FOR COMMENT
Agenda for Excellence
A Strategic Plan for the University of Pennsylvania
To the University Community
This draft strategic plan, Agenda For Excellence, proposes a series of
critical priorities for the University for the five years from now through
2000. As part of our planning effort, during the past year we have engaged
faculty across the campus in a variety of discussions about issues facing
the University. In addition, we have conducted extensive planning sessions
with the deans of the schools and the senior administrative officers of
the University.
We furnished an early draft version of the plan to the Academic Planning
and Budget Committee this fall. They have spent the semester reviewing and
discussing the work in detail. The constructive criticism provided by the
Committee has enabled us to recast and refine the document. We and the Committee
now publish the plan as our joint product for comment by the University
community.
We have chosen to present this plan in outline form as a set of specific
goals and strategies. The plan includes several goals that contain specific
numerical targets. These target numbers are meant to serve as guideposts
that will help the University determine whether it is moving in the right
direction at the right speed. As further specific implementation actions
are elaborated, additional benchmarks to help us monitor the progress of
those activities will be identified.
The University of Pennsylvania gains strength from the special character
of its component parts and the synergies among those parts. This spring,
we will be asking the deans to lead their faculties in developing or reviewing
their schools' strategic plans to ensure that the University's goals, as
articulated in this document, provide a foundation for school-level programs
and initiatives.
We invite you to share your comments and reactions to the document with
the Academic Planning and Budget Committee so that they can help us bring
the plan to final form. Please submit your comments by December 8, to the
Academic Planning and Budget Committee, 110 College Hall/6303, or send your
remarks via e-mail to plan@pobox.upenn.edu.
Judith Rodin
President
Stanley Chodorow
Provost
Agenda for Excellence
A Strategic Plan for the University of Pennsylvania
Introduction
The University of Pennsylvania's roots reach deeply into the history
of American higher education. Founded as the Charity School of Philadelphia
in 1740 and chartered as the first non-sectarian college in 1755, the College
of Philadelphia was guided, as the University is today, by its founder Benjamin
Franklin's admonition to "learn everything that is useful and everything
that is ornamental." As such, it developed the first liberal arts curriculum
in the nation, offering both a scientific and a classical education. Early
on, it established a close relationship between the liberal arts and the
professions, with faculty teaching courses in medicine and law, and subsequently
developing professional schools in these areas. In 1791 Penn became America's
first university, introducing multidisciplinary education well before the
term was invented. Throughout its history, Penn has been remarkable in the
degree to which theory and practice have been married in its teaching and
research.
Over the past 255 years, Penn has renewed itself periodically as it has
adapted to the changing nature of higher education, the changing demands
of society, and the expanding knowledge base of the modern era. By directing
scarce resources to targeted areas of opportunity, Penn has been able to
build and support excellence in a number of selected fields and programs,
assuring its place among the truly distinguished modern universities. For
Penn to ensure its stature as one of a small number of genuinely outstanding
universities in the 21st century, the University must establish and project
a clear institutional identity, and it must strategically deploy its considerable
yet limited resources to achieve excellence in every academic program it
chooses to offer. In doing so, Penn will need to guard against a leveling
effect that could diminish the stature of its best schools and departments;
instead it must either bring those programs that do not yet meet its high
standards up to acceptable levels of excellence or reconsider their role
or existence.
Because it is vital that Penn clearly define its mission and strategic
goals, this strategic plan, Agenda for Excellence, has been crafted. The
plan is ambitious--as any plan for Penn should be. Although it will be implemented
at a time when the rate of growth of traditional resources is in question,
the plan will require the University and its schools to secure additional
funds from such traditional sources as government research grants and private
fundraising. In addition, to achieve its goals, the plan will require the
University and the schools to secure new funds from less traditional sources,
such as corporate research programs and administrative re-engineering. Reallocation
of existing resources within schools and across schools also may be needed
to realize the goals of the plan.
Agenda for Excellence is the latest chapter in strategic planning at
Penn, and a number of this plan's initiatives are well informed by earlier
plans. Looking ahead, the successful implementation of this new plan will
depend on, the development of complementary school plans and a range of
initatiatives such as the 21st Century Project for the Undergraduate Experience,
the unification of academic and budgetary planning, and the institution
of school reviews. The result will be increasing fulfillment of the mission
of the University of Pennsylvania.
Mission of the University
The University of Pennsylvania's roots are in Philadelphia, the birthplace
of American democracy. But Penn's reach spans the globe.
Faithful to the vision of the University's founder, Benjamin Franklin,
Penn's faculty generate knowledge that is unconstrained by traditional disciplinary
boundaries and spans the continuum from fundamental to applied. Through
this new knowledge, the University enhances its teaching of both theory
and practice, as well as the linkages between them.
Penn excels in instruction and research in the arts and sciences and
in a wide range of professional disciplines. Penn produces future leaders
through excellent programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional
levels.
Penn inspires, demands, and thrives on excellence, and will measure itself
against the best in every field of endeavor in which it participates.
Penn is proudly entrepreneurial, dynamically forging new connections
and inspiring learning through problem-solving, discovery-oriented approaches.
Penn research and teaching encourage lifelong learning relevant to a
changing, global society.
Penn is a major urban university that is committed to strength and vitality
in each of its communities. In this connection, Penn will:
- Encourage, sustain, and reward its faculty; nurture, inspire, and challenge
its students; and support and value its staff;
- Strengthen and appreciate the diversity of its communities;
- Support free expression, reasoned discourse, and diversity in ideas;
- Pursue positive connections to the city, state, and region and a mission
of service to its neighbors in West Philadelphia;
- Develop and support its connections to alumni and friends; and
- Foster the growth of humane values.
Executive Summary of Strategic Goals
1. The University will solidify and advance its position as one of the
premier research and teaching universities in the nation and in the world.
- Penn's exceptional undergraduate programs will position it, among a
select group of research universities, as a school of choice for the ablest
undergraduates in the nation and in the world. To enhance its ability to
fulfill its mission, the University will be considered among the top ten
in undergraduate education.
- Penn's academic departments and programs will be considered among the
top ten in the United States or will develop and implement strategies for
moving toward the top tier. Penn's doctoral and professional programs will
be the programs of choice for the ablest graduate and professional students
in the nation and in the world.
2. The University will aggressively seek greater research opportunities.
Recognizing that vigorous research and the unimpeded pursuit of knowledge
are at the heart of the University's mission, Penn will strive to attract
an increasing share of the available research dollars, and will aggressively
seek out new sources of support for research.
3. The University will manage its human, financial, and physical resources
effectively and efficiently to achieve its strategic goals.
- Penn will create a more responsive and effective planning, budgeting,
and outcomes evaluation process to ensure that its resources support its
academic mission.
- Penn will broaden its administrative restructuring initiative to encompass
all major administrative activities and processes, both in the central
administration and in the schools.
4. The University will support strategic investments in master's programs
and other programs of continuing education in the arts and sciences and
in the professions, when they are consistent with Penn's academic mission
and capacities and the needs of society.
5. The University will plan, direct, and integrate its government and
community relations to enhance its missions of teaching, research, and service.
The University also will clarify and strengthen the links between its academic
programs and the public service performed by its faculty, students, administrators,
and staff.
6. The University will vigorously pursue efforts to increase significantly
Penn's role as an international institution of higher education and research.
7. The University will creatively deploy new technologies, recognizing
that technology is revolutionizing the ways in which knowledge is acquired,
created, and disseminated.
8. The University will effectively communicate to its various constituencies
the ways in which it contributes to the advancement of society.
9. The University will identify and secure the funds required to support
its strategic goals.
Strategic Goals and Initiatives
STRATEGIC GOAL 1
The University will solidify and advance its position as one of the
premier research and teaching universities in the nation and in the world.
Subgoal 1(a)
Penn's exceptional undergraduate programs will position it among a select
group of research universities as a school of choice for the ablest undergraduates
in the nation and in the world. To enhance its ability to fulfill its mission,
the University will be considered among the top ten in undergraduate education.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve subgoal 1(a) the University, working with the schools, will take
the following steps, among others.
- Implement the 21st Century Project for the Undergraduate Experience.
- Promote curricular reform and innovation through the Provost, working
with the Council of Undergraduate Deans.
- Conduct regular curriculum reviews.
- Expand cross-school and cross-disciplinary programs.
- Conserve resources by eliminating duplication of course offerings across
and within schools.
- Expand undergraduate research and service-learning opportunities.
- Establish an undergraduate research resource center.
- Seek external support for expanded undergraduate research.
- Develop a collegiate model to provide a setting for the new undergraduate
experience, and launch four pilot programs in September 1996.
- Take steps to improve advising.
- Expand the role of faculty as mentors and clarify the roles and responsibilities
of the professional advising staff.
- Improve the technology used to provide information on the many academic
options at Penn.
- Enhance departmental communication with students through advanced electronic
technology.
