Every journey has its unexpected turns, so a roadmap is essential to help plot the most effective route to the destination. Over the course of Michigan State University’s 170-year history, the university has had to adapt to and navigate shifting landscapes.
The MSU 2030 strategic plan provides us with a vital framework to help us chart our way forward and pursue our highest aspirations, and it is one reason I was excited to join the Spartan community. Upon my arrival, I encouraged our community to continue its good work to forge a bold future by considering three key questions:
- How will MSU continue to prepare students for careers and jobs that don’t yet exist?
- What will it take for MSU to maintain and strengthen its position among the top tier of global research institutions?
- How will the university contribute to the great scientific, medical and social challenges of our time?
To learn more about the community, I embarked on an extensive listening and learning tour of our colleges and administrative units, gaining insight into perspectives on the above questions and about how we are aligning work with the university’s strategic plan. It has been inspiring to hear about the creative ways colleges, departments and units are pursuing our goals to help us become more strategic, bold and student-focused.
I appreciate that the plan recognizes our people as the university’s greatest asset and the beating heart of the institution. By supporting their success, we position the university to advance the very best education and workplace culture for Spartans, together with value and service to the public in the land-grant tradition.
I was also encouraged by the plan’s emphasis on interdisciplinary initiatives. Cross-college collaborations are essential to solve the grand challenges of our time, and Michigan State’s world-class faculty are already taking on many tough, multifaceted issues such as climate resilience and water quality, applications of artificial intelligence and data science, emerging technologies and cancer health disparities.
Since the plan’s adoption in 2021, Michigan State has accomplished a great deal, from our Spartan Tuition Advantage program expanding access to an MSU degree to significantly growing our research expenditures. I am more certain than ever of our capacity to reach our goals, which we are supporting with new and exciting strategic initiatives. The Williams Scholarship, for example, offers full-ride grants to top incoming students, while the Green and White Council, a group of engaged Michigan leaders and executives, will help inform the ways we prepare students for the economic and employment challenges of the future.
The process to refresh, reframe, reimagine and reaffirm MSU 2030 is an important waypoint for us. It offers opportunities to reflect on our successes and challenges, to consider how both MSU and the world have changed and absorb any lessons learned and adjust to ensure a successful trajectory.
As we grow and continue to become more contemporary, connected and future-focused, our reframed plan introduces key themes that bridge organizational and planning structures. These cross-cutting themes do not replace the plan’s six priorities, which continue to provide its foundation, but elevate and energize a one-team approach. Taken together with thoughtful updates to goals, objectives and key initiatives to reach our goals, we’ve arrived at a sharpened vision for MSU that accelerates our pursuit of excellence for global impact.
No single discipline will solve the grand challenges of our time. We need what I call a “synergy-unleashed” approach of bringing together the arts, humanities and sciences in innovative new ways. For example, clinician scientists, chemists and computer scientists are all critically important in solving problems around drug delivery systems. However, we also need humanists and social scientists who can help us understand how people interface with the outcomes of such work.
Imagine how a stronger culture of collaboration could spark new ideas and research across disciplines that support prosperity and quality of life in every corner of our state. Imagine how it could better prepare our students to view the world through different lenses and become engaged citizens and leaders. And imagine how it could strengthen the sense of community that makes Michigan State such a special place.
Simply put, further embracing collaboration and connectivity in our work will help us build on our rich land-grant traditions while becoming a bolder, more contemporary institution focused on the future.
I’m confident that with this refreshed strategic plan, Michigan State will become ever more connected to society and its needs, a more powerful talent magnet and activator for our state and better equipped to address and overcome the grand global challenges of today and tomorrow.