Strategic Plan 2018-2025 - Goal #1

Goal #1: Western will provide a transformational education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences and based on innovative scholarship, research, and creative activity.

Western´s educational experience will continue to be rooted in an active teaching and learning environment with a liberal arts and sciences foundation and robust co-curricular, internship, research, creative, and community engagement opportunities. Western will prepare students to be successful and engaged members of society, and will provide the tools to work in and across disciplines to identify and creatively solve key societal problems, both local and global. Western will recruit the best faculty and staff to support the growth and sustained flourishing of programs, departments, and centers that do this vital work.

  1. Strengthen the liberal arts and sciences foundation to ensure and expand student access to the breadth of our undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs.
  2. Provide tools and experiences for all students to follow their intellectual curiosity, to work across disciplines, and to develop the skills, knowledge, and habits of mind that will enable them to effectively contribute to evolving societal needs.
  3. Increase support and infrastructure for all types of scholarship, research, and creative activity.
  4. Ensure that all students have access to high quality educational experiences beyond the classroom.
  5. Review and improve general education requirements and programs of study at the undergraduate and graduate levels to ensure they foster the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind required in a dynamic world.
  6. Through shared governance, align budgeting, capital planning and development to allow for agility in response to changes in student interests, state needs, and knowledge production and dissemination.
  7. Provide technological and other academic infrastructure to support curricular innovation, research, scholarship, and creative activity, civic engagement and social justice.