STRATEGIC PLAN 2020-2025
PROLOGUE In July 2019, the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM) began a college-wide strategic planning process with a goal of setting a path for the college over the next five years. The process, guided by the Strategic Planning Steering Committee, was deliberately inclusive—more than 200 students, staff, faculty, and clients contributed through participation in college-wide summits, small working groups, and structured conversations. This process helped us discover and celebrate the strengths of our college and the outstanding team members who bring our mission and vision to life. As a college, we value collaboration, compassion, teamwork, culture, and innovation—organizational attributes that are foundational to our shared future. The strategic plan draft that follows, outlines the College vision and mission and how we will respond to opportunities within the veterinary profession, the research landscape, higher education, and the world. The strategic plan is a living document and will be updated to reflect the evolving industry landscape and critical internal developments.
OUR VISION: Transforming animal and human health today for a better tomorrow. Our people and climate are the heart of our college. We honor our traditions and are ready to tackle audacious challenges in an increasingly complex, changing environment.
TRANSFORMATIONAL EDUCATION
OUR VISION: Transforming animal and human health today for a better tomorrow.
OUR MISSION: To enhance animal and human health through transformational education, discovery and innovation, patient care, and public service that impacts our diverse and evolving world.
DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION PATIENT CARE
PUBLIC SERVICE
OUR MISSION: To enhance animal and human health through transformational education, discovery and innovation, patient care, and public service that impacts our diverse and evolving world. • Transformational education is core to our existence and supports all of our missions. We are committed to a diverse and inclusive culture that allows students, staff, and faculty to be their best and to openly educate one another. • The CVM aspires to be an epicenter of discovery and innovation. Veterinary medicine connects human and animal health and incorporates industries ranging from agribusiness to biomedicine. The breadth of our reach, expertise, and contributions is our opportunity for success. • Patient care is central to our profession and we believe the CVM can provide the best experience for our clients and the best medicine for our patients. Leading-edge care for all species includes innovation, excellence, and increasing access in both our rural and urban communities. • The college has a strong public service mission that we refer to as “Serving Every Texan Every Day.” For us, this means expanding our impact to the state, nation, and world through traditional and creative means.
4 | College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025
FIVE STRATEGIC INITIATIVES: Our five strategic initiatives are the organizational stepping stones that will advance the College and guide our positive change. All five are essential areas in which we aspire to grow; they are listed here in a non-prioritized, free-flowing order.
1.
Be a Best Place to Live, Work, and Learn
2.
Strengthen and Harness Our Research Enterprise
3.
Engage Texas and Beyond
4.
Enhance Student Success
5.
Address Infrastructure Demands
Goal 1: Champion and celebrate wellbeing. Goal 2: Create and maintain a culture of inclusion and welcome. Goal 3: Build bridges and promote connections across all areas of the college.
Goal 1: Hire and retain excellent faculty. Goal 2: Elevate programs in Translational Research, Infection, and Immunity. Goal 3: Support graduate students. Goal 4: Ensure faculty success.
Goal 1: Invest in our local community. Goal 2: Develop agricultural collaborations that serve Texas. Goal 3: Engage in strategic fundraising.
Goal 1: Provide new or leverage current faculty resources to enhance teaching and promote involvement in research. Goal 2: Promote BIMS, DVM, and PhD student wellness and academic success.
Goal 1: Build for the future—a new Small Animal Hospital. Goal 2: Develop Information technology to sustain our missions.
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025 | 5
1. STRATEGIC INITIATIVE:
Be a Best Place to Live, Work, and Learn Our students, staff, and faculty make us who we are. They create the ideas that drive our organization forward and forge collaborations that turn those ideas into reality. Together, our people embody our values and actively create a welcoming and inclusive culture. We aspire to support our students, staff, and faculty so that the CVM continues to be the best place to work and an institution that is profoundly interested in supporting and encouraging professional and personal development in its people.
6 | College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025
GOAL 1. Champion and celebrate wellbeing. • Hire a Director of Wellbeing. The CVM recognizes that student, staff, and faculty wellbeing is imperative to our success. We will hire a Director of Wellbeing, who will coordinate support services and develop programs in this area. • Develop wellness programs. We will create a robust portfolio of programs and facilities that support wellbeing, including classes focused on fitness and meditation, access to healthy food on all parts of our campus, and comfortable places for college and hospital personnel to eat and take breaks. • Give people a voice. The CVM will have virtual and physical suggestion boxes, through which anyone can offer ideas about how to improve our climate to our Office of Diversity & Inclusion. • Acknowledge outstanding work. We will develop a student, staff, and faculty acknowledgment program through which we can publicly and regularly thank our team members for outstanding work. • Expand our counseling services. The demand for on-site counseling is high and we will continue to explore ways to expand what we currently offer to students, staff, faculty, and clients.
