Last Friday we held the first of six mini-summits that will take place over the summer. We had about 90 people in the room, all organized into the groups that will develop specific plans for strategic initiatives.
At the end of our session, we posed a single question to everyone: "What is the most important, overall goal that Wright State should be pursuing?" Each of the 15 groups talked about this question and wrote a proposed statement. (Read all the original statements.)
I have to admit, when I first heard the proposed ideas, I was not overly inspired. But as often happens, when we took the time to look at these statements more closely, we found some great insights.
On Monday, I met with President Schrader and a group of six members of the steering committee. We read each statement one-by-one and asked each other, "What indicator of success is suggested by this big idea proposal? How might we know that we are creating value for stakeholders as a university?"
As the conversation evolved, I captured the following ideas. Please remember that this is a brainstormed list of very, very rough ideas. They cluster around three mission-focused values that have come from our previous work:
Foster Student Success
- Higher retention and graduation rates
- Number of first-time college students who graduate
- Metrics on personal education and career develop plan or goal
- Increased sense of community
- Percent of degree seeking students who participate in experiential learning — bigger than curriculum, broadly defined
- The number of experiential learning partnerships with alum and community organizations
- Improved course completion rates
- Decreased low-enrollment courses
- Eradication of the “Wright State run-around”
- Improved services as indicated through “secret shopper” testing of internal processes
Discover, Create, and Share New Knowledge
- Number of experiential learning partnerships with alum and community organizations
- Number of undergrad and grad students who participate in research projects
- Sustained and improved economic impact on the region
- Number of research projects
- Number of public-private partnerships/collaborations
Transform Our World
- Leaders in our state who are Wright State graduates
- Education, cultural, and economic indicators
- Innovations that are adapted in the marketplace
- Other indicators that tell us that we are being what Ohio needs us to be
What ideas do you have about how we might measure the value we create for our students and other stakeholders? What big idea might capture the essence of this value?
Feel free to share your thoughts by completing this survey on mission-focused values.
David Bright, Co-Chair
Strategic Planning Steering Committee
