ASMSA adopts 2025 Strategic Plan

ASMSA’s 2025 Strategic Plan affirms the school’s core mission and will serve as a guiding document as the institution prepares to enter its fourth decade of excellence.

A team of campus stakeholders updated the mission as part of the strategic planning process. The mission now states that ASMSA is a public residential high school serving academically and artistically motivated students of all backgrounds from throughout the state. Its community of learning will be a statewide center of academic equity and opportunity that ignites the full potential of Arkansas’ students and educators.

Titled “Sparking Innovation, Igniting Growth,” the strategic plan will guide ASMSA as it creates greater educational access, promotes statewide equity, and expands academic vigor that benefits all Arkansans through its residential, out-ofschool enrichment, digital learning, and educator development programs.

“As ASMSA enters its fourth decade of educational excellence, we are excited to renew our commitment to fully achieving the vision for the school, first set in the early 1990s and refined further at the outset of the new century as it became a campus of the University of Arkansas System,” said ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice.

“We will continue our commitment to addressing local needs, maintaining national prominence, and aspiring to a global vision for what education can be. “At the core of ASMSA’s 2025 Strategic Plan is the belief that both our academic and residential experiences will continue to evolve, innovate, and flourish under the care of our faculty, staff, and students.” ASMSA aims to expand both its statewide reach and enrollment to ensure that any student who would benefit from the school’s dynamic opportunities will have access to its world-class programs.

Achieving that growth can only be accomplished through expanded partnerships, vocal advocates, and committed stakeholders who continue to ensure the institution’s funding and facilities are equal in measure to its aspirations, Alderdice said.

ASMSA Mission Statement in 2025 Strategic Plan The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts, a campus of the University of Arkansas System, is a public residential high school serving academically and artistically motivated students of all backgrounds from throughout the state. ASMSA’s community of learning exemplifies excellence across disciplines while serving as a statewide center of academic equity and opportunity that ignites the full potential of Arkansas’ students and educators.

The institution will further affirm its state and nation leadership in sci. ence, mathematics, arts, humanities, and entrepreneurship education using novel curricula, meaningful student development experiences, expanded partnership networks, and stronger relationships with its most dedicated advocates.

The strategic plan lays out five goals that will guide ASMSA’s actions over the next five years. They include:

• Teaching and Learning: Cultivate a culture of dynamic teaching and learning that empowers young people to identify their passions for research, inquiry, and creative expression, develop the self-discipline necessary for success, as well as grow in their identity as emerging practitioners and professionals.

• Student Development: Maximize the full potential of the oncampus experience by affirming the centrality of residential life in creating a living-learning community that connects students beyond the classroom, assists in developing them as a whole person, and prepares these future leaders for successful and fulfilling lives through building sustainable skills and mindsets. • Enrollment Growth: Expand enrollment to serve more students statewide through targeted growth models that reflect our commitment to stewardship of the public investment in ASMSA.

• Partnerships and Advocacy: Strengthen internal and external partnerships with local, state and national stakeholders that create committed and vocal advocates for the essential leadership role that ASMSA plays within Arkansas education as well as economic and community development.

• Facilities Expansion: Grow facilities and implement long-range strategies to meet the needs of expanded enrollment, academic experiences, student life, recreation, and community engagement.

The strategic plan lists several strategies for each goal the school will employ that will define ASMSA’s work over the next decade. The strategies include a broad range of cooperation among ASMSA’s administration, faculty, staff, alumni, friends of the school, state government, the local community, and others to achieve the goals.

Discussions for the new strategic plan began in earnest early in the spring 2020 semester. Dr. Sara Brown, ASMSA’s director of institutional advancement, led the development effort. Surveys and focus group meetings of internal and external stakeholders provided guidance early in the development process.

Meetings with the campus leadership team, the ASMSA Governing Council, ASMSA Board of Visitors, ASMSA Foundation Fund Board of Ambassadors, the Association for Alumni and Friends of ASMSA Steering Committee, parents, students, and additional volunteers were crucial to the plan’s creation. Execution and oversight of the strategic plan will continue through the institution’s standing committees of the ASMSA Governing Council, campus leadership team, along with involvement from other groups.

“The members of ASMSA’s community of learning understand the special investment the people of Arkansas make in the state’s future by supporting and sustaining our school,” Alderdice said.

“We take exceptional pride and care in our role as stewards of ASMSA’s past, present, and future. Together we will ensure that ASMSA continues to lead the state and nation in what is possible when students and educators are provided the opportunity to imagine, experiment, and learn to their fullest potential.”

The plan was brought to the ASMSA General Assembly of faculty and staff for endorsement as well as to the Board of Visitors, ASMSA Foundation Fund Board of Ambassadors, and the alumni association. It received approval by the University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees at their September 2020 meeting.

The 2020-2025 Strategic Plan, including progress made during first year of the plan as well as next steps, can be viewed on ASMSA’s website at asmsa.org/strategicplan.

Legislation expands BOV, creates faculty growth pathway

Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed Act 354 in March that expands ex-officio membership of the ASMSA Board of Visitors as well as creates a growth pathway for faculty members.

The change in legislation creates ex-officio seats on the ASMSA Board of Visitors for the school’s faculty and staff Governing Council, the Association for Alumni and Friends of ASMSA, and the ASMSA Foundation Fund Board of Ambassadors. The change ensures that all campus affinity groups are engaged participants in the advisory and advocacy work of the Board of Visitors. Existing ex-officio seats included the ASMSA Student Government Association, Parents Association, and partnering state agencies.

This legislation does not prohibit alumni to serve as a full board member, but it will provide the Association for Alumni and Friends of ASMSA a permanent ex-officio seat on the board.

The legislation also enables ASMSA to implement a growth pathway for faculty members that recognizes their excellence in teaching, mentoring student research, and service over time. While not a formal system of tenure, the amendment allows campus leadership to work with the University of Arkansas System to develop a framework for professional advancement that is consistent with peer institutions in other states.

Act 354 will go into effect in late July. Formal inclusion of these groups will begin with the September 2021 Board of Visitors meeting.