Strategic Plan | Smith Center for International Sustainable Agriculture

We are fulfilling our mission by cultivating greater global engagement across all faculty, staff and students at UT, increasing strategic global collaboration with partners, and communicating the importance of UTIA’s global work.

Framework

We target these Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) as our framework for grand challenges:

We operationalize our framework through strategic partnerships with:

-Academia
-Beltway / development firms
-CGIAR
-Government agencies and ministries
-Multinationals
-NGO’s
-Private sector
-Think tanks

Objectives

Our goal for the future is to increase our efforts in these three areas in order to have a greater impact not only across campus, but also in addressing the issues facing agriculture around the world. Learn more about the tactics we are using to achieve our objectives below!

1. Develop student champions and alumni network.

We lead a range of student programs that foster global engagement, including:

2. Develop faculty champions.

We lead faculty development programs and provide various opportunities to faculty, including:

Smith Global Leadership Fellows Program
Smith Center seed grant funding
Fulbright opportunities
Training opportunities from extramural funding

Goals

Fifty percent or more of Herbert students graduate with a global experience
Fifteen percent or more of CVM students graduate with a global experience
Significant increase in student and faculty Global Citizenship scores

Develop a network of strategic partnerships across the University of Tennessee, the US, and the world.
- We do this to foster deep collaborations with trusted partners for long-term impact.
Assist UTIA faculty to secure funding, lead, participate in and implement innovative international projects.
- We do this across teaching, research, and extension/outreach programming, across the globe, and with faculty from all units in UTIA.

Goals

Double the total external funding secured for projects with international components (3 year average)
Double the number of international projects / programs in implementation phase at UTIA
Host twenty or more international fellows at UTIA per year

Tell the story of global engagement at UTIA.
- We do this through:
  - Disseminating lessons learned from projects to new partners and populations
  - Meeting with donor agencies and partners, nationally and internationally
  - Communicating with units across the UT System, its partners and alum
  - Developing a robust online media presence plus web and print publications
Recognition of faculty and students.
- We do this through:
  - UTIA annual global engagement awards
  - Nominating UTIA faculty, staff and students for and highlighting external awards and honors

Goals

Double the number of website engagements and those following Smith Center social media platforms
Increase output and distribution of written content on global engagement across and outside of the university
Increase recognitions of UTIA faculty, staff and students for global engagement activities