FOSTERING TOMORROW'S LEADERS

To enable growth, to support students and to continuously innovate, we must get our systems, structures and processes in order. To respond to changing economic, environmental and societal needs, we must have flexible structures that support collaboration. To effectively work across our institution and our communities, we must have systems that enable connectivity. To support the diverse needs of our students, we must have processes that respect those they serve. To enhance the quality of our student experiences, our ability to attract and retain students, and our commitment to quality teaching and learning, we must align these systems, structures and process. This alignment will provide the foundation upon which we will build, grow and achieve.

To achieve our institutional commitment to “boundless collaboration” we must reduce barriers that negatively impact our students’ experiences and our ability to attract and retain our learners, and our desire to transform learning. To support the academic and engagement goals of our colleges and schools, we must seek solutions that support partnerships and mitigate challenges of distance: virtually and physically. We must create safe and sustainable environments that embolden collaboration and acknowledge the diversity of need.

Enhancing and aligning systems, structures and processes require us to focus on three goals:

• Leverage technologies.
  We will optimize existing and new technologies to enhance our academic and student experiences. We will create a sustainable environment for our learners, our teachers and our decision makers by reducing redundancies and optimizing space. We will support data-informed decisions and contribute to a culture of accountability and transparency.
  
  
• Streamline processes.
  We will enhance service by simplifying processes and reducing bureaucracy. We will develop inclusive processes that recognize the whole person and the diversity of our student needs. We will ensure that our processes are created in partnership, work for the user, and are clearly communicated to students, staff and faculty, and community partners.
  
  
• Optimize resources.
  We will seek sustainable, flexible solutions that enhance the quality of our programs and services. We will grow strategically in response to need and capacity. We will cultivate a culture of respect that enables faculty, staff and students to fulfill their potential.

The following five pursuits will demonstrate our success in enhancing and aligning systems, structures and processes:

• Measurable and effective use of our resources, including our spaces, our people and our finances, to create sustainable supports, learning environments and services.
  
  
• Measurable reductions in “red-tape” by streamlining, clarifying, communicating and simplifying academic and student policies and processes across the institution through collaboration and partnership.
  
  
• Strategic growth in new academic programs designed to meet the economic, environmental and social needs of our communities and in existing programs with capacity.
  
  
• Measurable improvements in our level of student and staff engagement and satisfaction at the unit and institutional levels.
  
  
• Investing in and enhancing our virtual infrastructure to align with our strategic priorities, increase efficiencies and transparency, and create timely, integrative, flexible and user-friendly systems, policies and technologies.

To be globally recognized, we must share our stories. We must do so with respect, humility, and with a sense of boldness that showcases our achievements, our potential and our impact on the world. We seek to highlight stories of the incredible resiliency and resourcefulness of our communities, the creativity and curiosity of our learners, and our ability to work together to solve problems of local and international importance. We will celebrate our success in ways that reflect our diverse communities, build a sense of pride and belonging, and inspire our future leaders and learners. We will share our achievements in ways that demonstrate our responsiveness, our deep commitment to reconciliation and the quality of our student experiences.

To enhance our institutional commitment to “inspired communities”, we will highlight and celebrate the national reputation of our programs, schools and colleges. We will distinguish our graduates as well-rounded learners ready to tackle issues and challenges of global importance. We will recognize success, in our people and programs. We will elevate our profile and attract talent to our campuses.

Sharing our stories and celebrating our successes requires us to focus on three goals:

• Amplify value. We will showcase our strengths, successes, aspirations and the impact of our work. We will tell stories about the quality of our student experiences, and we will celebrate our teaching and learning achievements with a sense of humility and pride.
  
  
• Build community. We will cultivate a sense of community spirit within and beyond our institutional walls. We will enhance a sense of belonging for our learners near and far. We will be seen as a first-choice partner that fosters reciprocal learning opportunities and experiences. We will grow our international partnerships and exchanges to attract students and offer diverse experiences for our learners.
  
  
• Respond to need. We will anticipate and plan for the emerging needs of our learners. We will shift priorities to meet the needs of public partners, Indigenous communities, industry and government by remaining responsive and open to feedback. We will actively engage with our collaborators to enhance the well-being of our diverse learners and our communities.

These five pursuits will demonstrate our success in sharing our stories and celebrating our successes:

• Global recognition as a pre-eminent institution whose graduates create positive change in the world as demonstrated by our rankings, visibility and public perceptions.
  
  
• Measurable growth in undergraduate and graduate student numbers (see Appendix A), the diversity of our student body across all colleges, schools and campuses.
  
  
• Strengthening relationships with alumni, government agencies, industry, professional associations, universities, and Indigenous communities at the local, national and international level.
  
  
• Enhancing global community through focused internationalization efforts including increased number of study abroad opportunities, student participation and professional development opportunities at home and abroad.
  
  
• Reflecting community need through enhanced program offerings, conferences, and experiential learning opportunities with greater student participation and engagement.