GOAL 2. Create and maintain a culture of inclusion and welcome. • Expand the prominence and role of the CVM’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion. By expanding our investment in this vital area, the CVM will be able to better support faculty, staff, and student diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing. Hiring an independent Director of Diversity & Inclusion, a Director of Wellbeing, and appropriate support staff will be essential to our success.
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025 | 7
• Train people and build teams. The CVM will grow new opportunities to train students, staff, and faculty in areas such as difficult dialogues, diversity, and conflict management. • Create a mentoring culture. New staff and faculty will have an orientation, well-identified mentors, welcome brochures to the CVM, and opportunities to interact with colleagues. • Open our communications. The CVM is committed to open dialogues and will develop town hall meetings, additional inward-facing newsletters, and other methods of sharing information and creating conversations.
GOAL 3. Build bridges and promote connections across all areas of the college. • Create gathering places. The CVM will create an engaging space where students, staff, and faculty can interact, converse, and share healthy meals. • Stage events that promote togetherness. The CVM’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion, through a dedicated Director of Diversity & Inclusion and a Director of Wellbeing, will develop events that are fun and promote the exchange of ideas. The better we know one another, the more successful we will be. • Build connections during on-boarding. The CVM will improve our staff and faculty onboarding, so that employees have mentors, are introduced to the college, and are connected to one another through orientations.
8 | College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025
2. STRATEGIC INITIATIVE:
Strengthen and Harness Our Research Enterprise The College is uniquely positioned to innovate new solutions to challenging problems in ways that fully leverage our entire campus. Our impact is far-reaching, spanning biomedicine, agriculture, and animal and human health in a manner that is truly translational. In order to grow our research portfolio, we must seek creative ways to unite our diverse research community and to provide critical support to our graduate students, principal investigators, and hospital.
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025 | 9
GOAL 1. Hire and retain excellent faculty. • Hire strategically. We are committed to recruiting high-potential faculty who will grow our research emphases, expand our extramural funding, and help determine our future. • Issue competitive startups. We will systematically explore our recruitment packages and strive to ensure they are competitive with peer and aspirant institutions. • Attract and retain mid-career talent on steep trajectories.
GOAL 2. Elevate programs in Translational Research, Infection, and Immunity. • Leverage teaching hospital patients for translational research. The 30,000 animals we see each year through our hospitals represent a unique opportunity to improve veterinary health and to rapidly advance our understanding of human disease. A CVM-wide clinical trials core, a system of targeted intramural grant funding, a biobank, and an electronic data repository will help us fully realize this opportunity. • Pull biosafety facilities to build competitive programs in infection and immunity. The CVM is well positioned, through the Veterinary Education, Research, & Outreach (VERO) initiative and our biocontainment facilities, to do landmark work that will impact animal agriculture, food safety, and global one health. • Encourage all research-emphasis areas to attract funding for training programs at the federal level.
10 | College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025
GOAL 3. Support graduate students. • Provide nationally competitive stipends. Adequate financial support for our trainees will be vital for recruiting more high-potential individuals. • Diversify student funding with grants and development. We have an opportunity to share our research story with our Development Office team to create a channel of philanthropic support. • Support veterinary student and post-Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) research to develop clinician scientists.
GOAL 4. Ensure faculty success. • Protect faculty time. Department heads and unit directors will provide research-emphasis faculty with adequate time to develop high-quality, impactful work. • Invest in research support staff and core facilities. The CVM will examine opportunities to hire key research support staff and to develop cores in areas of high relevance to principal investigators. • Mentor faculty. Our college will reassess its research mentoring strategy and generate a portfolio of professional development opportunities for mid-career principal investigators. • Create a social network. We are committed to growing our research community by bridging divides and getting to know one another on both a personal and professional level. We will host college-wide seminars, small gatherings, and off-campus events as part of this culture change.
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025 | 11
3. STRATEGIC INITIATIVE: Engage Texas and Beyond
Our impact extends far beyond College Station, and we aspire to expand our reach across Texas, the nation, and the world. Outreach is our opportunity to help communities that need a lift, engage all stakeholders, and share our story. It is a way we can actively live our mission and share our innovations, educational expertise, and knowledge.
12 | College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025
GOAL 1. Invest in our local community. • Coordinate our outreach efforts. Staff in the CVM Offices of Communication and Diversity & Inclusion will commit to meeting regularly to coordinate our community outreach program. • Host community events. The college will develop a portfolio of community events that CVM faculty, staff, and students can get involved in (e.g., local school science fairs, Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, food pantries, Health Happy Horse, developing podcasts). • Encourage and recognize students, staff, and faculty who participate in community outreach.
