Overview of 2011 Strategic Plan

In the summer of 2010, the College of Health Sciences embarked on a College strategic planning effort that supported the Boise State University strategic plan and the needs of the Treasure Valley. The effort allowed the college to update its current strategic plan to insure that we were still meeting the needs of our students, the Treasure Valley and regional areas, and to address the sweeping changes associated with health care reform.

A variety of stakeholders within the College of Health Sciences, Boise State and the Treasure Valley community participated in a strategic planning process through a series of formal and informal meetings. The strategic plan represents months of work to ensure significant faculty, staff, University and community input so that the plan would have meaning and ownership within the college and support from the University and our Treasure Valley communities. Ultimately, this endeavor has provided the college faculty and staff with direction to identify how resources, especially faculty and staff efforts, should be focused during the next five years.

The college plan articulates our aspirations through our vision to become “leaders and partners in health innovation and discovery.” The college mission describes what we do as a College to address our aspirations by “fostering partnerships that promote health and quality of life through teaching, research, and service.”

To direct our efforts, goals were set within each of three distinctive areas of Research, Graduate Education and Undergraduate Education. The goals are measured by progress elements called key performance indicators (KPIs) within each area. The goals and KPIs include:

Research: The research goal is to “advance an academic culture that supports high quality scholarship resulting in health-related knowledge.” The KPIs include increasing external research funding, refereed publications and research partnerships across the University.

Graduate Education: The graduate goal is to “develop and deliver quality, collaborative graduate programs to produce distinguished leaders, researchers, and practitioners who will work to maximize the health of our communities.” The KPIs include increasing graduate refereed publications, obtaining key graduate accreditations, and generating common graduate course offerings across the college.

Undergraduate Education: The undergraduate goal is to “produce reflective critical-thinkers, life-long learners, leaders and quality health practitioners.” The KPIs include developing a college wide undergraduate capstone course for all College of Health Sciences graduates, and creating and implementing a curriculum that enhances critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, systems thinking, innovation, and communication.

In order to address our goals and KPIs, the college generated and implemented a number of Core Strategies that will create an environment and infrastructure for success. The strategies outline approaches related to hiring faculty and staff; centralizing student services and advising; resource generation; focusing of research efforts; facilities use and utilization of existing centers and institutes. Furthermore, several committees and task forces will be formed to ensure that progress is made in relation to the College of Health Sciences goals and KPIs in the three areas of distinction.

The work put forth in the College of Health Sciences strategic plan represents significant thought and collaboration within the College of Health Sciences, Boise State and the Treasure Valley communities. We feel that this effort will direct our activities to continue to support the health education, research and service needs of our students and community members in the years to come.