COUNCIL
State of the
University
Strategic
Planning Process Update
President
Judith Rodin's introduction to Strategic Planning Update
It
would be very hard to begin an overview of where we are and strategically
where we're going without at least noting, once again, that we all
are so affected still by the events of September 11. The comment
that I'd like to make is that it has clearly influenced our community
in many very painful ways. But as all events of such epic proportion
do, it has also influenced us in some positive ways. I'm seeing
a much more related sense of community, which has been part of our
ambitions; and I'm seeing it in a variety of different ways. I do
hope that out of this horror we really will be able to continue
learning, to continue reaching out to each other across our differences,
and find ways to demonstrate--on campus--that there is a sense of
community that we share and about which we're proud, and that we
really learn from one another.
At
the end of the semester last year there was a supplement in Almanac
that reported on The
Agenda
for Excellence, and I'm obviously not going to review
this very lengthy tome, except to remind you once again that it
is available still on the Almanac
web site and it will be a good way for members of Council to be
knowledgeable about what we have been working on for the past five
or six years, if you haven't been here or, if you haven't been in
official roles that made you pay attention to it. But I do want
to mention just a couple of things because they are, in a way, a
prelude to some of the things that the Provost will be discussing.
As
we've tried to increase the ways that Penn is viewed throughout
the University as a thought leader in teaching and research and
innovative curricula, and in the use of technology, we've done a
number of things over these five or six years (which, again certainly
less transparent to the undergraduates who weren't here seven years
ago, but certainly worth noting). There are now regular curriculum
reviews by the school faculty in all of the schools and you're seeing
now the pilot curriculum in the College, a result of an effort to
think creatively about the new arts and sciences curriculum. Wharton,
over the past several years, has continued to change and refresh
its curriculum. There's been almost a total overhaul during this
period of the Engineering and Applied Sciences undergraduate curriculum
and we are continuing to try to refresh the Nursing curriculum as
well.
Over
the course of the past several years we've expanded cross-school
and cross-disciplinary programs. And when I reported to you annually,
I think it was harder to really see the impact of the change in
Penn as it developed this strategic niche as one of its sets of
undergraduate offerings. But since 1995, new joint- and dual-degree
programs include the program in nursing and health care management;
computer and cognitive science, specializing in artificial intelligence;
environment and technology; nursing and computer science program;
several sub-matriculation programs; a B.A. and M.S. in education
program; a juris doctor program, starting from the undergraduate
level; an intensive major in architecture; molecular life sciences;
and digital media design -- all new and accomplishments of the strategic
plan.
Another
innovation of the plan has been the development of what we call
normative reviews of all of the schools and centers. This week we
completed the review of admissions; we've done reviews of athletics
and a review of seven of the twelve schools. When I say normative,
we will put these on a six- to seven-year cycle. They are not done
because we think the entity is in trouble or that we have any concerns,
but merely because we think first, the opportunity for self-study
and second, the opportunity to bring external experts who spend
two intensive days examining that program, is a very good way of
bench-marking what we're doing and really continuing to develop
as a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art institution. We'll be doing
it in information technology. In the library, which we did already,
we've learned a great deal and we've implemented a number of changes
as a result of what we've learned. We believe in this kind of self-evaluation
and self-improvement as we go through this self-evaluation cycle.
Certainly
you know that the College House System, the Undergraduate Research
Hub, the Fox Leadership program, Kelly Writers House, and Civic
House are all initiatives that were developed under the last strategic
plan and have really transformed the way the campus feels in terms
of the academic programs.
Many,
many other initiatives have been undertaken and I think the challenge
for us now is to really build on those strengths and work to enhance
where we're going and how we're thinking about that.
Provost
Robert Barchi on Strategic Planning Process
What
I'd like to do is to take you through the process that we have initiated
that moves the the Agenda
for Excellence forward to the next round of planning for
the University. Let me preface this by simply saying that the Agenda
itself is a living document. We don't consider this new strategic
planning effort to be a revolutionary change but rather an evolutionary
one; we're working with a mission statement that essentially remains
unchanged. Our mission as a University remains the same, but we
need to update and recast our goals in the context of today's environment
and where we think the University is going to be in the next five
years. We need to make sure that our academic priorities are in
the context of the University's over arching goals and that the
organizational priorities for the institution support the academic
mission.
