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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The mission of The University of Arizona is to improve life for the people of Arizona and beyond through education, research, creative expression and community engagement.

VISION
As a premier land-grant university, The University of Arizona plays a vital role in building a thriving state. The University offers the highest quality education, excels in creating new knowledge that has worldwide impact, and provides leadership and collaboration to address the challenging issues facing Arizona, the nation and the world.  The University is about quality, discovery, and opportunity. To better serve future generations, The University of Arizona will be one of the 10 best public research universities.

THE PRIORITIES THAT GUIDE US
Academic Excellence:  The University of Arizona must be a center for excellence in education and research. We must put people first. Our focus must always be on serving our students and supporting our faculty, professionals, and staff. An outstanding faculty is the foundation for academic excellence, attracting and educating the best undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. Recruiting, retaining, and supporting outstanding scholar/teachers is our highest priority.

Access and Success:  An education at The University of Arizona must prepare students for a productive future and must be accessible to all who are academically qualified. Economic or social status cannot be a barrier. The University must engage, retain, and graduate its students in the greatest numbers possible.  

Quality of Life and Societal Impact:  In keeping with the University’s land-grant mission, The University of Arizona must serve as an engine for economic development and as a source of inspiration that enriches individual lives and advances the collective wellbeing of our society. Across every discipline, and on a daily basis, the University is improving the human condition for the people of Arizona.

Strategic Planning Process:

In order to achieve our mission, vision and priorities, the UA has identified 4 major strategies. We have taken into account key elements of the context within which we function, the needs of the state of Arizona and the views of numerous internal and external stakeholders (through focus groups and individual interviews) regarding the strengths of the UA and the unique opportunities available to us. Key factors include: the extraordinary population growth anticipated for Arizona and the needs of the state for an educated citizenry; the diversity of our students in terms of cultural and socioeconomic background and academic preparation; the financial constraints within which we must function, especially the unusually limited support for financial aid provided by the state (in Arizona only 2.4% of freshman receive financial aid directly from the state compared with 27% nationally); the educational imperatives of ever increasing economic and cultural globalization; and the challenges Arizona is facing with regard to the health care and natural resources. We also recognized that we must build on our current strengths in interdisciplinary scholarship in general and in particular fields including but not limited to space exploration, water and environmental resources, biosciences and biotechnology, and Native American Studies. Further, we must develop the unique opportunities afforded by our geographic location in the desert and on the US-Mexico border.

Strategic Directions

Prepare Arizona’s Youth and Ensure Access and Opportunity
We will collaborate with educational partners (P-14) to prepare students for University success and support education in Arizona by preparing more teachers (especially in STEM fields), targeting underserved areas first. We will improve access by increasing enrollments and financial aid (both need and merit-based). And we will serve our growing student population by providing integrated state-of-the-art technological support.

Engage and Graduate Students Who Can Contribute to the State, Nation, and World
We will educate all of our students to become creative, productive and engaged members of society by providing solid grounding in core skills, broad knowledge across disciplines, expertise in areas of special focus, and the ability to evaluate, integrate, and generate new knowledge. And we will respond to the state’s shortages of health care providers by expanding educational programs in those high priority areas. In doing so, we will expand course and major availability, improve retention and graduation rates, and improve our communications infrastructure.

Provide World-Class Research That Improves the Human Condition in Arizona and Beyond
We will build on our national leadership in interdisciplinary and collaborative research and lead the nation in research and outreach activities that are critical to our state’s future, with particular emphasis on the following areas:

• Climate, Environmental, Water and Energy Sustainability
• Southwest, Native American, Borderlands, and Latin American Studies
• Biosciences and Biotechnology
• Optics
• Space Exploration and Observation
• Creative Arts, Languages and Language Acquisition
• Law, Public Policy and Entrepreneurship
• Biomedical and Behavioral Health
• Youth Development Programs

Partner With and Serve the People of Arizona
We will contribute to the richness and vibrancy of the community, serve as an incubator and magnet for talent, develop partnerships with public, private and non-profit sector organizations, and share research with and provide direct services to the people of Arizona through technology transfer, Cooperative Extension programs, development of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus and provision of clinical health care services throughout the state.