- Assure excellence in undergraduate teaching.
- Establish a teaching resource center that offers opportunities for
all faculty to improve their teaching.
- Create additional incentives for excellent undergraduate teaching.
- Develop and promote the use of technology in teaching.
- Improve student services.
- Restructure student services to better support the models developed
in the 21st Century Project.
- Continue the reorganization of the office and function of the Vice
Provost for University Life.
- Identify and secure financial resources to support the initiatives
of the 21st Century Project.
- Launch an initiative to raise funds for the University's financial
aid endowment.
- Enhance activities that improve Penn's attractiveness to undergraduates.
- Continue to promote Penn aggressively as an institution that educates
the best students and produces future leaders.
- Update and reinvigorate all admissions materials.
- Strengthen efforts to recruit and enroll underrepresented minority
students and programs aimed at their retention.
- Develop new and up-to-date recreational athletic facilities.
- Identify and secure funds for construction of new recreational athletic
facilities.
- Develop facilities to provide sufficient, equitable, and attractive
athletic space.
- Develop a plan for intercollegiate athletics that continues to stress
the recruitment of scholar-athletes.
- Enhance student career placement services to provide excellent support
for all students in a competitive job-market.
- Establish a rigorous, normative protocol for external review and assessment
of the undergraduate program every five to seven years.
Subgoal 1(b)
Penn's academic departments and programs will be considered among the top
ten in the United States or will develop and implement strategies for moving
toward the top tier. Penn's doctoral and professional programs will be the
programs of choice for the ablest graduate and professional students in
the nation and in the world.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve subgoal 1(b) the University, working with the schools, will take
the following steps, among others.
- Have each school develop or update its own strategic plan by June 1996,
to ensure that it includes the steps necessary to attain or maintain superior
academic status by the year 2000. As part of this plan, each school should
articulate steps to:
- Conduct regular departmental reviews to assess progress in achieving
the school's strategic goals.
- Reenergize or restructure those departments that are vital to the core
mission of the school or the University, that are below the school's standard
of excellence, and that have failed to show substantial improvement. Phase
out those departments that are neither central to the mission of the school
or University, nor markedly ascending in quality.
- Support and encourage efforts among the schools to reward faculty based
on criteria for excellence such as teaching achievements, publications,
citations, and grants received.
- Continue working to attract and retain underrepresented minority and
women faculty.
- Establish a rigorous, normative protocol for external review and assessment
of each school and inter-school program every five to seven years.
- Infuse the Research Foundation with new capital by raising money to
support areas of research where Penn has clear competitive advantages or
where the return on seed money is likely to be high.
- Directed by the Provost's Council of Deans, make strategic investments
in current and developing cross-disciplinary fields where Penn has or could
have nationally recognized strengths.
- Ensure that Penn's doctoral and professional programs will be the programs
of choice. Take steps to:
- Pursue increased funding for graduate education and training.
- Encourage innovative and efficient teaching and research groupings
of faculty.
- Seek development of new areas of collaboration in graduate training
across the University.
- Strengthen efforts to attract and retain underrepresented minority
and women graduate and professional students.
- Provide greater opportunities for student interaction across graduate
and professional school boundaries, and enrich campus life for graduate
and professional students.
- Conserve resources by eliminating duplication of course offerings across
and within schools.
- Establish a review process for graduate and professional programs that
emphasizes measures such as admission selectivity and ability to place
graduates. Set program size accordingly.
STRATEGIC GOAL 2
The University will aggressively seek greater research opportunities.
Recognizing that vigorous research and the unimpeded pursuit of knowledge
are at the heart of the University's mission, Penn will strive to attract
an increasing share of the available research dollars, and will aggressively
seek out new sources of support for research.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve this goal, the University, working with the schools, will take
the following steps, among others.
- Encourage faculty to seek increased funding support.
- Develop incentives for faculty to seek external support for research.
- Provide mentoring for junior faculty to help them succeed as productive
researchers.
- Develop strategies to increase grant support for graduate students.
- Encourage faculty, particularly in disciplines without significant
federal support, to seek research support from non-governmental sources
such as corporations, foundations, and alumni.
- Improve and increase research facilities in recognition of the critical
role facilities play in securing incremental research funding, faculty
recruitment, and the education of students.
- Enhance the Library's ability to deliver electronic-based information
and data to support research in all areas of the University.
- Recognizing that the integration of theory and practice is one of Penn's
hallmarks, update Penn's policies governing ownership and management of
intellectual property and participation in external commercial activities,
and improve Penn's ability to attract increased corporate support for technology
transfer.
