Overview

Faculty on our campus have performed groundbreaking research, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary, including the invention of new fields of study. In support of continued excellence, as well as to better broadcast our achievements to the world, this Strategic Academic Plan provides an opportunity to be intentional in investment and communication around research, teaching, and public service—and in those areas our faculty have defined as most exciting. This plan seeks to identify, and then highlight, energize, and invest in, academic areas that will strengthen the university as a whole, build stronger programs for students, create new research opportunities for faculty, and bolster our global impact, all while utilizing our resources consciously and thoughtfully.

The document outlines the strategic academic planning efforts begun in 2017-2018 for the next five years with the assumption that budget resources will continue to be limited and resources must be prioritized to achieve our objectives. The Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor (CP/EVC) and Chancellor and other campus leaders, faculty, students and staff collaborated to describe and identify the university’s unique strengths and opportunities, outline goals, and develop a framework for achievement – this plan.

The plan is composed of three parts: guiding principles that identify the broadly shared values and sustaining pillars of UC Santa Cruz, academic priority areas on which to focus our strategic efforts through 2022-23, and a barrier reduction effort to address obstacles to research, teaching, and learning.

For each of the guiding principles, campus leaders developed initiatives, implementation action steps, and metrics to track and measure progress. Additional details are contained in final Strategic Academic Plan (PDF) and the initiatives dashboard offers an at-a-glance view of our progress to-date.