On Thursday, February 29, 2024 members of the Eastern Washington University Community were invited to participate in the first Strategic Planning Town Hall of 2024! For this town hall, attendees were asked to review the Goal Statements and Desired Outcomes created by our work groups.
Below you will find the summary of the town hall feedback from both the Presidents Cabinet and the campus townhall. Both events occured between February 28-29, 2024.
Numbers which follow statements indicate the number of groups who had the same feedback in a given area.
The tasks of the work groups are as follows:
- Review the feedback and make a determination if changes should be made in their draft goal statements and outcome areas. Working group should review statement of values, vision and mission to determine if their goal statement aligns with these statements. John Welty will review this feedback with each working group in a zoom call the week of March 4.
- Develop 5-7 measurable (or at least verifiable) desired outcome statements for each goal. The facilitation team will provide a due date for these desired outcome statements in the next few days.
- Develop 6-8 major strategies to address the goal statement and the desired outcomes. Please use the Strategy Template provided by John Welty in developing these strategies. A due date will be established for the strategies by the facilitation team.
Goal One: Belonging through Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Goal Statement Feedback
President’s Cabinet –February 28, 2024
- Overall liked the statement
- All members of campus, remove “executive”
- Should we “call out” executive leadership?
- Change goal to “We commit to an environment that fosters a profound sense of belonging, actively promotes and sustains equity, dismantles, systemic barriers, and embraces the unique perspectives of all individuals through the….”
- Missing the learning that is noted in outcomes – would suggest adding learning before “environment”
- Labor conditions on creating equity across all levels of staffing and employment
Town Hall – February 29, 2024
- Andragogy needs to be included – we are teaching both traditional and adult students
- Goal statement does not align with outcome
- Use champion instead of sponsorship
- Empower is hard to measure
- Dismantle –How? Will we invest in non-systemic barriers?
- How do measure staff belonging?
- Add “Strengthen/support existing programs that support students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds”
- Include “decolonized”/decolonial” In first line replace “of” with “for” or “with” or “by”
- Create mechanisms to build trust
- Create mindset of collaboration
- Build a community of practice
- Reduce siloes
- Idea of justice is not clearly presented in the statement
- Does equity and justice mean equality to us
- Statement is very clear (2)
- Remove the word “dismantles”
- Don’t single out administrators
- “We aspire to create an environment that fosters” is good
- Is “through the active engagement and continuous Learning” a strategy rather than a goal
- Goal statement could use some work
- Use word “community” instead of “environment”
- Include alumni
- Is “commitment to equitable practices” just for executive administrators or everybody?
- How are we defining “active” and “profound”?
- Justice is not adequately addressed in goal statement
Goal One – Desired Outcomes Feedback
President’s Cabinet – February 28, 2024
- Enormous task
- Mitigate
- On campus
- Integration > Replace or eliminate. Sounds like assimilation
- Cognitive dissonance
- Belong> Fitting in? Or being myself?
- Integration> Can be a part of us and fit in
- Students should change as much as we change them
- Feedback
- Maslow’s hierarchy outcomes
- How are we measuring?
- SS/SE – in the classroom outcome?
- Incorporate at al1 staffing levels
- Use same language as SSE
- Sponsorship may also have a negative connotation of “Eagleship”
- Where does equity and belonging come in? Maybe incorporate into goal statement?
- Dismantle is a large word, is this the right phrasing?
- Explore more community and belonging
- Campus community?
- Town and gown?
- How do we build a sense of community for our faculty and staff?
Strategy ideas
- Equity framework
- Community Engagement Center
- Reviewing Policies for Equity
- Ensuring a measurable outcome
- How will we know we have exceeded?
- How do we measure success?
- Who is accountable?
- What is the pragmatic operationalization of this vision?
- How do we inspire buy in?
- Too many words, complicate the masses
- Makes it unclear
- Word salad
- Buzz words
- Too many descriptor words
- All leaders- not just exec
- First statement focus ideas in one statement
- Culturally responsive teaching and learning
- People are creating/craving metrics/bumpers/what they can point to
Town Hall February 29, 2024
- What does empower and support students mean?(6)
- Use mentorship, advocacy or champion instead of “sponsorship”(8)
- Nothing speaks to diversity in desired outcomes
- Identify and dismantle barriers (2)
- What replaces barriers?
- How do we measure belonging in staff?
