Academic Plan 2023 was developed in 2018 and launched in the winter of 2019. The plan included an ambitious set of goals built around innovation, inclusion, flexibility, and digital transformation. Open Education, multiple delivery models, and innovative pedagogy would all contribute to excellence in teaching and learning, and from there to student success. In launching the plan, Dr Salvador Ferreras, Former Provost and Vice President Academic, noted the potential for increased access and inclusion inherent in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world.
One year later, in the late spring of 2020, the ambitious goals of Plan 2023 met the realities of a public health pandemic in that globally connected world. Teaching modes shifted, not out of preference or planning, but out of necessity. Everyone at KPU – whether student, staff, administrator, or faculty – was required to adapt, innovate, and demonstrate inordinate flexibility. By the time the campus reopened fully, the world of higher education looked very different. Covid had created space for innovation but had revealed serious challenges in the areas of inclusion, access, and more broadly, mental health and work-life balance.
This new plan aims to build on the potential revealed by the pandemic, while addressing several of the structural challenges that continue to impact our institution in its wake.