So
let me tell you a little bit about where we've gone so far. First
of all, the process started in the fall of 1999 with a Trustee Retreat.
At that time the Trustees went off campus for several days and met
with the senior administration and the deans to think about what
the University should be and where it should go. Some very interesting
ideas emerged from those discussions that helped to guide the subsequent
process.
Assessing the Agenda for Excellence
We
then undertook an assessment of the Agenda
for Excellence over a period of months--a retrospective,
if you will--recapping what had been accomplished under the current
Agenda; this led to a detailed report that was summarized
and published in Almanac last spring, The
Agenda for Excellence review. We then moved into what I
will call the leadership phase. The senior administration, the Council
of Deans, and the Academic Planning and Budget Committee in conjuntion
with the provost and the vice provost undertook a self assessment.
What are our strengths and weaknesses? How do we see ourselves as
an institution? How do we see our students and what kind of students
do we want to have here? How do we see our faculty? How would we
describe ourselves? Most importantly, what do we see as the unique
differentiators of Penn in the marketplace? These questions led
us then into a discussion of a draft strategic plan outline, the
key elements that we thought should be the backbone of the next
round of strategic planning and the key academic and organizational
priorities that we would like to put forward for further discussion.
The
key word here is really evolutionary. Let me give you an
example. In the current strategic plan, one of our major goals was
to move our undergraduate program upward in the rankings from a
position that at the beginning of that plan was hovering near the
beginning of the top ten or slightly below. We are now unquestionably
one of the premier undergraduate research intensive universities
in the nation. From this point forward we should be looking at how
we solidify and strengthen that position. What differentiates us
from other comparable institutions in this very elite group and
how do we build on those differentiating strengths? That's the kind
of a process that we're going through.
Let
me just outline for you what the strategic plan will look like.
It will have three elements: the first set of elements will be institutional
goals that cut across the entire set of schools and programs of
our institution--where we're going as a University, what we set
as the highest and most important agenda items for the institution
as a whole. Then intersecting with these institutional goals will
be a set of academic priorities that identify key areas of opportunity;
key areas of strength or differentiating features that should be
expanded; key areas perhaps of weakness that we should build on
and fill in; and opportunities that were not there five ago that
we now see looming on the horizon and where we want to be pushing
the envelope and building rapidly into, ahead of the power curve
of other universities. Each one of those academic priorities should
cut across and pick up a number of the institutional goals as it
moves forward. Finally, we should make sure that the organizational
priorities, the operational elements of the University that need
to be tuned up or amplified or extended, are serving in the mission
of both the institutional goals and the academic priorities.
Institutional Goals
Let
me take you briefly through the outline of where we're going beginning
with institutional goals first. We've identified a set of five institutional
goals: the first is to solidify Penn's position as one of the premier
research and teaching institutions in the nation and in the world.
The second, to improve the quality, impact and translatability of
our scholarly activity. Here the words are very important focusing
on quality, focusing on the impact of the research
as opposed to just the volume of the research and the translation
of ideas from the laboratory, from the research office to the real
world. Third, we're looking to provide a continuum of education
that engages learners throughout their lives; we're looking at what
we do as an institution from the time a student walks in our door
as a pre-college high school student, to their college years, through
their graduate years and throughout their lives to recreational
learning, if you will, in their retirement years. We want to create
a continuum rather than an episodic contact with our learners throughout
their lives and try to understand what that means. One of the most
important elements in our future plans is that the first three goals
require the building of an outstanding and diverse faculty; faculty
recruitment and retention and faculty diversity will be a key element
of the next strategic plan. Finally creating a physical environment
that's supportive of the academic and research mission is also important;
how can we most effectively integrate these academic goals within
the framework of the campus development plan we have just completed?
Let
me just amplify one of those elements to show you where we're going
and the kinds of ideas we're starting to tease out. We've mentioned
the need to focus on differentiating areas--what makes Penn unique,
what creates the value added here for a student at Penn and strengthening
those areas. This may require a continuing focus on excellence in
undergraduate education, thinking about the liberal core that should
cut across all our educational programs, better integration across
the four undergraduate schools, expansion of our interdisciplinary
programs and the need to improve financial aid. It could mean a
strengthening of the quality of graduate education and thinking
about vertical integration of our educational programs, taking advantage
of the presence of outstanding professional schools and graduate
schools on campus as we develop our undergraduate programs and vice
versa.
