Strategic Imperatives Process

In spring 2025 the University of Arizona conducted a process to articulate our strategic imperatives—those elements of our mission and identity that are critical to our impact and our cohesion as a community of learning and discovery.

Process for Delivering on Our Promise

The process began with a series of conversations, facilitated by John Pollard, Dean of the W. A. Franke Honors College, and Amanda Kraus, Vice President of Student Affairs. Generative sessions were held with senior university leaders, shared governance leaders, and groups of students, faculty, staff, regents, friends, and community partners. The ideas from these sessions were distilled into Delivering on Our Promise.

We are very pleased this was an inclusive process. Many constituent groups came together to discuss what makes the U of A distinctive and to deliberate where we should go over the coming years. Our conversations were collaborative, energizing, and inspiring because of the collective belief in the university's potential and promise.

Campus Community Feedback: Key Themes

Our critical next step was to gather feedback from our greater campus community. President Garimella sent a draft of Delivering on our Promise to U of A students, faculty, staff, and affiliates for review and comment. Nearly 700 U of A faculty, staff, and students sent responses to a questionnaire, and we have read and appreciate each one. A summary of the comments and key themes is below.

Success for Every Student

Student belonging: Many of you emphasized the importance of being a community that welcomes and includes every student and helps to meet their basic needs. The imperatives reflect our commitment to celebrating the distinctiveness of each student and their background and intentionally fostering a welcoming, inclusive, and safe environment for students, faculty, staff, and partners.
Graduate students: There was a strong desire to see all students represented and supported, including graduate students and their distinct needs and role. We have better emphasized the role graduate students play as instructors and researchers and made it clearer that when we are talking about enhancing services and outcomes, it is for students at every level, including graduate students.
Online education: Many respondents noted the importance of online education as a point of access, the different experiences online students have and the opportunities for implementing best practices for engagement and experiential learning through a coordinated effort between UAGC and Arizona Online.
Disciplinary balance and holistic learning: Many commenters focused on the importance of the arts, humanities, and social sciences as areas of study that are valuable and elements of a broad-based education that prepares students for the ever-changing world they will encounter upon graduation. This holistic view of the student experience and the comprehensive nature of the university's excellence are vital for our enduring success.

Research that Shapes the Future

University strengths: Pride in the university's strengths came through strongly, including climate and sustainability science, water resources, astronomy, the arts, humanities, and social sciences. In many cases, the imperatives have been updated to more clearly reflect this breadth of excellence while recognizing the need to emphasize areas of timely significant impact and innovation. We encourage you to continue engaging and find ways that your specific expertise can find alignment and expression within these strategic imperatives, and note that as a comprehensive public research university, the U of A's educational offerings, research, and engagement will include excellence in every discipline and field of study.
Fundamental discovery: You also made clear the need to reflect the university's history of excellence with basic research, as well as its importance in ongoing leadership for the institution and its impact, both of which have been amplified as points of emphasis.

Engagement with Our Communities to Create Opportunity

Land-grant mission and Cooperative Extension: Many of you commented on the uniqueness of the land-grant mission and the role of Cooperative Extension in carrying it out. We agree and will continue to emphasize this part of our identity and mission.
Water, climate, and sustainability: The importance of our strengths in water resources and sustainability as a means of serving Arizona's future, especially as extreme heat will continue.
Place-based excellence: Our community finds meaning in and values the distinctiveness of the U of A's integration with our borderlands home and the importance of our designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Both our embeddedness in our regional community and the HSI designation that comes from it are central to our role as Arizona's land-grant, they enrich our campus community, and they are central to our identity as an institution.

General Comments

Academic freedom: We heard interest in academic freedom, which the university will continue to promote and support as a bedrock principle for our mission and the role of higher education in our society.
Support for employees: The dedication, expertise, and talent of U of A staff and faculty makes possible everything we do. Enabling your success and supporting your professional growth and personal aspirations has been a focus since my arrival on campus and we will continue to emphasize it as a university priority. This is why we have focused on balancing the university budget, modernizing human resources, and other initiatives intended to enhance operational excellence.
STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES