UK Strategic Plan: Your Continued Involvement

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 8, 2021) — University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto updated the campus community on feedback given on the first draft of the university's strategic plan in an email sent early Wednesday, Sept. 7. The president also outlined next steps in the development of the final plan. You can read the president's message below. 

Campus Community,

Over the past week, we received more than 150 comments from across the campus about the first draft of our institution’s next strategic plan. 

The input is invaluable. The strategic plan details our principles and values as well as how we will measure our progress on those things we believe are most important to our success over the next several years.

The next few weeks will be critical to the plan’s ultimate development:

• Five teams comprised of elected faculty, staff and students along with deans and administrators will take your input and update the plan over the next week. Each team is helping draft objectives, tactics and metrics that support five key principles: the success of our students; inspiring ingenuity in all that we do; taking care of our people; ensuring greater trust, transparency and accountability; and demonstrating the strength embedded in being many people, but one community.
• We also are continuing to meet and communicate with elected leaders across campus to gather more feedback regarding particular elements of the draft plan.
• Members of our institutional research team are examining the specific metrics proposed to further refine them so that they are as clear and actionable as possible.
• To provide even more time for input, next week, we will distribute a second iteration of the plan for further campus comment before a final draft is submitted to me for review toward the end of this month. 
• I will submit the final proposed plan to the Board of Trustees for its consideration during the board’s annual retreat, Oct. 14-15.

This plan will, ultimately, tell all those we serve how we intend to advance Kentucky — by supporting the success of our students, conducting research and service that directly impacts communities across the Commonwealth and expanding our capacity for care. You can read more about the strategic plan process here.

Over the last five years together, we’ve rebuilt and reshaped a campus; we are enrolling more students than at any time in our history, and, as importantly, we are more successful than ever before in helping them graduate on time, as is our purpose to serve and lead across our state and around our world. 

Your continued involvement in the process of deciding how we will meet this century’s challenges while embracing new opportunities is essential to our success and to the future of the university we serve and the state we were created to advance.

Thank you for all you do to make progress possible.

Eli Capilouto

President