Strategic Plan
MBGNA began its strategic planning process in Summer 2021 in the midst of many interlocking transitions and challenges. Universities, communities, nations, and global systems began inhabiting “new normals” as COVID-19 continued to transform daily life; the murder of George Floyd just a year prior rendered the veil separating urgently needed action from historic and current racial discrimination uniquely thin, further exposing institutional culpubility in systemic violence; and many indicators of climate change reached a tipping point, upending the natural systems and ecological dynamics with which we are all interdependent.
And while some of these sweeping challenges are relatively new and others are woven into the fabric of American life and global systems, people of color and economically less resourced communities disproportionately bear their repercussions. Each of these serious challenges and the uneven distribution of their consequences require institutions and organizations like MBGNA to be truly self-critical – to step back and ensure the power alignments, assumptions, and values that have arrived us “here” do not persist unquestioned and continue to define our collective future.
Unique to living collections like botanical gardens and arboreta, for example, is a particularly loaded nexus: control and manipulation of land, water, and diverse species for aesthetic experience and scientific advancement; a history of racial and economic exclusion; and the separation of species from their Indigenous uses and context, contributing to the continued erasure of non-dominant relationships to “nature.” The forces that require institutional self-criticality and decolonial approaches to power are the same forces that necessitate addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, and other drivers of ecological crisis we urgently face; environmental justice and social justice are interconnected and cannot exist independently in the on-going climate crisis.
To meet the demands of our national and global moment, MBGNA has engaged in self-critical reflection around these dynamics and several key questions:
- Within a university context, where and how can MBGNA yield – not wield – power toward decolonial and co-liberatory action?
- Based on mutual respect and trust built over the last 20+ years, how can priorities and visions for the future identified by Anishinaabek and other sovereign partners be incorporated into MBGNA plans, and how can MBGNA mobilize resources to partner in those futures’ actualization?
- How can MBGNA catalyze ecological and social resilience within the university, in partnership with aligned equity and justice-focused organizations, and with communities in SE Michigan and beyond?
- How can MBGNA best utilize UM’s commitments and trajectory – University Climate Change Coalition (UC3), the Okanagan Charter, UM Environment, Sustainability, and Carbon Neutrality, and the emergent goals of DEI 2.0 – to navigate the opportunities and barriers to rebuilding power structures from within a leading public research institution?
Beginning with these self-critical questions, MBGNA’s strategic planning process unfolded over the course of 18 months. Benefitting from the entire MBGNA staff’s participation, the process utilized for this strategic plan was crafted specifically to elevate shared vision. Informed by the diverse literatures and emergent best practices from the many disciplines applied at MBGNA – Museum Studies, DEI, Ecology, Botany, and many more – we began by establishing not a new mission, but a shared lexicon. With it we were able to interrogate critical social and ecological challenges and share common conceptual frames and understanding as we moved forward.
What emerged were six “pillars” – at once commitments and containers for action. Each of the six pillars was led by a working group composed of MBGNA staff, students, and external members from the broader university, surrounding community, or sovereign Tribes. Each working group developed a current state analysis and a future state analysis, marking where we were relative to that pillar and where we needed to go.
After an organizational retreat where these future states were interarticulated, MBGNA established a writing committee that, together, drafted a version of the strategic plan from this shared vision and developed specific goals and subgoals to animate the next five years of action. This draft and new mission was sent to Tribal partners, university leaders, student advisory groups, donors, directors at other university botanical gardens and arboreta, and many others for their interrogation and feedback. Informed by their collective insights, the writing committee has crafted the strategic plan contained here.
MBGNA is committed to catalyzing equity and justice, and will continue to reckon with itself and the history of living collections to do so. This strategic plan is our road map for how that commitment is turned into action; how MBGNA will continue to thoroughly examine and combat its participation in systemic injustices, and how we will co-create new ways forward with historically excluded communities through the years ahead.
Anthony Kolenic
Director, Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum
“MBGNA is committed to catalyzing equity and justice, and will continue to reckon with itself and the history of living collections to do so. This strategic plan is our road map for how that commitment is turned into action; how MBGNA will continue to thoroughly examine and combat its participation in systemic injustices, and how we will co-create new ways forward with historically excluded communities through the years ahead.” Read the full letter here.
