Planning Background
Where did the Priorities of Excellence come from?
The Strategic Planning Council chose the seven Priorities of Excellence based on the results of the Vision Survey of faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends. The Priorities were broad, thematic areas that covered nearly all the activities of the University.
What is the relationship between the Flagship 2020 goals and the UM 2020 Strategic Plan?
The goals were developed after the Strategic Plan and reflect the fact that we needed a few bold, ambitious ideas to motivate everyone and generate enthusiasm among our supporters.
How was the plan developed? Who was involved?
The plan was developed over the course of a year and a half by the Strategic Planning Council and the Office of Strategic Planning. The SPC was made up of faculty, senior administrators, staff and student representatives. In addition, more faculty, staff and students served on Strategic Working Groups that generated reports on each of the seven Priorities of Excellence. Rosters of the people on the Strategic Planning Council and the Strategic Working groups are available on this site.
Where is diversity covered in the plan?
Diversity and Inclusion is one of the most important Planning Principles that are included in every aspect of the Strategic Plan. As a fundamental value, diversity is woven into the fabric of the plan and is addressed within each Priority of Excellence.
Progress Reports
What parts of the plan were implemented first?
The university-wide initiatives have been divided into two categories, immediate and long-term. The Strategic Planning Council monitored the progress of implementation and, as initiatives were completed, made recommendations for parts of the plan to move from long-term to immediate priorities.
What was accomplished?
| Priority of Excellence | Total number of initiatives | Number in progress | Number completed |
| Undergraduate Education and Student Success | 33 | 27 | 4 |
| Graduate and Professional Education | 21 | 11 | 6 |
| Research, Scholarship, Innovation, and Creativity | 11 | 6 | 5 |
| The Collegiate Experience | 12 | 6 | 5 |
| Faculty | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Staff | 9 | 6 | 3 |
| Transformation through Service | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| Total | 95 | 60 | 28 |
| Updated May 26, 2015 |
- Undergraduate Education and Student Success
The Provost’s Office took the lead on studying the University’s capacity to handle a record undergraduate enrollment growth. The Capacity Task Force implemented a new admissions process designed to limit the number of out-of-state students for the class of 2016. - Graduate and Professional Education
The UM STEM Education Task Force had a public kick-off event in January of 2012 to outline the ways in which the University promoted careers in STEM fields and how to support more graduate students in STEM. - Research, Scholarship, Innovation, and Creativity
The University of Mississippi recently switched to the Mississippi Optical Network (MissiON) broadband network. This new network dramatically increased the university’s bandwidth, with capabilities 10 times faster than the previous network. This new network enhanced the University’s capacity for research by allowing researchers to share data with each other and utilize complex computer systems. - The Collegiate Experience
IHL has approved the University’s plan to renovate the Student Union to make more room for our expanding student population and to bring the facilities up to date. - Faculty
The Provost and Chancellor announced in the Fall Faculty Meeting in 2011 that faculty raises will be made available in the next fiscal year. This plan supported the on-going initiative to raise faculty salaries to be more competitive with our peer institutions. - Staff
The Staff Council announced a new Staff Mentoring Program, called COMPASS, which began in January of 2012. Staff professional development is a key component of the Staff Priority of Excellence. - Transformation through Service
Countless individual service projects were pursued by faculty, staff, and students all over campus. In addition to all this activity, the University is in the planning stages of creating a center on campus that will be the home for service.
Unit-level Planning
Why did units have to create plans? Didn’t the UM 2020 plan cover everything?
The Strategic Plan contains the framework that defined the University’s overarching priorities for the next ten years and a set of university-wide initiatives. However, this does not cover everything that will be necessary to do for our future success. Each unit and department was asked to create its own strategic plan, based on the principles and priorities of the overall Strategic Plan, to guide its individual actions as well.
Who was responsible for implementing unit-level plans?
The directors and department chairs worked with their Deans and Vice Chancellors to ensure that the unit-level plans were implemented and evaluated.
Resources
How did we undertake strategic initiatives without new money?
Strategic action is sometimes about doing something new, but it can also be about the things one stops doing. We anticipated that new resources would become available, as our stakeholders began to invest in our vision for the future, but each academic and administrative unit was instructed to prepare their unit-level plan with the assumption of no new dollars. We encouraged departments to be creative about re-prioritizing and finding cost-savings in order to implement their plans.
Questions
Who can I contact if I have additional questions?
If you have questions related to UM 2020 Strategic Plan, please contact the Office of Institutional Research, Effectiveness, and Planning at ir@olemiss.edu.
