Summary
President Reveley launched a new strategic planning process in academic year 2008-2009. The strategic plan articulated our vision and identified one overarching grand challenge for the future of the university. That is to be a leader among liberal arts universities. The centerpiece of our strategy is to define and showcase William & Mary as a university of compelling academic distinction, one of the world's great liberal arts universities. All of our other aspirations flow from this commitment. Major actions and decisions moving forward will build on our ability to combine the best elements of a liberal arts college and a research university with select graduate and professional programs. W&M's success in blending those two aspects is our great competitive advantage. To an extraordinary degree we effectively integrate teaching and scholarship and provide powerful faculty-student interaction. We will build on that foundation. We will increase our emphasis on interdisciplinary and international programs.
The planning process targets five other critical challenges in support of advancing as a leader among liberal arts universities.
- Build and support a more fully diverse W&M community.
- Develop an ever more engaging campus experience that inspires a lifelong commitment to W&M.
- Implement a new financial model that can fund our aspirations.
- Provide the administrative resources and infrastructure required for a university in the 21st Century.
- Explain and promote W&M through a more effective communications structure and strategy.
We recognize the excellence that comes with inclusiveness, and we are committed to being a welcoming and supportive university. We will help students develop as leaders both in and beyond the classroom - in civic engagement, athletics, the arts and international programs. We will give them opportunities to explore, experiment, take risks, build teams, and lead change. We will focus as well on W&M as a lifelong experience. We will build a stronger sense of stewardship among our students and our alumni. We will create and implement a new financial model to fund adequately our exceptional liberal arts university and to build a solid foundation for the future.
The strategic planning process in 2008-2009 engaged all parts of the W&M community and produced a five-year strategic planning framework. The framework includes goals and objectives for addressing each challenge. We will review and update the framework annually. Implementation will include assignment of responsibility for each objective, development of specific metrics to track outcomes, and reports of performance against objectives. As a result, our planning and financial processes will become more transparent and more focused on strategic priorities.
