Prepare for Change
A Strategic Plan to Increase Impact
When we say that the College of Liberal Arts is a place to “prepare for change,” we mean that on many levels. We want our students to be ready to change themselves through their educational and experiential endeavors in the college. We want our faculty to follow the exciting paths that their training, expertise, and scholarly creativity take them down. And we want to send students and knowledge out into the world, prepared to change the world.
Please join us in this endeavor to build on the already extraordinary depth and breadth of the College of Liberal Arts. Generations of students and faculty have come here to learn, teach, lead, and grow. We embark on this plan in order to sustain and strengthen the college so that generations yet to come will have the same opportunity. We look forward to working with you to achieve that.
Primary Strategic Goals
Offer Outstanding Education and Student Experiences
Connect to the Community and the State
Attract, Retain, and Invest in People
Enhance Support for and Visibility of Faculty Research on Critical Areas
Offer Outstanding Education and Student Experiences
We will provide top flight student experiences through curriculum, experiences, and support.
Initiatives and areas of investment
- Expand opportunities for undergraduates to participate in research, experiential learning, and community engagement
- Expand student mentoring, including the Foundation Scholars Program
- Make UT Austin a national leader in the production of outstanding Ph.D. recipients in the humanities, social sciences, and area studies
- Conduct systematic review and updates of the curriculum with the dual goals of reflecting frontiers of knowledge and responding to student and societal needs and interest
- Continue to further develop, implement, and celebrate a uniquely liberal arts approach to career preparation and coaching for students
Connect to the Community and the State
Strengthen and celebrate connections between scholarship and teaching in the College of Liberal Arts, the Austin community, and the state.
Initiatives and areas of investment
- Highlight and support ongoing community-based experiential and service learning
- Develop the Texas Community Research Incubator to support faculty research that involves the insights and participation of community members to solve community-level challenges
- Strengthen and expand the Urban Studies major to reflect the resources and learning opportunities in the dynamic city of Austin.
- Make better use of faculty expertise to address challenges within the Forty Acres.
Attract, Retain, and Invest in People
Attract and retain the best students, faculty, and staff by building a community of support, growth, and inclusion for all.
Initiatives and areas of investment
- Expand leadership training for COLA staff
- Expand training in leadership and management for academic leaders
- Continue the implementation and expansion of a formal faculty mentoring program
- Develop clear expectations, roles, and advancement paths for professional-track faculty.
- Provide continual, routine access to training in key elements of finance, HR, and other critical areas.
- Systematically consider and articulate growth opportunities for all major job titles
Enhance Support for and Visibility of Faculty Research on Critical Areas
Provide top-flight research infrastructure and support for cutting-edge scholarship across the college.
Initiatives and areas of investment
- Establish the Institute for Social and Behavioral Research as a central hub for research development, administration, and collaboration within the social sciences.
- Continue to invest in and expand the Humanities Institute to be the central hub for research development, administration, and collaboration in the humanities.
- Develop and establish a college-wide entity that supports scholarship and pedagogy in area studies and languages.
- Focus and leverage research fellow funding under existing endowments and other sources to support seed funding and interdisciplinary faculty in established and emerging high-impact research areas.
Our strategic plan, "Prepare for Change," is a living document, open to revision and reprioritization in light of what comes next. We will return to it at regular intervals and candidly take stock of whether we’ve achieved the goals we set for ourselves, and whether the priorities that made sense in the fall of 2023 still make sense in the semesters and years to follow.
We depend on the feedback of our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community partners to understand whether we're fully meeting the goals we've set out for ourselves. If you have thoughts, comments, or questions of any kind about the strategic plan, please email us at COLAstrategicplan@austin.utexas.edu.