Development work on Metropolitan State University of Denver’s first dedicated academic strategic plan kicked off in June. Led by Provost Laura Niesen de Abruña, Ph.D., the process will engage University deans, associate vice presidents, senior leaders, faculty members and students who together will craft academic goals that align with the University’s 2030 Strategic Plan and Student Affairs Strategic Plan.
The process was an important step for Niesen de Abruña, who, — building on her wealth of knowledge, experience and academic achievements — has dedicated her first semester as a Roadrunner to studying the University.
“I strategically came to MSU Denver ready to listen and learn and was careful not to bring specific goals or priorities from other experiences,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of ideas, but I want to first see how they sync with the rest of the core team as well as the senior leadership team and president.”
The strategic-planning process will determine Niesen de Abruña’s priorities and will engage several planning theories, such as future environmental scanning, appreciative inquiry and analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Additionally, Niesen de Abruña will seek input from various University stakeholder groups. The process began this month with a retreat with core academic leaders and will engage employees and students in fall.
Reimagining the Office of the Provost
Recognizing the talent and experience across the University’s associate vice presidents and deans, Niesen de Abruña also wants to better leverage their management and leadership skills and empower them to make decisions on behalf of the Office of the Provost.
“I want to move the Office of the Provost and its leadership from operational to strategic,” she said. “One of the ways of getting us to that point is the strategic–planning process. It’s a way to identify (priority) issues and to also (ensure) integration with people who will carry out (those priorities).”
Opportunities and online learning and beyond
While Niesen de Abruña sees plenty of exciting and strategic opportunities in health education, aerospace and engineering sciences, graduate programs, international education and study-abroad, she has also spent years advocating for the advancement of online learning. Using her background with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Every Learner Everywhere Network, she has used her first semester at MSU Denver to take a closer look at online learning capabilities and policies, specifically the University’s policy of canceling classes for snow days rather than moving to online modalities.
“(Campus leaders) initially assumed that our students would not be able to move to a virtual day, but the institution made do during the pandemic and figured out how to accommodate the students who didn’t have laptops,” she said. “In canceling, you throw away thousands of hours of instructional time and learning outcomes that students may or may not get back.”
After students were surveyed on their digital-device access and remote-learning capabilities, more than 90% of respondents reported they had access to a cellphone or laptop.
Niesen de Abruña wants to further leverage the virtual environment to explore better engaging nontraditional and graduate-level students, developing new certificate programs and targeting older students who desire greater flexibility via asynchronous, hybrid or cohort models.
To ask questions or submit ideas and feedback, Roadrunners can contact the Office of the Provost at [email protected].