Academic Priorities
Let
me skip now to the academic priorities. Here we've picked six areas
that we think are particularly prime targets. Some of those are
carry-overs from the past plan, such as arts, humanities in society,
which continues to be an area that we think Penn should be focusing
on and developing. The life sciences are another. We are a world
leader in the life sciences here at Penn. Any cutting-edge university
in the future that's a research-intensive university will be a powerhouse
in the life sciences, and we aim to be too.
The
urban community is important, too, particularly given Penn's place
in an urban environment and the expertise we have here on this campus
in such areas as urban architecture, urban planning and the movement
of populations in and out of cities and in urban health.
Technological
innovation is a fourth, and one that cuts across the Engineering
School and other schools of our University--in such areas as bioengineering,
nanotechnology, and computer sciences.
The
last two priorities are the global perspective and organizations,
institutions, and leadership.
Again
let me expand on just one of these--the global perspective--to give
you an idea of the direction in which we are going. This is an area
that we think will be critically important for universities in the
new world in the next 10 years and one in which we think we have
selective strengths but not the level of external visibility that
we should have. We're looking to expand and extend on the political
science of governments and nations; to build programs that study
the international business, commerce, and affairs of countries and
their relation to the global economy; legal aspects of international
relations and politics; ethnicity, race and gender; and international
health. So you can see the breadth of programs that might fit under
each one of these academic priorities.
Organizational Priorities
And
finally, there are the organizational priorities that will support
the institutional goals and the academic priorities. Here we are
talking about enhancing the financial and operational capacity of
the University, making sure we are the most economical and leanest
operational unit that we possibly can be, that we're the most efficient
at doing what we need to do to support our academic programs.
We
are also talking about encouraging and supporting entrepreneurial
activity. This could involve looking at ways to translate our knowledge
in new and different ways to the broader community, both to the
marketplace and to the broader world environment, allowing our faculty
and our students to be entrepreneurial and providing them the support
that they need to do those kinds of things. We also need to consider
the operational aspects of enhancing the campus environment, the
business functions that allow us to do that, and to make those growths
possible.
And
finally we need to develop a financial strategy that allows us to
align the resources that we have as a University with the needs
that are generated by the strategic plan, to make sure that we're
always thinking about keeping those two things in concert, and that
we don't let one outstrip the other. We need to have the appropriate
checks and balances in place to be sure that we, on the one hand,
are living within our means but, on the other hand, are generating
the new means to make the strategic plan possible.
Community Input
That's
the broad outline of the proposed plan. The next step is to bring
this into the broader public domain and for community input. What
we've done is to create 14 committees that are looking at various
elements of this outline. These committees incorporate more than
200 faculty and staff and students, and they include key opinion-makers
from throughout the campus [click
here for members of strategic planning
committees]. As you know they're already out there working.
Their job is to make a fairly short turnaround of this analysis.
We
will invite comment from across the University community for discussion
of elements of this plan as we develop them. We will publish a draft
of the document to the University community for comment. The committee
process is not one that rubber stamps an agenda that is already
completed. What I showed you is an outline. It is what was given
to the committees for their work. There is not a detailed analysis
behind this, that's the job of the committees. They will validate
these concepts, they'll help us to order the relative priorities,
they'll provide definition to the ideas that we've put forward and
more importantly, they'll add additional ideas and take out things
they think are not consistent. They'll look for potential conflicts
between areas covered by the different committees. The chairs of
each one of these committees are meeting regularly with me as a
group specifically for that purpose. We'll look at ways to implement
the strategies as they're brought forward, each one of these committees
will generate a very brief report, which will be part of the overall
agenda.
We're
looking for draft reports from the committees by the end of November
and final reports by December. We'll bring an assembled, collated
document back to the Council of Deans and to the Academic Planning
and Budget Committee by the end of December or early January. We're
looking to publish a draft strategic plan in one of the January
editions of Almanac that you will then all see and be able
to comment on. We'll look at your comments and try to incorporate
them in a final version, which will be presented to the Board of
Trustees on the 15th and the 16th of February.
Almanac, Vol. 48, No. 12, November 13, 2001
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