Strategic Planning: Overview of Responses to November 2007 Web Survey
Our thanks to the faculty, staff, students at all levels, alumni, and friends of the University – nearly 2,600 in all – who responded in late November to a web-based survey conducted by the University Plan Steering Committee. The Committee is helping to lead deliberations across the campus that will contribute to the development of a plan for the University for the five years beginning in 2008. The members of the Committee are grateful to all those who took the time to respond.
We thought you might be interested in learning how the University-wide community responded to the survey. The information below represents a rapid overview of the survey results. A more careful analysis is being conducted by the members of the University Plan Working Group, for use by the Steering Committee. As noted below, the results of that analysis will emerge in January in the context of the Committee’s draft responses to the first three of the fundamental questions being employed in the planning process.
Some of the survey questions led to quantitative responses, asking respondents to rank the relative importance of various activities to the University’s future, while other questions were designed to elicit comments. Some of the questions were identical for all groups, but many of the quantitative questions were modified for students to reflect their relatively shorter experience with the University. Click here for a table summarizing responses to these quantitative questions.
Responses to the qualitative questions, where survey-takers had no limits on their choices, were more diverse. A preliminary review of these responses by the Working Group identified the following sentiments as key elements to be considered in responding to the three fundamental questions with University-wide implications:
- What would you like the University to be in five to ten years?
- Valued, famous, respected, well-known – a desire for the institution to be better recognized for its strengths
- Strong research and scholarship, research-driven – including discovery that drives practice
- Enjoyable, vibrant, collegial, ethical campus
- Strongly invested in our students, offering distinctive learning experiences
- Strongly connected with our communities – local, national, international
- What would the University need to do to achieve this vision?
- Improvements in the campus environment, including practices, infrastructure, and increased emphasis on inclusiveness
- Research and teaching that more strongly integrate the humanities with science/technology and feature interdisciplinary links
- Strong leadership and management, coupled with financial health and improved alumni relations
- Strong focus on students, including admissions selectivity and financial aid
- Cooperation, collaboration, valuing all stakeholders
- What are three to seven of the most important strategic issues for the University to consider in its planning process?
- Funding – develop and manage resources to secure growth and stability
- Focused collaborative research – invest in selected areas that cross disciplinary boundaries to support distinctiveness
- International initiatives in research, teaching, and service
- Infrastructure to support research and learning, including physical plant and information technology
- Recruitment and retention of students, faculty, and staff
- Leadership, including administration and governance that are transparent and promote coherence, effectiveness, and efficiency
- Relations with stakeholders, including the University’s image
The University Plan Steering Committee will prepare draft responses to these questions and share them with you next month, along with a follow-up survey to clarify a few matters. The schools are also working on their own draft responses to all five questions, which they will share with each other and with the Steering Committee. From these interactions, a consensus response to the questions will emerge in late January that will feed directly into the process of refining statements of mission and vision for the University.
If you have questions about the survey, or if you have a suggestion for an additional question to be included in a follow-up survey, click here.