Academic Success Goals
The Academic Success Goals serve as a guiding framework for all faculty, staff, and students involved in advancing the university’s academic mission. They serve as the implementation plan of our strategic imperatives where we have made a commitment to deliver on our promise of success for every student, research that shapes the future, and community engagement.
Updated 10:30 a.m. November 23, 2025
Overview
Since July, Provost Prelock has been working collaboratively with the campus leaders, deans, the Provost Integrated Leadership Team, the Faculty Senate Executive Council, department heads, the Strategic Planning and Budget Advisory Committee, and student leaders to develop the university’s Academic Success Goals. The goals were shaped by the insights Provost Prelock gathered during her listening sessions with faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors, tribal leaders, and community partners.
The high-level overview of the Academic Success Goals can be access in BOX (NetID required). This document is intended to be a living resource that will continue to evolve. The Office of the Provost, along with deans, vice provosts, vice presidents, UAIR, and campus partners, will continue to collaboratively refine the strategies, action plans, and metrics as progress advances.
The university is partnering with UAIR and campus collaborators to identify data sources and metrics to track outcomes. In Spring 2026, the Provost Fellows Program for Academic Success will launch. These Fellows will work with deans and academic partners assigned to each goal to guide and assess progress across the three strategic areas and to support the integration of the goals into college and unit priorities.
This work is a collective effort that will require engagement from every department, college, and role. Together, the University of Arizona community will set a new standard for what “Success for Every Student” truly means—and will deliver on that promise.
Initiatives
Below are some initiatives sponsored by the Office of the Provost to support the implementation of the Academic Success Goals.
Success for Every Student
The University of Arizona is building a more connected, student-centered experience that empowers every Wildcat to succeed. Many initiatives centered around student success such as advising, enrollment and admission, General Education courses improvement, and undergraduate research are being implemented.
Provost Fellow for Academic Success Goals
The Provost Fellows Program is designed to engage distinguished faculty and staff in advancing the University’s strategic imperatives and Academic Success Goals.
Transdisciplinary Strategic Cluster Hire Program
The Office of the Provost and the Office of Research and Partnerships invite proposals for strategic faculty cluster hires. These proposals should align with the university’s strategic imperatives and academic success goals. Proposals should address one or more of the five strategic research initiatives.
Strategic Priorities Faculty Initiative (SPFI)
The program provides temporary university financial support to academic departments enabling them to hire additional full-time, tenure- track faculty or continuing track academic professionals who will enhance the University’s Purpose, Mission and Values and advance the strategic imperatives.
Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellows Program
This University-wide initiative is designed to recruit outstanding early career postdoctoral scholars whose research advances the university’s mission as a land-grant institution and advances our strategic imperative to engage in research that is innovative, makes a community impact and shapes the future.
Bridge Funding Program for Student Success
The Provost Bridge Funding Program for Student Success provides short-term institutional support to sustain projects that directly advance undergraduate and graduate student success, retention, and graduation.
Scholarly Engagement Fund
This funding is intended to support units in hosting conferences, symposia, speaker series, workshops, and poster sessions, at the local, national, or international level and is not intended for professional development or for individuals attending external conferences.
Provost's Author Support Fund
The fund supports subvention costs for scholarly manuscripts, production expenses for major creative works, and monograph-related fees such as permissions and indexing. It also assists with works accepted for publication that include formal publisher reviews, as well as costs associated with open-access publishing.