Higher ed is going through a “vibe shift.”

Faltering public confidence, questions about cost and value, and federal and state budget cuts are stirring headwinds for colleges and universities across the country. How institutions respond to those challenges and transition to new ways of teaching, researching and, in the case of academic medical centers, providing patient care, will determine which institutions survive and thrive, and which struggle and constrict.

University of Utah leaders see an opportunity for reinvention.

In the coming weeks and months, the university itself will go through a vibe shift—one that connects the strategic planning of  Impact 2030 with a nuts-and-bolts realignment and thoughtful reallocation of resources.

“This is a moment of reinvention, for us, and for universities in general,” President Taylor Randall told members of the President’s Leadership Council on April 2. “The ones that do it best, the ones that respond to external forces quicker, the ones that actually match and meet the needs of their community and also the national audience, are the ones that are going to lead.”

The president aims to position the U to lead.

“We have to work smarter,” Randall said.

Working smarter will mean softening entrenched department and college silos so ideas and resources can flow through, aligning and realigning efforts and initiatives, and, at times, reallocating resources across campus—essentially rethinking how the university fulfills its mission to educate, research and serve.

View the framework here:

In the fall of 2023, university leaders launched a collaborative strategic planning process—gathering input from more than 10,000 campus stakeholders and community members to guide the university’s strategic initiatives for the next five years. The effort is grounded in the university’s mission to prepare students to be leaders and global citizens, generate and share knowledge that improves lives, and engage communities to advance education, health, and quality of life.

The broader goals have not changed. Some metrics include:

• Growing the student body to 40,000
• Advancing student success by ensuring 80% of U students graduate within 6 years
• Placing 90% of those students in good jobs upon graduation
• Garnering $1 billion in annual research funding, and
• Serving the community and impacting the lives of all 3.5 million Utahns

And through it all, becoming a top 10 public university with unsurpassed societal impact.

The Impact 2030 values include: inspiring students by awakening their curiosity; accelerating discovery through transformative and practical research; serving communities; promoting well-being; being entrepreneurial and creative to drive progress; and amplifying the university’s sense of place.

“There is a lot of really detailed work that’s changing fundamental ways in which we advise and support students, invest in our faculty and continue to advance the teaching mission,” Provost Mitzi Montoya said. “We’re making progress. It is very hard to move these needles, and particularly to do so faster than a typical path that would lead us on this journey. But we’re determined to get there by 2030.”

Putting Impact 2030 into practice will require kicking the university’s goals into high gear:

• Using software and training tools like Navigate U and human capital like progressively trained academic advisors to boost student retention and success
• Diversifying the university’s research portfolio and building up new hubs that recognize and magnify the U’s strengths
• Pioneering new models of patient care, including the use of Responsible AI, and taking the U’s exceptional healthcare to communities in West Valley City and Vineyard

“One of the most impactful ways we can serve our community is by providing accessible healthcare to all our residents,” said Bob Carter, senior vice president for Health Sciences. “Recent events to mark our expansion of services in West Valley and Vineyard underscore our dedication to delivering the high-quality, compassionate care that U Health is known for, closer to home. These new facilities will enhance access, improve health outcomes, and strengthen the well-being of every community we serve.”

At the same time, the university will realign department and college-level initiatives over the next five years to continually improve and optimize resources for people, spaces, technology and financial resources.

Some of that work has already started. The U Career workforce initiative will launch this summer, streamlining job descriptions and titles to help university workers align with the market and advance their careers. Over the course of the past year, “One U Advancement” has realigned internal structures to centralize donor relations efforts and position the U for more fundraising success. And the Operational Excellence initiatives have already identified duplication of efforts and found significant cost avoidance and savings for the institution.

University leaders acknowledge the change could impact most campus community members—students, faculty and staff—personally. And while the change may be difficult, they are confident in the campus community’s collective ability to adapt and thrive. This is an existential effort; the university’s future depends on every person building resilience and embracing a new way of doing things.

“I hope we’ll all rise to this incredible opportunity we have. This place just has this willingness to try new things like no other place. That’s entrepreneurial. That is our strength,” Randall said. “It doesn’t mean I need you all starting a company. It means I need you bringing your ideas to us, thinking out of the box, and trying to be very different from other institutions. That’s what is spectacular about the University of Utah.”