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Engineering excellence for the public good

Strategic Plan 2022-2027

Investing strategically in our future

Mechanical Engineering Student Senior Capstone Project

The College provides a remarkable return on the resources entrusted to it by students and their families, the state of Washington, funding agencies and generous donors. We commit to strengthening our financial foundation and physical infrastructure, raising our visibility, investing in our people and increasing operational efficiencies through data-driven assessment.

Accomplishments to date

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    Adopted and leveraged Workday Finance for our financial modeling

    This new UW-wide system has proven invaluable, particularly given enrollment growth and the accompanying hiring needs. By providing clearer, more informed financial data, we have been able to make data-driven decisions that align with our long-term goals.

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    Launched Engineering Shared Environment

    The Engineering Shared Environment has been particularly noteworthy in improving our administrative structures. This initiative supports research, fiscal, and accounting services across our departments and institutes. By creating a more integrated and collaborative administrative environment, we have streamlined operations and improved efficiency.

  •    

    Developed Engineering Education Excellence & Access Initiative

    The College is committed to ensuring that all our students have access to the state-of-the-art resources, facilities, equipment, and tools required to receive a world-class engineering education. Continual investment in educational resources is imperative to build upon the excellent education our students currently receive and to stay on the leading edge. Over the last two years we have developed a model for an engineering program fee with aid for students with need. This initiative is an investment in our students’ educational success and will advance our shared mission of training outstanding engineers. The College is seeking University approval to institute it.

  •    

    Updated the College’s space assessment and capital plan

    Collaboration with UW Facilities, the Office of Capital Planning & Budgeting, and other key units has also been a critical component of our strategic plan. Together, we are updating the College’s space assessment and planning, addressing the urgent need for more and better spaces to accommodate our growing academic and research programs.

  •    

    Advanced the brand identity project to capture our excellence and impact

    The College engaged the firm The Agency at DCG ONE to collaborate with us in the development of a brand identity for the College. The brand position is complete, and we are developing the creative expression of the brand.

   

STRATEGY 1

Strengthen the College's financial foundation

Five-year Goals:

Develop a resource generation and financial management plan to realize the College’s strategic plan.

Expand online, certificates, short courses, professional master’s programs and other program offerings.

Establish incentives and reduce barriers to innovative new initiatives and revenue generation.

Increase the College’s public and private revenues to provide permanent endowed funding, industry funds and support for student programming and services.

Third year (2024-2025)

  • Advance and mature a revenue growth model and an enabling financial structure that supports College wide efforts. Establish success metrics to measure progress.
  • Seek University approval to implement a career readiness engineering program fee. If approved, develop and execute implementation plan.
  • Launch stackable certificates and master’s degrees and create new innovative education programs to meet emerging industry education needs (e.g robotics).
  • Develop future fundraising campaign vision and priorities and test case with university campaign preparation committee.
  • Partner with state relations to advance the University’s state legislative agenda that includes funding for the Engineering Dean’s Scholars, enrollment growth for the Allen School, and operations and maintenance for the IEB.
  • Implement a growth model that facilitates and incentivizes the creation of new programs or evolution of existing programs to maximize College revenue and support departments and students. Develop metrics that will define success, and create a baseline so that future progress can be measured.
  • Pursue state support for enrollment and access expansion through STEM proviso request.
  • Utilize the results of the program fee feasibility study to pursue a change that will begin to address the cost of educating an engineer and improve and enhance the student experience and outcomes while ensuring that access is maintained.
  • Hire a director of new programs and innovation.
  • In partnership with the UW College of Arts & Sciences, the Office of Planning & Budgeting, the Provost’s Office and the Office of State Relations, develop a STEM proposal to include engineering enrollment expansion in the Legislative agenda for the ’23-’25 biennium.
  • Complete program fee feasibility study.
  • Build case for industry prospects for term-use faculty support and graduate student support, in concert with partnerships involving contract and private grant funding. Build case for support and clear goals around medical innovation programming as well as prospective donor pool.
   

STRATEGY 2

Create and promote a compelling brand identity for the College that captures our excellence and impact

Five-year Goals:

Develop a College brand identity and communications strategy in alignment with the University’s brand that supports the objectives of the organization and advances broad-based engagement.

Leverage the brand identity internally to strengthen affinity with and pride in the College among its departments and our faculty, staff and students.

