UK Strategic Plan: Guideposts for Ambitious Future

LEXINGTON, KY (June 19, 2015) — University of Kentucky Provost Tim Tracy says UK's new strategic plan has as its focus a series of "ambitious but achievable" goals that place the state's flagship institution at the center of helping solve the most pressing challenges confronting the Commonwealth and larger world.

"Our vision to is be an institution that transforms — transforms the lives of students, the communities we serve, as well as the Commonwealth and world beyond," Tracy said in providing a recent update to members of the UK Board of Trustees about the progress of the plan.

After more than a year of work by a broad cross-section of the university community, five strategic objectives along with key initiatives of the plan have been developed as pillars of the plan. That work by faculty, staff and students also included three forums in which hundreds of people from the campus community participated in person or via a live stream.

Now, Tracy said, over the next few months implementation plans will be developed that will include concrete action steps and metrics to evaluate UK's progress in meeting the "ambitious but achievable goals" for the university between now and 2020. In October, during its annual retreat, the UK Board will evaluate and discuss the completed plan.

A draft of the plan can be read at: http://www.uky.edu/strategic-plan/sites/www.uky.edu.strategic-plan/files/Strategic%20Plan%20DRAFT%20May%2021%2020154.pdf

The five strategic objectives are:

• Undergraduate student success: ensuring that UK is the university of choice for the best undergraduate students in Kentucky and beyond, who are seeking a "transformational education" that promotes "self-discovery, experiential learning and life-long achievement."

• Graduate education: strengthening the quality and distinctiveness of UK's programs as the university helps produce scholars who will lead in both teaching and discovery.

• Diversity and inclusivity: enhancing diversity and inclusivity through greater retention and recruitment efforts among faculty, staff and students and implementing initiatives that provide "rich diversity-related experiences for all, to help ensure (student) success in an interconnected world."

• Research and scholarship: expanding efforts across the "full range of disciplines" in scholarship, creative endeavors and research with the goal of focusing "on the most important challenges of the Commonwealth, our nation, and the world.

• Outreach and community engagement: better leveraging technology, scholarship and research in new and creative ways to "advance the public good and to foster the development of citizen-scholars."

"No institution touches the entirety of the Commonwealth like the University of Kentucky," said UK President Eli Capilouto. "We are, fundamentally, in the business of transformation — by educating tomorrow's leaders today; by helping and healing communities across the state; and by searching through discovery and creative efforts for solutions that attack the state's toughest challenges in ways that have impact beyond our borders.

That is part of the DNA of this special place, from our founding 150 years go to today. It must be our guiding light as we move forward. This plan, ultimately, will lay out the important markers of progress that both illuminate that path forward as well as providing those we serve with ways to measure our success."