Our Vision Plan Process
Hundreds of faculty, staff and students helped to develop the vision pillars and change strategies during fall semester 2024. Six Vision Teams, representing more than 60 individuals from across our campuses, prepared detailed recommendations on how to become a stronger university. Hundreds more provided feedback, ideas, and data to inform our deliberations. Our shared governance leaders helped to refine and prioritize the vision ideas to distill the direction of our plan. In the spirit of collaboration, this is truly a universitywide vision plan.
Within six months, UW-Eau Claire collaboratively developed our 2030 Vision Plan for Distinction. We thank the many individuals who shared their ideas, provided feedback and gave generously of their time.
Introducing the Vision
At the beginning of the fall 2024 semester, Chancellor Schmidt shared with the campus community a vision for creating a stronger university in the face of decreasing enrollment, increasing competition and changing student needs. Listen as he outlined his vision during the annual Blugold Breakfast. The vision became the starting point for the campus community to develop the key goals, strategies, and components for change.
Our Vision Teams
Almost 60 individuals, selected from 170 volunteers, formed six teams to address key aspects of the vision. Under the leadership of Vision co-chairs Mary Hoffman, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and Gregg Heinselman, dean of students, they worked for five weeks to create detailed reports outlining the actions they recommended for greatest impact. Vision teams were aided in their work by:
Idea Sprint – Faculty, staff and students gathered to share their ideas with the vision teams.
Digital Vision Board – Hundreds of individuals contributed digital comments and feedback on the vision and the ideas proposed by the vision teams.
Vision Briefing – Vision Teams presented their recommendations in person to enable the campus community to learn about their ideas, provide additional input, and add their ideas.
Vision Reports – Each of the Vision Teams completed detailed reports, inviting additional campus comment before they were submitted to the chancellor for his review.
Thank you to the members of the Vision Teams for their exemplary work and many contributions.
Campus Conversations
As the Vision Teams developed their recommendations, conversations and ideas were shared at:
- Two Chancellor Briefings, both streamed live and shared campuswide
- Meetings with all chairs and all directors
- University Planning Committee meetings
- Meetings with University Senate, University Senate Executive Committee, and University Staff Council
- Idea session with Student Senate
- Update to the UW-Eau Claire Foundation Board
Shared Governance Review and Recommendations
When the Vision Team reports were shared with the campus community, 60 invited members of the University Senate Executive Committee, University Staff Council, Student Senate, and Chancellor’s Extended Executive Team met in a half-day retreat to review the report recommendations, identify the key strategies with the greatest impact, and recommend a framework and priority strategies to the chancellor for the Vision Plan. Their framework was then shared with the campus community and additional comments invited.
Drafting the Plan
Based on the framework provided by the shared governance retreat and additional campus comments, Vision Plan co-chairs and the University Planning Committee developed a draft Vision Plan. It was shared with the campus community, shared governance, the Chancellor’s National Leadership Council and university leaders for final review.
Thank you to the University Planning Committee for overseeing the planning process and Vision Plan.
Vision Team reports and campus comments are archived and available to UW-Eau Claire faculty and staff in our Strategic Planning Intranet documents.
