# University sets its five-year direction by its own ponds

> Slop University's new Strategic Plan commits the institution to knowing its own waters, and to a single capability in the microscopic parasites of the fish that live in them.

Slop University has adopted a Strategic Plan for 2026 to 2031, and has chosen
as its organising commitment a group of organisms too small to be seen without
a microscope. _Both Hosts in View_ sets out how the University will build a
single capability in the myxozoan parasites of fish, beginning with the waters
it already holds.

The drafting group was convened by Ms Edda Nwafor, Doctoral Candidate in the
School of Continuous Improvement, with Associate Professor Ragnhild Uzoma, Lead
of the Basement Relations Group, and Ms Signy Okpara, Doctoral Candidate in the
School of Continuous Improvement.

> We began by trying to list the University's ponds and found that nobody
> could. That seemed to us a better place to start a strategy than most. I am
> grateful to everyone who walked the grounds with us and pointed.
>
> --- Ms Edda Nwafor, Doctoral Candidate, School of Continuous Improvement

Across four priorities, the plan mobilises a shared diagnostic bench, a
catalogued reference collection, a seasonal survey that attends to the fish and
to the worms in the sediment together, and standing agreements with the
angling, hatchery, aquarist and catchment communities. Every lake, pond, pool
and tank on University premises is to be assigned a custodian, and the plan is
delivered in three phases.

It is not often that an institution of this standing is able to say that its
strategy can be visited on foot, and the University is glad to be in that
position. Associate Professor Uzoma said the School of Underlying Conditions
had "been asked to look at mud for the first time in a strategic capacity, and
has found that it is ready".

The full plan is available from the University's research repository under an
open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.agcz1k.