Students, faculty and staff at the University of Michigan are being asked to think boldly as part of a yearlong campuswide strategic visioning effort to imagine what the university will look like and accomplish in the next 10 years.

President Santa J. Ono announced in January that U-M would embark on a visioning effort let by U-M’s three executive vice presidents—Geoffrey Chatas, executive vice president and chief financial officer; Laurie McCauley, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs; and Marschall Runge, executive vice president for medical affairs.

Input to inform U-M’s future—its Vision 2034—is being sought in several ways from students, faculty and staff on the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses, including Michigan Medicine. Additional outreach is planned to gather input from U-M alumni, donors, the local community, and government and civic leaders.

The coming weeks will see several campus community engagement opportunities, including town halls and dozens of unit-level information-gathering sessions, and many more targeted focus groups that will inform a campuswide survey to be developed later this year in partnership with survey experts at U-M’s Institute for Social Research.

In a message to the U-M community, the executive vice presidents provided an update on the effort and encouraged community members to participate in Vision 2034 by sharing their input and ideas.

“To create a collective vision for the University of Michigan, we have the opportunity to imagine what is possible and what we can create together, on all our campuses, in our communities and for our world by the year 2034,” they said. “Our collective vision will aim to sharpen U-M’s impact and create new opportunities for faculty, staff and students to challenge the present and enrich the future.”

The visioning process will be anchored to the university’s mission of education, research, clinical care and service, and its core values: integrity, respect, inclusion, equity, diversity and innovation. It also will incorporate strategic planning efforts in select areas of the institution—including UM-Dearborn, UM-Flint and Michigan Medicine—as well as other initiatives such as DEI 2.0, Bold Ideas, Bold Challenges and Campus Planning.

A core project team with a project lead has been established to implement the visioning process and will work with an advisory committee selected to represent the diverse perspectives and interests across all three campuses and Michigan Medicine. In the fall, the teams will use the feedback collected to draft strategic pillars that will be presented to the community and university leadership for feedback, with the final strategic vision to be announced by Ono in early 2024.

A new website—Vision 2034—was launched to provide the community with updates and gather input and feedback from the U-M community throughout the process and will be updated frequently.