The spring 2024 implementation of 24 objectives across the five pillars of Metropolitan State University of Denver’s 2030 Strategic Plan is on track. Most notably, the development of experiential major maps will help students clearly follow a path to graduation that includes important curricular and co-curricular activities, with the added benefit of enhancing consistent messaging and supporting completion rates.  

Why it matters: “Laying out a clear path, measuring our progress and holding ourselves accountable are imperative to ensuring that our work is focused and aligned,” said Meredith Jeffers, Ph.D., director of University Strategy. “The Objectives and Key Results framework is helping chart our path toward realizing the vision articulated in the University’s 2030 Strategic Plan.”  

A closer look

  • Pillars I and II: The Student Success Launch (59%) 
    • Mapped the student advising experience, specifying roles of students, faculty advisors, professional advisors and success coaches along students’ educational journeys to create efficiency and more effectively serve students. 
    • Revised nomenclature to distinguish undeclared vs. pre-major students, which will align the right resources to the right students. 
    • Created digital templates for experiential major maps to help students and their supporters better understand curricular and co-curricular opportunities along their educational journeys. The working group is collecting information from academic departments, with an expected site launch in June. 
  • Pillar III: Civic and Economic Catalyst (65%) 
    • Identified two priority sectors and academic units ready to meet Gov. Jared Polis’ call for “blurring” the lines from K-12 through higher ed to the workforce. 
    • Raised sufficient funding to pay a group of MSU Denver students to build a mobile app to “gamify” campus engagement, an earn-and-learn-style project headed by  Daniel Pittman, Ph.D.(Computer Science) to begin this summer. 
  • Pillar IV: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (50%) 
    • Completed data analyses on diverse faculty recruitment, retention and success. A report, expected May 1, will help inform the way forward to improve our University’s compositional diversity. 
  • Pillar V: Organizational Agility and Sustainability (53%) 
    • Showed strong progress toward endowment, alumni-giving and engagement goals, as University Advancement eclipsed $59,665,097 toward the working fundraising-campaign goal of $75 million. 

How you can help move our metrics: 

  • Identify Community Engagement Opportunities: Within Pillar III, MSU Denver’s Carnegie Task Force is actively working to identify existing community partnerships that will help tell the story of community engagement and civic learning at MSU Denver. One priority is to identify courses that include community engagement for credit. Have information to share? Please contact Civic Engagement.
  • Complete the Campus Climate Survey: The Pillar IV team that’s focused on campus climate presented prior survey results in February and launched the new survey March 4. Remember to complete the survey by March 31! 
  • Identify Low/No-Cost Educational Resources: The work of our University’s Open Educational Resource Taskforce supports Pillar I, II and IV metrics (e.g., enrollment, retention, graduation, equity gaps, student debt). The team created a process to permanently mark low- and no-cost-for-materials courses and is working toward establishing targets for majors, minors, certificates and General Studies categories providing low- or no-cost-for-materials pathways for students. For students wishing to find these types of courses, and for faculty hoping to adopt, adapt or create them, learn more here. 
  • Attend a Strategy Forum: Beginning in April, University Strategy will host a standing forum on our University’s 2030 Strategic Plan. Details are available on the University Strategy website. 

Additional resources: 

  • The Rowdy Dash transparently houses the disaggregated data for our University’s 34 board-approved metrics. It will soon feature our University’s new finance dashboard, as well as a section focused on school/college/department-level data. 
  • The University Strategy website contains all AY 2024 strategic-plan updates and presentations to the University community and the Board of Trustees. 
  • The full list of spring 2024 OKRs is available on request (please contact Jeffers) and set to update regularly on the revamped strategic–plan website this summer.