What should UFV look like in 2025?
What does learning look like in 2025? What does the student look like in 2025? What is the structure of a university in 2025? What does a faculty member look like in 2025? What role will technology play? What are the five goals that UFV must achieve from 2016-20 to set ourselves up for 2025?

According to countless authorities and commentators, higher education has entered a historical moment of profound disruption. This moment is defined by many developments, including the changing nature of students, curriculum, classrooms, and learning itself. 

“The current model of a university has been around for about 800 years. But due to a technological advancement — the internet — universities have lost both the monopoly of knowledge and the monopoly of credentialing,” says Dr. Eric Davis, UFV provost and vice-president academic. “Many argue that in order to survive, universities must undergo a profound reformation. This change may affect virtually every aspect of university life and structure. The spatial and temporal organization of universities and the nature, locations, recognition, and assessment of learning will be very different in the next decades than they are now.”

Davis says because the survival and success of the University of the Fraser Valley depend on how well we prepare for and position ourselves for the future, UFV is launching a different mode of education planning than we have used in the past. 

“We need a collective and longer-term visioning exercise focused not on the details of courses and programs, but on the very nature and organization of universities,” says Davis. “For UFV’s Education Plan 2016-20, we have struck a visioning committee to imagine and articulate UFV’s place within a general vision of higher education’s future, specifically in the year 2025. We encourage all areas and individuals of the institution to participate in this visioning exercise.”

UFV 2025: Education Plan forums — Wed, Jan 21
The provost is launching this discussion with two forums on Wed, Jan 21. The first is from 10:30 am–noon at the Gathering Place, Chilliwack campus at Canada Education Park, and the second is from 5 to 6:30 pm, Building A, Room 269, Abbotsford campus. Everyone is welcome.

The UFV 2025 visioning committee will continue to consult widely throughout the year via online forums, town hall meetings, charrettes and more. In addition to involving students, faculty, staff, alumni and donors, this discussion is open to community members, stakeholders and industry who will be encouraged to take part. The draft Education Plan 2016-2020 is expected for Fall 2015 and will be submitted to the Academic Planning and Priorities Committee, Senate and the Board of Governors in early 2016.