SONHI Strategic Plan (2022-2025)

Hope. Renewal. Transformation.

Theme 1: Focus on engaged learning and experiential education grounded in innovation, design thinking, and interprofessional collaboration. 

University of Portland SONHI is committed to offering excellent, relevant academic programs that prepare students for lives of meaning and purpose and ethical professional practice.

• 1: Create curricular and pedagogical innovations
  • Apply and integrate design thinking to the process of all programs’ curricular revisions
  • Interprofessional collaboration: bring PHW and DNP students into the BSN program of study to build a more robust interprofessional education (IPE) format for student learning 

• 2: Foster experiential and innovative scholarly work between faculty and students
  • Establish a research and scholarship strategy to increase opportunities for scholarly collaborations across UP schools and colleges
  • Cultivate diverse industry partners to advance our work and impact
  • Disseminate research, innovation, and scholarly work

Theme 2: Enhance the University of Portland SONHI Community by fostering a vibrant, welcoming community in which all participants feel a sense of belonging.

Through a commitment to fostering faith, formation, and promoting holistic community health, the SONHI will grow and enhance the University of Portland community.

• 1: Promote a culture of community care and personal vitality to enhance collective well-being
  • Align committee and governance structures to create an environment that maximizes welcoming and belonging
  • Promote establishing boundaries, personal vitality, and well-being
  • Develop programs for meaningful recognition of faculty, staff and students

• 2: Ensure all voices of SONHI Community members (faculty, staff and students) are included, valued and appreciated
  • Provide ongoing formal and informal opportunities for dialogue
  • Build and support structures for the open exchange of ideas and feedback
  • Promote respectful discourse regarding disparate viewpoints

Theme 3: The SONHI will strengthen its efforts to champion and prioritize initiatives in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, justice (DEIJ), and access.

University of Portland SONHI is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, because this work is critical to both its mission and its belief in human dignity in all people.

• 1: Uphold and support all goals of the DEI Action Plan for Change (DEIAPC)
  • Charge all SONHI Committees to include at least one DEIAPC goal in annual workplans
  • Include reflection on personal DEIJ efforts in annual performance reviews
  • Include DEIJ statements in all applications for new hires

• 2: Evaluate the progress toward meeting the DEIAPC goals
  • Maintain updates to the DEIAPC Dashboard, Anonymous Bias Reporting System, and other tools used to support DEIJ efforts
  • Ongoing DEIAPC program improvement

• 3: Use outcomes from SONHI DEIAPC to inform the University’s DEIJ efforts
  • Create a SONHI Liaison to the OIEDI
  • Integrate SONHI DEIAPC goals, strategies, and outcomes into university-wide initiatives

Theme 4: Develop new health care programs that align with evolving industry needs, provide new opportunities for students, and improve health outcomes.

The University of Portland SONHI is committed to sustainable enrollment management that directly impacts the health and wellness of those students will serve in their professional careers and the communities to which they will contribute as global citizens.

• 1: Conduct environmental scan of the needs for the health care industry
  • Conduct continuous needs assessments for additional academic programs
  • Partner with University and industry partners to better understand the demands on the health care workforce and job markets
• 2: Engage with community partners to understand and respond to their health care needs
  • Leverage existing relationships to develop new programs
  • Co-create new opportunities with community partners
  • Prepare students to work with diverse populations based on shared understandings

• 3: Strengthen enrollment and student success within new and emerging programs
  • Launch a marketing initiative highlighting SONHI new programs
  • Ensure all graduates are prepared for successful licensure and/or certification
  • Establish certificate and continuing education pathways
  • Examine internal existing specialties to develop new programs
  • Collaborate across disciplines and schools to develop new programs

Theme 5: Enhance and expand our human, physical, and financial resources.

University of Portland SONHI is committed to optimizing the use of its resources to ensure institutional effectiveness and promote faculty, staff, and student well-being and retention.

• 1: Assess, reorganize, and clearly define operational roles of SONHI faculty and staff
  • Continue Kaizen Processes for organizational improvement
  • Standardize all processes and procedures documentation

• 2: Employ inclusive practices for all recruitment and hiring
  • Ensure search advocate for all searches
  • Include representatives from all programs for all searches
  • Evaluate outcomes of inclusive hiring practices

• 3: Create pathways for faculty and staff to grow professionally and focus on retention
  • Provide opportunities for professional development
  • Advocate for SONHI faculty and staff needs with University Administration
  • Create onboarding, training, and mentorship programs for all faculty and staff

• 4: Align curriculum and programs with available talent, strengths and resources
  • Review current curricula and programs for effectiveness and efficiency
  • Evaluate faculty and staff roles throughout the curricula
  • Use ongoing program evaluation to inform use of human, physical and financial resources

Theme 6: Expand and communicate the ways in which SONHI students, faculty, staff, and alumni make a meaningful impact on the world.

The University of Portland is committed to the belief that, through education, research, and service, its students, staff, faculty, and alumni can serve as a force for good locally, nationally, and globally.

• 1: Develop new, innovative community partnerships
  • Enhance collaborative opportunities with existing partnerships
  • Actively pursue industry-spanning initiatives
  • Holistically include all care environments in academic programming

• 2: Create opportunities to engage and build relationship with community partners
  • Showcase student work in public-facing events
  • Enhance recognition efforts for the shared learning between students and community partners
  • Create academic opportunities for students to identify gaps in partnership with the community, and provide meaningful contributions and solutions

• 3: Build global learning opportunities
  • Director of Global Initiatives to collaborate with CISGO and OIEDI
  • Create travel-embedded learning opportunities
  • Create opportunities for SONHI to support local immigrant communities
  • Develop opportunities for internationally educated clinicians to access health care opportunities in Oregon