How UNC Pembroke Made Sure Their Five-Year Plan Never Ended Up on a Shelf
"Previously, strategic planning often relied on spreadsheets, presentations and reports generated at different points throughout the year. Today, we're building a shared framework around our priorities, where everyone can see how their work contributes to the university's goals."
— Dr. Jess Boersma, Chief of Staff and Vice Chancellor for Strategy, Data Analytics, and Institutional Performance at University of North Carolina Pembroke
The University of North Carolina Pembroke is a regional public university within the UNC System, serving students in southeastern North Carolina with a mission rooted in access, academic excellence, and regional economic impact. UNCP is governed by a Board of Trustees and led by a Chancellor whose office drives the university's strategic direction.
In February 2026, the university's Board of Trustees approved Vision 2031, a five-year strategic plan built around four pillars:
The plan includes defined metrics, measurable outcomes, and performance indicators designed to guide the university through 2031.
Before Vision 2031 launched, UNCP had an established strategic planning process and a successful strategic plan. What university leadership sought was a more centralized and transparent way to execute, monitor, and report on progress across divisions.
"The goals were there and led to significant accomplishments across the university, but there wasn't a centralized process in place to consistently track and monitor progress," Boersma said. "Tracking and reporting were often managed through multiple systems and processes across the institution and were using various tools, including documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, making it difficult to maintain a single, institution-wide view of progress. As we moved into launching Vision 2031, we knew we had an opportunity to strengthen how progress was tracked, communicated and shared."
The question Boersma kept coming back to was how to ensure Vision 2031 became an active management tool rather than a document referenced only during periodic reporting cycles. "If all we're going to do is make a nice plan, polish it up and then put it on the shelf, we're missing an opportunity," he said.
That was the outcome he was determined to avoid.
With Vision 2031, the expectations changed at the top. The Chancellor and the Board of Trustees made clear publicly that the institution was making a shift: not just planning, but executing, monitoring, and adjusting when appropriate. Trustees were involved at multiple stages of plan development, including approving the specific metrics UNCP would track through 2031. Each objective would have a baseline, a threshold, and a stretch goal.
The plan wasn't just aspirational. It was measured. And that meant there needed to be a system to run it.
The moment the 2026-2031 plan received board approval, Boersma had both the mandate and the materials to implement it right. The trustees had signed off on the pillars, the objectives, and the metrics. Now the question was whether UNCP could demonstrate, in real time, that the work was happening.
The April 9, 2026 board meeting became the first target. That's when the Strategic Initiatives and Enrollment Committee would convene, and Boersma wanted to walk them through Elate: not a slide deck of the plan, but the plan itself, live in the system, with owners assigned, tactics loaded, and status updates visible. For an institution that had approved a five-year roadmap with real metrics, showing the board a working execution system was a different kind of proof.
"You approved these goals," he said, framing what he wanted to communicate to the trustees. "And now you can see how they're being implemented across the institution."
UNCP had worked with Elate previously. The relationship predated Boersma's focus on the new plan, and the team had basic experience with the platform. When it came time to build the infrastructure for the 2026-2031 plan, continuing with Elate and deepening the implementation was a deliberate choice.
His CFO's perspective settled it. The new strategic plan runs five years. Switching tools midway through or managing execution in disconnected systems would undermine the continuity the institution needed. "Keeping the same tool throughout the plan is huge," Boersma said, summarizing his CFO's view. A five-year plan needs a five-year system.
The team also upgraded to Strategy Advisor, Elate's AI intelligence layer, which included a suite of risk and reporting tools to support ongoing execution. UNCP chose to partner with Elate through 2031 to align with the full span of their strategy. The goal, in his words, was simple: "Going from planning to implementation: that's a big strength of why we're going with Elate."
"Elate helps us connect strategy to execution while creating visibility and accountability across the institution." - Dr. Jess Boersma
The 2026-2031 plan came together across many documents: spreadsheets, trustee presentations, working drafts by division. Boersma and Tabitha Cain, Director of Communications for the Chancellor's Division, did the early upload work, copying and pasting from those source files, assigning owners manually, building the structure one piece at a time. It was deliberate, hands-on work: the kind of setup that forces you to think carefully about what the plan actually contains and how it should be organized.
With the high-level plan loaded, the operational work of getting the cabinet and division leads into Elate and building out the layers beneath the objectives began. Each objective has a designated owner, and division heads are responsible for building out the child objectives, tactics, and outcomes that sit beneath their assigned goals.
A training session hosted by Elate team members brought together individuals from across the institution into the platform: Academic Affairs, Finance and Administration, Enrollment Management, Student Affairs, Athletics, Advancement, University Communications and Marketing. Each division had work to do before the April board meeting, loading at least five to ten tactics and outcomes under their assigned objectives.
