Road Map to the Future: Updates

The Roadmap to the Future refers to the work we are beginning across the campus to find our shared vision for the future. The steering committee is facilitating engagement across the university to discuss how we can set priorities that will reflect our values for equity and justice, to find our way towards inclusive excellence.  

 We are starting with the clearly stated themes that emerged in President Beck’s listening tour. We want faculty staff and students to consider these things and how to set the priorities that will incorporate our values for inclusive excellence and represent our hope for what CSUN can become and can achieve. 

The first part of this process is to find priorities through broad, inclusive campus engagement and conversation. This first phase will not involve any budget allocations, but developing priorities through broad engagement will help us create opportunities for cross-disciplinary approaches to our stickiest challenges as an institution. In the next academic year, CSUN will undertake the second part of this process, developing at division, college, and department levels the initiatives and programs that will reflect these priorities.  

Note that the role of the steering committee is NOT to determine the priorities or write the Roadmap. Our role is to engage campus stakeholders through an inclusive process to find our common ground, refining and learning along the way as we write these priorities through our shared vision.

The Steering Committee will conduct its work in three phases: Design, Engage, and Synthesize. Currently, the Steering Committee is in the Design Phase, planning how to approach data collection and gathering ideas for the Engagement phase.  Two Town Halls are planned in December to explain the Road Map process, answer questions from the CSUN community and take input.

The Road Map initiative seeks to co-create our future through an inclusive, transparent campus engagement process, facilitating multiple paths for listening, learning and feedback.  Road Map will:

• establish priorities and create flexibility for emergent opportunities;
• hold space for bridging across differences and disruptive thinking;
• and model the values of inclusive excellence throughout the process --diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and belonging.

Following a highly productive retreat on January 20, 2022, the Road Map Steering Committee is preparing to engage in an inclusive manner with faculty, staff, students and alumni of CSUN.  Stakeholder meetings are being scheduled with thematic subgroups, and large, Town Hall style meetings are being planned.  In addition, Qualtrics surveys are being developed to capture input from those unable to attend meetings or who have additional input to share.

The month of February was marked by multiple, focused conversations led by the five subgroups, covering the listening tour themes of: Standing in Our Values of Equity, Inclusion & Justice; A Clear Commitment to the Overall Success of Our Students; Academic Excellence; Sharing Culture, Fostering Community; and Strengthening Community Connections.

Realizing we are all still balancing much in our personal lives on top of our commitment to serving our students and the CSUN community, the Steering Committee ensured multiple avenues for participating in the Road Map process. Members of the CSUN community are invited to participate through focused conversations (virtual and in-person), feedback collection via our website, collection of historical/informative documents, and subgroup surveys.