Three George Washington University working groups have completed a yearlong effort to develop recommendations for advancing priorities identified through GW’s strategic framework, Raising Higher: OneGW’s Path to Preeminence.
The groups, focused on GW’s interdisciplinary research ecosystem, experiences in and around Washington, D.C., and academic and career advising, were established to help translate the strategic framework’s aspirations into potential actions. Composed of faculty and staff from across the university, the groups conducted research and engaged colleagues, students and other stakeholders throughout their work.
The resulting reports offer a wide-ranging set of recommendations for consideration by university leadership and the broader GW community.
Those reports are now available for feedback until Sept. 23. Members of the GW community are encouraged to read the three reports and share their reactions, including which ideas resonate most strongly and what they believe will be most important to consider as the university moves forward.
“The working groups produced an outstanding set of reports. Their recommendations will help GW pursue both elements of our mission with excellence: advancing the kind of world-changing research that defines a great university and providing our students with the distinctive, connected experience they deserve, one deeply rooted in our D.C. location and that fully supports them as they prepare for both life and work," President Ellen M. Granberg said. "I'm excited for what these reports will help us build in the next phase of our strategic framework.”
While the reports generated multiple recommendations, a handful were elevated as priorities by each of the working groups as GW moves into implementation of the strategic plan:
The Interdisciplinary Research Ecosystem Working Group examined how GW can better support faculty-driven research that crosses traditional disciplinary and school boundaries.
Among the group’s recommendations was creating more pathways for interdisciplinary research to take shape and grow at GW, including through institutes and centers, academic units, degree programs and seed funding for emerging faculty collaborations.
The group also recommended giving faculty more time and support to develop collaborations across schools, including targeted funding, project management assistance and other mechanisms that reduce barriers to interdisciplinary work. It also called for strengthening GW’s ability to pursue both federal and nonfederal funding by providing research teams with administrative and contracting expertise tailored to different types of sponsors.
“Some of the best innovation happens when knowledge from one field is applied in a completely different context,” said Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs and Professor of Biomedical Engineering Matthew Kay. “Bringing together GW researchers who might not normally interact will spark new ideas and reveal new solutions to difficult questions that would otherwise be missed. GW is especially well positioned to make those connections, and that's becoming increasingly important as research problems grow more complex and interconnected.”
Kay, a former member of the Faculty Senate and Faculty Senate Research Committee, also noted that GW is “logistically well positioned in D.C., a focal point for political and societal decisions, with world-class facilities for basic science, health and engineering research located within just a few city blocks” and that those “very unique qualities of GW's campus provide a research ecosystem that has incredible innovative potential.”
The D.C. Experiences Working Group examined how GW could more purposely leverage its location in the nation’s capital as part of the student experience.
The group’s recommendations centered on creating a more coordinated approach to D.C.-based learning, internships, research, civic engagement and other experiences. Among its top recommendations were establishing a proposed D.C. Experiences Hub to coordinate partnerships across the Capital Region, help faculty and schools develop and sustain D.C.-based opportunities, and make those experiences easier for students to access. Other recommendations included asking each school to define and publish its D.C. experience pathway, so students can see what specific D.C. opportunities are available, how they connect to their goals and where they fit within their academic journey, and articulating a university-wide commitment that every GW undergraduate student will have the opportunity for a distinctive D.C. experience, regardless of field of study.
Building on an already strong foundation of partnerships, programs and place-based learning in the DMV, the group concluded that GW has the opportunity to set a new standard for D.C. engagement, one that allows the university to achieve its goal of preparing students to be strong and resilient leaders through more intentionally coordinated, expanded and connected efforts that ensure equitable access and sustained impact for every student.
“GW's connections and opportunities with the D.C. and greater DMV communities are already integral to the GW student experience, and this work will allow us to formalize a defining feature of what makes a GW education so special,” said Julie Zito, associate vice president for marketing.
The Academic and Career Advising Working Group focused on strengthening connections among academic advising, career development and the broader student experience, with the goal of positioning GW to develop a national model of advising excellence.
This group identified strategies for moving toward what it described as a more coherent, navigable and student-centered model of advising. Among its priority recommendations were improving advising responsiveness and quality by assessing current advising capacity, identifying areas experiencing the greatest strain, and developing a near-term improvement plan to address staffing, caseloads, role clarity, and other barriers to more proactive, relationship-centered advising.
Additionally, the group recommended reducing transactional workload by automating routine tasks, developing common processes and business rules across areas and centralizing common workflows like transfer credit and major changes. These steps are intended to reduce administrative friction and allow advisors to devote more time to personalized guidance, academic planning, and career preparation.
It also recommended a cross-functional Advising Excellence Committee to provide continuity, shared accountability and a forum for translating national best practices into approaches that fit GW’s academic structure and student needs.
The group’s work was informed by input from students and other members of the GW community, as well as previous assessments and national advising models.
“The [Academic and Career Advising] Working Group gave us concentrated time to delve into aspects where academic and career advising overlap and ways in which they can better complement each other,” said Associate Vice Provost for Career Services Kelley Bishop. “For students, there should be as much mutual reinforcement as possible between their academic and career pathways.”
Across the reports, several of the highest-priority recommendations focused on strengthening the underlying structures, capacity and coordination needed to enable more ambitious changes over time.
The release of the working group reports marks an important transition in the implementation of the strategic framework, but it is not the end of the process.
University leadership is now reviewing recommendations emerging from the working groups and other university-wide efforts, identifying an initial set of priorities and considering the investments, sequencing and coordination needed to move them forward.
That work will be informed by feedback from the GW community, including responses submitted through the feedback form and conversations with the Faculty Senate, Staff Council and Student Government Association.
Together, that work will shape Raising Higher: OneGW in Action, which will lay out the concrete steps GW will take to advance the strategic framework over the next several years. The university plans to share this document later this fall once feedback has been incorporated and the GW Board of Trustees receives the report at their October meeting.
