Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise announced at the Oct. 15 Senate Executive Committee meeting that the next phase of the Visioning Future Excellence process is ready to begin and will be completed by the end of the academic year.
So far, the yearlong initiative has called on all corners of campus - and even off-campus - for input, with 2,700 constituents contributing ideas to help plot the course of the university in the next 50 years.
Wise said the information gathered at a series of workshop luncheons had been compiled and that a committee of 30 campus representatives was being formed to address the data and recommend strategies.
"I want to make sure this doesn't remain a bunch of words," she told SEC officials. "We need to ask, 'What are we already doing and what (is it) we need to do?' "
Wise said committee members, serving at the recommendation of college deans and other campus leaders, would discuss and prepare responses for each of the six topics covered at the luncheons. The topics: energy and the environment; social equality and cultural understanding; economic development; education; health and wellness; information and technology.
Once the committee is selected, Wise said she expects work on two of the six topics to be completed by the end of the calendar year. Committee recommendations will be sent to an administrative group to be led by Wise. The group will draft a strategic plan based on the recommendations and present findings to the faculty senate and other representative campus groups.
"This is already too many words," Wise said of the main result of the luncheon meetings, which are "word cloud" graphics that show the topics respondents found most important. "I'm hoping the group will help us pare it down."
Sen. Abbas Aminmansour, a professor of architecture, said he believes many of the pieces already are in place at the UI to address future global challenges - and that he is hopeful Wise's Visioning exercise will provide ways to maximize and refocus resources the university already has.
"We don't necessarily need to add resources," he said, though a current program review would be helpful.
Sen. Joyce Tolliver, a professor of Spanish, said the Visioning initiative would help the campus's "clarity of mission" going forward.
Sen. Nicholas Burbules, a professor of education policy, organization and leadership, said communicating the university's mission on campus, even as it is being developed, is important, but that external audiences should also be aware of the campus's introspective work.
"These are the basic challenges facing humankind and we are working to solve them directly," he said.
In other business:
- Jack Dempsey, the director of Facilities and Services, spoke about difficulties his department faces in expediting requests for staff office renovation work.
The report came at the behest of the senate's Campus Operations Committee, which was addressing faculty complaints that renovating office and laboratory space for new professors had become a difficult and time-consuming process.
"There was a lot of discussion as to why it takes so long," said Benjamin McCall, committee chair and a professor of chemistry.
Dempsey admitted there are procedural problems and multiple layers of approval that make the renovation process difficult, but he said some of the problems are at the state level so the solutions are out of his control. He said the current restrictions make even small renovation projects difficult.
"We had some really bad experiences, especially with (preparing work spaces for) new hires," Dempsey said. "(Current rules) create inefficiencies that have been built in over time. There are a lot of things that can get in the way."
He said he will recommend to the chancellor five internal changes to improve the process on campus and five external problems that are the result of state regulations.
He said while the state procedures might be difficult to change, the internal changes could have an almost immediate effect.
- Senators learned that a four-year process to revamp the student academic and disciplinary code is nearly complete and could be enacted by next year following general campus review and recommendations.
Changes in the code are recommended by the Conference on Conduct Governances, a joint senate-administration committee that makes recommendations directly to the chancellor.