- Why do we want belonging> Ultimately about student success
- Does community integration imply integration into dominant culture?(4)
- Outcomes seem more like strategies
- Outcomes should be measurable
- Dismantle systemic barriers also appears in student success
- Development of employees also appears in investing in people(2)
- Eliminate word pedagogy
- Need to address justice
- Have desired outcomes with clear connection to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion
- Lack of first gen focus
- Lack of low income focus
- Separate curricular and co-curricular
- Culturally responsive teaching/pedagogy is critical enough to warrant its own point
- As emerging HSI ,identify gaps in supporting our Latinx population
- Needs to be accountability with regard to developing cultural understanding
Goal two: Investing in our People and Places
Goal Statement Feedback
President’s Cabinet – February 28, 2024
- Supporting -> Supportive
- Thriving community building community I Missing
- Is there overlap between regional anchor I regional impact for surrounding communities? (Cheney I Spokane)
- Did you get “invest” in IT to take more on regarding innovation?
- Define I clarify sustainable – what does it mean in context?
- The reference to employees is too narrow – e.g. does not include volunteer I alumni
- Prefer shorter version
- Be clear, consistent and concise I precise
- Overlap with JEDI and while we value integration of JEDI throughout would try to center development, engagement
- Specifically identify long-term plan for EWU Spokane spaces and how they will be appropriately supported-is it possible?
- Financially, to have equity with how our spaces are structured
- Benefits of long term employment.
- Equity gaps salary
- Percentage of employers
Town Hall February 29 2024
- Recruitment of non-student hourly employees is horrible
- Change “supporting” to “supportive”(4)
- Remove “the” in front of “structural barriers” in extended statement(2)
- Add “that encourages the recruitment, retention and growth of all EWU employees across campus”
- Consider adding “diversified from white supremacy culture”
- Use “climate” instead of “social environment”
- Add “sustainable, equitable”
- Well-being is a very broad statement
- No consistency around telework
- What is a successful environment
- On boarding is a huge opportunity for growth(2)
- Add “create a system that incentivizes employees to learn, stay, grow”
- Add “build recruitment and retention paths to grow and/or be promoted”
- Learn why people leave and why they stay
- Add something about belonging and community(2)
- Add explicit statement about cross campus relationships-break down siloes(2)
- Short goal statement is better(2)
- Issue is to get morale and governance back to where it should be
- Professional development for faculty has not increased for last twenty five years so it has lost value
- What is meant by social environment?
- More focus on individual needs not trying to get everyone to do the same thing
- Examine role of IT –is leasing computers working
- Rewrite goal to say: “We foster an equitable, sustainable and supportive physical and social environment that promotes the recruitment , retention and growth of students and employees”
- Include students(3)
- Include Cheney and Spokane in community
- Consistency in how we refer to employees – administrators included in one goal statement but not this one
- Use community members instead of employees
Goal Two – Desired Outcome Feedback
President’s Cabinet – February 28, 2024
- How is wellbeing and support EagleWell program any different from each other?
- “Faculty and Staff support (onboarding, systems training)” -> probably needs to make sure it is different than bullet #1 and HR related functions
- “Intentional planning to implement successful environment” ->Maybe too lofty? Can we be comfortable? What is a successful environment?
- HR -> Emphasize retention and satisfaction
- Gratitude to all employees-> valuing employees
- Tools and resources to do our jobs sufficiently
- Eagle hierarchy of needs
- Create for onboarding
- o Demonstrates our values
- Build an eagles nest
- Strategies ideas
- Onboarding
- Supervisor training for creating a supportive environment
- o Continued assessment of employee evaluations
- Supervisor training for discipline and disputes (different between faculty and staff)
- Develop campus master plan
- Intentional recruitment for qualified and diverse staff
- Some of these areas overlap
- Important for onboarding, retention and development to be supported more broadly – including department, unit/college
- Investing in people done in staff departments
- Confusion I lack of understanding orientation vs. onboarding
- Student employee, development/onboarding
- How do we communicate in all our own spaces that we value?
- Do students see themselves in the space?
- Student art, student photos?
- Student experience map of spaces
Town Hall – February 29, 2024 - First bullet should include “opportunities to extend overload equitably and transparently across the university
- Third and fourth bullet – hard to access with understaffing
- Fourth bullet –What does co-curricular mean in context of professional development?
- Technology investment needed
- Add morale and respect
- Student centric
- Our campus reflects the community we serve
- Succession planning
- WE need processes to make sure people have the access they need to perform their jobs
- Classrooms in need of repair – makes students feel devalued
- Not everyone aware of Eagle Well
- Make sure accessibility is included in systems training
- Infrastructure should be more standard across areas
- Onboarding should have standardized common experience for everyone(3)
- Bullet one –What does potential mean?
