Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise, during her first town hall address to campus in 2012, said it would take an era of action to prepare and position the U. of I. to face the challenges of the 21st century.
"I believe if we do not seize this window of opportunity, we will have wasted a very distinct moment in time," she said then.
On April 9, less than a year from her second town hall, the chancellor proclaimed the opportunity had been "seized" and praised campus efforts for making great progress in starting the implementation phase of the nascent campus Strategic Plan.
The town hall presentation was made to a packed Illini Union Ballroom by Wise and Ilesanmi Adesida, the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs.
"A lot has happened since then," Wise said of their initial town hall address.
In that time the campus has released a three-year Strategic Plan and already boasts a substantial list of accomplishments tied to the goals outlined in the document.
"We want this to be a two-way conversation," she said, noting that more than 3,000 faculty and staff members had been consulted in the run-up to the plan's adoption, which followed a year of consultation among various campus groups.
Wise said other avenues for providing suggestions to improve the university include consulting with the Academic Senate, its executive committee and through ongoing conversations being held by Adesida with faculty and staff representatives.
"These meetings demonstrate our appreciation for the importance of shared governance," she said.
As for progress on the Strategic Plan, she said, the campus already has met some provisions in the four goals set out in the plan.
Adesida said the initiative to hire 500 faculty members in the next five to seven years, which soon add cohorts of academic, cross-disciplinary clusters, has already started with 180 new faculty searches underway. He said there already have been several recruitment successes.
"This is how we are going to make news when it comes to faculty hiring," he said. "We are going to find the best - those who bolster our traditional strengths and those who will form the core of new strategic centers of excellence."
In addition, he said, funding for the Humanities and Arts Scholar Support Program was increased by 50 percent in the last year. The Targets of Opportunity Program funding, which promotes campus diversity recruitment, was increased by 35 percent. The Presidential Award Program, also promoting diversity, was enhanced with an additional $500,000 in funding. The graduate fellowship fund saw an increase of $250,000.
Adesida said outreach efforts also have been established in the past year, including a public relations campaign focused on Chicago alumni and a $1.5 million fund to increase the reach of U. of I. Extension.
Classroom investment, too, is being put on a faster track, with more than $82 million earmarked for renovations by 2018. So far, 92 classrooms have been renovated and more are slated for work. Starting next spring the campus will establish the first stage of a separate, $80 million Facilities Matching Funds investment program to address the deferred maintenance backlog.
Resources also are being diverted to maintain and improve the campus's technology infrastructure, which includes improvements to the wireless network.
Other areas of progress within the Strategic Plan include the opening of an office in China; the start of regular program reviews (seven are in progress); the adoption of principles guiding the hiring of specialized faculty members; the creation of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment; a Health Sciences initiative that could lead to the creation of a new, more expansive campus biomedical enterprise; and the creation of the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.
The campus also is working to improve its fundraising capabilities, he said, as evident in the record $172 million in cash gifts given last year - money that will be used for scholarships and faculty retention.
It also has made progress in streamlining the grant-writing process for researchers, with the Systemwide Tools for Administration of Research and Training prepared to go online this year.
Wise said the fact that the university is embarking on such an ambitious Strategic Plan during such a tumultuous time for higher education is encouraging and should be a reminder that the U. of I. is a place where big plans are transformed into action.
"We do have a plan, a roadmap to guide us, but it is not all-encompassing and it should not box us in," she said.
High on that roadmap's list of priorities is a reimagining of the undergraduate education experience.
Adesida said last fall's Campus Conversation on Undergraduate Education, an exercise that sought input from 600 campus students, and faculty and staff members, led to the formation of working groups and a steering committee whose recommendations for teaching and learning goals will be implemented this fall.
"These are just a few of the items we proposed last year," he said. "There were many more on that list and many more that are now marked 'done.' We are going to continue to be laser-focused on actions and implementation - agility and flexibility will be the key attributes."
Despite progress in achieving the goals of the Strategic Plan, Wise said the issues of pensions and the university budget are "the two large elephants in the room."
She said leaders, including the board of trustees, are working to address both issues.
"Our ability to present a competitive and sustainable pension program is absolutely crucial in our ability to recruit and to retain the best faculty and best staff," she said. "We are all working very closely together to find options or alternatives that would help offset or mitigate some of these changes."
Senators endorsed an SEC-supported statement calling for a universitywide supplemental pension plan at their April 14 meeting. Wise said an administrative proposal for such a plan could be presented to the U. of I. Board of Trustees at its May 14 meeting in Springfield.
As for the university's budget and the state's level of commitment to support it, she said leaders are encouraged by Gov. Pat Quinn's recent state budget proposal, which would keep higher education funding level.
Some early budget projections have warned of an overall higher education budget cut of 12.5 percent, which would equate to $83 million less for the U. of I. system's bottom line.
"At the moment we are cautiously optimistic that such a large cut might be avoided," Adesida said.
Quinn's proposal also would add $50 million to the state's Monetary Assistance Fund, a need-based undergraduate grant program utilized by 6,500 U. of I. students last year.
"Clearly there are external factors, which are outside of our control, that influence our planning, our decisions and our actions," Wise said. "But when it really matters, when faced with the big problems and critical issues, they come looking to Illinois for leadership. So let's not make any little plans; that, to me, is the definition of a pre-eminent public research university."