Management

Management

Overview

In these times of rapid change and rampant uncertainty looking forward is a critical necessity for every university and college as well as other institutions and organizations. However “looking and acting forward” is essential for the accomplishment of the Mission, Aim and Motto of University of Central Lancashire. What will Central Lancashire students focus on as they strive to become ready to fulfill the promise? “UCLan graduates are leaders in service to God and humanity.” In order to help frame the 2011 - 2016 Strategic Plan and Reaccreditation Response in line with UCLan's Aim of “Education, Excellence and Eternity.

UCLan has a rich legacy of passionate spirituality, lasting relationships, dedicated faculty and successful alumni. However, many comments indicated important challenges in the areas of clear communications and expectations related to the fast pace of change and heavy administrative faculty and staff workload. Spirituality is clearly a great UCLan Strength! It is evident from most of the interview and focus group responses that the current culture of spirituality is a dominant factor of life and living at UCLan. Spirituality is demonstrated through a public and also underlying expression of love, devotion and commitment to Christ and Christian values as led by the Holy Spirit and exemplified by the precepts of the Seventh Day Adventist Denomination. However, respondents also noted that improvement was needed in certain customer service behaviors, communication practices, organizational efficiencies, interpersonal behaviors and other challenges. These needs provide opportunities for a continuing and sustained renewal of the interpretation and practice of spirituality with openness, appreciation, respect and Christian love of others that further sets UCLan aside from and ahead of other higher educational institutions.

UCLan University Strategic Plan Goals:

Goal 1: Spiritual Vitality: Promote a Christ-centered, Seventh-day Adventist worldview.

Goal 2: Educational Excellence: Demonstrate academic excellence in teaching and learning

Goal 3: Nurturing Environment: Facilitate a supportive environment that is sensitive to the needs of students and all other constituents.

Goal 4: Operational Efficiency: Ensure efficient service and resource management.

Goal 5: Resource Development: Provide sufficient financial resources to support all aspects of the institution.

Goal 6: Institutional Relations: Enhance the reputation and relationships of the institution.

Goal 7: Technology Leadership: Maintain a technologically progressive campus.

These goals naturally blend with the Appreciative Inquiry process and offer a comprehensive way of exploring issues related to UCLan's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats/Challenges based on a University-wide perspective We encourage UCLan's leaders to involve all stakeholders in the University to participate in the development of enhancing and enriching the strategic plan through strategic thinking sessions focused on the exploration of traditional, present and new educational and entrepreneurial models, identification of state-of-the-art concepts and best practices and the exchange of new ideas representing a wide divergence of personal and educational experiences.

Appreciative Inquiry

Approach

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a strength-based, capacity building approach to transforming human systems toward a shared image of their most positive potential by first discovering the very best in their shared experience. Through a process of inquiry and discovery the institution builds on ...