There is a broad consensus that our future as a national university hinges on the establishment of a distinctive, JMU blend of liberal arts, research and professional education.

Create innovative academic programming and strengthen inclusive academic supports to encourage exploration, enhance student success and academic excellence, and prepare students to contribute to a dynamic society.

1-1. Develop and sustain new, high quality academic offerings (majors, minors and certificates) at the undergraduate and graduate levels that meet commonwealth needs and serve student interests.

1-2. Ensure Academic Program Reviews (APR) align with stated learning outcomes and include plans for improvement.

1-3. Develop infrastructure, policies and expertise to provide a range of options for degree completion for undergraduate and graduate students, e.g. flexible scheduling, varieties of course modality.

1-4. Build a sustainable advising framework and systems that strengthen transfer student support, first-year transitions, and exploratory and pre-professional pathways.

1-5. Develop an Early Success / Early Alerts program to increase retention, engagement and degree completion for all students.

1-6. Develop comprehensive student mentoring, academic coaching and other academic supports for undergraduate and graduate students.

1-7. Expand internship, cooperative/early career and class offerings for undergraduate and graduate students to increase workforce readiness.

1. New and revised academic offerings (majors, minors and certificates) will reflect the needs of the commonwealth and serve the interests of students. This will be explicitly referenced in curriculum proposals and used as a lens in the evaluation of curriculum proposals. 

2. In order to establish a benchmark for evaluating the ability of the curriculum process to respond to commonwealth needs and student interests, Faculty Affairs and Curriculum will gather data on the median time it takes for a curriculum proposal to move from Provost review to Board of Visitors approval.

3. Optimize the student to adviser ratio by college and program type measuring from a baseline of 2021-22.

Source: University Data

4. Optimize the student to adviser ratio by advisor type (primary and faculty) measuring from a baseline of 2021-22.    

Source: University Data

5. Increase the first-year retention rate for all students and identified student groups measuring from a baseline of 2021-22. 

Source: OIR Data

6. Increase graduation rates for all students and identified student groups measuring from a baseline of 2021-22.

Source: OIR Data

7. The Internship Task Force formed by the provost in Fall 2022 will support and guide the efforts of Academic Affairs to expand internship, cooperative/early career and class offerings that increase workforce readiness. Initial collaborative activities in the AY 2022-23 are expected to include: ​

   1. Defining activities that constitute “work-based experiential learning” resulting in workforce readiness, whether currently available or not. ​

   2. Developing and determining baseline measures of current JMU student engagement in each work-based experiential learning area by program and/or college. This will include: ​

      1. Pruning the current Hight Impact Practices (HIP) measures list used in the university Strategic Plan Performance Measures (as defined by AAC&U) and adding measures where necessary. ​

      2. Surveying institutional peers to learn about their methods of tracking and measurement. ​

   3. Develop approaches to enhance student reflection and metacognition on work-based experiential learning. ​ 

Go to Strategic Goal 1, Objective 2

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Printable Academic Affairs Strategic Plan - Full Document (updated April 2023)