Academic Affairs, which owns a significant share of the academic excellence pillar, faced one of the largest implementation efforts. Given the breadth of the work, Boersma wanted to make sure the provost and her deans didn't feel overwhelmed but rather supported as they began to build out objectives and tactics. "Eventually, as we build this out, it's a more robust system," he said. "But to start, the priority is making sure we have a solid framework that can be built upon as the system matures, and details and connections are made."
The goal wasn't perfection on day one. It was enough activity in the system to tell a succinct and clear story to the board.
UNCP is in the early months of running the 2026-2031 plan on Elate. The operating rhythm is taking shape: updates are made monthly, allowing the team a current view of what's on pace, what's at risk, and where attention needs to go.
"Our strategy rhythm today consists of monthly updates, which will eventually lead to monthly progress reports to senior leadership and quarterly reports to the Board of Trustees," says Boersma.
Boersma has a clear mental model for what the cadence should feel like at scale. "At the end of the day, I'm coming in, I'm clicking on pace, at risk, or behind, updating numbers, I'm in and out. And then it's helping share or radiate information across divisions." The goal is that Elate carries the information burden, so leaders can focus on the work itself rather than the reporting around it.
That shift is already changing how the team talks about the work. "Elate removes the bad friction in reporting and replaces it with clarity, transparency, and a platform where everyone, from the Chancellor to the newest team member, can engage meaningfully," Boersma said.
Board reporting is the next operational milestone. Boersma is the assistant secretary to UNCP's Board of Trustees and co-leads the Strategic Initiatives and Enrollment Committee. He wants to move from presenting a document about the plan to pulling up Elate in the board meeting itself: drilling down through pillars, showing progress at the objective level, and letting the trustees see the connections between what was approved and what's being done.
"I would like to be able to pull this up in the board meeting and show them where we are, how we're tracking, and the way forward," he said.
UNCP's full results are ahead of it. Vision 2031 is months into implementation, and the institution is building toward the kind of adoption and rhythm that makes the data meaningful. But the early signals are strong.
The April board presentation landed well. The Strategic Initiatives and Enrollment Committee was walked through Elate, showing the trustees a live view of the plan they had approved. "They really liked it," Boersma said, "and made a point in the general board meeting that this is the exact kind of direction we can go." That endorsement, from the full board, signals that the system has institutional credibility at the highest level.
And the interest is spreading. Boersma has been sharing what UNCP is doing through a network of chiefs of staff across the UNC System. He has been deliberate about when to make introductions, wanting to be far enough along in the implementation to speak credibly about what the platform does in practice. "Really to be honest," he said, "if we get this really coming along, then people are going to say 'Why aren't we using this?', because I know some people are still using spreadsheets and other things like that."
Some early outcomes include:
"The moment I realized Elate was working was when I presented the system to the Board and they were able to quickly see our progress and ask thoughtful questions about the work itself rather than trying to interpret the data."
An implementation this visible carries real personal stakes. Boersma is the one presenting to trustees, answering questions from cabinet members, and fielding calls from other institutions about how UNCP is doing it. What gave him confidence through the rollout was knowing the Elate team was close.
"What's stood out most is the partnership," he said. "I haven't felt like I'm on an island trying to figure this out alone. The Elate team has been incredibly responsive, supportive, and thoughtful in helping us build momentum."
That dynamic showed up in practical ways throughout the launch: the Elate team ran the initial training session for the cabinet, stayed in a monthly cadence to troubleshoot and adjust configuration, and helped the team prepare for board presentations. UNCP started with 10 users. After the cabinet saw how the system was running, they decided to expand to 35 licenses, bringing in additional members of each division, and later expanded to 60 members to ensure full representation across the campus. For an institution navigating a five-year commitment in a public system with real accountability, that kind of early momentum mattered.
UNCP's roadmap with Elate tracks directly alongside Vision 2031. As division heads continue building out child objectives, tactics, and outcomes under their assigned goals, the system will deepen from a high-level framework into a full execution record. The quarterly board reporting cycle is the next proving ground: Boersma wants to walk trustees through Elate not just once but as a standing part of how UNCP reports on its plan.
And through the chiefs of staff network, Jess sees potential beyond UNCP. He's been candid with peers about what the platform does and honest that it's still early. But the interest is real. "What's in it for me, too," he said, "is that if we have more people and more institutions who are using it, that could create some nice synergies for collaboration and other things we're trying to do." A shared execution platform across a university system could mean more than just operational efficiency. It could mean real institutional learning.
Jess didn't mince words about why he went all-in on the platform for the new plan. For institutions that have made the mistake he was determined to avoid, his framing is direct: "If all you're going to do is make a nice plan, polish it up and then put it on the shelf, you're missing an opportunity."
The difference with Elate, in his words, is the move from planning to execution. Not the plan as a document, but the plan as a system that runs.
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