wisconsin.
Provide the necessary training and professional development in distance education for instructional staff, support staff, and students.
Maintain a comprehensive set of services (administrative, academic, and learner support) specifically designed to address the need of students at a distance.
Establish partnerships with other post-secondary institutions, school districts, businesses, industry, and community groups to receive classes offered at a distance.
Monitor current trends in distance education to identify and incorporate best practices.
Develop new programs and services based on student need, institutional strength and the ability to operate on a cost recovery basis.
Administer a variety of assessment mechanisms to obtain feedback for continual improvement of programs and services offered at a distance.

THEME: Fiscal Resources

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville allocates resources based on priorities established by the university and will seek to expand its resource base.

Initiatives:

With the direct and active participation of existing governance bodies, develop a mechanism by which fiscal priorities at the university are established, reviewed annually, and communicated.
Make teaching and its adequate financial support a priority.
Evaluate the administrative and academic structure of the university to introduce changes that are educationally sound and fiscally efficient.
Evaluate the program mix to make appropriate changes that are educationally sound and fiscally efficient.
Plan and assign physical facilities for efficient operation and optimal learning.
Implement enrollment management policies to optimize stewardship of educational and fiscal resources.
Evaluate information technology resources, providing support and training programs to ensure efficient university operation and optimal learning.
Explore and implement alternative funding mechanisms to support programs and continued growth.

THEME: External Support

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville will develop relationships with alumni, parents, government personnel, business, industry, and friends, and will expand efforts to raise money from all sources to enhance the university's financial base.

Initiatives:

Identify university needs to be addressed by major gift campaigns and cooperate with the UW-Platteville Foundation in carrying out these campaigns.
Establish or enhance relationships with university alumni.
Encourage and reward faculty and staff in developing and writing grant proposals seeking external support.
Work with state and federal officials to support and enhance the mission of the university.