University IT Strategic Plan now published
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 6, 2022) — The University of Kentucky’s IT Strategic Plan is now available online. The comprehensive plan is designed to enable UK to continue in the creative use, application and provisioning of IT in support of UK’s Strategic Plan – The UK-PURPOSE (Plan for Unprecedented Research, Purposeful and Optimal Service and Education).
The IT Strategic Plan reflects more than 300 students, faculty and staff members who participated in focus groups, interviews and surveys in spring/summer of 2022. It aims to provide a roadmap for technology, infrastructure and IT services that will enable UK’s continued growth.
UK Information Technology Services (UK ITS) staff, along with key partners and stakeholders, have started pursuing key areas of recommendation and action items to advance and enhance IT infrastructure and services.
“We continue to be at a crossroads of unprecedented change, both an uncertain and unpredictable future – perhaps a tipping point - because of this there is no better time to evaluate where we are now and where we want to be in the years ahead – to define our IT drive and our PURPOSE,” said UK Chief Information Officer Brian Nichols.
Critical to UK’s success in effectively utilizing IT is to adopt a view that it is a fundamental asset of the institution. Imperative to this is the concept of IT Abundance – where information technology is current, advanced, readily available and adopted to facilitate and support UK’s students, faculty, and staff within their respective assignments, disciplines and tasks.
The value in an environment featuring IT Abundance is that it redefines what it is possible to do in teaching and learning, research and innovation and in the efficient and effective operation of resources across the UK enterprise.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.
In 2022, UK was ranked by Forbes as one of the “Best Employers for New Grads” and named a “Diversity Champion” by INSIGHT into Diversity, a testament to our commitment to advance Kentucky and create a community of belonging for everyone. While our mission looks different in many ways than it did in 1865, the vision of service to our Commonwealth and the world remains the same. We are the University for Kentucky.