Mission
Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum is a transformative force for social and ecological resilience through the waters and lands we steward. We turn this commitment into action by:
- Positioning humans as active participants within the natural world and compelling the university community and our publics to negotiate the full complexity that entails
- Advancing partnerships, programs, user experience, and all that we steward to catalyze equity and justice in a radically changing world
- Emerging as University of Michigan’s premier partner for research, teaching, and public impact in sustainability, climate-forward practices, and biocultural diversity
- Promoting healthier communities, cultures, and ecosystems through active care and cultivation of the gardens, fields, natural habitats, and dynamic systems that sustain our world
Pillars
MBGNA’s Strategic Plan activates this mission in three thematic areas across six “pillars,” each of which is a commitment and a container for scaffolded, strategic goals. Despite being presented and nested as pillar-specific, goals within each of the six pillars operate as a web; they interarticulate and inform each other. Goal actualization is similarly cross-functional and interwoven across large-scale initiatives led by interdisciplinary staff task forces, ad hoc groups, and formal committees.
Equity, Justice + Biocultural Diversity
Catalyzing Equity and Justice through Biocultural Diversity and Polycentrism
- Institutionalize shared vision and co-liberatory futures with Indigenous partners
- Propel access and justice through regional relationships
- Center all forms of accessibility in organizational processes, spaces, and actions
Pursuing Social and Ecological Resilience for a Planet Under Threat
- Prioritize climate resilience, carbon neutrality, and regenerative land-water stewardship
- Broaden regenerative and justice-oriented food-agriculture impact
- Establish an applied research and professional development biocultural diversity “corps”
- Integrate human, cultural, and community health and wellness
Research, Teaching + Experience Making
Amplifying Knowledge Making and Learner-Centered Experience
- Develop a unified, learner-centered education department
- Prioritize polycentrism across education-driven spaces, programs, and processes
- Grow existing and establish new research partnerships
Instituting a New Communications, Engagement, and User Experience Paradigm
- Develop a unified user-centered experiential design strategy
- Renew strategic communications and digital infrastructure
- Foreground biocultural diversity in place and print
- Placemake for experience and impact
Organizational Evolution
Propelling Organizational Culture toward Equity, Efficiency, and Impact
- Evolve internal systems and governance for transparency and efficiency
- Scaffold equitable and effective staffing structures
- Increase organizational legibility and impact
- Strengthen volunteer infrastructure and systems of engagement
Energizing Resources for Strategic Impact
- Engage in a focused rebranding and identity-building campaign
- Develop a future-facing budgetary allocation model
- Establish a comprehensive sponsored research and activities infrastructure
- Expand development strategy
- Innovate revenue generation modalities
History
In 1907, the University created a Botanical Garden and Arboretum on the land between Geddes Road and the Huron River, just a few blocks from Central Campus on the site now known as Nichols Arboretum. At the time, the property consisted of approximately 80 acres. Today, more than 100 years later, the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum manages over 700 acres of gardens, research areas, and natural preserves around the Ann Arbor area with a complex of conservatory, greenhouses, laboratory, teaching and meeting spaces at Matthaei Botanical Gardens and the James D. Reader, Jr. Center for Urban Environmental Education at Nichols Arboretum.
Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum now includes four properties in different locations operating as one unit within the University of Michigan: Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Nichols Arboretum, Mud Lake Bog, and Horner-McLaughlin Woods.
DEI Plan
Diversity: We commit to increasing diversity, which is expressed in myriad forms, including race and ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, language, culture, national origin, religious commitments, age, (dis)ability status, and political perspective.
Equity: We commit to working actively to challenge and respond to bias, harassment, and discrimination. We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status.
Inclusion: We commit to pursuing deliberate efforts to ensure that our campus is a place where differences are welcomed, different perspectives are respectfully heard and where every individual feels a sense of belonging and inclusion. We know that by building a critical mass of diverse groups on campus and creating a vibrant climate of inclusiveness, we can more effectively leverage the resources of diversity to advance our collective capabilities.