Student Voices in The Georgia Tech Strategic Plan
The Georgia Tech Strategic Plan consists of a series of bold visions and action plans by which Georgia Tech hopes to position itself over the next ten years and beyond. The plan is created and detailed by teams of different professors, staff, and involved community members who met weekly over the past semester to discuss and plan what Georgia Tech should be, and what strategies we need to take to evolve into what we want to become.
As a student working under Georgia Tech Strategic Consulting over the last semester, I was incredibly lucky to get the opportunity to be involved in the planning process, working with the Amplify Impact Group under Research the Next to deliver a series of Goals, Objectives, and Strategies that Georgia Tech will undertake. Through these conversations, I have begun to have a deeper understanding of where Georgia Tech needs to evolve to become a well-recognized, impactful educational and research institution. I want to reach out through The Buzz to the student population to ask you all, where do you think Georgia Tech needs to make changes? How do we put the student at the forefront of institute research? How do we communicate better to the world about some of the amazing things going on with our institution?
Theme 1: Differentiation
“Georgia Tech historically is a quick follower… we need instead to pioneer new directions in research and education”.
The team reached the conclusion that in order for Georgia Tech to differentiate itself, we need to heavily invest in bold new and pioneering research. This could be done by investing transdisciplinary and participatory research in high-risk, high reward areas as well as empowering student-led research initiatives. Next, we need to translate our research directly into economic growth for Atlanta, Georgia, and beyond, becoming a noticeable mark on our city. We also need to double-down on one of our strongest assets as a partner of federal stakeholders and national security, expanding our role in these areas.
Theme 2: Working With Others
“Beginning to create the mechanisms for collaboration will hopefully lead to better connectivity and increased collaboration”
“When Microsoft buys a building or Mercedes Benz a stadium, Georgia Tech should be there, a long-term partner and part of the conversation.”
A concern posed by team members was that we had no way to manage long-term relationships with possible corporate partners in Atlanta and beyond. We need to create impactful engagement with these partners on a larger scale. Even internally, it seemed that so many silos and separate units existed within Georgia Tech without knowing about one another. The team proposed creating a culture of collaboration- first by reimagining the concepts of Interdisciplinary Research Institutes to have student education at the core (rather than a side-thought) and prioritizing funding for transdisciplinary efforts. Furthermore, tools like GTRI Research Fellowship program have the potential to create sustained research collaborations between GT academic faculty and GTRI researchers.
Theme 3: Extreme Communications
“We need to build excitement about research that matters.”
When Georgia Tech researches land a huge contract with NASA or come with new techniques for fighting a flu pandemic, word gets spread around the institute and the professionals in that area, and then seems to stop traveling. Georgia Tech needs to start intentional marketing of its research and education brand, since our output seems to misalign with national awareness of the institution. By developing a multi-media and unified outreach strategy that makes it easy for research staff to share their work and successes, we hope to build up the Georgia Tech brand. We also need to build up support and incentivize Georgia Tech researchers to participate in advisory boards, public service, and commissions to exhibit more external leadership.
This is a shortened version of just some of some of the output and strategic planning of just my team, whose goal is to Amplify Impact across research. To me, Georgia Tech needs to focus on making itself a more nationally recognized brand by better communicating out some of the research happening. We need to make students at the center of everything, including the research that goes on at Tech- as sometimes the main paying customer seems like just an afterthought in the research going on at the institution. I think students should get a big say in planning the future of this institution and would love to hear all of your thoughts, opinions, and ideas on areas we need to move towards.
