University of Arizona | College of Social & Behavioral Sciences | Strategic Plan

STRATEGIC PLAN college of social & behavioral sciences

OUR MISSION

We work to investigate ideas, transform social conditions, and tell unheard stories. We prepare students, engage in research, and collaborate with community partners to address everyday challenges, be thoughtful problem-solvers, and build solidarity with others across the world. We are rooted in the unique sense of place in our Borderlands region.

OUR VISION

A just world, together.

PILLARS & GOALS

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

PROMOTE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT & SUCCESS

SUPPORT IMPACTFUL RESEARCH

CONNECT WITH OUR COMMUNITY

WILDCAT JOURNEY ARIZONA ADVANTAGE ARIZONA GLOBAL

GRAND CHALLENGES WILDCAT JOURNEY ARIZONA ADVANTAGE ARIZONA ADVANTAGE

ARIZONA ADVANTAGE

INSTITUTIONAL EXCELLENCE

INSTITUTIONAL EXCELLENCE

SOCIETAL IMPACT

BUILDING BRIDGES

DIVERSITY, BELONGING

PROMOTE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT & SUCCESS

GOALS:

Ensure positive undergraduate impact, engagement, and sense of belonging through increased opportunities for and reduced barriers to student participation in high-impact, cocurricular experiences (i.e., internships, undergraduate research, field work, lab work, service learning, study abroad, career preparation).

Increase retention rates across all undergraduate degree programs and enhance equity in retention across all demographic groups.

Increase 4- and 6-year graduation rates across all undergraduate degree programs and across all demographic groups.

Ensure undergraduate students graduate being career-, community-, or graduate schoolready.

Embed post-graduation planning into undergraduate curriculum and increase career services opportunities for all majors in the college.

Make sure our Wildcats for Life are connected to SBS and that we engage SBS alumni in mentoring and stewardship.

Provide world-class advising to all SBS majors by maintaining SBS advisor to undergraduate student average ratios in alignment with best practices and innovations in advising.

Increase the number of and support for transfer students from Arizona community colleges, by strengthening academic and recruitment relationships within the state.

Increase the number of international students served in our undergraduate and graduate programs.

Ensure SBS maintains strong and sustainable doctoral programs.

Stabilize and improve doctoral program funding through assistantship, fellowship, and sponsored research opportunities.

Provide professional development opportunities to support career pathways into multiple employment sectors.

Improve doctoral student completion rates and expedite time to degree.

Grow and sustain SBS master’s programs.

Offer innovative programs that support student career goals and workforce development needs.

Diversify access to professional master’s programs by growing need-based scholarship opportunities.

Prepare students to be competitive for national-level awards and promote their application to such honors.

Advance opportunities for interdisciplinary education across all SBS degree programs, grounded in ideals of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

SUPPORT IMPACTFUL RESEARCH

GOALS:

Support and sustain a healthy research ecosystem.

Increase internal funding to support SBS research efforts.

Align physical and human infrastructure with research efforts, including pre- and post-award services, lab facilities, and data and computational resources.

Encourage place-based, community-engaged, and participatory action research, both in our local Borderlands and in global settings.

Facilitate opportunities for interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral, and translational research collaborations.

Increase SBS participation in the human dimensions of UArizona grand challenge priorities and interdisciplinary convergence research initiatives.

Advance additional clusters of college-wide research strength (for example, but not limited to: computational social science; research on justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging; human rights; area studies, historical, and language research).

Leverage SBS and RII centers and institutes and external partnership networks to advance collaboration.

Recognize and reward public, applied, and translational scholarship and creative endeavors through annual review and promotion and tenure processes.

Communicate and celebrate the value and impact of SBS research.

Encourage and support researchers to engage in public scholarship and to tell the stories of their discoveries and impacts.

Increase nominations of SBS faculty and research staff for prestigious awards.

CONNECT WITH OUR COMMUNITY

GOALS:

Seek opportunities to increase our community impact as a diverse college in an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the Borderlands region, particularly around issues associated with arid lands; environmental resilience; migration; and inequity, representation, and justice.

Provide opportunities for students to engage as meaningful partners in community engagement activities and micro grants for faculty to facilitate this engagement.

Increase engagement with tribal nations through community-based programming, micro campuses, and collaboration that respects sovereignty of each Nation and Native knowledge.

Support the continuation of SBS Community Classroom and integration into our broader educational mission on all campuses.

Support opportunities for service and experiential learning and for multi-lingual exchanges (virtual and physical) with local and global communities.

Establish SBS’s centrality to university efforts to achieve the Carnegie Community Engagement designation.

4

INVEST IN OUR PEOPLE

GOALS:

Match hiring and human resource allocation to SBS strategic priorities.

Make hiring faculty with diverse backgrounds and experiences a priority across SBS.

Prioritize retention, inclusion, and sense of belonging for faculty through mentoring, workshops, and other support activities that promote a culture of inclusion.

Create pathways for faculty in all career stages to continue to thrive and receive recognition for innovative and sustained outreach/leadership/service, research and/or pedagogy.

Support faculty in leadership development and progression.

Recruit staff who demographically reflect the larger Tucson community.

Embrace and encourage principles of shared governance and academic freedom through support of SBS shared governance bodies (such as FAC, SAC, grad council, undergraduate council, DEI council).

Prioritize staff retention, satisfaction, sense of belonging, compensation, professional development, and continual training.

Implement recommendations from 2022 staff survey report, and re-field staff satisfaction survey in three-year cycles.

Engage in and act upon annual salary equity studies for faculty and staff.

Prioritize mentoring, professional development, and continuous dialogue and celebrate and reward accomplishments across all employment groups.

Create and sustain student worker and graduate assistantship opportunities that are synergistic with both student training and college human resource needs.

PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE OPERATIONS

GOALS:

Implement a culture and practice of data-informed decision-making.

Create publicly viewable dashboards to monitor progress on strategic plan goals. Enhance capacity to collect, analyze, and disseminate institutional data tailored to pursuit of SBS strategic goals.

Expand access and training for faculty and staff to collaboratively analyze institutional data to inform program evaluation and improvement.

Ensure responsible use of fiscal resources.

Align staffing, facilities, and other investments to activity-informed metrics and strategic priorities.

Incentivize and facilitate cooperation (cross-listing of courses, sharing of faculty and staff resources, sharing of space) across departmental boundaries.

Analyze and optimize college organizational structures to support collaboration, effectiveness, and efficiency.

Embed practice of consultation and transparency in fiscal decision-making.

Maintain minimum course caps of 18:1 (undergraduate), 14:1 (co-convened) and 5:1 (graduate).

Examine and inventory degree programs, considering programs to be created and sunsetted based on student demand, strategic priorities, and available resources.

Advocate for institutional and external investment in SBS personnel, programs, and facilities, through strategic marketing and communications, development, and grant seeking.

Align development goals in the Fuel Wonder Campaign to goals in SBS strategic plan, in consultation with unit leadership, shared governance bodies, and external advisory bodies.

Discuss college branding, ensuring brand reflects our values.

Commit to lowering college environmental impact, for example, through reduced paper consumption, air travel, and green building practices.

Support flexible workplaces and data-driven space allocation, aligning space allocation and refurbishment resources to program size, activities, and potential for efficient and collaborative use.

Develop sustainable plan for deferred maintenance in consultation with central administration.

Create and sustain inclusive infrastructure.

Continue to support all-gender restrooms, lactation rooms, and accessible and ergonomic work spaces.

Complete ADA inventory of buildings and plan and implement solutions.

Plan meetings and events with design thinking and access as a priority.

Ensure implementation of campus safety recommendations.