BOLDLY STRIKING

Famu Announces Its New Strategic Plan For The Next Five Years

BY [ Andrew J. SKERRITT ]

In September 2022, the Florida Board of Governors unanimously approved Florida A&M University’s (FAMU) new strategic plan, “Boldy Striking,” which has been crafted to chart the University’s course for the next five years.

The five strategic priorities in the 2022-2027 plan are Student Success, Academic Excellence, Leveraging the Brand, Long-term Health and Fiscal Sustainability, and Organizational Effectiveness and Transformation.

“We have set some fairly lofty goals — moving into the top 100 national public universities, going to Carnegie R1 status. The strategic plan lays the blueprint for us getting there,” said FAMU President Larry Robinson, Ph.D., who reiterated that student success is the cornerstone of the plan. “All the other priorities support that primary outcome. We are anxious to continue the work we have kicked off on campus to get it implemented.”

Now that FAMU has achieved the status as a Carnegie R1 research institution, the strategic plan calls for reconfiguring faculty workloads to enhance research productivity. Also, the University plans to implement initiatives to encourage faculty to join forces and write collaborative grants.

The success of the previous five-year strategic plan set the stage for even greater success in the coming years, Robinson said.

“We didn’t get to where we are as the highest-ranked public HBCU by happenstance. We got there by adhering strictly to the tenets of that plan,” Robinson said. “If we do the same with the new plan, we will then get to the other lofty goals we have set.”

The plan is the result of 14 months of deliberations and collaborations among the University’s stakeholders, including faculty, staff, administrators, students, alumni, and supporters. The FAMU Board of Trustees approved the 20222027 Strategic Plan last July.

Under Strategic Priority No. 4: Long-term Health and Fiscal Sustainability, the main goal is to implement a planning and budgeting process that identifies, secures, and allocates existing and new educational and general (E&G), contracts and grants (C&G), and auxiliary funding. This calls for exploring ways to expand additional federal and state advocacy. The University is also committed to invest in capacity building for sponsored research.

Strategic Priority No. 5: Organizational Effectiveness and Transformation calls for enhancing a culture that intentionally fosters building and engaging a high-performing workforce and fortifies FAMU’s status as an employer of choice. One way is to develop a compensation framework that aligns market competitiveness and internal equity with attracting and retaining qualified employees.

FAMU Trustee Kristin Harper, who chairs the Strategic Planning & Performance Measures Committee, said the “Boldly Striking” strategic plan is about sustaining and improving the University’s performance in terms of student success, finances, operations, and other areas.

“The new strategic plan builds on our rich legacy heritage and the outcomes that we’ve achieved to take us even higher. It’s called ‘Boldly Striking’ because we are very clear about our history and our legacy, and we will continue to strike out,” said Harper, who attended the Florida Board of Governor’s meeting in Pensacola. “We are moving into a new era of even greater performance, outcomes, and transformation for students and their families and for the generations that will follow.”