Third year (2024-2025)

  • Develop usage guidelines and implement creative and editorial standards of the brand. 
  • Encourage adoption of the brand and increase internal awareness of the College and its identity.
  • Launch targeted publicity campaign to support student recruitment efforts; identify other audiences for targeted creative campaigns.
  • Adopt brand internally, and increase internal awareness of College and its identity.
  • Present external research results to College leadership and utilize findings to inform next phase of work.
  • In partnership with University Marketing & Communications secure a consultant to develop brand promise, platform and key messages.
  • Develop and implement internal communication plan to ensure participation in and awareness of efforts.
   

STRATEGY 3

Enhance the well-being and professional development of our staff

Five-year Goals:

Promote work-life balance to enhance well-being

Support professional and personal development

Third year (2024-2025)

  • Offer and promote trainings on “Self-care in the face of burnout and crisis; Effective communication across differences”
  • Encourage managers to support work-life balance and to foster inclusiveness and belonging by affirming employee contributions
  • Identify Whole U ambassadors and encourage participation in wellness programs
  • Provide and empower staff with opportunities to identify and solve workplace problems
  • Encourage managers to discuss, identify and support professional development activities
  • Expand the pilot program created in year one, implement a suite of career advancement and professional development programs, with greater than 50% staff participation.
  • Provide opportunities for feedback and input, including annual surveys. Consider re-prioritizing resources for programs that do not receive positive feedback.
  • Ensure greater than 20% staff participation in career advancement and professional development programs.
  • Create a pilot mentoring program that includes staff support in the areas of career advancement and professional development.
  • Survey staff every year for job satisfaction; create a baseline of understanding and to inform program development and resource allocation; use survey findings to plan and implement programs to address issues.
   

STRATEGY 4

Use transparent, understandable and data-driven analytics to assess and improve the College’s performance and align incentives with our priorities

Five-year Goals:

Improve, expand and integrate data to support decision-making by implementing tools that create efficiencies for faculty and staff.

Use this strategic plan to direct new initiatives, resource allocations, policy changes and activities with significant bearing on our stakeholders.

Third year (2024-2025)

  • Continue to support growth model and enrollment goals for the College and departments.
  • Participate in campus IBB planning/analysis and understand implications for the College.
  • Explore implementation of a CRM (customer relationship management) tool to increase recruitment into professional programs.
  • Provide and empower staff with opportunities to identify and solve workplace problems
  • Align with UW direction on new technology adoption and implementation to improve efficiencies
  • Utilize findings from first year inventory to inform the development of data collection, management, security, reports and enterprise integration.
  • Conduct data and analytics inventory to identify and prioritize list of key metrics; identify trends and establish baselines; and understand options for managing local data, security and integration with enterprise data.
  • Continue developing forecasting models for the College and its units to enable assessment of financial consequences of decisions. Publish dashboards and/or reports to provide resource and expenditures information by unit.
   

STRATEGY 5

Leverage existing resources and expertise to increase operational efficiency

Five-year Goals:

Strengthen administrative structures in support of our faculty, students and staff. Develop organizational structures that promote collaboration, efficiency and excellence in service.

Enhance collaboration and sharing arrangements among our academic departments across multiple support functions, such as computing services, advising and student services, financial transformation, DEI, and marketing and communications.

Strengthen the College’s physical infrastructure to support its education and research, including completion of the new Interdisciplinary Engineering Building and strategic renovation and retrofitting of current facilities and equipment.

Third year (2024-2025)

  • Utilize existing administrative best practices to develop and promote concepts of shared service, community of practice, or common resources.
  • Implement the plan to celebrate, open and operationalize the new Interdisciplinary Engineering Building
  • In partnership with UW Facilities develop a long-term capital plan for the College.
  • Continue to leverage all available pathways to address aging infrastructure.
  • Develop Feasibility Plan to support short-term infrastructure goals for the College
  • Assess pilot programs and processes, including testing of systems and collection of customer satisfaction. Identify needed improvements and permanent investment requirements.
  • Implement the process to support minor facility modifications and capital refreshes.
  • Create a structure to support changes required by UW Finance Transformation.
  • Establish standards and services for processing service agreements and contracts.
  • Develop systems and determine staffing and funding model to support complex grant proposals.
  • Identify operational inefficiencies, duplicative processes and service gaps. Prioritize opportunities for improvement, including required resources and pathways for change. Identify project leaders; develop process leads to form task force.
  • Launch a pilot shared service program to meet changing departmental fiscal needs.
  • In partnership with UW Facilities and OPB’s Office of Capital Planning Strategy review and update the College’s Payette space study (2017) to ensure our alignment with the campus master plan and our ability to accommodate projected enrollment and research growth.
  • Develop a transparent process to support minor facility modifications and capital refreshes.
  • Develop tools and systems to enhance communication, innovation and exchange of best practices across administrative divisions and between academic and administrative units.