The champions for the Innovative Academic Programs initiative have produced several outputs during the past year.  In spring and summer 2018, the team developed a set of criteria and a process for requesting and reviewing proposals for innovative academic programming.  We launched the process in October 2018 with a call for proposals from the provost.  Members submitted 25 proposals with multiple from each of the five colleges.  From November through January, two committees of Texas Woman’s leadership scrutinized the submissions.  College deans comprised one review committee while three other academic leaders plus the leaders of finance and also enrollment made up the second committee.  The committees were most receptive to programming proposals that demonstrated good potential for material enrollment growth and long-term sustainability.

When the reviews were complete, the committees had identified nine as meriting further exploration, and they asked the proposing organizations to submit a more detailed proposal for further analysis. Proposers submitted eight detailed proposals in March, and we repeated the review process. This time, the two committees selected five proposals for development with some beginning the traditional academic approval processes. The remaining submissions raised significant strategic, operational or financial issues that champions will explore in greater detail over the next six months.

The three programs that we will be moving most rapidly toward implementation include:

• BBA – Health Care Administration
• PSM – Biotechnology
• 4+1 – BS-Kinesiology (Sport Management) plus MBA (Master of Business Administration)

We will describe these three in greater detail next week.

For more information, contact initiative champions Ron Hovis, Carolyn Kapinus, or Randall Langston.

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Written by the Strategic Plan Design Team