College of Education Strategic Plan 2018-2020

This outline of strategic priorities describes the broad strategies the college will employ to pursue our most crucial goals and the main goals of the university. Every staff member, clinical faculty member, lecturer, administrator, and TTT faculty member will be important in executing these strategies. Every unit, team, and individual in the college will actualize these broad statements in the details of their work – responses to inquiries from faculty and students, plans for educational programs, research activity.

Improve access to and reputation of undergraduate programs.

  1. Ensure that our programs foster early career development, that students have career-related experiences early in their years at UNT, and that connection to careers is clear to all stakeholders.
  2. Prioritize access, flexibility, and eased pathways for transfer. Require only those prerequisites that are absolutely necessary for progression of knowledge and skill.

Build quality and reputation of graduate programs.

  1. Create distinct doctoral programs that support specific career paths – research or practice.
  2. In recruitment and support of graduate students, prioritize traditionally marginalized groups.
  3. Recruit, support, and mentor international students and draw upon their knowledge and resources to enrich curricula and student experience.
  4. Treat doctoral students’ inquiries as significant contributions to their field, and encourage their publication in multiple forms and venues.

Grow enrollment at all levels.

  1. Maximize partnership opportunities (e.g. with school districts, mental health agencies, community colleges, fitness/sport businesses) for embedded program offerings.
  2. Thoughtfully identify, design, and market online programs.
  3. Increase enrollment in Master's programs and create programs in which students can take a broad topical array of shared courses that count for Masters and Doctoral programs.
  4. Allocate student support resources (scholarships, assistantships, tuition benefits, out-of-state waivers) to maximize recruitment.

Promote student success.

  1. Expand points of contact with students for advising and support, including efforts from faculty, advisors, staff, and other students.
  2. Investigate and respond to student learning conditions, including balance with work.
  3. Create structures for faculty to build relationships and community with students across years.
  4. Proactively identify points of high risk of academic difficulty, coordinate faculty and advisor response, and structure learning opportunities and resources to support individual students’ academic success.
  5. Explicitly value the knowledge and resources that students bring.

Elevate the research records and reputations of the college and individual researchers.

  1. Hire deliberately, including recruiting scholars for TTT positions who can meet standards of productivity and quality. At the same time, diversify the faculty to represent more of the Texas and UNT student population.
  2. Raise the percentage of faculty who publish two or more articles per year in high quality journals. Communicate standards of scholarship and promotion/tenure until they are universally understood.
  3. Raise both the percentage of faculty with externally funded projects and the average amount of funding per faculty member.
  4. Support interdisciplinary, collaborative research within the college, across colleges, across universities, and with community stakeholders and partners.

Create a more cohesive and collegial community in the COE.

  1. Create opportunities to share research and teaching, across the college, among faculty and graduate students.
  2. Mentor people in their professional transitions, including junior and new members, and current faculty in new roles or ranks.
  3. Communicate about shared university, college, and departmental goals and accomplishments.
  4. Create more opportunities to know one another as whole people.