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 want 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 will develop 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 will provide a framework for priority setting, budget projections and fund raising.
We are now reaching out to the university community to get input and seek convergence on our collective ideas for strategic goals and priorities. This process is designed to be highly inclusive through small and large meetings, in-person and online discussions and dialogue. We will use the resulting reports, completed by the end of the spring semester, to create executive summary reports for presentation to the Board of Trustees at the joint Board/Leadership Retreat in mid-July.
The Lehigh community's active participation in this process is key to its success. There are a number of different ways faculty, staff, and students can contribute to our best thinking about Lehigh’s future toward setting our institutional goals and priorities. The Steering Committee and working groups will also keep you informed about meetings, open forums, and ways to stay involved.
How you can participate
There are some ways for faculty and staff to provide input into the process, including:
- Participating in working group meetings and discussions
- Contributing thoughts and comments to our Strategic Thinking online forum
- Writing short responses to targeted questions
- Discussions on strategic issues during existing meetings (faculty, departmental, administrative, etc.)
Next fall, implementation groups will be charged with refining the goals and priorities into implementation plans. This process will be essential to ensure that the consensus from this strategic thinking results in the goals being achieved.. We will look to engaged faculty and staff to form these implementation groups and to work along with administrators in setting budgetary and fund raising plans.
