“This plan is more about empowering, encouraging, engaging all of the campus community to use what we’ve got to achieve the goals set out in Strategic Directions in 2002,” according to the acting provost and vice-president academic. Commenting on the draft, Ernie Barber said he hopes the new integrated plan makes clear that the three defining features identified in Strategic Directions – international standards, academic pre-eminence and a sense of place –remain the underlying values for the institution.

The draft plan was posted on the integrated planning website March 3 in order to collect comment from the campus community. The document suggests the U of S focus in three areas— teaching, learning and the student experience, research and scholarship and collaboration—over the second planning cycle.

Throughout the plan, there is particular attention paid to the student experience. Barber explained the U of S has worked to become a research intensive institution, “and we now have to ask what kind of experience students can expect. We need to be able to see how we connect the enterprise of learning and the enterprise of discovery.”

The draft second integrated plan can be viewed on the integrated planning website. An NSID and password are required to view the document. Comments can be made on that site or by e-mail to uofs_plan@usask.ca

The University will hold a town hall meeting Tuesday, March 25 at 12:30 p.m. in Convocation Hall, College Building to allow discussion of the plan among students, faculty and staff.