Colleagues,
Again, Happy New Year! I want to reiterate how proud I am of all the work accomplished over the past year, despite unprecedented challenges, and how grateful I am to each of you.
I hope you were able to view the State of AgriLife address and Vice Chancellor’s Awards in Excellence last week. For those of you who were not able to watch live, recordings are now available online:
- View the State of AgriLife address
- View the Vice Chancellor’s Awards in Excellence
Of note, we launched AgriLife’s new adaptive strategic plan, the result of a highly collaborative, iterative planning process for our organization. The goal was to find ways to become stronger together as AgriLife, the most comprehensive agriculture program nationally, with four state agencies and a College focused on agriculture and life sciences. We also wanted to ensure we continue to follow our North Star: to reach every Texan and adapt to the evolving needs of the state as we continue to fulfill our shared land grant mission and realize our vision.
The following guiding principles—the themes that emerged from the strategic planning assessments and feedback—will direct our efforts in the coming years:
- Lead with science. AgriLife needs to be the authoritative, nonbiased source of science-based information.
- Make ideas the priority. The greatest strength of AgriLife is that when we combine, we are the most comprehensive agriculture program in the nation. We deal with everything from the soil microbiome to the human microbiome, and we want to let ideas be the priority across all areas of agriculture and life sciences.
- Be innovative and resilient. Increasingly, AgriLife needs to be nimble to continue to adapt to our dynamic and evolving state.
- One Texas, one AgriLife. We are four state agencies and a College, each with our own unique identities and missions. We become stronger when we come together with a common purpose. We must lower barriers to collaboration now and in the future.
- Affirm our land grant identity. We strive to reach every Texan and advance all of society.
- We are all AgriLife. Supporting all Texans includes supporting the people within our organization. AgriLife aims to be the best place to advance one’s career.
As we implement the strategic plan this year, we will provide regular updates on our progress. Our first Strategic Plan Town Hall will be held in March, so please watch for additional information to come soon. In the interim, please share questions or feedback to vcdean@ag.tamu.edu.
On that note, the organizers of the State of AgriLife address would appreciate your feedback on this year’s virtual event. Participants’ responses are essential so that we can better serve attendees in the future, so please take a few minutes to fill out this quick survey.
Thank you for all you do,
Patrick J. Stover, Ph.D.
Vice Chancellor and Dean for Agriculture and Life Sciences
Director, Texas A&M AgriLife Research