Introduction

This is an important time in the history of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater as we approach our 150th anniversary. Campus is planning a Sesquicentennial Celebration to celebrate our accomplishments and to create a new legacy of success for our students and the communities we serve. As we approach this milestone, we are also implementing a new strategic plan for the university.

Chancellor Beverly Kopper initiated the strategic planning process in early 2016 that engaged the campus in reflecting on the university's strengths, challenges, inspirations and aspirations. Through town hall meetings, online surveys and listening sessions, students, staff, faculty, administrators, alumni, emeriti, and community members weighed in on the future of UW-Whitewater.  

Sincere thanks go out to everyone who provided input and contributed and, in particular, to the members of the Strategic Planning Committee, who devoted dozens of hours to this effort and shaped the plan described in this document. Their insights and experiences provided important perspectives as we deliberated the merits of various ideas. The development of this plan also represents our commitment to shared governance and engagement of all of our stakeholders. We value the perspectives of our diverse community and know that the plan is richer because of their contributions.  

The plan document contains revised mission, vision, and values statements that were crafted by the Strategic Planning and Budget Committee in the spring and fall of 2016.  

• The mission focuses on key aspects of who we are as a university community and defines the focus of the academic programs we offer.
• The vision, which is new for the campus, is an aspirational statement that represents who we will become through our actions: UW-Whitewater will be a national and international leader in providing transformational and empowering educational experiences.
• The values statements describe what we believe in: diversity and opportunity, collaboration, integrity, service and social responsibility, learning and academic excellence, and shared governance.  

The plan itself is organized as follows:

• It includes six major goals: improving student access and success, transforming lives and improving society, fostering diversity and inclusion, strengthening our resources, deepening partnerships and relationships, and celebrating the accomplishments of our campus community.
• Each goal has an objective with one major action that the committee designated as broad enough to engage as many people in our campus community as possible, but also as focused enough to help us achieve the objective.  
• The "Here's how" section provides information on the approach we will use to take action on each objective. The actions have been crafted so that most units on campus and in the community can identify with them and use them to shape their own strategic goals and actions to align with the campus plan.  
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) describe what we will observe if we are successful. KPIs will also have associated metrics, which are ways we will make the observations. These include data we already collect and report, but also new types of data, including survey instruments and other measures. KPIs will form the basis of annual reports that will track our progress over time.  

This will be an action-oriented plan - one that will not sit on our shelves, but will be a living plan with an active implementation component and annual reporting requirements. It builds on the university's previous plan, leverages our current strengths, and is designed to stretch us into new avenues of achievements. It charts new territory for the campus by including specific objectives, actions, and KPIs, which our previous plan did not contain. The Strategic Planning and Budget Committee, a standing university committee with broad representation across campus, will have oversight for monitoring implementation plans and reviewing annual progress.  

We enthusiastically welcome everyone to help us implement the strategic plan as we seek to inspire, engage, and transform the people and communities we serve.