Akron Magazine - Winter 2010 - (Page 3)

Last year, I announced that we would “begin a broadly collaborative and very essential conversation to create a formal 10-year strategic plan that (would) ‘chart the course’ to our new destination,” and I promised to bring you a status report of that plan as part of this address today. The goal of this process is for us to craft a plan that reflects our collective vision and wisdom, sets aspirational, yet attainable, goals and positions us as a driver of economic development and educational attainment, so that we earn and create our own success. At this point in the process, there is broad agreement on the components of the plan, which now are embodied within five goals: n Strengthen Akron’s historical commitment to inclusive excellence to enhance student access, transformation and success. n Create vibrant, healthy, and diverse campuses that are deeply engaged with their surrounding communities. n Establish selected cross-disciplinary clusters of academic distinction that are recognized nationally and internationally. n Achieve national recognition for a curriculum in which entrepreneurship and 21st-Century global competitiveness skills are comprehensively embedded. n Be a primary driver of economic competitiveness in northern Ohio and a leading contributor in the state. The draft plan is growing more robust with each discussion and contains background information, detailed mission and vision statements, and suggested initiatives to implement each goal. However, we know also that standing in stark contrast to our successes are the challenges of an economic recession and the demands of an increasingly competitive environment for higher education. Across the country, serious state revenue deficiencies are likely to extend through the next year of this biennium and into the next. Even with the budget adjustments we already have made and the enrollment growth we continue to enjoy, the University’s recently adopted budget had to accommodate an initial projected deficit that approached $18 million. The worst effects of the major recession are yet to come for Ohio, and all public agencies and institutions are facing significant cuts into the foreseeable future. In addition to budget challenges, an increasingly competitive environment for higher education also confronts us and some would assert that universities cannot continue to operate with an educational model that is 200 years out Fall student headcount showed a 7.6 percent increase, reaching nearly 28,000. Student credit-hour production increased by 8.4 percent to make our full-time-equivalent enrollment the highest ever. of sync. Like many other industries, higher education is on the threshold of major, complex changes that must yet be directed to favorable outcomes. Having now noted many of our recent achievements, described our strategic planning progress and outlined some of the challenges we face—let me provide a brief glimpse of things to come. First, with the notable success of our New Landscape for Learning initiative, we are actively exploring ways in which we can attract private investment for the continued physical transformation of our campus, as well as of our surrounding neighborhoods in University Park. We are looking to use private dollars to build at least three new academic/research buildings, three or more additional residence halls, and two to three more parking decks, and I am pleased to tell you that well over a dozen potential private partners are eager to work with us. And just as we have done in partnering for the Austen BioInnovation Institute, we must find additional opportunities that will enable us to attract more faculty to the University and to our community. Dr. Frank Douglas, the newly hired president of the Institute, is leading the formation of a critical mass of new talent in biomaterials and medical applications, coordinated across the five partners. In similarly innovative arrangements, we must find a way to attract no less than 100 to 200 new faculty over the next ten years to bring our centers of excellence to scale and thereby enhance our recognition and economic success. We also will seek other innovations that position The University of Akron among a new set of institutional peers, but which are globally competitive peers. Thus, we have begun to identify a set of comparably situated and differentiated universities worldwide. And rather than concerning ourselves with comparisons among the full set of other Ohio or American universities or aspiring to best the local competition (except in sports), we will strive to be among the best comparably differentiated universities on a global scale. |3| A MAgAzine for AluMni & friends of The universiT y of Akron www.uakron.edu

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Akron Magazine - Winter 2010

Akron Magazine - Winter 2010