Message from the President
In 2022, we introduced the Wayne State College Strategic Plan for 2022-2028. The plan established a path forward for the College to inspire students, strengthen communities, and serve our region. Since that time many challenges have developed for higher education, a few of which include the threat of a demographic cliff and subsequent declines in enrollment, questioning of the value of higher education and the growth of non-consumers of higher education, and the status of funding for public education in the U.S.
While in Nebraska we have been somewhat insulated from the negative side effects of these issues we must be aware of them, prepare for their potential impact, and continue to position ourselves to serve our students and communities. As we have worked to activate our strategic plan over the past two years, we began to receive feedback to clarify certain aspects of the plan. Questions arose around the language and terms used, the alignment of strategic initiatives with the metrics, and the connectivity between the work we completed throughout the institution and the plan.
It was always the College’s intention that, while meant to help drive work toward the pursuit of our goals and lay a path forward, the plan would not be static, and the approach not always linear. Given the changeable nature of the plan we decided to refresh the document, moving up the intended three-year review. This work would make the plan dynamic, timely, and relevant so the goals and initiatives are not only broadly understood and aspirational, but also a guide for decision-making at every level and achievable. The efforts to revise the plan operated on the basic assumptions that the strategic initiatives should be broad but clear enough to direct work and progress towards accomplishing goals, metrics will measure multiple ways of progress toward several goals but that we would align them to one primary goal for organizational purposes, and the plan was adaptable. The refresh, therefore, aimed to refine the plan, realign the goals, initiatives, and metrics, and clarify the language within the document based on these assumptions.
Process
A small team of College representatives was formed in spring 2023 to review the plan in light of the feedback. This team was composed of representatives from academic and student affairs who met over the spring semester to refresh the plan. Examples of some of the updates to the plan include removing initiatives that did not necessarily rise to the level of an action step, moving metrics to other goals to align with where they might reflect progress better, adding additional alignment with the NSCS Strategic Plan and revising initiatives to be more dynamic in addressing the changing environment and trends of higher education.
Once a revised draft was completed it was presented to the president’s extended leadership team for feedback and revisions. In the fall of 2023, the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Special Projects met with stakeholder groups across campus to present the refreshed plan and garner additional feedback. Updates regarding the plan and work to refresh the plan were sent in communications by the President and announced at fall and spring meetings with faculty and staff. In February and March of 2024, the president’s extended leadership team once again reviewed the plan and set 2026 targets for each metric. The strategic plan has been refreshed based on feedback from the campus community and is presented in this document.