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Criteria for Decision Making

1. Centrality to Mission: A program or service is more highly valued if it contributes significantly to the core mission of the University.

   Each program or service should be evaluated in terms of its contribution to the University's core mission. Centrality, or proximity to the core mission, is measured by the degree to which a program contributes to the following inter-related mission components:

   • Teaching and learning should be an essential component of a high-quality, holistic undergraduate education or a high-quality graduate/professional education focused on deepening and broadening knowledge for the welfare of society.
     
   • Research, discovery, and creative work should contribute significantly to the University's overall excellence in creating and advancing knowledge and helping to stimulate and sustain related work elsewhere in the institution.
     
   • Public engagement should relate to the University's teaching and research missions and make significant connections between the needs of Minnesota, its citizens, the nation, and the world, and the University's knowledge-based resources.

   Funding of programs and services critical to the University's mission should be a priority.

   Key Questions:

   1. To what degree is the substance of the activity pertinent to agreed-upon program needs, goals, and mission?
      
   2. How essential is the program or activity to the University's core mission?
   
   
   
2. Quality, Productivity, and Impact: A program or service should meet objective and evaluative standards of high quality, productivity, public engagement, and impact.

   Traditional measures for evaluating programs in higher education should be rigorously applied. For example, the quality, diversity, productivity, public engagement, and impact of the faculty and staff can be measured by peer national ratings, publications, outside funding, surveys, competitive awards, community impact, and other indices that describe important results and impact. The University also must more fully develop its own benchmarks (through the University's annual Accountability Report) for measuring quality, productivity, public engagement, and impact.

   Key Questions:

   1. What are the most appropriate measures to apply?
      
   2. Are measures being applied consistently and transparently?
      
   3. How do we measure the quality of a program or service?
      
   4. How do we measure output, taking into account a blend of qualitative and quantitative assessments?
      
   5. What is the impact of the program or service? How far does it reach?
   
   
   
3. Uniqueness and Comparative Advantage: A program should be evaluated based on characteristics that make it an exceptional strength for the University compared to other programs in Minnesota or at other peer institutions.

   The University is committed to maintaining areas of distinctive strength that academic and administrative units have built over the years while recognizing new areas of potential advantage, particularly in interdisciplinary initiatives. This criterion is focused on high-quality foundation programs and services that build on the needs and resources of Minnesota, the nation, and the world as well as areas where further investment will yield significant return in intellectual quality and capital.

   Key Questions:

   1. What is the rationale for the program/service at the University of Minnesota?
      
   2. Is the program/service a strength of the University in comparison to peer institutions?
      
   3. Does the program/service contribute to the comparative economic or cultural advantages of Minnesota?
      
   4. Is the program/service an essential component of a unique synergy of ideas and activities?
      
   5. What would the loss, reduction, addition, or expansion of the program/service mean to the University, the state, and the region?
   
   
   
4. Enhancement of Academic Synergies: A program/service should be organized to promote and facilitate synergies that build relationships and interdisciplinary, multicultural, international and other collaborations.

   Programs and services should be structured to leverage and create new synergies and do so in a cost-efficient manner. Dynamic, accountable organizational structures can result in additional resources for the highest priority activities while creating efficiencies to maintain core academic programs at a lower overall cost. This requires careful, strategic combinations of resources that enhance natural connections.

   Key Questions:

   1. Will the proposed structure add value to the intellectual climate of the program/service as well as creating cost savings?
      
   2. Will the proposed structure better serve students, staff, and/or faculty?
   
   
   
5. Demand and Resources: Evaluation of a program or service should consider current and projected demand and the potential and real availability of resources for funding program or service costs.

   Evaluation should include short- and long-term projections of change in demand for each program or service. Other indicators might include demographic and financial trends, number of applications, quality of acceptances, services performed in support of other programs, degrees awarded, instruction of students, or research undertaken for the solution of pressing problems of society. Programs or services should also be evaluated based on a reasonable generation of resources and to meet costs.

   Key Questions:

   1. Do accurate measures project a rise or fall in demand for this program or service over the long term?
      
   2. Considering the University's core mission, is there a need for the program, as distinct from a simple measure of demand for the program?
      
   3. Does the program or service have sufficient resources to support it?
   
   
   
6. Efficiency and Effectiveness: A program or service should be evaluated based on its effectiveness and how efficiently it operates.

   Programs and services should be operated to efficiently and effectively adapt to ongoing changing circumstances internally and externally. Consideration should be given to whether existing administrative functions and responsibilities could operate more efficiently and effectively through shared resources (e.g., student service at multiple levels, business processes, etc.). Consideration also should be given to leveraging human capital to most effectively use the special talents and expertise of faculty and staff. A critical aspect in evaluating programs/services is whether they achieve valued results and impact, in mission-related activities, in relationship to their costs.

   Key Questions:

   1. Can valued functions be performed at less cost within a new structure or with the aid of alternative strategies (e.g., technology)?
      
   2. Will functions be performed more efficiently and effectively at the unit level, with shared coordination among units, or system-wide?
      
   3. Are the organizational outcomes achieved at acceptable levels of quality and cost?
      
   4. What is the next best alternative use of the resources?
      
   5. Does the program have a clear business plan and a balanced budget?
      
   6. Does it deliver service at the right level, in a timely manner, and at the right cost?
      
   7. Are we identifying core competencies and assigning responsibilities and designing structure based on them?
      
   8. Are decisions being made at a level where there is expertise, experience, and information?
   
   
   
7. Development and Leveraging of Resources: Any new or existing program or service should be evaluated on its potential to develop new resources and leverage existing resources.

   Resources needed to support academic research, education, and public engagement are derived from a wide range of public and private sources, and may include more than monetary resources. Ongoing evaluation of priorities and related, internal shifts of resources to areas of higher priority may be required.

   Key Questions:

   1. Will a revised or new program create new opportunities to expand the University's quality and range of public contributions?
      
   2. Is the program strongly connected to other academic units so that resources and opportunities are expanded for research, education, and connection of the University to public needs?
      
   3. Are there opportunities for additional resource growth and leveraging that we are not taking advantage of?
      
   4. Are revenues placed in the most appropriate organizational setting to achieve desired results?