The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts’ 2025 Strategic Plan affirms the school’s core mission and will serve as a guiding document as the institution prepares to enter its fourth decade of excellence.
The institution updated is mission as part of the strategic planning process. The mission now states that ASMSA is a public residential high school serving academically and artistically motivated students of all backgrounds from throughout the state. Its community of learning will be a statewide center of academic equity and opportunity that ignites the full potential of Arkansas’ students and educators.
Titled “Sparking Innovation, Igniting Growth,” the strategic plan will guide ASMSA as it creates greater educational access, promotes statewide equity and expands academic vigor that benefits all Arkansans through its residential, out-of-school enrichment, digital learning and educator development programs.
“As ASMSA enters its fourth decade of educational excellence, we are excited to renew our commitment to achieving fully the vision for the school, first set in the early 1990s and refined further at the outset of the new century as it became a campus of the University of Arkansas System,” said ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice. “We will continue our commitment to addressing local needs, maintaining national prominence and aspiring to a global vision for what education can be.
“At the core of ASMSA’s 2025 Strategic Plan is the belief that both our academic and residential experiences will continue to evolve, innovate and flourish under the care of our faculty, staff and students.”
ASMSA aims to expand both its statewide reach and enrollment to ensure that any student who would benefit from the school’s dynamic opportunities will have access to its world-class programs. Achieving that growth can only be accomplished through expanded partnerships, vocal advocates and committed stakeholders who continue to ensure the institution’s funding and facilities are equal in measure to its aspirations, Alderdice said.
The institution will further affirm its state and national leadership in science, mathematics, arts, humanities and entrepreneurship education using novel curricula, meaningful student development experiences, expanded partnership networks and stronger relationships with its most dedicated advocates.
The strategic plan lays out five goals that will guide ASMSA’s actions over the next five years. They include:
- Teaching and Learning: Cultivate a culture of dynamic teaching and learning that empowers young people to identify their passions for research, inquiry, and creative expression, develop the self-discipline necessary for success as well as grow in their identity as emerging practitioners and professionals.
- Student Development: Maximize the full potential of the on-campus experience by affirming the centrality of residential life in creating a living-learning community that connects students beyond the classroom, assists in developing them as a whole person and prepares these future leaders for successful and fulfilling lives through building sustainable skills and mindsets.
- Enrollment Growth: Expand enrollment to serve more students statewide through targeted growth models that reflect our commitment to stewardship of the public investment in ASMSA.
- Partnerships and Advocacy: Strengthen internal and external partnerships with local, state and national stakeholders that create committed and vocal advocates for the essential leadership role that ASMSA plays within Arkansas education as well as economic and community development.
- Facilities Expansion: Grow facilities and implement long-range strategies to meet the needs of expanded enrollment, academic experiences, student life, recreation and community engagement.
The strategic plan lists several strategies for each goal the school will employ that will define ASMSA’s work over the next decade. The strategies include a broad range of cooperation among ASMSA’s administration, faculty, staff, alumni, friends of the school, state government, the local community and others to achieve the goals.
Discussions for the new strategic plan began in earnest early in the spring 2020 semester. Dr. Sara Brown, ASMSA’s director of institutional advancement, led the development effort. Surveys and focus group meetings of internal and external stakeholders provided guidance early in the development process. Meetings with the campus leadership team, the ASMSA Governing Council, ASMSA Board of Visitors, ASMSA Foundation Fund Board of Ambassadors, the Association for Alumni and Friends of ASMSA Steering Committee, parents, students and additional volunteers were crucial to the plan’s creation. Execution and oversight of the strategic plan will continue through the institution’s standing committees of the ASMSA Governing Council along with involvement from other groups.
“The members of ASMSA’s community of learning understand the special investment the people of Arkansas make in the state’s future by supporting and sustaining our school,” Alderdice said. “We take exceptional pride and care in our role as stewards of ASMSA’s past, present and future. Together we will ensure that ASMSA continues to lead the state and nation in what is possible when students and educators are provided the opportunity to imagine, experiment and learn to their fullest potential.”
The plan will be brought to the ASMSA General Assembly of faculty and staff for endorsement as well as to the Board of Visitors, ASMSA Foundation Fund Board of Ambassadors and the alumni association in the coming weeks. It will be presented for approval by the University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees at its September meeting.
The 2020-2025 Strategic Plan may be viewed on ASMSA’s website at www.asmsa.org/strategicplan.