- Streamline Penn's pre- and post-award processes to increase efficiency
and to facilitate the pursuit and receipt of external funds.
- Target, at the University level, an annualized growth rate of two percent
in sponsored research over the next five years.
STRATEGIC GOAL 3
The University will manage its human, financial, and physical resources
effectively and efficiently to achieve its strategic goals.
Subgoal 3(a)
Penn will create a more responsive and effective planning, budgeting and
outcomes evaluation process to ensure that its resources support its academic
mission.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve subgoal 3(a), the University, working with the schools, will
take the following steps, among others.
- Develop an integrated process of planning and budgeting.
- Complete the integration of the operating budget and the capital planning
process.
- Support school-based efforts to better integrate academic planning
and budgeting.
- Formulate University-wide financial policy, annual budgets, and operating
plans for academic and administrative units.
- Enhance institutional research to support the planning and budgeting
process.
- Coordinate school and program evaluations and link the process with
long-term resource planning.
- Seek to improve Penn's system of responsibility center management in
order to achieve the most effective allocation of financial resources.
Subgoal 3(b)
Penn will broaden its administrative restructuring initiative to encompass
all major administrative activities and processes, both in the central administration
and in the schools.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve subgoal 3(b), the University, working with the schools, will
take the following steps, among others.
- Improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of service across the institution
and establish appropriate measures to evaluate those services delivered
on a regular basis.
- Reduce the cost of central and school administration by $50 million
over the next five years and reinvest these savings in support of University
and school-based strategic priorities.
- Standardize Penn's disparate procurement systems to achieve economies-of-scale
and maximize savings on goods and services purchased annually.
- Generate $10 million at the central level in new revenues through entrepreneurial
business ventures and better management of existing auxiliary enterprises.
- Restructure Penn's Human Resources policies and programs.
- Provide administrative employees with greater opportunities to improve
their skills, grow professionally, and enhance their careers within the
University.
- Strengthen the system of human resource development and performance
review.
- Work with all units of the University to ensure the maintenance of
a humane and fair workplace environment for all employees.
- Streamline, improve, and reduce the costs of Penn's benefit system
while maintaining total compensation at levels consistent with those of
peer institutions.
- Restructure computing and telecommunications at Penn into a state-of-the-art
system to improve the University's ability to generate, use, and share
data.
- Implement a University-wide Public Safety Master Plan to reduce crime
and enhance the security of people and property on campus and in adjacent
neighborhoods.
- Upgrade the University's internal controls and compliance mechanisms
to better manage business risks and increase accountability at all levels.
- Systematically implement measures to reduce the costs of building new
facilities and maintaining existing ones, while improving the quality and
timeliness of maintenance and housekeeping services on campus.
STRATEGIC GOAL 4
The University will support strategic investments in master's programs
and other programs of continuing education in the arts and sciences and
in the professions, when they are consistent with Penn's academic mission
and capacities and the needs of society.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve this goal, the University, working with the schools, will take
the following steps, among others.
- Encourage the creation and continuation of selected non-core master's
and continuing education programs whose financial returns provide support
for other strategic investments.
- Identify fields in which Penn has comparative advantages relative to
the market, and target development of new or expanded continuing education
programs to meet the needs in these fields.
- Build upon the existing core to create programs, as exemplified by
the Wharton Executive Education program, that permit executives and professionals
to keep up with academic research and to apply the results of that research
to their business or professional problems.
- Support the efforts of the schools to develop continuing, life-long
professional learning experiences for their graduates and others, particularly
in areas where continuing education has been mandated by professional certification
bodies.
- Building on the model of the Dental School, establish computer-based
connections with alumni that will permit life-long learning at sites remote
from the University.
- Establish a rigorous, normative, market-based protocol for review and
assessment of each of these master's and continuing education programs
every five to seven years.
STRATEGIC GOAL 5
The University will plan, direct, and integrate its government and
community relations to enhance its missions of teaching, research, and service.
The University also will clarify and strengthen the links between its academic
programs and the public service performed by its faculty, students, administrators,
and staff.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve this goal, the University, working with the schools, will take
the following steps, among others.
- Strengthen relationships with the executive branch, Congress, and federal
research agencies and work aggressively with them to influence program
development and policies that support the scholarly and teaching activities
of private research universities.
- Continue to build and maintain effective relationships with the governor
and state legislators.
- Build partnerships with corporations, educational institutions, medical
institutions, and others that have financially invested in Philadelphia,
to share resources and services that strengthen the community.
