Members of the School of Social Work’s Executive Committee worked meticulously to develop a strategic plan reflective of our values and priorities. The planning began with a central focus on student experience, access, learning, growth, and success.
The SSW Executive Committee initiated the process by surveying faculty and staff and gathering their input and assistance in providing a common framework for revising SSW's Strategic Plan.
Using these data, the SSW Executive Committee, collaborating with two outside facilitators, held six subsequent special meetings during the previous academic year with faculty and staff and gathered additional input within the framework of UTA’s strategic plans.
Based on the feedback received, the SSW Executive Committee then expanded our planning to provide faculty and staff with goals and objectives to strengthen and expand academic programs, enhance research, improve connections to community development and outreach, and build a culture and climate allowing for all students, staff, and faculty to flourish.
Subsequently, we narrowed SSW’s Strategic Plan to Four Guiding Principles: Student Access and Success, Research and Creative Works, Inclusive Excellence, and Engagement and Community Outreach. We then reviewed our Four Guiding Principles to ensure they complement the UTA President’s Strategic Themes and five broad areas of focus: People and Culture, Student Success, Alumni and Engagement, Research and Innovation, and Finance and Infrastructure.
As with most strategic plans, this is a living document helping guide our growth over the next several years. We learned through the COVID pandemic we must be both focused and flexible. Therefore, we developed goals and measurable objectives to evaluate along the way our progression in meeting the overall strategic themes and our Four Guiding Principles.
It is our intention, as a community, to monitor our Four Guiding Principles and the supporting goals developed, update them as appropriate, and modify them as needed. In this way, we will be able to keep current and keep pushing our SSW, and its faculty, staff and students, to reach and exceed the target goals in the framework of the UTA President’s Strategic Themes and our Four Guiding Principles.
UTA is designated as an R1 - Carnegie Tier One Very High Research Activity institution, and this is reflected in our strategic planning as we continue to expand our Social Work research production.
Finally, not only does our strategic plan align with the UTA President’s Strategic Themes and university policy, it also incorporates the UTA Principles of Community and SSW’s Principles of Community.
Educating Leaders to create community partnerships for promoting a just society.
The University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work promotes the highest standards of integrity, and excellence in research, teaching and service, and creates collaborative scholarly and educational opportunities for students and the community, with the goal of achieving a just society.
