UTCSW eVOLving: Reflecting on the College’s Commitment

UTCSW eVOLving

Reflecting on the College’s Commitments

As the UT College of Social Work steps into its 80th year, it is important to reassess the College’s commitments moving forward. Over the past year, the dean, a strategic planning team, and an external consultant held faculty and staff retreats, town hall meetings, and constituent meetings with students, alumni, Board of Visitor members, and other stakeholders to gain feedback on where the college should be headed in the next five years. The groups reviewed the College’s vision, mission, and values and current initiatives, and reflected on possibilities and potential areas for growth and change.

After extensive listening, coming together to evaluate feedback, rethinking, and revising, the strategic planning team identified five commitments that will drive the work of UTCSW into the future. “The commitments we developed are designed to be evergreen—withstanding the shifts of time and resources, while our goals will be more time dependent and will fluctuate as needed,” said UTCSW Dean Lori Messinger. “I feel that we now have a solid base for our college to not only grow, but to thrive.” These five overarching commitments will take UTCSW through the next five years and beyond. Faculty and staff are finalizing the specific goals and benchmarks and sharing them with stakeholders for feedback. The final plan was released in March 2022 at the Social Work conference. “The goal of the strategic vision is to maintain the high-quality work we are currently doing, while stretching ourselves further toward greater excellence,” Messinger explained. “We can use this plan to drive our budgeting and decision making as we move forward. We will have solid benchmarks to keep us on track and to assess our successes as we achieve them. We do not want to wait until the end of the five years to look back at what we did or did not accomplish, but rather continually monitor our trajectory so we can adapt or pivot as necessary throughout the process. I’m excited to see the great future that lies ahead for our college.”

The goal of the strategic vision is to maintain the high-quality work we are currently doing, while stretching ourselves further toward greater excellence.”

— Lori Messinger. Dean of The University of Tennessee College of Social Work

THE FIVE COLLEGE COMMITMENTS

I II III IV V

UTCSW will offer accessible, high quality education to prepare ethical, effective, skilled social workers for Tennessee and beyond. –

The College of Social Work is committed to providing outstanding training that is accessible to social work students and practitioners throughout their professional journey. We will continue to lead the nation in online education, with instructors who have the knowledge, skills, and expertise to effectively train social work practitioners and scholars.

UTCSW will do meaningful research and scholarship that is influential and impacts practice and well-being in the region, state, nation, and globally. –

Our scholars support the people of this region, the state of Tennessee, and the nation through engaged research and scholarship. We will disseminate our work widely and become even more widely recognized for the important work done in the university, in the state, and in the profession.

UTCSW will maintain highquality connections to alumni, university partners, and community partners, and foster meaningful collaboration in the work produced by the college. –

We maintain vibrant, mutually beneficial connections to UTCSW alumni and community partners through education, networking, and outreach. We partner with scholars and practitioners to enhance our interprofessional and interdisciplinary connections, and foster an open, transparent environment with high quality communication and collaboration across all campuses, research centers, and stakeholders.

UTCSW will continue as an anti-racist, equitable, supportive workplace that lives the college’s values through internal and external actions.

The College strives to be a destination workplace, where all faculty and staff thrive and are respected, supported, mentored, and engaged. We are dedicated to being a community of people that works for anti-racism, social justice, and change in the college, in the university, in the community, in the state, and in the profession.

UTCSW will empower and maintain a culture of collaboration, agility, innovation, and sustainability throughout the college. –

The College leadership is dedicated to expanding and diversifying revenue sources; strengthening business services; improving communications within the college; and improving overall function and structure of College leadership and administration to meet these commitments.