Strategic Plan

Building brighter futures, one step at a time

Empowering our students to chase their dreams, discover new ideas, become engaged citizens and to lead – whether it’s locally or globally. This is what we exist to do, and it all starts here, with our strategic plan. Get to know our mission, vision and values.

Supporting Goal 1: Access for All

Our college is a welcoming and supportive work and learning environment that prepares the college community for an evolving world. We will routinely reflect on our own practices to ensure access for all.

Create a culture of fairness and belonging by:
- Achieving an average of 75% faculty/staff reporting that perceived college procedures, interactions and outcomes are fair in nature during each institutional climate survey cycle.
- Achieving an average of 75% of students reporting that they feel a sense of belonging in CHAS annually.
Retain and support faculty and staff by:
- Creating a mentoring network.
- Facilitating the formation of teaching and research interest groups within the college.
- Introducing faculty to people and stakeholders in our larger community.
- Engaging and maintaining dialogue with faculty members within the college on this goal.
Eliminate institutional gaps in student success by:
- Increasing the overall retention rate to 85%, four-year graduation rate to 50%, and six-year graduation rate to 70%.
- Nurturing a sense of community through a culture of care where all can achieve their educational, professional and personal life aspirations.
- Identifying and encouraging alumni, student, and community groups to support recruitment.
- Establishing support of off-campus outreach and identifying and building relationships with potential feeder programs. (e.g., UNICUE, community colleges, etc.).
- Preparing marketing materials that represent all students and faculty actively engaged in CHAS programs.

Supporting Goal 2: Campus Vitality

Our campus community will flourish in all aspects of our operations and the personal and professional lives of our community members. UNI provides student development focused on their social, emotional, and intellectual well-being. Faculty and staff are offered professional development opportunities that support continual learning. UNI provides a state-of-the-art working environment that uses resources wisely. UNI also supports original research, creative work and scholarship that creates new knowledge and explores our world.

Strategically communicate and tell the CHAS story by:
- Facilitating routine meetings about college marketing with Department Heads, CHAS Senate and department faculty.
- Developing talking points/narratives to support general studies/liberal arts/broad curriculum and infuse them in college and departmental communications.
- Increasing promotion of inter-university and academic-industry events and collaboration via a strong social media and web presence.
- Developing curriculum for majors and other programs.
Prioritize the development of programs and curriculum that are responsive to student needs, the changing nature of work and lifelong learning by:
- Expanding intentional student engagement in the arts, humanities, sciences, technology and mathematics through curricular and co-curricular activities.
- Developing professional readiness extra curricular programs that complement discipline driven career preparation.
Support faculty development by:
- Developing peer support groups for junior faculty.
- Providing formal and/or informal mentoring to junior faculty.
- Providing professional development for junior faculty using university and discipline specific organizational resources.

Supporting Goal 3: Community Engagement

Public-private partnerships and community relationships are central to our core mission as a comprehensive university. Through these relationships the University of Northern Iowa offers our students internships, service learning experiences, and research opportunities and offers our community partners wide-ranging benefits that support their goals. Alumni and community partners assist in our ability to recruit and retain students, raise funds to support programs and scholarships, and adapt our curriculum and programming to meet the needs of a changing world.

Build and maintain community and community partnerships by:
- Identifying current and potential outreach partnerships and initiatives that could be enhanced or enabled with internal and external funding.
- Inventorying and capturing existing community relationships and partnerships that provide service learning, internships and career placements.
- Collecting proposals for new initiatives and partnerships.
- Identifying potential funding sources and beginning solicitation.
- Evaluating program effectiveness.
Increase participation in professional and global communities by:
- Establishing faculty professional development initiatives that foster expansion of partnerships between the academy and professional and global communities.
- Creating routine professional development opportunities to explore, plan and initiate new ways to connect to the field and the disciplines.
- Creating funding to support off campus Professional Development Assignments.
- Supporting the development of departmental alumni groups charged with connecting students with professionals in their chosen field.