VCU Board of Visitors approves strategic plan

By Pamela DiSalvo Lepley

The Virginia Commonwealth University Board of Visitors today approved VCU 2020 Vision for Excellence, the university’s strategic plan.

The plan, described as the university’s roadmap for the next 15 years, is built around two priorities – to enhance the student experience and to aggressively build up the research enterprise at the university – two seemingly competitive interests in higher education.

“This is a transformative plan, unusual for a large, urban research institution, that sets forth the vision to achieve national recognition as a learning-centered research university that embraces a world-class student experience,” said Eugene P. Trani, Ph.D., VCU President. “Our faculty, students, alumni and community members have thoughtfully contributed to the plan and are in agreement on what VCU is and where it is going.”

The strategic plan rests upon five themes:

·        Ensuring and maintaining the highest levels of university effectiveness, accountability and infrastructure support required to achieve its mission.

·        Achieving national recognition as a learning-centered research university that embraces a world-class student experience.

·        Assuring continued international recognition for VCU’s research, scholarship and creative expression.

·        Achieving preeminence for VCU’s academic medical center.

·        Maintaining VCU as a model for university-community partnerships.

Forty initiatives address these themes – each one assigned to specific individuals or offices at VCU to be implemented. Two of the initiatives, the University College and the University Compact, are geared to ensuring the success of first-year students, many of whom are first-generation college students and who are often unprepared for the rigors of higher education.

“We have really concentrated our resources on a first-year course of study that will ensure they will succeed in their freshman year and be prepared for their succeeding years and will graduate,” said Stephen D. Gottfredson, Ph.D., co-chair of the strategic planning commission and provost and vice president for academic affairs. “We are guaranteeing to our students and their families that a student graduating from VCU has the skills that they need for lifelong learning, which really is what it’s all about.”

A significant portion of the strategic plan is focused on accelerating VCU’s research programs. VCU’s research budget has grown dramatically over the past eight years – from $90 million in 1997 to $206 million in 2005 – and needs to grow more to ensure a competitive edge not only for the university, but also for the Richmond area and the state.

“The contributions of research, to the university, the community, to the commonwealth and to society are broad and extensive, especially in terms of economic development and creative vibrancy” said Sheldon M. Retchin, M.D., strategic planning commission co-chair and vice president for health sciences and CEO of the VCU Health System.  

In particular the plan includes an ambitious research agenda for the VCU School of Medicine – a six-year, $327 million initiative that includes the recruitment of about 100 research faculty, expansion of the graduate basic science programs and the construction of new laboratory and education space.

The VCU strategic plan was developed over the past 18 months with the input of more than 600 individuals – faculty, staff, students, alumni and members of the Richmond community. Some 129 presentations were made during the process.

It was undertaken just as the General Assembly passed the Higher Education Restructuring Act, requiring universities to develop six-year academic and financial plans simultaneously. The plan includes budgets and timeframes for implementation of the initiatives, three-quarters of which are expected to be accomplished in the next four to five years.

“The university is absolutely poised to realize this strategic plan,” said Retchin. “State government recognizes the vitality of this university. We have a great message in terms of being a portal for first-generation entry college students, for having a mission of serving society’s disadvantaged and for being an enormous source of creativity and economic strength for the region.”