Increased number of students studying abroad? Check.

More access to technology around campus? Check.

Better national research rankings? Not yet.

Ten years ago, the University set some pretty lofty goals for its research enterprise – but it wasn’t quite able to meet the challenge.

In 1999, the University began drafting a vision statement – known as a strategic plan – outlining its goals and painting a picture of what the school should look like in the future. The plan was meant to help define the University’s priorities for the 2000 to 2010 decade, said William Vencill, who chairs the committee to draft the University’s next strategic plan.

One of the goals in the 2000 plan was to raise the University’s research ranking, which is based on federal funding, from 86th to 50th by 2010.

Instead, the University fell to 98th for fiscal year 2008, said David Lee, vice president for research.

“I don’t believe [the strategic plan's goal] was a very realistic goal to begin with,” he said. “But I’m very concerned by the fact that we’ve been steadily moving backwards.”

The rankings give an objective measure of the University’s success in attracting federal dollars to support its research efforts, Lee said.

He said the competition for rankings is fierce, and the road to improvement will require a clear plan and some innovative thinking about faculty recruitment, graduate student benefits and new approaches to graduate education.

“I don’t think [research] has had the same kind of laser-like institutional focus that the undergraduate experience has had in recent years,” Lee said. “If the institution wants to move the needle forward on research, it’s going to have to give [research] the same attention that the undergraduate experience has enjoyed.”

The University’s lack of a full-fledged school of engineering and a robust medical school also hindered its progress, he said.

“That has meant that we’re sort of fighting these rankings with both hands tied behind our backs,” Lee said.

The University’s partnership with the Medical College of Georgia will be primarily based in instruction, not research, when itopens for students next year. The Faculty of Engineering is still new, with its first class of freshmen admitted this fall.

But the research picture over the last decade hasn’t been entirely doom and gloom.

The strategic plan also made increasing the research space on campus a priority, and new buildings such as the Coverdell Center, the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and the expansion of the College of Pharmacy have helped to achieve that goal.

“I would call it a mixed report card,” Lee said. “There’s been a lot of success and pockets of excellence, but when you look at the big picture, you have to be concerned about what’s going on.”

Outside of the research enterprise, the University has succeeded in meeting several of its strategic planning goals.

One of the broad categories of the plan – “Competing in a Global Economy” – called for increasing the number of students graduating with international experience.

When the strategic plan was written, 4 percent of the student body studied abroad. Now, the University is ranked fifth in the nation for the number of students studying abroad, and nearly a quarter of the student population graduates with some global experience.

“We’re turning out thousands of graduates each year who have had an experience abroad, had some experience in another country,” said Kasee Laster, director of study abroad. “Often they have had an internship or service or some other hands-on project in another country.”

Laster said the University has been successful because of University President Michael Adams’s strong commitment to building study abroad programs.

Another broad area of the plan – “Building the New Learning Environment” – made giving students “top level support and access” to technology a priority.

The plan described the technology on campus in 2000 as “OK to poor.”

But technology has become an increasingly important aspect of the University’s focus, said Barbara White, chief information officer and associate provost.

“There’s hardly anything anybody does today, whether they’re a student or a faculty member or a staff member, that doesn’t involve the use of technology in some way,” White said.

Now, the University has almost 1,400 wireless access points across campus.

However, technology on campus still has room for growth – with wireless access in the residence halls set as a future project, White said.

Broader future goals for the University will be outlined in the new strategic plan for the next 10 years, Vencill said. A draft of that plan will be released to the University community later this semester.

Because of budget constraints, the plan for the next decade may be slightly less ambitious, he said.

“Sitting here in 2009, we have a different outlook on the future than people sitting here in 1999 had,” he said. “But that’s not to say that we shouldn’t think bold.”