GOAL 2. Develop agricultural collaborations that serve Texas. • Fully realize the potential of the Veterinary Education, Research, & Outreach (VERO) initiative. The CVM continues to invest in West Texas and animal agriculture through the rapid expansion of VERO. We have constructed new facilities, hired industry and academic leaders, and developed outreach to the region. The college is deeply committed to expanding this effort through a 2+2 DVM program, a fourth-year DVM student rotation, and enhancements to our outreach/research program. • Engage stakeholder groups. We will expand our interactions through events such as the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, Texas Southwest Cattle Raiser Meeting, Beef Cattle Short Course, and key stock shows and state fairs. • Become a hub for outbreak preparedness. The CVM is internationally known for its expertise in animal infectious disease and epidemiology and has the potential to respond to outbreaks through its Veterinary Emergency Team (VET), as well as collaborations with external entities. We will seek to systematically grow this capacity in a world where infectious disease events will be more global and bioterrorism remains a continued risk.
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025 | 13
GOAL 3. Engage in strategic fundraising. • Identify and update development priorities. We will review major giving priorities, assign a development officer to each department, and create open channels for faculty and staff to request funding assistance. • Engage the CVM students, staff, and faculty. The Development team will inform the college about development team members and impacts, communicate development priorities openly, reach out to DVM and Biomedical Sciences (BIMS) graduates, and celebrate our successes. • Bring consistency to our messaging. We will strengthen the relationship between the CVM’s Offices of Communications and Development to create marketing and branding materials for development that have uniform and clear language. We will enhance our use of platforms such as video, social media, packets/ templates, and news stories. • Build donor-centric culture within CVM. We envision better systems to identify donors and friends of the college; the establishment of a grateful client program; the institution of training key individuals on donor relations; and the continued promotion of faculty, student, and staff stewardship of donor relationships.
14 | College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025
4. STRATEGIC INITIATIVE: Enhance Student Success
Educating undergraduate, graduate, professional, and post-graduate trainees is central to our existence. We recognize that we must continue to improve the support we provide to students and faculty so that we can grow next-generation learners who will contribute to our state and the world. We are committed to tackling challenges in areas such as diversity and inclusion and student wellbeing, while honoring the traditions that have made us great.
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025 | 15
GOAL 1. Provide new or leverage current faculty resources to enhance teaching and promote involvement in research. • Create experiences that immerse all students in research. The CVM will develop engaging research experiences that are easy for all students to access and explore. We vision collaborative mentoring between DVM and PhD students, elective research courses for students, research fairs highlighting opportunities such as summer laboratory work and post-graduate research fellowships, and engagement of 4VMs in clinical studies. • Deepen our investment in teaching resources. The CVM highly values teaching and will commit to investing in new educational technologies, a continuing education program for our educators, and teaching assistantships. • Hire educators and support staff. As students and curricula change, we commit to continuing to hire faculty with a high-teaching emphasis, recruiting outstanding support staff, and investing in new educational technologies and methodologies.
GOAL 2. Promote BIMS, DVM, and PhD student wellness and academic success. • Promote mentoring and professional development. The CVM Professional Programs Office, Office of Research & Graduate Studies, and BIMS undergraduate program will facilitate planning centered around student mentoring and professional development to harmonize and enrich our efforts on this front. • Expand our diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing programs. The CVM recognizes that student, faculty, and staff wellbeing are imperative to our success. We are also committed to growing our climate, culture, diversity, and inclusivity in collaboration with campus-wide efforts.
16 | College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025
5. STRATEGIC INITIATIVE:
Address Infrastructure Demands Great infrastructure is a requirement for doing our best work and achieving our vision. A new Small Animal Hospital is critical to our continued success, given the expanding demand for veterinary services in Texas, the resulting growth in our DVM class size, and our desire to build our clinical trials portfolio. We also must continue to invest in information technology, given the exponential pace at which digital medicine is advancing. Achieving these goals will take the continued engagement of our donors, development team, and university.
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025 | 17
GOAL 1. Build for the future—a new Small Animal Hospital. • Define the hospital of the future. We will audit the operations and workflow of the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH), engage with our stakeholders, and seek input from experts to identify our need and deeply understand what we can become. This process will be about improving now and preparing ourselves for tomorrow. • Increase awareness and engagement. We will host VIP tours and special experiences; expand media outreach; and develop high-quality materials that tell our story. • Development and institutional advancement. Our Development team and college leadership will actively engage with donors and campus leadership to move this project forward.
GOAL 2. Develop Information technology to sustain our endeavors. • Develop consistent and stable internet connections. Internet access is key to accomplishing our missions and the CVM will ensure hard-wired and Wi-Fi connections are reliable in all of our buildings. • Focus on customer service. The IT team will develop and implement a CVM IT support response system and a project management system to ensure work is completed in a timely and prioritized manner. • Create a computer replacement cycle. A CVM computer replacement cycle would ensure we provide our faculty and staff with appropriate and up-to-date computer access. • Support emerging hospital needs. Our hospital operations have become increasingly digital, and IT is committed to facilitating a new PAC server and exploring digital information systems as the technological landscape changes.
18 | College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences • Strategic Plan 2020-2025
660 Raymond Stotzer Pkwy, College Station, TX 77843 vetmed.tamu.edu