Our Process

Our Process

During AY25, once the final draft of the University’s Strategic Plan was released, the leadership team of SPHHS (dean, associate and assistant deans, and chairs) developed a process and timeline for aligning its strategic priorities with that of the university as shown in Figure 1.

The SPHHS community embraced the process early on, adopted an attitude of resilience and confidence despite funding and budget uncertainties and the national future of public health sciences, and the result was exceptionally high participation rates at the retreat on March 26th of both faculty and staff. The retreat was designed to be interactive with low social pressure and high participation throughout all roles within the school by creating five rooms that represented the five goals of the plan and a two-hour window to ‘stop by’ and walk through the rooms. The Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats (SWOT) graphics of each goal were displayed on large easels and prompt questions helped the school community to think creatively about strengths and limitations of each bucket. Ideas, feedback, and solutions were collected on whiteboards, large post-its, poster boards, and via teams electronically. Leadership took into consideration the feedback received and drafted the school's plan. At the May 14th All School meeting, the final draft was presented by each working group co-chair(s). During the remainder of the executive council meetings for the AY25 year, SPHHS leadership team finalized key performance indicators, reaffirmed keeping the current mission and vision statements, and revised the value statements which were presented to the school community in the fall.