Strategic Plan
2024-2029
With a focus on innovation and career preparedness, we provide our graduates with the skills and opportunities they need to thrive in their communities and careers.
Message From Dr. Rudin
Dear Lion Family,
I am excited to share the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan, reflecting our unwavering commitment to transforming lives and fostering success across our community. This plan is our roadmap for the future and a testament to the deep roots and rich heritage that have always defined us.
Our strategic plan will serve as the foundation for building a strong and vibrant university that continues to excel in serving rural and urban Texas. As we move forward, we remain dedicated to enhancing our educational impact, expanding opportunities for our students, and strengthening our ties to the communities we proudly serve.
Together, we will forge a path that honors our past while embracing the future, ensuring that East Texas A&M University remains a beacon of educational excellence for years to come.
Thank you for your continued support and dedication to our shared mission.
Sincerely,
OUR MISSION
We transform lives by providing an accessible education in an environment where faculty and staff care and are dedicated to the success of all our students throughout their academic career. We empower our students, faculty and staff to become the best version of themselves by supporting their continuous development and growth. Fueled by our resilience, tenacity, and talents, we strengthen the rural and urban communities we serve. Innovation is the heartbeat of East Texas A&M University, with career preparedness as a cornerstone of our educational mission. We are committed to ensuring our graduates are well-prepared for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Through robust career exploration, internships, industry partnerships, and skill development initiatives, we bridge the gap between academia and the workplace.
OUR VISION
As a premier institution of higher education in East Texas, we are a student-ready university. We lead in social mobility, achieving academic excellence in a wide range of traditional and interdisciplinary programs and serve as a national leader in the advancement of competency-based education. We further knowledge through impactful research and creative activity that benefits the region we serve and beyond. Recognized nationally for our innovative spirit and unique rural-urban identity, we promote an environment where all are valued, providing access and opportunities to ensure student success, career preparedness, and professional development for all members of the university community.
STRATEGIC GOALS
- Develop students’ critical thinking and analytical skills and information literacy.
- Provide instructional excellence through a variety of innovative academic programs and interdisciplinary degrees driven by workforce needs.
- Offer relevant experiential learning opportunities and internships that prepare students for careers in their selected fields of study or their pursuit of graduate or professional studies.
- Strengthen student advising and mentoring services to ensure career preparedness and social mobility.
- Student responses on end-of-semester evaluations that include the following statement(s) (only in applicable classes within each college and department):
- “This class helped me to develop my critical thinking skills.”
- “This class helped me to develop my analytical skills.”
- “This class helped me to develop information literacy.”
- Student responses to the following course evaluation statement, applicable to all colleges: “Overall, this course enhanced my skills, abilities and knowledge.”
- Student responses from the following statement, included on College of Innovation and Design course evaluations: “This course was relevant to my career aspirations.”
- Student responses on the graduation survey to the statement, “My degree has prepared me for a career.”
- Number of students participating in experiential learning and internship opportunities
- Establish a formal teaching and learning center and measure use after implementation.
- Retention
- Graduation rates (completion)
- “This class helped me to develop information literacy.”
- Gain distinction as an institution of high research activity (as identified by the Carnegie Foundation) by advancing targeted research activities.
- Cultivate and support research and creative activities of students, faculty and staff that elevate the university’s profile.
- Identify and promote emerging areas of research strengths.
- Number of grant applications submitted
- Annual research expenditures
- Number of doctorates awarded
- Ensure that all members and friends of the university community are engaged and feel included in the Lion family, experiencing a safe, healthy, civil, and welcoming environment.
- Support an institutional climate with shared governance where all students, faculty, and staff are able to achieve their academic, personal, and professional goals.
- Student responses to the following statement, included on course evaluations for all colleges: “The instructor treated students fairly and impartially.”
- Student responses to the following statement, included on the graduation survey: “I felt welcome in my academic program.”
- Results of the campus climate survey
- Participation rates in internal professional development and training programs
- Continue to expand academic programming and student support at new and existing sites in rural East Texas and the Dallas metropolitan area.
- Leverage the university’s assets to strengthen partnerships and maximize the economic, cultural, health, and social opportunities in the rural and urban communities we serve.
- Enrollment (headcount) at each of the university centers in the Dallas metropolitan area
- Number of partnerships and agreements in rural and urban East Texas
- Number of academic programs offered at university centers in the Dallas metropolitan area
- Incorporate best practices to develop and update collaborative, data-informed, and financially sound operations, platforms, business processes, policies, and procedures.
- Create and maintain living and learning facilities reflective of a 21st-century institution of higher education.
- Improve customer service.
- Strengthen brand identification.
- Increase and diversify revenue streams to ensure that necessary resources are in place to carry out the university’s mission, vision, and goals.
- Percentage of university policies that are compliant and up-to-date
- Amount of non-formula and tuition dollars brought into the university, including:
- Philanthropic dollars
- Foundation dollars
- Other state income (e.g., funds from The Texas A&M University System and THECB)
- Development and implementation of a long-range capital master plan
Quick Facts
East Texas A&M is one of the fastest-growing public universities in Texas, the third-largest institution in The Texas A&M University System, and the fifth-oldest state university in Texas.
East Texas A&M features several learning sites across the Metroplex. East Texas A&M at Dallas opened in 2022, increasing Dallas’ access to quality education from the Texas A&M System.
The university hosts six academic colleges offering 143+ degree programs. The student-to-faculty ratio is 19:1, with a regional and global student population.
A&M–Commerce features one of the nation’s only agriculture colleges, where students experiment with sustainable growing methods to produce wheat, cotton and corn on a 1,300-acre research farm.
As a national leader in competency-based education, East Texas A&M offers flexible online programs designed around the needs of adult learners and working professionals. It was the first accredited Texas public university to provide a competency-based bachelor’s degree.
Established in 1889 as a teachers’ college, East Texas A&M remains a leading producer of Texas teachers and administrators
Students enjoy an action-packed campus experience with a thriving Greek community featuring 20 Greek chapters, 100+ student organizations and more than 2,000 on-campus student residents.
East Texas A&M features 14 Division I athletics programs.
East Texas A&M is a designated Adobe Creative Campus, empowering students to graduate with highly marketable digital communication skills across all disciplines.
U.S. News & World Report ranked East Texas A&M among the top 15% of universities nationwide for helping students improve their socio-economic status.
The university's designation as an All-Steinway School ensures a superior learning experience for music students.
U.S. News & World Report ranked East Texas A&M #5 for Best Online Bachelor’s Programs in Texas.
