By ZOE FERGUSON
Last Friday, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences launched a new five-year strategic plan, which aims to increase the diversity college faculty and improve public engagement with its programs.
The new plan — entitled “Knowledge with Public Purpose in a Changing World” — was devised after the college had achieved the goals outlined in a 2009 strategic plan, Kathryn Boor ’80, dean of the agriculture college.
Boor said she believes this year is an appropriate time to begin a new plan.
“We are at a point now where we need to be thinking about the coming years,” Boor said.
According to the plan, the new initiative is aimed at achieving 10 overarching goals within four broad areas of interest: the academic stature of the college’s programs, engaged learning and research, a “broadly inclusive” scholarly community and control of the college’s resources.
Boor added the most important goal of the plan is that of further enhancing the academic stature of agriculture college programs.
Boor added the second goal of engaged learning and research is “something that is near and dear to our land grant mission” and intends to increase community engagement by making the ideas of agriculture college programs more accessible to the general public.
“The goal in everything that we do is always to have in mind the needs of the public and to ensure that what we’re doing helps meet those kinds of public objectives,” Boor said.
Warren Hall on the Agriculture Quad. (KK Yu / Sun Staff Photographer)