Ivey Next – Spring 2023 Progress
I am pleased to provide you with an update on the progress of our strategic plan, Ivey Next, which we launched just over a year ago. As you may recall, in the first six months many tactical things were addressed quickly. At the same time, we planted the seeds for foundational changes that would take longer. We are pleased to see those foundational aspects now coming to life.
Building Capacity for Critical Issues:
Our new mission reflects our desire to have greater impact and address the critical issues facing organizations and society. One of our key priorities is building our capacity to address Critical Issues and increase thought leadership. To achieve this, we have identified and supported faculty research aligned with our Critical issues and hired additional faculty capacity aligned with these issues. We are working towards greater clarity in defining the scope of each Critical Issue and where they overlap with each other. This work will create a shared understanding, clearly delineate Ivey's sub-topics within each issue, support monitoring and reporting, and ensure that the Ivey community knows how they specifically contribute. While we build external funding support for Critical Issues, we have set aside internal funds to accelerate our research. We are actively seeking proposals from faculty to align this internal funding to high-impact research and support the School’s integration of Critical Issues in the curriculum to prepare learners for addressing these and other complex problems in the future. More recently, we have started to align our efforts on priorities to have impact while better defining and establishing approaches to measure our impact.
Developing a signature Ivey student journey:
We have a strong reputation for excellence in student experience but we must continue to invest to stay ahead. We are strengthening the signature Ivey student journey by expanding our recruiting reach and approaches, increasing global content with new international experiences, embedding more critical issues topics in the curriculum and co-curriculum and exploring new executive education and degree programs through a comprehensive portfolio review. We are also innovating the classroom experience with Digital Learning Experiences.
A new Director for Student Experience role is being established to cover all degree programs, which will map and support the full student experience journey. For our alumni, we are developing new engagement opportunities throughout their career journeys, including lifelong learning programming and expanded executive education offerings.
Strengthening our foundations:
To build on our new vision of the future, we are strengthening foundational pieces like our work on deepening cultural norms and embracing our values across the Ivey community; modernizing our technology, processes, and data management; and, restructuring our research, programs, and administrative structures to better support students, faculty, and staff in their missions.
As stated in Ivey Next, our values of Integrity, Inclusion, Community and Courage will guide our decision making and support our continuous pursuit of excellence. To ensure that we are living our values, we are turning words into action and daily practice at both the individual and organizational level through our Values Studios. This work will continue throughout the summer.
Our spectacular new Toronto Campus will be a major enabler to advance several strategy goals, including growth of programs, increase our geographic reach, strengthen our position for more global engagement, connect with the business community and serve as an important engagement space for alumni and student programming, symposiums, and idea forums.
It's our collective enthusiasm and contributions that bring Ivey Next to life. We believe that together, we can make a significant impact on the world. As we celebrate our centennial, we look forward to ensuring Ivey’s success for the next 100 years.
Dean Sharon Hodgson,
Lawrence G. Tapp Chair in Leadership