Professor E. Thomas Sullivan
Senior Vice President and Provost

Professor Alfred D. Sullivan
Executive Associate Vice President

Gentlemen:

Thank you for the opportunity to provide input on the newly constituted University of Minnesota strategic planning process. The Academic Health Center Finance & Planning Committee (AHCFP) vigorously embraced the charge to provide our perspective on Facilities & Infrastructure. We focused on what we thought was the "big picture" from the fiscal and academic side of things. We did not address things such as parking or transportation. We believe those areas are already covered.

Attached is our submission for your consideration. We broke our "issues" into five parts (budget infrastructure, planning infrastructure, research infrastructure, financial capacity, and utilization inefficiencies). As requested, we listed what we thought were the relevant issues under each topic as well as what we thought the effects would be on institutional quality depending on how they were addressed. We also proposed what we thought were potential and realistic solutions to the problems we defined. On behalf of the AHCFP, I submit these ideas to you with the hope that they will assist you in this difficult, but necessary task.

Thank you for your consideration. If we can be of service on this or related endeavors, please do not hesitate to call on us.

Best wishes,

Dan Feeney
04-05 AHCFP Chair

cc: Members of the Academic Health Center Finance & Planning Committee
Senior Vice President Frank Cerra