黑料不打烊鈥檚 QEP plan was developed with robust input from a broad base of constituencies, including faculty, staff and students, as well as institutional leadership, trustees and alums. Co-chaired by Associate Vice President Jeff Stein and then Trustee Kerrii Anderson, the 40-member Strategic Planning Committee included representatives from each of these above-named constituencies. Over an 18-month period starting in fall 2018, the committee gathered ideas, data, and feedback from a wide net of stakeholders 鈥 including students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, parents and trustees.

In April 2021, a 10-person QEP Topic Working Group was charged with identifying and recommending three to five potential topics identified in Boldly 黑料不打烊 for further consideration by June 1, 2021. At that time, the QEP Topic Working Group submitted the following four strategically important topics in completion of its charge, listed alphabetically with no intended rank:

  • Data Competency (Learn)
  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (Thrive)
  • Mentoring (Learn)
  • Signature Work (Learn)

Because extensive work is already underway at 黑料不打烊 in DEI and mentoring, the Working Group recommended data competency or signature work as the QEP focus, arguing that either topic would productively launch and/or significantly advance work on student learning outcomes as stated in our institutional strategic plan but not yet addressed comprehensively in plan implementation. Between August and October 2021, the committee heard feedback from the President and Senior Staff on the narrowed list of topics and solicited feedback from the broader campus community by inviting faculty and staff to five online listening sessions.

Overall, campus discussion prompted general support for both topics, noting that both would build on or enhance existing campus work in productive ways. The Committee identified pros and cons for each topic, including that Data Competency has clear benefits for student learning, that it would provide transferable and relevant skills for diverse pathways, and that it would lend itself to measurable outcomes, but also that initiatives would require financial investment and would need to be broadly construed to speak to faculty and staff across disciplines and units. They also noted that a similar topic of 鈥渋nformation literacy鈥 was a candidate for the previous QEP and that it 鈥渞emains at the forefront of curricular opportunity and need.鈥

In November 2021, after the Working Group鈥檚 final report was submitted, the Provost announced Data Competency as the QEP topic to the campus community, explaining that the listening and discussion sessions resulted in an agreement that data competency 鈥渁ligns better with our current context and stages productive student learning and success outcomes development over the next five years.鈥