MISSION

The mission of The University of Arizona is to improve life for the people of Arizona and beyond through education, research, creative expression and community engagement.

Vision

As a premier land-grant university, The University of Arizona plays a vital role in building a thriving state. The University offers the highest quality education, excels in creating new knowledge that has worldwide impact, and provides leadership and collaboration to address the challenging issues facing Arizona, the nation and the world.  The University is about quality, discovery, and opportunity. To better serve future generations, The University of Arizona will be one of the 10 best public research universities.

The Priorities that Guide Us

Academic Excellence:  The University of Arizona must be a center for excellence in education and research. We must put people first. Our focus must always be on serving our students and supporting our faculty, professionals, and staff. An outstanding faculty is the foundation for academic excellence, attracting and educating the best undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. Recruiting, retaining, and supporting outstanding scholar/teachers is our highest priority.

Access and Success:  An education at The University of Arizona must prepare students for a productive future and must be accessible to all who are academically qualified. Economic or social status cannot be a barrier. The University must engage, retain, and graduate its students in the greatest numbers possible.  

Quality of Life and Societal Impact:  In keeping with the University’s land-grant mission, The University of Arizona must serve as an engine for economic development and as a source of inspiration that enriches individual lives and advances the collective wellbeing of our society. Across every discipline, and on a daily basis, the University is improving the human condition for the people of Arizona.

PLANNING CONTEXT

Demographic, economic, and social factors: Arizona’s population is expected to double in the next 30 years. Growth in the Hispanic population will be even more dramatic, especially the college-age population.
Implications:  The University of Arizona must grow.  It must excel at recruiting, retaining, educating and graduating an increasingly diverse student body.

While agriculture and mining remain important aspects of Arizona’s economy, the state’s economy increasingly depends on knowledge, information, and creativity, and on a well-educated citizenry. As a consequence, the less educated are falling farther behind the well-educated. This gap will widen if education cannot be made accessible and effective for all our citizens, regardless of their economic or social status.
Implications:  The University of Arizona must ensure that all qualified students have access to the same educational opportunities, regardless of their means.

The University student body has changed in recent years. There is now a much broader spectrum of student preparation, from best to weakest, coming out of K-12 systems.  Many students today have jobs or other responsibilities in addition to their university studies. Implications:  In order to serve this broad spectrum of student, the University of Arizona must strengthen its infrastructure to make the university’s educational experience successful for them without compromising excellence.

The University’s financial environment:  Arizona, like most states, is financing an ever-smaller share of its state universities with state funds, increasingly shifting the cost of the educational enterprise to tuition and gifts. To ensure access in the face of tuition increases, most states have increased need-based financial aid. Arizona is an outlier: in 2003-04 only 2.4% of Arizona’s freshman university students received direct financial aid from the state; in California the figure is 23%, nationally it is 27%.
Implications:  This is perhaps the greatest challenge facing Arizona’s system of higher education. In conjunction with ASU and NAU, we must continue to work with the Regents and the legislature to achieve a more strategically satisfactory level of state-funded financial aid. The University must also redouble its efforts to secure private funding of student financial assistance.

Competition for the best students and faculty members has intensified in the last ten years. Private universities and many state universities as well, have vastly increased their endowments since the late 1990s, fueling the competition. There is also greater competition for the grants and contracts that form an increasing portion of universities’ budgets, while the funding available in this domain is expected to grow only marginally.
Implications:  The University of Arizona must become more competitive and entrepreneurial in everything it does, increasing both its endowment and external support for its research. It must manage its resources wisely and strategically.

An increasingly global future:  Education today must prepare students to become not just citizens of Arizona but also citizens of the world.  The ability of Arizonans to adapt to change and to work with people from all parts of the world will increasingly be critical for individual success and to Arizona’s economic success.
Implications:  The University of Arizona must provide students with a foundation for a lifetime of learning. The university must increase students’ abilities to understand and work with people from other cultures, from Latin America to the Pacific Rim to Europe and the Middle East. We must take full advantage of our location on the US-Mexico border. And we must develop the diverse faculty that is essential to achieving this objective. 

