In preparation for undertaking Lehigh's first comprehensive strategic planning process since 2009, the Phase 0 work was an analysis of the 2009 Strategic Plan achievements. A working group of faculty and staff, including many of who participated in Lehigh's prior strategic planning process, completed a review of our progress toward goals set forth, in the original 2009 plan to inform our future planning. Below are links to the Phase 0 Executive Summary and the Full Report.
Project Timeline
Lehigh's comprehensive strategic planning process occurred during the 2022-23 academic year. Our Future, Our Lehigh, an open dialogue on the strategic direction of the university, launched in Fall 2022, when the campus community was invited to forums to join these important conversations.
More information about the strategic planning process is available on the Our Future, Our Lehigh website.
In January 2023, the Working Groups released their reports, which are the basis and framework for the strategic plan. Below are links to the four working group reports.
Hurdles
Early in our strategic planning process, we identified "Hurdles", which were barriers to our path forward. In the case of strategic plans, these are often pressure points or processes that create challenges to progress. In an effort to remove barriers to progress/strategic thinking, these "Hurdles" were addressed so as not to detract from the laser focus on the future.
Some hurdles were easy to remove/solve, but in some cases they were more complex and required more resources and time to address. The table below describes some of the hurdles that have been addressed and resolved during our planning process.
| HURDLE | DESCRIPTION | PROGRESS/STATUS |
|---|---|---|
| Testing Services | Center to support testing accommodations; aims to support students needs and provide faculty support. | Launched in Fall 2022, this new offering has been well received by faculty and students according to a survey of those using the services. |
| Transportation Services | Bus transportation is not meeting needs of the population going to and from Mountaintop and Goodman campuses. | Transportation Services launched pilot routes in January 2023, and continue to run the routes that were piloted. The new transit app with more reliable route information is fully deployed. Transportation Services will continue to assess the services and routes. |
| Parking Services | Parking fee structure feedback suggests modifications to policy and fees should be considered. | Parking Services will be completing the analysis they began in late Spring 2023, and communicating planned adjustments in the Spring 2024 semester. Changes will take effect in FY 2025. |
| Budget Process | Currently, resource planning depends on multiple spreadsheets and manual processes. | The Budget Office is in the process of implementing Syntellis to synchronize plans with forecasts and provide an interface for end-users; launch expected late Spring 2024. |
| Mountaintop Services | Mountaintop occupants/users lack clarity on services provided, seek more food options and better parking and transportation. | A Mountaintop commuter parking permit with evening and weekend privileges is available Fall 2023. Amazon lockers have also been recently added to make package delivery more accessible. Food truck every Thursday in front of Iacocca. Refer to Mountaintop Field Guide for services, new transportation routes and parking guidance. |
| Contact lists for group email distributions | Periodically, Facilities and other central offices need to communicate with groups of our community on non-emergency-related location-based matters. Systems are dispersed across campus and lack a sufficient workflow. | The solution leverages an already existing reporting tool (Argos) to generate distribution emails/data based on criteria of building location, department, and class offerings. This allows for the grouping of buildings, departments, and classes for distribution as needed for location-based email/targeted communications. Additional improvements are planned to expand the use case for this tool going forward. |
| Policy Repository | Policies are posted to various websites across campus and there is not a central location where they can all be found. | The Office of the Provost is approaching this implementation in various phases:
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| Staff and faculty compensation | Staff and Faculty retention and hiring is a priority in a particularly challenging job market. Perception of salary equity across markets needs to be validated and corrected if adjustments are needed. | Formal reviews have been conducted seeking comparison of staff and faculty compensation internally and with external peers to determine if any adjustments need to be made. Where needed, adjustments are being applied. For staff, this discipline will be applied each year to highlight and address needed adjustments. For faculty, Lehigh plans to engage in a similar salary review and adjustment process in future years to work to maintain a salary structure that is equitable and competitive. |
| Faculty lab readiness | Occasional delays in lab fit-out/set-up can impact research for our faculty hires. | Commitment to lab readiness within six months of a faculty hire has been made and met. |
| Off-Cycle resource requests | There are numerous resource requests during the course of the year, outside of the resource planning process. | A tool was created to promote better planning and stewardship, and to better enable request tracking. The form for requests is now available on the Budget Office website, and can be accessed here.
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| Accessibility at Alumni Memorial Building Bus Stop Location | Accessibility to the bus stop location in front of Alumni Memorial Building could be improved, and not located on a grassy area. | Upgrades to the bus stop location are in progress including adding a concrete pad, bus shelter, and new walkways to access the shelter. It is anticipated that these improvements will be completed in late Spring 2024. |
| Classroom Furniture Conditions | Furniture is sometimes not conducive to an engaging or inclusive learning environment. | The University has been systematically replacing older classroom furniture and fixed seating with new furniture. The new furniture includes larger, articulating tablet arms and a percentage of left handed tablets. This work is ongoing. |
| Collegiate Travel Partners (CTP) | Training with CTP agents on Lehigh's policies is ongoing to ensure customer service expectations are being met. After completing three demos with CTP's new Lightning travel reservation system with various Lehigh influencer groups (frequent travelers and reservation makers), it has been decided to migrate Lehigh to this more user friendly, feature-rich version to benefit the campus community. | Purchasing continues to partner with internal frequent travel teams to review CTP's service performance and will make a final decision regarding ongoing partnership with CTP by the end of the Spring 2024 semester. |