Developing a Strategic Plan for Upham Woods, a Field Station and Living Lab of the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center, a field station and living laboratory of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is convening partners from their home university’s main campus and other field stations and universities around the country to develop a strategic plan for their field station. Upham Woods institutionally returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison after spending 48-years as part of a separately administered entity within the University of Wisconsin system.

This recent reorganization presents an opportunity to undertake a visioning and planning process for the field station operations – specifically related to research, innovation, and connections to students and faculty from main campus. With a strategic plan to more intentionally integrate into the university, Upham Woods will better serve as a field station that provides place-based, environmental education opportunities to undergraduate students that otherwise may not have the opportunity to have enriching educational experiences outside of the classroom.

Additionally, by extending Upham Woods engagement into the collegiate landscape with more innovation and research, the engagement with the 12,000 youth and adults that the field station reaches annually will be enhanced and more robust. That audience will learn about, and in some cases experience firsthand, the research on the landscape at Upham Woods that is associated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, enhancing the broader impacts of the natural science research of the university.

Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center will develop a 5-year strategic plan that addresses a) the advancement of research on the landscape at Upham Woods, b) expanding opportunities for more intentional integration into the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a living laboratory, c) promoting access and involvement of university students at Upham Woods through university courses, student organizations, and research projects, d) identifying future grant projects that will ensure the sustainability of the research program at Upham Woods and e) develop a data management plan for the field station. Over the one-year duration of this project, Upham Woods will host and co-facilitate a series of workshops that focus in field station administration (evaluation and diversity, equity, and inclusion effective practices), humanities, and natural sciences.

Each workshop will convene a partners of Upham Woods with the relevant expertise to develop research prospectuses for collegiate students, recommendations for enhancing field station operations, and identify opportunities to pursue grant funding. The data generated in each of these workshops will inform the formal strategic plan that Upham Woods will present to the strategic planning committee assembled for this project.

The overarching goal of this project is to develop a strategic plan for Upham Woods that ensures the longevity and sustainability of the research program at the field station while enhancing its reach to a broad audience.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.