Welcome to SLU’s Academic Strategic Planning
Thank you to everyone who attended our sketch sessions for the Academic Strategic Plan (ASP) during the spring 2022 semester and provided feedback during this academic year. We received ideas and feedback from more than 1000 faculty, staff and students between the sketch sessions and various feedback sessions.
After the sketch sessions concluded in May 2022, Provost Lewis began working with the Steering Committee on consolidating the feedback into a cohesive Academic Strategic Plan. That work continued through the summer and fall and included additional input from the Deans during their annual summer retreat in August 2022.
Since the start of this academic year, Provost Lewis and the Steering Committee continued to modify the plan. Several drafts of the plan were presented to the Faculty Senate, the Steering Committee and the community in a number of open forums. Provost Lewis also presented drafts of the plan to Board of Trustees at their quarterly meetings in September 2022 and February 2023. The plan will be finalized and published to a dedicated website in March 2023.
The latest draft of the plan is centered around five main strategic priorities: Teaching and Learning; Research, Scholarship and Creative Work; Community Well-Being and Equity; Access and Reach; and Institutional Size/Scope, Infrastructure and Capacity. Each of these priorities has a number of strategic goals that will advance that priority, and each goal has multiple strategic actions we will take to reach those goals. The entire plan has an introductory preamble that speaks to our Catholic, Jesuit mission. The mission is a common thread throughout the priorities, goals and actions in the ASP.
Steering Committee and Working Group
The Steering Committee consists of the Provost, academic Deans, Vice Presidents, and faculty, staff and student representatives. Provost Lewis has been working with the Steering Committee to review progress of the plan’s development, and they provide feedback on iterations of the plan as those drafts are developed. The membership of the Steering Committee is listed below.
The working group was a smaller team responsible for the day-to-day work of organizing and running the sketch sessions, under the direction of the Steering Committee and in concert with Filament. The group helped schedule and run the sketch sessions, with a focus on increasing engagement with the campus community around this process and collaborating with Filament on any changes to the sketch sessions. Their work is now complete.
- Michael Lewis, Provost
- Terry Tomazic, Faculty Senate President
- Stacey Harris, Faculty Senate representative
- Sally Beth Lyons, Faculty Senate representative
- Matt Ryan, Faculty Senate representative
- Eleonore Stump, Faculty Senate representative
- Scott Isbell, Faculty Senate representative
- Donna LaVoie, Interim Dean - College of Arts and Sciences
- Randall Rosenberg, Dean - College of Philosophy and Letters
- Ellen Barnidge, Interim Dean - College for Public Health and Social Justice
- Bernie Rousseau, Dean - Doisy College of Health Sciences
- Barnali Gupta, Dean - Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business
- Gary Ritter, Dean - School of Education
- William Johnson, Dean - School of Law
- Christine Jacobs, Vice President for Medical Affairs and Dean - School of Medicine
- Scott Duellman, Interim Dean - School of Science and Engineering
- John Buerck, Interim Dean - School for Professional Studies
- Noelle Fearn, Dean - School of Social Work
- Helen Lach, Associate Dean for Research - Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing
- Martha Allen, Assistant Dean of User Services - University Libraries and Museums
- Paul Vita, Dean and Academic Director - SLU Madrid
- Clayton Berry, Assistant Vice President for Communications and Strategy - Marketing and Communications
- Kyle Collins, Vice President and CIO - Information Technology Services
- Sarah Cunningham, Vice President - Student Development
- Kathleen Davis, Vice President - Enrollment & Retention Management
- Michael Lucido, Vice President - Facilities
- Mickey Luna, Vice President - Human Resources
- Tony Minor, Assistant Vice President for Alumni and Donor Engagement - University Development
- Ken Olliff, Vice President - Research
- Judi Buncher, President - Staff Advisory Council
- Brooke Kenworthy, Vice President for Academic Affairs - Student Government Association
- Tom Finan, faculty representative - College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Council
- Travis Loux, faculty representative - College for Public Health and Social Justice Faculty Assembly
- Julie Howe, faculty representative - Doisy College of Health Science Faculty Council
- Kathleen Armstrong, faculty representative - Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing Faculty Assembly
- Kyle Crews, faculty representative - School for Professional Studies Faculty Council
- Natalie Parks, faculty representative - School of Social Work Faculty Council
About Our Strategic Partners
SLU has partnered with Filament, a local consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning and helping organizations think differently from their normal day-to-day work. The sessions they design and run are very hands-on and collaborative, helping organizations like Saint Louis University develop new strategies and plans for the future. They even employ their own artist and visual recorder, who helps visualize the discussions and decisions made during the sessions.
Normally, they host clients at their collaboration space, but they will be bringing that format to our campus to make it easier for everyone to participate. Now that the sketch sessions are completed, Filament will be helping us with the implementation phase of the plan by hosting sessions with mixed groups of faculty, staff and/or students, whole departments, or groups of departments to flesh out ideas that support one of the four strategic priorities and their underlying strategic goals.