Steering Committee, Subcommittees Begin Work on New Five-Year Strategic Plan

The process to develop Old Dominion's 2014-2019 Strategic Plan is under way. Provost Carol Simpson and Ellen Neufeldt, vice president for student engagement and enrollment services, are serving as co-chairs of the new five-year plan Steering Committee.

"Our main themes for the next Strategic Plan will pick up from the many successes of our current plan," Simpson said. (See http://www.odu.edu/about/planning/strategic-plan-0914/results.)

Themes for the new plan will include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

1. Academic and Research Strengths
   • Engaging and innovative teaching, both face-to-face and online
   • Real-world experiential learning for students
   • Interdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate programs that are relevant to future job opportunities
2. Enrollment Management and Student Services
   • Affordability
   • Right-sizing and shaping ODU's enrollment and cultural fabric
   • Retention and graduation rates
   • Student onboarding/integrated service model/special populations
3. Economic Development
   • Economic development initiatives with Community Foundation Organization and others
   • Translational research
   • Partnering with Elevate Early Education organization and others on early childhood education
   • Exploration of joint School of Public Health option with EVMS
4. Entrepreneurship
   • Supporting tomorrow's innovators through an interdisciplinary entrepreneurial curriculum
   • Entrepreneurial Center with co-curricular programs
   • Entrepreneurial research and commercialization efforts
5. Community and Student Engagement: Campus to Global
   • Campus life, student engagement and service learning
   • Integration into faculty research and teaching
   • Internationalization of the curriculum and purposeful international partnerships
   • Continuing and Professional Education offerings.

   Serving on the Steering Committee are: M'Hammed Abdous (DL), Debbie Bauman (CoHS), David Earnest (A&L), Karen Eck (ODU-OR), Charles Sukenik (CoS), Trianne Smith (student), Linda Miller-Dunleavy (DCoE), Terrell Kingwood (student SGA rep), Johnny Young (SEES), Jane Dané (SEES), Dan Genard (Advancement), Stacie Ringleb (BCET), Roy Ogle (CoHS), Rusty Waterfield (ITS), Chandra DeSilva (AA), Chris Glass (DCoE), Jennifer Fish (A&L) and Don Stansberry (SEES). Scott Harrison (SEES) staffs the committee.

   The subcommittees and their co-chairs are:

   • Academic and Research Strengths - Bauman and Earnest
   • Enrollment Management - Dané and Young
   • Economic Development and Entrepreneurship - Ringleb and Waterfield
   • Community Engagement - Locally and Globally - DeSilva and Stansberry.

Complete listings of subcommittee members can be found at the Strategic Plan website: http://www.odu.edu/about/planning/strategicplan14-19/committees.

Simpson said there will be ample opportunity for members of the campus community to provide feedback about the new plan through forums and open discussion boards, which will be announced once they are scheduled. Suggestions may also be sent to officeofthepresident@odu.edu.