To achieve our collective goal of reconciliation, the university must lead and support with respect. We must consistently and tirelessly demonstrate our deep commitment to changing for and with our communities inside and beyond our institutional walls.

We will continue to be intentional about decolonization as we come together in a university community of lifelong and lifewide learners. Our heartfelt value of diversity must be openly expressed and run through all of our processes, structures and experiences to ensure that we become a university that lives out intercultural competency. As we collectively realize this commitment, the university environment will be enriched for us all.

Our University has explicitly and repeatedly stated its bold and unwavering commitment to reconciliation. Our relationships with Indigenous communities have shaped who we are and who we want to be. We will embrace, inspire and celebrate Indigeneity in our teaching and learning. We will respectfully collaborate with Indigenous communities to revise and introduce programming that is grounded in Indigenous worldviews. We will create safe and welcoming spaces and learning pathways that support success for all our learners. Walking the talk of reconciliation requires us to focus on three goals:

Walking the talk of reconciliation requires us to focus on three goals:

• Commit to reconciliation. Reconciliation will be at the forefront of all we do. Our programing, our policies, our practices, our traditions, and our celebrations will respect Indigenous worldviews. We will ensure that all people are invited in to be active and essential participants in reconciliation. Our graduates will leave our institution with an understanding of Indigenous worldviews.
  
  
• Uplift Indigenous learners. We will enrich our learning and teaching environments to position Indigenous students for success. We will develop, decolonize and ground our learning activities in ways that are culturally relevant, adaptive and responsive. We will clear pathways of intentional and unintentional barriers, and ensure there is access to inclusive supports and services that facilitate engagement and relationship building. Students will feel safe, feel they belong, and have voice.
  
  
• Cultivate opportunities to learn and unlearn. We recognize our responsibilities to one another and accept different Knowledges and understanding into our learning experiences. We will offer high quality programs that foster reciprocal learning processes that are individual, co-constructed and experimental. We will support students and educators to enter into active and engaged learning opportunities that are respectful, dynamic, and continue to change as our University moves forward.

These five pursuits will demonstrate our success in walking the talk of reconciliation:

• Measurably enhancing student experiences that demonstrate feelings of engagement, safety, and a deepened understanding of Indigenous worldviews.
  
  
• Enhancing recruitment, and the development of ongoing supports, that contribute to student growth and degree completion for Indigenous students, especially in our graduate programs.
  
  
• Developing and implementing a Northern strategy that reflects and responds to local and international needs and enables “learn where you live” opportunities for life-long learners across our province.
  
  
• Creating new and enhanced academic programming and learning activities, across all programs, that are grounded in Indigenous worldviews that incorporate learning outcomes connected to Indigenous Knowledges and that are responsive to changing needs of our communities, our learners and our educators.
  
  
• Enriching practices, ceremonies, and processes that reflect Indigenous cultures in meaningful ways.

We are committed to thinking deeply and intentionally about wellness. We aim to create a learning environment that, despite differences in background and stages of life, is inclusive and supportive. We want to create and live in a university community that cares for each other, our learners and educators, individually and collectively, regardless of the physical location of the campus. We believe that learning is about the whole person and that a supportive environment can uplift people to fulfill their potential. We intend to enhance and maintain wellness, while at the same time mindfully adopt practices that reduce intentional and unintentional harm. We strive for an internationalized learning environment that reflects our diversity, our genuine appreciation for one another, and enables a strong sense of belonging and community.

Our University holds dear the conviction to Embrace Manacihitowin (respect one another). We are committed to acknowledging and celebrating diversity, and supporting the learning and practice of cultural competencies and international experiences. Collectively, we will ensure that our real and virtual spaces are user-focused, safe, accessible and inclusive and contribute to a vibrant, supportive campus climate. Collaboratively, we will develop frameworks and services that are flexible and responsive to the changing needs of our diverse learning communities and lead to positive change and connection.

Co-creating a climate of inclusion, empowerment and support requires us to focus on three goals:

• Cultivate inclusion. We are driven by the desire to offer a university experience where people can learn, create and grow in the context of diversity. This calls us to seek and achieve diversity in our people, our academic programs and our services. We will attract a diverse international student body, and we will co-create learning opportunities that lead to an informed community of global citizens.
  
  
• Honour the whole person. We acknowledge and support all aspects of wellness. We will cultivate a culture of empowerment, respect and care. We will intentionally seek out and resolve processes that cause unintentional harm, and establish an environment that promotes the health and well-being for all who study at our campuses.
  
  
• Enhance retention/completion. We will support students at the right time in the right way. We will develop, implement and strengthen flexible, learner-focused structures and programs that support students throughout the learning and development cycle. We will enable students to fulfill their potential through the development of comprehensive retention and completion strategies and services that are accessible and inclusive. We will welcome lifelong learners back to our campuses.