- Bullet four – Include academic and non-academic staff
- Need measurable outcomes(2)
- Focus on strategy on buildings lease or own
- Clear connection to downtown Cheney revival
- Critical that failing infrastructure be addressed for recruitment and retention efforts
- Create a cohesive Spokane presence that is intentionally an EWU experience
Goal Three -Regional Anchor I Regional Impact
Goal Statement Feedback
President’s Cabinet February 28, 2024
- EWU starts but can we sustain?
- EWU has assets to share and a place to learn
- Questions-This has a curricular impact?
- Sounds like job placement-but what about community impact through arts and events?
- Some felt it might result in questions for students. They come to EWU to expand mind.
- EWU will combine applied educational programming, scholarly research, and
- community engagement to advance the economic, cultural, and intellectual growth of our students and region
- Institution most compound to one big idea
- Environmental sustainability relationship with tribes creates job opportunities for students
- Very measurable
- This sets us apart as a university if we do it well
- Focus on tribal environmental sustainability
- Leadership Spokane model for students
- Models of different levels of effort
- What are tangible ways to achieve community involvement?
- How can we have a job description to incorporate community engagement across all levels of employment.
Town Hall February 29 2024
- “Interdisciplinary” is a hard input because it’s hard to track where the output can be attributed to
- Hard to tie interdisciplinary to workforce or community
- Hard to continue pet projects when people leave the University
- Programs should not be solely dependent on one person
- Equity amount inuse of released time
- Develop project based curriculum that aligns with the need of people in the region
- Replace “launch” with something like “promote and expect”
- Acknowledge accessibility for students to engage in community engagement
- Add “arts and culture/creative economy” to goal statement
- Change “Pacific” to “Inland Northwest”
- Why is focus on interdisciplinary initiatives or does it mean something else?
- What are the sectors?
- How are we collaborating?
- Is wealth really our focus ?money? Cultural wealth? growth?
- EWU needs to meet demand
- Leverage strengths of EWU; acknowledge what has put us on the map
- Our region needs to know the EWU story
- Appreciate community focus of goal statement – good statement (2)
- Applied educational programming is a good statement
- Do you mean Pacific Northwest, Eastern, WA , Spokane, Northern Idaho or all?
- What about support for current activities that fall under this?
- Two campuses limits collaboration
- How are “sectors critical” defined?
- Something about workforce development needs to be mentioned
- Question use of word “wealth” Would “prosperity” or “economic” be better(2)
- Does “stewardship of region’s natural resources conflict with economic focus of goal statement?
- Put “new” in front of interdisciplinary
- Is “economic diversification” to limiting?
- Experiential learning/internships needs to be mentioned
- This goal should be no. 4
- We are in the “Inland Northwest”(2)
- Use “prepare” rather than “position” graduates
- Like the last sentence of the goal statement
- Identity is not included
- What are we best at? Cannot be all things to all people
- Appreciate alumni inclusion
- Prioritize region’s needs to evaluate programs/degrees to add or remove
- Include community college partnerships- joint use of classrooms/instructors; better clarity in transferring credits
- UW Bothel/Cascades partnerships can be an option
- Will definition of region be spelled out somewhere?(2)
Goal Three -Desired Outcome Feedback
President’s Cabinet
- Seems to say we can’t be all things to everyone, but doesn’t capture that
- Community aspect-synergy
- How do we give back to the community?
- Faculty expertise be reconnected at university level
- Regional Magnet vs regional anchor
- Marketing
- Support I Partner vs sustain
- Marketing – Place under Steward Resources
- Overlap and Coordination with other groups (Namely investing in people and places)
Town Hall February 29 2024 - Experiential learning should be an expectation of all students
- Provide students with information about the significance of the region; why being tied in matters
- Mandatory session at orientation where tribal leaders present on the history and significance of the region
- Partnerships with Cheney parks, etc
- Engage athletics department with local elementary and secondary schools
- Need to tell our story
- Provide eight hours of service time to our faculty and staff
- Support the regional workforce(teachers) even if they are not our alumni
- How can we improve collaboration/connection to Cheney
- Add “Fostering economic well-being of our region through entrepreneurial programs”
- Nothing here about student recruitment
- Nothing here about online students/online strategy
- Like sustain Cheney(town/gown initiative; make commencement a community celebration
- Clearly define how faculty are engaging in the community
- How do we incentivize and reward this kind of work?