Health care:Prospects for the health and well-being of Arizona’s residents are increasingly threatened by the cost of health care and its implications for access. Arizona faces its own unique set of health-related issues:  one of the nation’s fastest growing populations; a large retiree population; a rapidly growing, under-served, low-income population; and special health concerns of our Native American population.
Implications:  As part of its land-grant mission, and with the state’s only public medical school, the University of Arizona must address these issues by educating increasing numbers of healthcare providers and by investing in biomedical and public health research.

Natural resources and the environment:  One of Arizona’s greatest challenges in the twenty-first century will be to maintain economic growth and quality of life in the face of increasing environmental constraints. 
Implications:  The University of Arizona’s strengths in water, environmental science, energy and sustainable engineering practices must be mobilized to meet the challenges of growth.

Building on strengths:The University of Arizona must maintain and build upon its existing strengths.  These include our widely recognized strength in fostering interdisciplinary activities, as well as specific areas of excellence related to our location in the desert southwest.  Our long-distinguished programs in astronomy, lunar and planetary science, anthropology, water and environmental sciences, and Native American studies are founded on unique features of our geography and history.  Additional strengths have been developed in other areas, such as optical sciences, biological sciences and biotechnology, psychology, communications, management information systems,  and border studies.
Implications:  The University must build on its existing strengths, while maintaining the flexibility to take advantage of new opportunities.  These areas of excellence will be central to our ability to maintain and enhance our position as a leading research university in the twenty-first century.

 

Resource Assumptions

• Support for the development of programs and initiatives outlined in this plan rests on a multifaceted financial base.  At its core, resources and progress on the initiatives outlined in this plan will be defined by the ability of the state to provide adequate resources for student growth while maintaining program quality and breadth.

• While substantial growth of the state population is anticipated, missions will be differentiated between institutions with the University of Arizona providing high quality baccalaureate and graduate degree programs, cutting edge research and a special obligation to provide statewide outreach programs as Arizona’s land grant university.

• In developing our plans, future tuition rates for resident undergraduates are expected to increase relative to the top of the bottom one-third of the fifty flagship public universities, in accordance with current ABOR policy.  Also as provided by Board policy, the university may pursue differential tuition and/or special program fees for targeted academic programs that meet policy standards.

• In establishing future tuition rates, the University is mindful of the need to ensure adequate financial aid is made available to students with financial need. Arizona is challenged as it lags virtually all other states in the amount of state-based financial aid for its residents.

• New research facilities completed in FY 2007 provide enormous benefit to the university and in our ability to attract outstanding researchers and do groundbreaking research.  This provides an advantage when increasing competition for federal funding and budget cutbacks at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have slowed the historical growth rates of grant and contract revenue.  As new Phoenix-based faculty and facilities grow, university research strength and competitiveness and will broaden.

• Resources needed in order to catch University salaries up to our benchmark peers are projected to be developed over the five-year planning period and assumes that our next State appropriations will, at a minimum, cover those increases.

• Strategic alignment of development activities and partnerships with the University mission will be a key factor in extending the base of support needed to sustain our instructional, research, and outreach excellence.

 

STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS

Prepare Arizona’s Youth & Ensure Access and Opportunity

1. Collaborate with educational partners (P-14) to prepare students early and continuously for University success
   1. Certify 5% more teachers each year, targeting underserved areas first
      1. Scale-up professional teacher preparation statewide by expanding alternative delivery models and hiring additional faculty
      2. Recruit and retain prospective teachers by increasing our financial support and by establishing STEM Teachers for Arizona, which will expand and leverage existing resources to attract students to become STEM teachers
   2. Increase need and merit-base financial aid by establishing the Arizona Assurance program and by doubling the number of endowed scholarships for undergraduates
      1. The Arizona Assurance financial aid program will improve access to an outstanding university education by providing a comprehensive financial aid package to some of our neediest Arizona resident students.
      2. To improve our ability to recruit highly qualified students, we will develop more than 80 new endowed scholarships by 2013.
2. Increase undergraduate and graduate enrollments to reflect the growth and diversity of the state.
   1. Increase enrollment of new freshman and transfer students by 200 per year, while maintaining the quality of our student body.
   2. Increase graduate enrollment such that, by 2013, graduate and first professional students will comprise 25% of the student body.
      1. To achieve this increase and successfully compete for the highest quality graduate students, we will increase the number and level of stipends and other benefits to be competitive with our peers; and we will develop 200 new graduate fellowships supported by gifts and endowments
   3. Increase student diversity and support for enrolled traditionally underrepresented students.
      1. Increase enrollment of new freshman and transfer students from traditionally underrepresented groups.
      2. Make substantial progress towards becoming a federally recognized Hispanic Serving Institution.
3. • Improve our ability to serve our growing student population by providing technological support services that are integrated and state-of-the-art as described in the UA IT Strategic Plan Goal 1 (see Appendix B).

