Introducing NAU 2025 – Elevating Excellence
Dear Lumberjacks,
I am pleased to introduce NAU 2025 – Elevating Excellence, Northern Arizona University’s strategic roadmap fordelivering a bold and boundless future for all.
Earlier today, the University Advisory Board unanimously passed a motion to endorse this document and advance it for discussion with the Arizona Board of Regents at their June meeting.
The strategic priorities set forth in NAU 2025 – Elevating Excellence represent a robust synthesis of the NAU community’s thoughtful engagement and bold aspirations for the future, coupled with the input of important public, private, and philanthropic partners. The seven priorities and 29 corresponding components we have landed upon are informed by the strategic context in which we operate and are responsive to the evolving challenges and opportunities facing higher education today—in Arizona and beyond.
In the last eight months since the roadmap process was launched, we have produced four versions of the document, engaged in three robust periods of feedback, received thousands of inputs, and dedicated countless hours to bringing this collective vision into sharp focus.
Please join me in thanking everyone who contributed to this process, especially the dedicated team who served on the working groups and facilitative committees that endeavored to capture the collective voices of our community in a document meant to guide, but not prescribe, how we will advance the New NAU together.
As we move from design to implementation, I want to share a few words of reflection on NAU 2025 – Elevating Excellence and its role as a guiding strategic document.
First, NAU 2025 meets an early design requirement that it be more aspirational than operational.
Second, NAU 2025 presents a clear value proposition that will engage and mobilize a broad sector of internal and external audiences as we seek to make our collective vision a reality.
Third, NAU 2025 sets the foundation for institutional accountability in the years to come.
Even as this guiding document has been under development, we have moved swiftly throughout this past year to advance the tenants that are articulated therein, including the New NAU Workplace, a bold commitment to sustainability, transformative investments from our partners, policy changes that drive equitable access and affordability for Arizonans, transparent budgeting processes that put our people first, and much more. We will carry this momentum forward into the future.
In recognition of the importance of backing our words with continued action and institutional commitment, I am pleased to share today that I have authorized the allocation of $4 million from one-time funding sources to be designated to impact projects that will help accelerate progress toward our NAU 2025 goals. These will include $2 million in impact projects developed by the President’s Cabinet for immediate implementation over the summer and up to $2 million in an initial round of competitive proposals open to the NAU community and administered by the Offices of the Vice President for Research and the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs.
I look forward to sharing more information in the days to come about this initial round of work and how we will structure the development of broader universitywide signature initiatives. In advancing the priorities articulated in NAU 2025 – Elevating Excellence, we will build on the momentum gained in this first year of our 17th presidency, propel economic mobility, enhance the public good, and deepen our university’s social impact.
Here’s to the bold and boundless future that is within our reach.
In partnership,
José Luis Cruz Rivera
President