Illinois was founded by a brilliant idea almost 150 years ago. Our foundations were laid with the promise of establishing a beacon of knowledge and service for our state and nation. Today, together, we stand as a university that not only delivered on that promise, but that has redefined the very idea of what a great public research university should be and do.
We are a great university among great universities today. We have the opportunity to set the course right now to be the pre-eminent university among great ones for the next 150 years and beyond. The updated Strategic Plan represents the vision and the set of ambitious measurable actions that our faculty and staff members, students and friends have proposed for the university over the next three years. These are the critical steps that will chart our course for decades to come.
The whole world is moving faster than ever before so we must be agile – and we will move quickly. But, we are going to move strategically and we are going to move in ways that are consistent with our values, our culture and our traditions. With our collective vision coalescing and a clear framework to guide our decisions and investments, we are able to position ourselves now to lead the way in finding solutions to the grand challenges of this century.
That is the expectation of a pre-eminent public research university with a land-grant mission and a global impact in the 21st century. It is an expectation the faculty and staff members and students of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are committed to meeting.