Incremental Costs; constant/nominal dollars; in thousands
	FY 2009	FY 2010	FY 2011	FY 2012	FY 2013
General Funds	15,636.9	8,453.0	8,879.3	9,323.5	9,760.8
Other Appropriated Funds	0.0	2,140.4	2,247.4	2,359.9	2,477.8
Other Non-appropriated Funds	3,642.3	4,107.5	4,713.4	5,355.0	6,586.6
Federal Funds	2,047.9	2,034.0	2,156.0	2,285.3	2,422.5
Full-time Equivalent	150.8	118.3	128.6	139.6	155.7
Strategic Issue Total Funds	21,327.1	16,734.9	17,996.1	19,323.7	21,247.7

ENGAGE & GRADUATE STUDENTS WHO CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE STATE, NATION AND WORLD

1. Educate students to become creative, productive and engaged members of society by providing solid grounding in core skills, broad knowledge across disciplines, expertise in areas of special focus, and the ability to evaluate, integrate, and generate new knowledge.
   1. Enrich the educational environment by recruiting, rewarding and retaining excellent faculty at all ranks who are committed to both teaching and research.
   2. Enhance international, and especially cross-border, educational programs and partnerships to ensure that UA students have broad exposure to the political, social, cultural and economic challenges of the 21st century.
   3. Increase faculty diversity.

1. Improve freshman-sophomore retention and 6-year graduation rates overall and for traditionally underrepresented students by 5%.
   1. Enrich and revise our practices in support of retention and graduation based on the results of assessment instruments (such as NSSE, student exit surveys, etc.).
   2. Improve the coordination of early outreach, recruitment, admissions, articulation, curriculum planning, orientation and advising towards increasing retention from the earliest stages of the university’s engagement with students.
2. Expand course availability and access to majors to reflect planned enrollment growth
   1. Target growth in faculty to reflect student need as well as opportunities for academic excellence. 
   2. Develop mechanisms to assure increased access to high-demand, high-quality courses through UA South and UA Continuing Education
   3. Provide the tools and technologies needed for alternative delivery of courses, online learning spaces and collaborative learning models as described in the UA IT Strategic Plan Goal 1 (see appendix B).
3. Respond to the state’s shortages of health care providers
   1. Increase BSN graduates from the College of Nursing Accelerated Partnership Program to 100 in 2009, for a college-wide total of 200 per year, (a 100% increase over 2002 as recommended in Senate Bill 1260); and, in 2009, begin to graduate students from our new Doctorate of Nursing Practice Program.
   2. Increase the number of pharmacists graduated from the Tucson campus by 5% per year; and, by expansion of the College of Pharmacy to Phoenix, increase our pharmacy enrollment by an additional 15% by 2013.
   3. Increase the enrollment of medical students by 20% per year, for a total increase of 150 students by 2013, through expansion of CoM Phoenix
4. Enable faculty and students to interact at the highest and most collaborative level possible by improving the communications infrastructure as described in the UA IT Strategic Plan Goal 3 (see appendix B).

