Missouri State University’s 2025-2030 strategic plan, "Igniting Opportunity," has some lofty goals. Missouri State University President Dr. Richard "Biff" Williams presented them and gave an overview of the plan in his State of the University address Monday.
The plan was created over the last year with input from faculty, staff, students and the community.
Williams said the mission still focuses on public affairs, but the plan adds a vision statement, which is to become the nation’s leading public affairs institution.
"That will be a heavy lift," he said, "but we are up to that."
The plan also focuses on three values: Ethical leadership, cultural competency and community engagement.
Williams said there’s no better time in our nation than now to embrace cultural competency.
"We need to have civil discourse, and we need to remind ourselves that universities are the beacon of that," he said. "We have people coming here that should be able to feel secure enough and safe enough to be able to talk about their points of view and be able to be heard but also listen to others, and that's what we're going to focus on."
Some goals included in the plan are to strengthen university-industry-community partnerships, to reach enrollment of 30,000 and to attain record-breaking athletic attendance.
Williams said their first priority will be to focus on their strategic enrollment plan. Part of that, he said, is to refresh their branding to help recruit new students and to reach out to alumni.
"Tell them the wide array of programs that we have, tell the success stories of our student body, making sure that...when they come here, they understand that they're going to have extracurricular activities that build on what they're doing and that they will be career ready when they go," he said. "I think (if) we do those things, we'll be the institution of choice."
He said a lot of what they'll do is to highlight what MSU has accomplished like having the largest business college in the state. And he pointed out that one in eight teachers in Missouri has a degree from MO State.
There's a plan to work toward achieving the goals laid out in "Igniting Opportunity." Williams said there are two team leaders for each of the goals. Each goal has three or four strategies, and those strategies have teams.
"We have hundreds of individuals that are coming together," he said. "They've created work plans. They've asked for funding."
The university has set aside $500,000 for one-time funding for teams to use as seed money.
He said they'll do follow-ups each year to see what was accomplished, "and we'll hold each other accountable, and we'll make sure that we're progressing on our plan."
Williams is optimistic they'll achieve their goals.
"I believe we're going to achieve every one of them," he said. And the reason why is it's because it's our plan."
He said it's a plan created with the input of many different people.
"Many conversations have happened, and we all believe in this goal," he said. "And I think when there's many hands, it makes light work. And so I do believe that we're going to achieve everything in this plan."