These five pursuits will demonstrate our success in maintaining a climate of inclusion, empowerment support:

• Increasing levels of students’ self-reported engagement in their learning and university experiences as demonstrated by changes over time and in comparison to other U15 institutions.
  
  
• Enhancing retention, where appropriate and needed, across the university and growth in graduation rates across our campuses
  
  
• Enhancing self-reported levels of student mental health and well-being, curricular change to enable positive mental health, and the expansion and effectiveness of health promotion activities and supports across our campuses.
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  Increasing the percentage of students participating in experiential learning and education abroad opportunities, especially for Indigenous students, and increasing participation in learning activities by visiting scholars.
  
  
• Measurably increasing the number of courses with learning outcomes reflecting international and cross-cultural knowledges and experiences, as well as growth in the number of extracurricular activities that foster intercultural understandings.

To foster the creativity, empathy, curiosity and resilience needed to tackle the challenges associated with our digital age and our changing and uncertain future, learning must be a lifelong pursuit. We must prepare learners for jobs yet to be imagined, and create a learning environment that enables continuous retraining, retooling and relearning. We need to provide our learners with core skills and competencies, and give them the ability, confidence and courage to apply that learning in different situations and contexts. We need to develop and support active and responsive learning activities, curricular and co-curricular, that provide our learners with opportunities to experiment and develop the human lens needed to solve the problems of today and those of tomorrow.

The University Plan challenges us to enrich disciplines and embolden partnerships. Our college and school plans offer numerous and rich opportunities for curricular change and growth. These new programs and courses defy distance, respond to community needs, and bring together expertise across our campuses and around the globe. There are brand new programs in emerging fields, there are experiential learning opportunities, and there are value-added certificates and non-credit opportunities. The foundation of all these enhanced learning activities is our commitment to quality.

Preparing learners the world needs requires us to focus on three goals:

• Enrich teaching. We will maintain and enhance respectful and inclusive learning environments and leverage technologies to support the learning of all students. Our teaching will enable the development of forward-looking core competencies and skills that our students can identify, develop and articulate. We commit to exemplifying learning by engaging in meaningful reflection and professional growth, embodying the spirit of curiosity, broad thinking and lifelong learning.
  
  
• Enhance quality. We will engage in ongoing and transparent quality enhancement including curricular renewal, sharing our successes, and opportunities for growth. We will enhance or develop programming that meets current and future societal needs, and align learning outcomes, instructional activities and assessment. We will provide access to and utilize innovative learning technologies to support our aspirations in teaching, learning and ongoing enhancement. We will grow our enrolment strategically to ensure programs and people are appropriately resourced and supported.
  
  
• Enable transformative learning. We will enhance and expand opportunities for active and practice-based learning including interdisciplinary, experiential, and work integrated learning. We will create flexible pathways for learning and support students’ development and articulation of the knowledges, understanding, skills, and attributes laid out in our Learning Charter.

These five pursuits will demonstrate our success in preparing learners the world needs:

• Enhancing graduate outcomes, including students’ self-reported development of core skills through their university experience, feelings of preparedness, and employment that utilizes their skills, as demonstrated by our own reports and measures and those of the province.
  
  
• Enhancing teaching practices, including renewed assessment practices, as evidenced by faculty reports of practice, attitudes to teaching, and perceptions of the teaching climate, as well as feedback from students indicating their course experiences here contributed to their learning.
  
  
• Consistent and ongoing quality enhancement of graduate and undergraduate learning opportunities through regular assessment of courses and programs by educators and leaders, and the resultant curricular renewal and cocurricular development.
  
  
• Strategic credit and non-credit programming development that embraces strategic priorities including interdisciplinarity, internationalization, Indigenization and the development of core skills in response to societal need, and enhanced flexibility and mobility for an increased number of students.
  
  
• Increasing number of, and access to, experiential and practice-based learning opportunities, including work integrated learning, and resulting growth of students, particularly Indigenous students, engaging in these opportunities.

We are at a pivotal moment in our history. We are living in a digital age, and experiencing a rise of technology and automation that is changing the world in which we live and work. As the world changes, so must we.

It is with this sense of exceptional possibility that we aspire to be the change we want to see. Four aspirations will guide and encourage our work over the next six years. These aspirations reflect our spirit of generosity and integrity, and our desire to foster respectful and creative leadership.

We will know that we have achieved our goals when the following hopes are realized:

• Empowered learners. We aspire to develop lifelong and lifewide learners that have the humility, conviction, skill, resilience and respect to forge new paths.
  
  
• Transformative learning. We aspire to create, and recreate, learning opportunities that respond to emerging needs and opportunities at the local, national and international level.
  
  
• Global competencies. We aspire to develop learners who deeply value diversity and collaboration, and have the fundamental competencies and skills to tackle global problems yet to be imagined.
  
  
• Inspirational leaders. We aspire to create role models and mentors who build community, and reflect the University of Saskatchewan with pride and humility.