Over the past several months, we have begun to build the framework for our strategic thinking process in order to integrate the university's "separate" goals into overarching institutional goals, assigning priorities and identifying proposed actions. In order to accomplish this, we needed to engage the campus community and the Board of Trustees. A Steering Committee was created to direct and support working groups comprising faculty and staff from throughout the university. The groups developed working drafts of documents outlining our collective thoughts on goals in three areas central to Lehigh's future:
- Enhancing our distinctive student life and learning experience
- Increasing research and graduate programs to respond to vital challenges
- Investing in faculty and staff to be at the forefront of distinguished universities
The reports provide a framework for priority setting, budget projections, and fund raising.
We reached out to the university community to get input and seek convergence on our collective ideas for strategic goals and priorities. This process was designed to be highly inclusive through small and large meetings, and in-person and online discussions and dialogue. We used the resulting reports to create executive summary reports for presentation to the Board of Trustees at the joint Board/Leadership Retreat in July.
The Lehigh community's active participation in this process was key to its success. Faculty, staff, and students all contributed to our best thinking about Lehigh’s future toward setting our institutional goals and priorities.
How you can participate
Implementation groups will be charged with refining the goals and priorities into implementation plans. This process, beginning in the fall semester, will be essential to ensure that the consensus from this strategic thinking results in the goals being achieved. We will again look to engaged faculty and staff to form these implementation groups and to work along with administrators to set budgetary and fund raising plans.
