Here's what you need to know about Laurentian University's 5-year plan
It’s a hopeful, new beginning or the start of a new chapter for Laurentian University.
On Wednesday morning, school administration unveiled Laurentian’s new five-year strategic plan in a bid to carry the school forward over the next half a decade.
"The views of over 2,500 people contributed to the process,” said interim president and vice-chancellor Sheila Embleton.
"I believe this plan reflects the diversity of the community while bringing together realistic goals that reflect the university’s identity and potential. This plan sets forth a positive path forward through a clearer articulation of who we are, where we are going and the shared priorities."
Embleton spoke to a room full of staff although her comments were broadcast in a town hall to the university community by video.
The new plan identifies a vision, mission, values and four key priorities as the focus of the academic institution along with goals and initiatives to achieve them.
The priorities include enhancing the student experience, energizing the academic and research mission, building up the community Laurentian serves and valuing and supporting its people.
Read more about how the university will approach these goals here (see pages 7-10).
"Through the strategic planning process, we worked hard to identify values that would be important to Laurentian," she said.
"While developing the strategic plan, it was also clear that to a certain extent that the values we were to define would be somewhat aspirational given the harm that the challenges of the last few years have done to our community culture."
It’s also one of the first real directional documents it has issued since emerging from insolvency, short of its transformational plan released last year, that focuses on the future as it looks to leave its financial fallout and prioritizes what it calls 'the leaders of tomorrow.'
"I don’t know of any other university which has undertaken two such huge plans at the same time and really in record speed, working against mandated timelines,” said Embleton.
"So brave to us all in getting it done."
Work on developing the strategic plan first began in July 2023 and featured extensive participation from the Laurentian community.
Officials said there were workshops, consultations, town halls and surveys to organize the feedback gathered from students, staff and faculty.
StrategyCorp was hired as a consultant as it worked to make sense of the input and perspectives of the more than 2,500 people who participated.
It’s already being implemented and school staff say in the coming months, academic and research plans will have an important role in defining how key elements of the strategic plan will be put into place.
Embleton said a lot of the success that school receives will depend on how they can implement the values they are hoping to achieve into action.
Laurentian used the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) to declare insolvency in February 2021, which led to layoffs, program cuts and the end of its agreement with federated universities.
Embleton's last day in the interim role of president and vice-chancellor is on Thursday.
The new president, Lynn Wells, is slated to take over the helm on April 1.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Poilievre kicked out of Commons after calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 'wacko'
Testy exchanges between the prime minister and his chief opponent ended with the Opposition leader and one of his MPs being ejected from the House of Commons on Tuesday -- and the rest of Conservative caucus walking out of the chamber in protest.
Baby, grandparents among 4 people killed in wrong-way police chase on Ontario's Hwy. 401
A police chase which started with a liquor store robbery in Bowmanville Monday night ended in tragedy some 20 minutes later when a suspect fleeing police entered Highway 401 in the wrong direction and caused a pileup which killed an infant and the child's grandparents, as well as the suspect, investigators say.
Large numbers of New York City police officers begin entering Columbia University campus
Large numbers of New York City police officers began entering the Columbia University late Tuesday as dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters remained on the campus.
Freeland leaves capital gains tax change out of coming budget implementation bill, here's why
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will be tabling yet another omnibus bill to pass a sweeping range of measures promised in her April 16 federal budget, though left out of the legislation will be the government's proposed capital gains tax change.
Sword-wielding man attacks passersby in London, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring 4 others
A man wielding a sword attacked members of the public and police officers in a northeast London suburb Tuesday, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring four other people, British authorities said.
Man dies after suffering cardiac arrest while waiting in ER, widow wants investigation
When an ambulance took David Lippert to the hospital in March of 2023, the 68-year-old Kitchener, Ont., executive was hoping to find out why he was feeling weak and unable to walk. Some 24 hours later, he was found unresponsive in the ER.
CSE says it shared information on Chinese hacking of parliamentarians in 2022
While several MPs and senators say they were only recently made aware of China-backed hackers targeting them, the Communications Security Establishment, one of Canada's intelligence agencies, says it shared information about the incident with parliamentary officials in June of 2022.
WATCH Arnold Schwarzenegger spotted filming in Elora, Ont.
The name of the project has not been officially released although it’s widely believed to be the Netflix series FUBAR.
Eviction for landlord's use was legitimate, despite owners' partial move, B.C. court rules
A B.C. judge has upheld the eviction of a family from their North Vancouver townhouse, finding that the landlords did not take an unreasonable amount of time to move into the home after the tenants vacated it.