- Money limits experiential learning. Have to pay faculty to do research with students; logistical hurdles to getting students off campus; to much paperwork
- How to incentivize representation in local organizations
- Lead the region is a good statement
- Outcome statements are a combination of outcomes and strategies
- Sustain “Spokane County Communities” rather than Cheney and Spokane
- Alumni engagement needs to be defined
Goal Four – Student Success and Student Experience
Goal Statement Feedback
President’s Cabinet February 28 2024
- Use of self before exploration and understanding is redundant(2)
- Students need to learn about themselves but also need to learn about the world. Their surroundings, structures, etc.
- Don’t see anything regarding broadening of horizons
- Maybe not repeat “structural” in front of “equity gaps”
- Career path is present but not highlighted .Feels like an add on
- Be bold
- We WILL graduate students
- We will reshape our institutional mindset and practices to promote student success, enhance the student experience, and close structural equity gaps.
- Note #2 and #3 are incredibly important, but they are strategies.
- FYE required to focus on college and lay out a foundation for success
- Include applied learning
- Too focused on 18 – 22 year olds
- Missing online, adult learners 25+
- Focus on gainful employment with low debt
- While much of this is good. It would be achieved if we focused on and rewarded teaching and learning development of instructors.
- Need to have a true teaching and )earning center or encouraging I rewarding faculty to engage in on going teaching and learning beyond their disciplines or field of knowledge
- How to be a student?
- Lack of knowledge of what is the educational process at the university level
- How can we increase our graduation rate of 47% through student success programs?
- How do we measure cultural success?
Town Hall February 29 - Either remove self-understanding or use self-reflection
- This is the least measurable goal statement
- Place a timeline on when this will be achieved
- Strengthen connection to accessible support
- Makes a lot of assumptions about what students want
- Needs more focus on classroom needs of first year students; teaching course skills; \
- Overlap with JEDI go
- We need strong teaching and learning
- Address faculty with whom students have seriously negative experiences
- On campus interns need to be paid
- Need for academic planning that goes beyond two years
- Academic Advising model needs review
- Nice forward thinking
- Decolonial – This is a heavy lift(2)
- Use of numbers is confusing(4)
- Word decolonial is confusing – suggest “embracing an individual’s culture”(2)
- It is not clear what the values are? Whose values? Self? Eastern? family?
- In no.2 there are a lot of words; Does holistic and decolonial cover it?
- Change student experience to student well-being in the title(3)
- Eliminate self before exploration and understanding
- Use refine instead of reshape(3)
- Eliminate “decolonial, people-centered, value-driven”
Goal Four – Desired Outcome Feedback
President’s Cabinet February 28 2024 - Professional identity
- Helping students to succeed in the fields I disciplines that they want to be in
- Success measures for ALL students??
- Maybe just state what they are?
- Menta1/Emotional/Spiritual/Physical or mental/emotional/financial
- Mention stewardships of our students and their experiences
Town Hall February 29 2024 - Add “ improve student recruitment rates”
- How do faculty influence student success and the student experience(2)
- Add “adherence to academic success”
- Add “make sure all students have their basic needs met”
- Expand first year experience to include transfer students
- Course evaluations should be administered after grades are posted
- Have a robust annual assessment plan of student learning for all programs
- Outcomes need to include student experience in the classroom
- We don’t want students wasting their time and money on exploration
- Promote a healthy balance between student well-being and academic achievement – Not mutually exclusive. Makes it sound like either/or
- Add “provide experiential learning programs to help students be career ready upon graduation
- Role of faculty in face to face interaction with students and supporting students needs to be included
- There is cross over with Goal one: Belonging through justice, equity, diversity and inclusion
- Who are identified student sub-populations? Who makes that call?
- Emphasize first generation students
- Accountability for advising needs to be included
- Student success cycle begins with recruitment
- Define student experience and student success
- Maintain parent/family ties
- Hard to understand the meaning of decolonial
- Our base is in Spokane
- Is there a regular practice of gathering student input?
- Need to take better care of our faculty and staff of color so students can be taken care of
- Create an effective first year experience program
- Like the focus on retention, graduation and well-being
- Incorporate a multi-dimensional model of well-being into practices of Student Affairs and Academic Affairs “ is a strategy
- What does well-being mean?
- Student success should come before employee issues in the order of goals
- Add “Creating processes that work well for students”
- Can we do a “who am I” series (maybe affinity groups) to bring together individuals with shared identities and a follow-up to teach others