Incremental Costs; constant/nominal dollars; in thousands
	FY 2009	FY 2010	FY 2011	FY 2012	FY 2013
General Funds	34,196.8	18,352.1	19,305.9	20,302.6	21,292.8
Other Appropriated Funds	0.0	3,537.5	3,745.9	3,933.2	4,129.8
Other Non-appropriated Funds	3,035.3	3,423.0	3,927.9	4,462.5	5,488.9
Federal Funds	2,048.0	2,034.0	2,156.0	2,285.4	2,422.5
Full-time Equivalent	274.5	187.9	202.4	217.9	238.0
Strategic Issue Total Funds	39,280.1	27,376.6	29,135.7	30,983.7	33,334.0

 

Provide World-class Research That Improves the Human Condition in Arizona and Beyond

1. Build on our national leadership in interdisciplinary and collaborative research
1. Expand our infrastructure and increase our funding of interdisciplinary projects and programs across the university
1. Actively identify emerging scholarly areas worthy of investment
2. Ongoingly improve processes and incentives to maximize collaborative and interdisciplinary research and teaching
2. Establish the expectation that all academic leaders will engage in ongoing review of the current structure of disciplines and departments to identify possibilities for innovative collaboration and reorganization.
2. Lead the nation in research and outreach activities that are critical to our state’s future:
1. Climate, Environmental, Water and Energy Sustainability
2. Southwest, Native American, Borderlands, and Latin American Studies
3. Biosciences and Biotechnology
4. Optics
5. Space Exploration and Observation
6. Creative Arts, Languages and Language Acquisition
7. Law, Public Policy and Entrepreneurship
8. Biomedical and Behavioral Health
9. Youth Development Programs
3. Support the creation of new knowledge by increasingly and effectively securing our information assets and intellectual property as described in the UA IT Strategic Plan Goals 4, 5, & 6 (see Appendix B).

Incremental Costs; constant/nominal dollars; in thousands
	FY 2009	FY 2010	FY 2011	FY 2012	FY 2013
General Funds	24,296.1	12,916.0	13,613.4	14,344.6	15,079.4
Other Appropriated Funds	0.0	713.5	749.2	786.6	826.0
Other Non-appropriated Funds	3,035.3	3,423.0	3,927.9	4,462.5	5,488.9
Federal Funds	12,288.2	12,203.8	12,936.0	13,712.2	14,534.9
Full-time Equivalent	292.1	214.6	230.6	247.7	269.5
Strategic Issue Total Funds	39,619.6	29,256.3	31,226.5	33,305.9	35,929.2

 

Partner with and Serve the People of Arizona

1. Contribute to the richness and vibrancy of the community by providing cultural, artistic and athletic events.
2. Serve as an incubator and magnet for talent. Increase our endowment, and specifically, increase to 100 the number of endowed chairs, to ensure that we serve Arizona with the best people and programs.
3. Develop partnerships with public, private and non-profit sector organizations locally and throughout Arizona.
   1. Share research with and provide direct services to the people of Arizona
   2. Enhance technology transfer and incubation of spin-off businesses
   3. Share expertise through Cooperative Extension programs
   4. Develop the Phoenix Biomedical Campus to bring the University’s research and medical expertise to Arizona’s largest population center, while continuing to develop and strengthen the Arizona Health Sciences programs in Tucson.
   5. Expand clinical health care services throughout the state through telemedicine and other programs
      1. Leverage TRIF-funded activities in support of our application for the state-wide Clinical and Translational Science Award to disseminate translational and clinical research, education and best practices in clinical care throughout the state

Incremental Costs; constant/nominal dollars; in thousands
	FY 2009	FY 2010	FY 2011	FY 2012	FY 2013
General Funds	11,362.2	6,159.0	6,466.0	6,785.7	7,099.0
Other Appropriated Funds	0.0	713.5	749.2	786.6	826.0
Other Non-appropriated Funds	2,428.2	2,738.4	3,142.3	3,570.0	4,391.1
Federal Funds	4,096.1	4,067.9	4,312.0	4,570.7	4,845.0
Full-time Equivalent	128.2	97.8	105.9	114.5	126.6
Strategic Issue Total Funds	17,886.5	13,678.8	14,669.6	15,713.1	17,161.2

 

APPENDIX A

Project Status and Building Needs Map

 

APPENDIX B

The University of ARizona Information Technology STrategic Plan 2008-2012 (pdf)

 

Accountability Measures

(coming soon)