University of Central Florida

--- Mission: The University of Central Florida is a public multi-campus, metropolitan research university that stands for opportunity. The university anchors the Central Florida city-state in meeting its economic, cultural, intellectual, environmental, and societal needs by providing high-quality, broad-based education and experienced-based learning; pioneering scholarship and impactful research; enriched student development and leadership growth; and highly relevant continuing education and public service initiatives that address pressing local, state, national, and international issues in support of the global community. --- Strategic planning: The current strategic planning cycle began almost two years ago with roundtable discussions focused on the role of UCF in the central Florida city-state. Those roundtable discussions included a broad mix of university and community participants whose input formed the basis of newly crafted mission and vision statements. Those statements, along with enduring UCF goals and values, were subsequently approved by the Board of Trustees and helped shape the new strategic plan. Specific details on these essential strategic plan building blocks can be accessed through the website link labeled “key elements.” During the same time period as the roundtable discussions, President Hitt authored a descriptive narrative that frames this strategic planning effort. The narrative provides keen insight to UCF’s development over its relatively short history and portrays a clear vision for the university’s future roles and responsibilities. This narrative can be viewed at the website link labeled “President’s Overview.” Finally, specific details of the overall strategic plan are provided in the comprehensive strategy articulation map (see website link labeled “strategy map”). In this single document, UCF’s strategic vision, goals, emphases, imperatives and initiatives are depicted. These highlights provide a broad overview of the most critical areas of university endeavor, including mission emphases that richly support UCF’s role as a servant-leader in the central Florida city-state. Similarly stated, these emphases provide specific, but not exclusive, guidelines for critical university endeavor and resourcing; and they underscore UCF’s important role as a major public university, both in and of central Florida. This strategic plan was purposely crafted using a “rolling wave” approach given the expected rapid rate of change and countless unknowns facing higher education and university operations in the future. This approach mandates a dynamic process truly focused on the strategic level versus simply compiling myriad tactical plans from across the university. However, using this plan as their strategic backdrop, individual university units are expected to craft further tailored strategic, operational and tactical plans which specify key initiatives for mission accomplishment, growth and development. Progress on achieving the milestones highlighted in these unit level plans should be measurable and annually tracked through the university’s ongoing Institutional Effectiveness Assessment program. Everyone at UCF has a part to play in helping UCF become a successful leader in the central Florida city-state and beyond! Although UCF’s accomplishments and contributions to date are far-reaching and indeed noteworthy, the future is even brighter! Hopefully, the new strategic plan and this website prove to be informative and useful to all, and convey a strong sense pride, commitment and excitement for a university on the cusp of greatness! Go Knights!