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Planning for the Vision

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Stanford's Vision arose out the ideas of our community

Call for ideas

Stanford leadership set out to envision the future of the university by tapping into the collective wisdom and creativity of its people. During the 2017-18 academic year, Stanford asked faculty, undergraduate students, graduate students, postdocs, staff, academic staff and alumni for input, generating more than 2,800 ideas.

Identifying themes

Four steering groups led by faculty and including more than 100 people identified common themes in the proposals and organized those into a conceptual framework. That work resulted in 37 white papers.

Planning leads to action

The 37 white papers were shared with the campus community to inform the ongoing work of the university and to identify areas for further study. Based on those conversations, Stanford’s Executive Cabinet formed 23 cross-campus design teams that met throughout the 2018-19 academic year to develop recommendations for action

Following presentations to Stanford’s Executive Cabinet, some recommendations were integrated, distilled and adapted, resulting in a series of initiatives that were structured to integrate with and complement schools, departments, institutes and centers. These initiatives form the vision that will guide the university's education, research and impact over the next decade. Other design team recommendations are informing and enhancing existing foundational work of the university.