Case Western Reserve University Provost and Executive Vice President W.A. “Bud” Baeslack III announced today that the campus community can download the most recent draft of the university’s strategic plan, or visit case.edu/strategicplan for more information.
Titled Think Beyond the Possible, the document reflects nearly a year of collective efforts among dozens of faculty, staff, students, alumni and other stakeholders. It follows Forward Thinking, the university plan covering 2008 through 2013.
“We made tremendous progress over the past five years,” Baeslack said. “This plan positions the university to build on those gains and become an even more distinguished national research university in the years to come.”
Among the priorities of the previous strategic plan were improvements in diversity and internationalization, as well as strengthened admissions and interdisciplinary research collaborations. Since 2008, the university has dramatically increased the proportion of underrepresented minority and international students and also developed strategic plans for each area. Meanwhile, undergraduate applications grew 150 percent, with the last two entering classes each setting records for academic quality. Finally, the university’s initiatives to encourage campus-wide collaboration contributed to progress across multiple areas, among them human health, culture, creativity and design, energy, and ethics.
In the coming years, the university will continue to focus on interdisciplinary efforts and also enhance its longstanding emphasis on innovation in education. In particular, the plan calls for increased opportunities for faculty members to develop and apply new pedagogical approaches, as well as the use of analytics to assess student learning. In addition, the plan commits the university to a more integrated and coherent approach to preparing students for leadership, increased entrepreneurial and commercialization opportunities, and greater engagement among faculty, staff, students and alumni.
“Our ability to advance Case Western Reserve depends on the talent and commitment of our community,” Baeslack said. “This plan includes several measures aimed at increasing the recognition, support and development of the people who make this university great.”
Provost Baeslack and Chris Ash, vice president for university planning, will continue to collect feedback from the campus community and other stakeholders in the coming weeks before publishing a final version of the plan. Email provost@case.edu with feedback on the plan.