E. Thomas Sullivan
Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost
Irving Younger Professor of Law |
February 28, 2005 |
Leading Change
I would ask each and every member of the University community to help in leading the University of Minnesota as it positions itself for the future. I ask each of you to consider how you can best provide leadership to the University in the context of our new strategic positioning efforts.
To reach our goal to be one of the top three public research universities will require strategic thinking and planning. We need, and our strategic positioning document outlines, a coherent vision of the future of this University, one that will continue to build excellence through enhanced quality in our teaching and research.
It is now clear that incremental changes or marginal cuts are no longer viable or sufficient to sustain our future. We have entered a “transformative era” for higher education in the country and in Minnesota. There is a certain urgency for fundamental change.
We will begin by ensuring that each decision aligns resources, whether from public or private sources, with the academic and intellectual priorities of the University. Two task forces—one looking at academic issues and the other reviewing administrative issues—are currently preparing recommendations to be provided to President Bruininks by mid–March.
This necessary alignment of resources (academic and administrative) is a precondition to building a coherent focus on excellence. To ensure that we stay focused, we need to engage in careful strategic thinking and planning so that we are able to maintain a coherent institutional vision and implement it in an efficient, fair, and effective way. By this, I mean that the process is not a static one—rather, strategic planning is necessarily a work in progress, a work that each of you can help to define and refine as we move forward.
Strategic thinking and planning imply that priorities will be set. In setting academic priorities, a focus on quality is the most important measure, along with 1) examining how each program relates to and is central to the mission of the University and 2) whether we have a comparative or unique advantage by supporting or enhancing particular programs.
If we are to be successful in building excellence at each task within our mission, we need to evaluate carefully the balance between capacity and demand. This will help us identify where there are efficiencies, economies of scale, and ultimately effectiveness. In the end, this process should inform our decisions and validate our actions. Our strategic planning document carefully outlines the seven decision making criteria we will use as move ahead.
At the Board of Regents meeting on February 10th, President Bruininks and I submitted the strategic positioning document to the Board of Regents. Their response was very supportive, indeed enthusiastic. As Regent Maureen Reed commented at that meeting: “This is the right goal. A great institution is never satisfied with the status quo.”
Our report identifies five action strategies in pursuit of our goal of reshaping
and transforming the University. It is extremely important for the University
to do all it can to bring bright, diverse, well-prepared, and motivated
students here. We cannot be a great university without recognizing that promoting
access based on talent and potential – and not income or other social
advantages – is a crucial aspect of our mission.
If we are to prepare students for roles in a multiracial, multicultural environment, then we need to provide that environment at this University. That is, we must ensure that we fully understand as a public university that diversity and excellence are intertwined. And we must do more to retain and mentor and advise our students.
Without a great faculty and without exceptional staff we cannot reach our goal. In the coming decade, the University has the opportunity to identify, attract, mentor, inspire, reward, and retain faculty of the highest quality. In addition, to be attractive to the highest quality, diverse faculty and staff will require that we offer salaries, benefits, and programmatic support and support for graduate students comparable to other top universities. Such selective investments are central to retaining the University’s current strengths and to building additional strengths. We simply must do better in investing in our Human Capital—the University’s faculty, staff, and students.
We must promote an effective organizational culture that is committed to excellence and responsive to managing change. In addition, we must enhance and effectively utilize our resources and infrastructure. And, we must— here is an area where I believe we can especially improve—we must communicate clearly and credibly with all our constituencies and practice public engagement responsive to the public good.
Recent poll data indicates that some Minnesota residents fail to understand all we do—and equally important—how well we do it. Each of us should try to think of ways, large and small, to better communicate what we do and how we do it. By our words and actions, we must inspire all of us to raise our expectations and goals.
Clearly we have many challenges as we reposition and—in some ways—reinvent the University of Minnesota. Such changes will require leadership at all levels of the University and changes to our current culture. But with these challenges there are also “opportunities.” And opportunities should be inspiring.
I challenge each of you at the University to join us in moving a very good University into the ranks of greatness. That should be the charge and legacy for all of us. We simply cannot move to the next level of “excellence” without bold and inspirational leadership.
I look forward, and I trust you look forward, to those challenges and those opportunities, as we help to lead the University of Minnesota to new heights of excellence.
|
Return
to: U of M Home
