A new website launched Monday will provide a central location for the George Washington University community to track the progress of the university’s five strategic initiatives.
With the theme “Together, We Raise High,” the site is home to each of the university’s initiatives: Student Experience, Research, Philanthropy and Constituent Engagement, Medical Enterprise and Institutional Culture.
The initiatives are the result of feedback the university community has shared with President Thomas LeBlanc since he joined GW last August. During the many town halls, meetings and events with students, faculty, staff and alumni, common themes emerged, which shaped the initiatives and will guide the university’s efforts over the next several years.
On the new site, each initiative has a dedicated page that provides an overview, goals and accomplishments, which help to show GW community members how their feedback is leading to tangible changes.
“We have heard so many great ideas from our community, and now we are transforming those ideas into action as we look toward our bicentennial,” Dr. LeBlanc said. “With this university-wide effort, we are moving GW forward.”
During the last several months, university officials, including deans and vice presidents, have talked about the reasoning behind and general approach to each initiative, but the website now provides additional details, articulating the aspirations for each area as well as the specific goals the initiative seeks to achieve.
For the Student Experience, for example, officials will work to create a “positive and cohesive experience” from the admissions process to graduation and continue to foster a “dynamic, student-focused community stimulated by cultural and intellectual diversity,” according to the site.
To do so, the university lists various goals, including continually identifying, delivering and measuring improvements to the student experience.
The Research initiative will include a “comprehensive review of the research ecosystem.” Working with the Faculty Senate Committee on Research, various task forces will examine research award processes, compliance, facilities, postdoctoral recruiting and hiring, non-sponsored research and scholarship as well as other areas.
“GW’s mission is to improve the world with the discoveries and creative expressions of its faculty and students. This requires the university to invest in the areas of scholarship and research where it can have the greatest success and to ensure that its research ecosystem matches the aspirations of the university community,” the website states.
Meanwhile, for the university’s Institutional Culture initiative, the university plans to create a team that represents the interests and experiences of students, faculty, staff and alumni to drive the progress of the initiative, which will include assessing GW’s institutional culture and finding ways to improve service areas and build a stronger sense of community across GW.
While each initiative has a sponsor who is part of the university’s leadership team and others who will help lead the initiative, all depend on the contributions of the entire university community to make progress.
The teams dedicated to each initiative have outreach plans to engage with the GW community, but community members can also get in touch by sharing a story of progress or suggestion on the bottom of each initiative page.
The website will be updated regularly to provide the GW community with information on the progress made in each initiative.
