The strategic planning process has been ongoing since January 2019 and is meant to guide decisions and pursuits for the University overall throughout the next five years and beyond.

The Strategic Planning Committee, made up more than 45 faculty, staff, administrators, students, and alumni, developed a vision statement for the University — “Transforming Lives, Advancing Communities” — and an enhanced mission statement:

Ina, Deskubre, Setbe: The University of Guam empowers the region by uniting island wisdom with universal sources of enlightenment to support exceptional education, discovery, and service that respect and benefit local and global communities.

The committee also solicited ideas and feedback from the University community through a series of online surveys. Based on the survey responses, and also on the work from strategic planning initiatives and efforts in the past 20 years, the committee worked to prioritize those ideas and to develop six corresponding Strategic Initiatives, Goals, Objectives, and Actions.

“We wanted to make sure we were finishing up any loose ends … building on all of the ideas that had come through those various earlier phases of strategic planning,” Krise said.

The final product of the planning process puts forth the following strategic initiatives for the University:

1. Become a research university, seeking renown for island wisdom and environmental sustainability
2. Lead as a partnership university, becoming the nexus for partnerships in Guam and all of Micronesia
3. Enrich the student experience
4. Become a model for operations and customer service in Guam and Micronesia
5. Grow our financial resources
6. Build and sustain our infrastructure

“These are the high-level categories that all the particular goals and programs will fall underneath,” Krise said.

The Board of Regents will review the framework of the proposed strategic plan at its regular meeting on Sept. 18. The complete details of the plan will be finalized soon with additional help from faculty, staff, and students, and actions will begin to be carried out.