Slop University's new Strategic Plan commits the institution to naming one accountable steward for every asset, process, and shared resource it holds, retiring "shared responsibility" as an institutional default.
The 2026-2031 Strategic Plan swaps shared responsibility for a single named steward, all the way down to the Library's loaner umbrellas
An umbrella returned late to its stand outside the Library, a compost bin nobody restocks, a committee action item that quietly outlives its own meeting — Slop University’s new Strategic Plan wants a name attached to all of it. Released today, the University’s 2026-2031 plan commits every asset, process, and shared resource it holds to a single, published, accountable steward, retiring the phrase “shared responsibility” wherever it currently stands in for an actual owner.
The plan sets four strategic priorities around the shift, extending named custody from common-area equipment through shared research infrastructure to committee governance and environmental stewardship, each carrying its own published targets and review dates. The University points to the change as the plainest test yet of an accountability language it has used for years but rarely had to make good on in writing.
A steward’s name on a register is only as good as whoever last checked it was still the right name.
— Dr Petra Umbile, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Emergent Priorities
The plan folds its own review into governance the University already runs. The Review Cadence Observatory, which normally tracks when a program is overdue for its own scheduled review, will now flag any named steward whose entry lapses unattested. “The Observatory already tracks when a review is overdue,” said Dr Osei Vandermeer, Research Fellow and Convenor of the Review Cadence Observatory. “Flagging an unattested steward is the same job, on a shorter fuse.”
The full Strategic Plan is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.sqfzth.