Schatzel and her team will regularly provide updates on strategic initiatives as part of her report to trustees. She outlined her strategic priorities at a previous trustees meeting. Updates from the provost’s office and community relations were given at the Oct. 25 meeting.

Interim University Provost Gerry Bradley was first up with his report, which focused on how the university will establish and implement a five-year undergraduate success plan to advance inclusive student success and raise UofL’s six-year graduation rate from 62% to 70%.

According to Bradley, the undergraduate success plan will prioritize eight key areas: advising systems and services; course catalog and scheduling; first-year experience; financial aid; key predictive analytics; living-learning communities; degree navigator software; and transfer and dual enrollment pathways. Unit meetings with deans and vice provosts to identify specific initiatives are under way.

Vice President of Community Engagement Douglas Craddock provided insight on the establishment and implementation of a university-wide community engagement plan. This plan will further the university’s efforts to serve as a premier metropolitan university – one that, “facilitates the use of university knowledge and resources to support partnerships advancing the mutual needs of the university and the community.” Craddock said this is an important initiative for UofL to maintain its status as a Carnegie Research 1 and Community Engaged Institution.

The community engagement plan will focus on the institutionalization of community engagement, strategic partnerships, assessment and evaluation of community engagement initiatives and being an anchor institution for workforce development.

The committees of the UofL Board of Trustees will meet Dec. 14, 2023, and the next full Board of Trustees meeting will take place Jan. 25, 2024. Meeting minutes, schedules and other details are available on the .

“More than 1,200 people — students, staff, faculty, alumni, donors, business and community partners, legislative leaders in Frankfort and D.C. — participated in those sessions,” said Schatzel, who began her tenure at the university in February and will be . “I hope that you take away from my remarks that I did not just listen, but that I heard from you during my listening sessions and that I’m committed to these eight presidential priorities.”

The eight priorities are:

1. To improve communications on our campus and trust in our community;
2. To enhance UofL’s research and innovation enterprise;
3. To advance inclusion and institutional equity;
4. To realize student success inclusive of all students;
5. To establish “s˛â˛őłŮ±đłľ˛Ô±đ˛ő˛ő” by standardizing and centralizing key systems and processes throughout the university;
6. To retell . “We are no longer a commuter school,” she said, calling UofL a “university with international impact and influence, an anchor institution for Louisville and Kentucky, and renown for our excellence in collegiate athletics.”
7. To create a coordinated community engagement plan to focus efforts for the best impact and become the foundation of UofL’s 2024 application for recertification as a .
8. To begin addressing concerns from the recently released faculty/staff compensation study. Reiterating that she is firmly committed to a deadline of Oct. 1 to present an initial plan that will address some concerns, she said, “Despite how we got there, addressing those concerns is now my responsibility.”

Schatzel also pointed to three items from the approved by the Board of Trustees earlier this year.

The first is the five-year Undergraduate Success Plan to advance inclusive student success and raise UofL’s six-year graduation rate from 62% to 70%. The plan also focuses on eliminating completion gaps for several demographic groups, such as Pell-eligible students who graduate approximately 10 percentage points below the overall student population.

The second is to complete and begin implementation of an Institutional Equity and Inclusion Plan that emphasizes UofL’s commitment “that all members of our community — inclusive of all identities, demographics, life experiences, abilities and ideologies — will be welcomed and supported so they can thrive and reach their fullest potential.”

Finally, she highlighted the new Five-year Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Plan. It is aimed at retaining UofL’s coveted status as a with very high research activity by using benchmarks from other members of the . The AAU is made of the nation’s 71 leading research institutions.

“This is indeed one of the greatest universities in our nation and has created tremendous opportunity for thousands of students through the transformative education UofL offers,” she said. “… UofL graduates teachers, police officers, doctors, legislative leaders, entrepreneurs, pastors, engineers, accountants, artists, musicians and farmers. All our neighbors. … There is much to be proud of here at UofL and working together, there is indeed further greatness in our future.”

View photos from the Sept. 5 campus update event on .

Watch the entire address: