University of Utah President Taylor Randall recently announced the rollout of the U’s new strategic plan, Impact 2030: Reaching for New Heights. The strategy was more than a year in the making and included input from survey responses from more than 11,000 participants, including students, faculty, staff and community members, and 14 highly attended listening sessions. As this updated plan shapes the future of the U, here are Chief Strategy Officer Brett Graham’s top takeaways to keep in mind.
The purpose of Impact 2030 is to align and inspire
Strategic plans are common in the corporate world, but why does a nonprofit research university need a strategic plan? In many ways, the purpose of the strategic plan is to clarify the goals of the university’s leadership to provide something with which the community can be inspired by and align. Randall’s goals are audacious. We aren’t aiming to be a top-50 public institution, we are aiming for the top 10. Drawing on a crew analogy, Impact 2030 is designed to help the entire university community “row” in the same direction. When we are in sync, we accelerate progress.
This strategic plan affects all of campus
With the rollout of Impact 2030, operational changes and unit-level initiatives are being shaped to support the forward direction of the U. It affects the campus in three ways:
- At a time when higher ed is facing headwinds and declining enrollments, Impact 2030 shows that the U has bold aspirations, goals to grow and plans to accomplish it.
- For those who wonder what the top priorities of the leadership of the U are, Impact 2030 represents a clear guide to the goals and initiatives supported by the president, senior vice president of health sciences and senior vice president for academic affairs.
- The boldness of Impact 2030 and the clarity it brings allow opportunities for individuals to plug in, support the mission and understand the benefit of these collective efforts. This plan marks a star on the course we have charted to climb to greater heights.
Impact 2030 outlines how we achieve “unsurpassed societal impact”
Almost as soon as Randall took the helm in 2021—partway through the previous strategic plan cycle—he talked about his vision for the U through a lens of “innovate, inspire and impact.” As he gained more insight into the strengths and opportunities facing the university, he honed in on his desire for the U to be a leader among all universities in developing a new national model for impact. He took that a step further in 2022 by launching Six Commitments to Our Community, introducing the idea that the U would become a top-10 public university with unsurpassed societal impact.
Impact 2030 takes these foundational ideas and codifies them into a strategic plan that can stand as a guide in our accreditation process, align the entire university and University of Utah Health system and set a measurable line of site to becoming a university of impact.
It also defines what we mean by “unsurpassed societal impact”
Based on extensive feedback and conversation throughout the strategic planning process, Impact 2030 also defines what we mean when we say, “we aspire to be a top-10 university with unsurpassed societal impact.” We’re referring to positive, measurable change—both immediate and generational—in the quality of life of individuals across our state resulting from our teaching, research, service and health care efforts. This change happens in a context of responsible stewardship and reciprocity with our local and state partners as we collaborate across differences to address Utah’s most pressing problems.
Impact 2030 features a refined mission, vision and values
Impact 2030 offers a refreshed articulation of the University of Utah’s mission, vision, and values—building on our strong foundation while aligning with the challenges and opportunities ahead. The mission encompasses the full scope of the university, including our academic, research, clinical and community efforts. University of Utah Health is finalizing a complementary strategic plan that aligns with Impact 2030, reinforcing our shared vision and providing a unified foundation for the university’s pillars, goals and initiatives.
The values reflect the thousands of voices that shaped the plan. The first three—Inspire Students, Accelerate Discovery and Serve Communities—serve as a compass pointing to our core priorities. The latter three— Promote Well-being, Be Entrepreneurial and Amplify Place—form a roadmap for how we achieve them.
The student success pillar focuses on metrics to help students graduate
One of the key goals of Impact 2030 is to fuel the economy with a highly skilled workforce. Key metrics—including tracking how long it takes students to complete their degree and how many students find employment in a related field when they graduate—and initiatives highlighted in the student success pillar tie together efforts to help students work toward completion in the clearest way and with the most information. These efforts include the platform Navigate U, more proactive academic advising that improves planning and gives students more control and insight into their path through the U, and career placement support.
Research efforts are key to impacting society
The goals and initiatives highlighted in the research pillar are the marquis efforts at the U to grow research in specific areas. In this plan, the U will diversify and grow its research portfolio, improve the quality and outreach of its research and accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship for societal impact. Our measure of success toward these goals includes tracking our research expenditures and increasing our creative scholarship. We want to increase research dollars because those dollars translate into more students—graduate and undergraduate—who can participate in conducting this research. To become a top-10 university with unsurpassed societal impact, we need to explore transfer technology opportunities and deepen our pursuit of grants.
Service is a key part of impacting our community
The service pillar highlights presidential initiatives that have a direct impact on our community and overlap with our health sciences goals. Through our investment in Responsible AI, an initiative to build a world-class medical campus in West Valley City and expanding the reach of the Huntsman Mental Health Center, the U will make strides toward achieving our goal to pioneer new models of delivering societal impact.
