The 2006-09 Strategic Plan articulates university-wide goals and provides a framework for the development of detailed action plans to achieve these goals. By its very nature, this university-wide planning document deals with broad, overarching goals and objectives. It will frame the provost's discussions with deans and vice presidents, and the subsequent conversations they will have with their chairs/directors and unit faculties, about the development of unit-level strategic plans. The following keywords encapsulate the cross-cutting themes of the Top 20 Business Plan and the 2006-09 Strategic Plan:
EXCELLENCE
- Make it a habit in everything UK does.
- Begin thinking and acting like a Top 20 university.
EXPANSION
- More faculty, students, and support staff.
- Increase research and creative work.
ENGAGEMENT
- Increase collaboration with communities UK serves.
- Bring UK research to bear on improving quality of life for Kentuckians.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
- Instill entrepreneurial spirit in the UK community.
- Increase private and federal support for university missions.
INNOVATION
- Increase experimentation.
- Encourage risk-taking.
INTEGRATION
- Increase collaborations among all UK academic and support units.
- Support interdisciplinary studies and inter-professional training.
INCLUSIVITY
- Embrace and nurture diversity.
- Place responsibility and accountability at every level and in every process.
INTERNATIONALIZATION
- Increase international exposure for students through curricular and co-curricular experiences.
- Increase UK's international presence and visibility.
The real work of implementing the strategic plan through specific action items takes place at the department level. We recognize that in as complex and diverse an organization as UK, a simple and single set of actions and attendant measures of progress cannot apply to all units. Our expectation is that each college, department, and administrative unit will develop action items that are most appropriate to that unit, determine the baseline measure for each action item, and set three year goals for achievement. Needless to say, at each successive level (e.g., dean to department chair, provost to dean), there would have to be negotiations about the expected level of achievement. Once this process is completed, the most common measures of success will be rolled up into university-wide Measures of Progress. This set of measures must overlap with the key indicators enumerated in the Top 20 Business plan.