The Mulerider Trail to 2030
Guided by the new Mission and our Core Values, the university community along with alumni and community partners came together during the 2024-2025 academic year to reflect on SAU’s past and present while envisioning the future of the university for all involved. What emerged was a rejuvenated interest in ensuring that SAU builds on past successes to secure the future as the premiere small college in Arkansas.
This document gives voice to that commitment by focusing on four strategic goals that will guide SAU over the next five years. It is an ambitious plan supported by key objectives that, when realized, will demonstrate the university’s commitment to the future as expressed in its Vision Statement. The four strategic goals guiding SAU’s future are:
- Enhance Pathways to Student Success and Personal Growth
- Sustainably Improve Infrastructure to Secure the Future of SAU
- Promote a Thriving and Engaged Campus by Supporting Students, Faculty, and Staff
- Expand SAU’s Impact through Local and Global Community Partnerships and Alumni Engagement
At the end of the Mulerider Trail in 2030, SAU will be strengthened as an educational institution, as a center of employment, as a partner to Magnolia and beyond, and as a community that embraces the potential of each individual while supporting each other in the process. We will have accomplished meaningful and visible change that builds on the core strengths that have already made SAU a premier site of education in Arkansas and the region.
Enhance Pathways to Student Success and Personal Growth
SAU is proud of its curricular offerings, level of academic rigor, and existing pathways available to students to ensure their academic and career success. To maintain our standard of excellence in an increasingly competitive and changing higher education environment, prioritizing new ways to support all areas of student success quickly emerged as a goal embraced by the entire campus community. Student success defines the effectiveness of any university and is a responsibility to which SAU demonstrates its commitment through focused objectives designed to support this crucial goal.
- Improve student access to higher education through innovative recruitment initiatives
- Continuously evaluate and adapt academic programs in response to evolving marketplace needs
- Integrate career readiness programs and experiential learning opportunities
- Increase year-to-year retention rates leading to increased graduation rates
Increase support opportunities for students with unique challenges
Sustainably Improve Infrastructure to Secure the Future of SAU
SAU is dedicated to investing in existing infrastructure such as buildings, landscaping, walkways, and lighting to maximize its educational potential and present an attractive and welcome environment for potential and future students. By prioritizing a holistic and sustainable approach to maintenance and upkeep throughout campus, we can secure SAU’s future as Arkansas’ top destination among small colleges.
- Develop, maintain, and utilize a campus master plan for deferred maintenance to preserve and revitalize campus infrastructure
- Implement and encourage sustainable resource usage to reduce long-term operational costs
- Enhance campus aesthetics
Promote a Thriving and Engaged Campus by Supporting Students, Faculty, and Staff
SAU wants its students, faculty, and staff to be the best they can be and recognizes the responsibility it has to ensure an engaged campus to maximize everyone’s potential. By examining past successes and future expectations among stakeholders, we can identify and remove barriers to achieving our potential and promote an environment of flexibility that can respond to the fast-changing issues of local, national, and global concern.
- Leverage modern technologies and enhance traditional networking channels to strengthen communication and engagement among students, faculty, and staff
- Strengthen clear pathways for personnel to achieve personal growth and professional success
- Enhance and increase access, awareness, and visibility of existing support structures
Expand SAU’s Impact through Local and Global Community Partnerships and Alumni Engagement
SAU has graduated an impressive cohort of alumni over its long history and a thriving campus environment will necessarily leverage alumni involvement to connect the newest Muleriders to those who have come before them. Through efforts to track and communicate with this cohort, SAU will utilize their experience and expertise to involve them in campus events, promote in-class presence, and highlight the value an SAU degree provides for students in all fields after graduation. Moreover, SAU’s influence extends beyond the borders of campus, so it intends to promote programming that brings the community to campus, strengthens existing community partnerships, and forges new relationships in surrounding areas to increase our visibility and connection to the communities we serve.
- Increase SAU’s impact across the region and state
- Build stronger connections between alumni and academic programs to strengthen learning opportunities for students
Strategic Planning Committee
Leadership Team:
- Sheryl Edwards, Chair
- Brian Logan and John Schneiderwind, Co-chairs
Committee Members:
- Haley Bell
- Kim Bloss
- Steve Browning
- Laurie Burks
- Makenzi Hamilton
- Gerald Plumlee
- Jennifer Rowsam
- Cledis Stuart
- Abe Tucker
- Connie Wilson
