Dear Members of the Lehigh Community,
Thank you to the more than 225 of you who joined us for Wednesday’s campus-wide strategic planning conversation marking our halfway point in the strategic planning process—an exciting moment! The strategic planning working groups presented four initiatives that have emerged through the many discussions and conversations they have been having throughout the fall, prompted in large part by the thoughtful contributions and ideas submitted by members of the Lehigh community. The feedback provided on Wednesday and through the portal on these draft initiatives will help further shape and define their direction, and serve to guide the creation of additional proposed initiatives (which we expect to number approximately 10 in the final plan) that will be included in the strategic plan to be written this spring.
Your feedback is needed. The video presentations from each working group have been posted to the Idea Portal. Whether or not you were able to attend the event, we encourage you to share your feedback and comments in the portal, with an eye toward the evaluation criteria below:
1. The proposal’s alignment with Lehigh’s mission;
2. The proposal’s breadth and depth of potential impact (global, local, regional, national)
3. The proposal’s ability to build Lehigh’s distinction
4. Lehigh’s capacity and feasibility to execute the proposal
These criteria will continue to inform the evaluation of the remaining initiatives as they take shape over the next few months.
What’s next? When the group of ten or so initiatives has been fully formed, they will be assessed again holistically to determine any patterns, which will then inform the development of our strategic goals; as opposed to initiatives, which are specific collections of projects, the strategic goals (likely three) will be broad statements that will guide Lehigh over the next five to 10 years. We are planning a second campus conversation in February where members of the Lehigh community will hear how things are starting to take shape as we develop the draft plan. More details will follow in the new year.
Our strategic plan is our roadmap to direct investments and to innovate and face the future needs of higher education—as well as the societal, national and global challenges that our academic and research mission is designed to meet head-on. All points indicate Lehigh is ready for this challenge. Thank you for your continued participation in the planning process.
It is our future, our Lehigh,
Nathan Urban
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Chris Cook
Vice President of Strategic Planning and Initiatives