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THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA WESTERN
A Pathway to Academic Excellence and National Prominence
Introduction
Our collective goal at Montana Western is to provide students with the finest undergraduate experience possible. Our mission is teaching, learning and discovery. Specifically, the following strategic plan will further improve our academic program under the successful block plan we uniquely call Experience One.
This action plan provides a roadmap, a blueprint, to greater excellence through 2012. It becomes our guide for action and decision-making, organizes how we envision a growing public university can best fulfill its mission and strengthens our intellectual engagement with the community and indeed the world.
During development of this plan, we have focused our campus and community conversations on the things that unite and challenge us as a public university. We asked tough questions of ourselves. Together, we have determined how we can improve and better support teaching, learning and the pursuit of discovery on our campus, more effectively tell our story, and increase enrollment. There is continued emphasis on accountability and innovation while stretching ourselves and meeting challenges we deem important for our success.
We place a high priority on collegiality, mutual respect and a unified vision for Montana Western’s academic excellence. Ultimately, we want to be more accessible and affordable to good-fit, dedicated students who wish to learn and succeed in a unique, challenging and rewarding university environment and, upon completion, to live the life of the educated mind and successful, contributing citizen.
Our action plan is divided into five connected strategic goals:
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Improve undergraduate education.
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Increase enrollment through enhanced affordability, access, success and retention and increase graduation rates.
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Employ, retain and support an excellent faculty and staff.
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Enhance successful development, maintenance and improvement of the campus in support of long-range development plans.
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Strategically position the university for maximum efficiency and long-range success.
Each goal contains two or more specific objectives we plan to achieve. Under each objective are example action steps. The plan is intended to be flexible and allow us to adapt to the ever-changing world of American higher education and the needs and academic wishes of our students and the state of Montana.
We take great care in assessment of our actions and in measuring our successes. The Strategic Plan Steering Committee has formulated, and will continue to refine, various time frames for action and strategies and tools for assessment of outcomes.
The University has never been financially stronger or academically better. Through the excellent work of our predecessors and current faculty and staff, we are positioned to achieve our goals and be the best at what we do - educate students.
Montana Western has a culture of risk-taking and commitment. We expect no less than the best from our faculty, staff and students and have been described as the little university with a big heart.
Charles F. Kettering once said, "My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there." We are dedicated innovators with a bright future.
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