A strategic vision for the Ontario Agricultural College

The Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) of the University of Guelph is internationally renowned for its research, teaching and knowledge extension in the broad areas of food, agriculture, communities and the environment.

The OAC community includes 3,700 diploma, undergraduate and graduate students, 35,000 alumni, 140 faculty and 600 staff members. We are a community of individuals, departments, schools, associations, groups, centres, institutes, teams and labs, each with its own set of goals and aspirations. Our community also has a strong sense of shared purpose: To Improve Life by inspiring leaders, generating knowledge and creating innovative solutions for food, agriculture, communities and the environment.

We work together in various ways to achieve this mission and as a result, have many shared priorities. These priorities form this guiding document, reflecting a more than year-long process of consultation and discussion with students, staff, faculty, alumni and stakeholders.

The results of this process were: broad engagement with the OAC community, a document that summarizes the priorities of our community, and a guide that can inform our strategic and operational decisions.

Our Shared Priorities will act as a touchstone for all of us, helping us to focus our efforts and remind us of the value we place on: student success [1], achieving excellence [2], supporting our people [3], organizational effectiveness [4] and our legacy and reputation [5]. 

Together, as we move forward through the next five years, we will look to this document for guidance- to help us focus our efforts and to remind us of what matters most in terms of who we are and what we do. It will also influence an annual reporting exercise that will share key examples of how our joint purpose is being realized across OAC.

Progress on Elevating Our Shared Priorities

To openly share ideas and encourage an organizational culture around Our Shared Priorities, the *starred* contents sections will be updated with examples from the OAC community each semester. If you have a suggestion of an initiative, process change, investment or a best practice that you have made or seen in your unit, please contact oacdean@uoguelph.ca [6]. We’d love to share them!

Contents

• Context [7]
• Mission and Values [8]
• *Student Success [9]*
• *Achieving Excellence [10]*
• *Supporting Our People [11]*
• *Organizational Effectiveness [12]*
• *Our Legacy and Reputation [13]*
• Community Participation [14]

Downloads

• Download the full Our Shared Priorities document (PDF) [15]
• Download a Summary Poster (PDF) [16]
• Download desktop backgrounds for your computer [17]

This webpage was updated on December 9, 2019.