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Strategic Plan

SOE Strategic Goals

The school of engineering embraces strategic planning to achieve its mission, adhere to its vision and abide by its core values. To this end, the SOE formulated a five-year strategic plan built on three strategic pillars with goals that are firmly linked to those of LAU SP IV. Our strategic goals are to:

Description of Pillars and Goals

PILLAR I: RESEARCH

The School of Engineering has identified six research areas deemed to be of strategic relevance. This pillar seeks to establish an SOE research identity through developing the strategic research areas and enhancing scholarly activities.

Build SOE Strategic Research Clusters

Build research clusters and integrate them in the school’s ecosystem. The establishment of the anticipated clusters is accomplished through hiring new faculty and postdoctoral fellows to complement the existing faculty expertise. The culmination of this goal envisions groups of faculty and students working on focused projects with the aim of promoting SOE’s research and becoming self-sustaining.

Improve SOE Scholarly Output

Foster a culture of research among its constituents where all faculty are engaged in research and scholarly activities with the aim of creating knowledge, enriching the students’ educational experience and promoting the school’s reputation and visibility. This goal is achieved by supporting, assessing and recognizing the efforts of the faculty in this direction. The research support system should be enhanced and leveraged in order to incentivize faculty to take initiatives.

PILLAR II: ACADEMICS

LAU is committed in its mission to academic excellence. In the next five years, the School of Engineering plans to focus on this facet of LAU’s mission through: combining tradition and innovation in its curriculum, establishing an environment where all forms of divergent student learning and creativity may thrive, educating and training outstanding professionals, and providing students access to new fields of engineering studies. Pillar II will thus comprise four main goals: 1- innovation in engineering curricula; 2- building and sustaining a culture of scholarship in teaching and learning; 3- increasing student access and success; and 4- increasing enrollment and offered engineering programs.

Innovation in Engineering Curricula

The world faces challenges related to the environment, energy sustainability and security as outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). By incorporating these topics in SOE’s engineering curricula, SOE students will gain expertise in engineering practical solutions to current world and society problems, thus making them more adaptable to current and future changes and increasing their employability and success as future engineers.

Build and Sustain a Culture of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Higher education is challenged by an ever-changing world. Building a culture for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) provides tools for effective and meaningful transformation in the education system that reinvents teaching practices, with the goal of better supporting student learning. Over the next five years, SOE will foster a culture of SoTL that will result in deeper learning, and better learning outcomes for students by being able to engage with curricular content in ways that are more impactful than traditional didactic methods of instruction.

Increase Student Success

Creating an environment that empowers students and helps them achieve their goals will positively reflect on the reputation and ranking of the SOE and strengthen its partnership with industry. Our goal in next five years is to increase on-time graduation rates, improve academic performance and reduce attrition by improving our student support services.

Increase SOE Graduate and Undergraduate Enrollment

Being a private tuition-based institution, student enrollment is our bread-and-butter and what fuels faculty growth, increased prestige through more selective admissions, and higher ranking. In the next five years, SOE’s goal is to increase its undergraduate student enrollment by an average of 30% in its eight undergraduate programs, and by an average of 50% in its graduate programs.

PILLAR III: VISIBILITY AND OUTREACH

Over the next five years, the School of Engineering will significantly enhance the visibility of its programs, operations and initiatives through: maintaining active presence on traditional and social media platforms, updating its website on a regular basis and developing effective marketing and promotional material. In addition, the School recognizes the importance of services and outreach and will strive to engage its constituents and external parties in notable curricular and extra-curricular activities. Pillar III will thus comprise three main goals: 1- Enhancing visibility and awareness; 2- Engagement of schools and wider community in SOE activities and initiatives; and 4- Strengthening services and outreach.

Enhance Visibility and Awareness of SOE Programs and Operations

Increase awareness of its activities, initiatives, programs and success stories, which in turn will lead to more visibility, exposure and engagement of its constituents. This can be achieved through better social media presence on a variety of platforms, in addition to more effective presence on the web and conventional media.

Engagement of Schools and Wider Community in SOE Activities and Initiatives

The School of Engineering will reach out to high schools, alumni, and industry partners for collaborations and participation in SOE activities The School values the importance of activities on campus that actively involve the wider community and will therefore strive to organize a number of such strategic events and competitions.

Strengthen Services and Outreach

I The School of Engineering is committed to strengthening services and outreach. This will be reinforced by developing a mechanism to reward faculty actively involved in services and outreach, and by incentivizing faculty participation in service to the school, university, and community. The school also understands the important role of professional societies, student branches and student clubs in engaging students in intramural and outreach activities.

Strategic Plan Tracker

You can download the progress file of the SOE strategic plan implementation by clicking here

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