- Consistent with the University's basic missions of teaching and research,
work with the community to promote economic development and increase the
quality of life in West Philadelphia.
- Continue efforts to increase University purchases from local businesses.
- Promote business partnerships, public safety, and transportation initiatives.
- Continue efforts to improve local elementary and secondary schools.
- Encourage the development of service-learning programs at the University,
in furtherance of Penn's long-standing commitment to the integration of
theory and practice.
- Encourage innovative opportunities for voluntary participation by Penn
students, faculty, administrators, and staff in appropriate public service
activities.
STRATEGIC GOAL 6
The University will vigorously pursue efforts to increase significantly
Penn's role as an international institution of higher education and research.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve this goal, the University, working with the schools, will take
the following steps, among others.
- Stimulate and encourage international research and scholarly collaborations
by Penn faculty and their counterparts outside the United States.
- Promote the development of a strong international dimension within
each of Penn's schools.
- Plan programs to attract more international scholars.
- Recruit those outstanding students from abroad who are likely to assume
leadership roles in the academy, business, and government when they return
to their home countries.
- As part of the 21st Century Project for the Undergraduate Experience,
coordinate and enhance the development of a student experience at Penn
that is global in its dimensions.
- Encourage the schools in their continued development of an internationally
enriched curriculum. Include a global perspective in a wide variety of
courses and enhance foreign language competency and study abroad programs.
- Foster greater interaction with local "international" communities
and cultures.
- Strengthen Penn's international alumni relations.
STRATEGIC GOAL 7
The University will creatively deploy new technologies, recognizing
that technology is revolutionizing the ways in which knowledge is acquired,
created, and disseminated.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve this goal, the University, working with the schools, will take
the following steps, among others.
- Make the implementation of new teaching technologies a University priority.
- Ensure that there is sufficient support for training faculty, students,
administrators, and staff in the use of new technologies.
- Encourage efforts by the Vice Provost and Director of Libraries to
acquire and use appropriate new technologies in the University's libraries
for effective and cost beneficial delivery of information and databases.
- Secure resources to establish a technology seed fund that would support
new ventures by the schools in technological innovation.
- Encourage efforts by the Executive Vice President to form appropriate
new technology-based corporate partnerships in order to develop and exploit
new academic/commercial uses of technology.
- Implement, through acquisition or development, state-of-the-art information
systems that will improve the flow of information and electronic communication
across the University.
- Take advantage of new technologies that will improve Penn's academic,
administrative, and capital planning processes.
STRATEGIC GOAL 8
The University will effectively communicate to its various constituencies
the ways in which it contributes to the advancement of society.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve this goal, the University, working with the schools, will take
the following steps, among others.
- Develop a program to enhance Penn's communications efforts and to coordinate
University and school-based communications operations.
- Find effective ways to present and explain to Penn's various constituencies
the contribution of the schools and their faculties.
- Reinforce Penn's stature as a leading independent research university
whose historic and current curricular, research, and service agendas combine
theory and practice.
- Ensure that Penn, with its twelve schools, continues to be recognized
locally, nationally, and worldwide as a distinctive member of the Ivy League.
- Regularly review Penn's public relations activities to ensure that
they emphasize the distinctiveness of Penn and the achievements of its
faculty, students, and alumni.
- Ensure that alumni, as our largest group of advocates, are kept well-informed
of their role in helping the University achieve its strategic goals.
STRATEGIC GOAL 9
The University will identify and secure the funds required to support
its strategic goals.
Strategic Initiatives
To achieve this goal, the University, working with the schools, will take
the following steps, among others.
- Have each school prepare its own development plan by June 1996, in
conjunction with the President, Provost, and Vice President for Development.
The plan will support the goals articulated in both the school's and the
University's strategic plans.
- Develop and implement plans to identify and secure funds for the 21St.
Century Project. These plans will include both school-based and University-wide
initiatives, including programmatic support, undergraduate financial aid,
and facilities such as the Perelman Quadrangle, collegiate houses, and
athletics, among others.
- Identify other University initiatives in the strategic plan that require
external development support.
- Identify and engage alumni and trustees to assure that the fundraising
goals are met.
- Involve international alumni in the development process.
- Maintain a top-five ranking in gift receipts among peer institutions
by launching a new University/schools fundraising drive for initiatives
targeted in Agenda for Excellence.
Deadline for comment: December 8, 1995
Send comments to:
Academic Planning and Budget Committee
110 College Hall/6303