| TO: Faculty, Staff and Students
FROM: E. Thomas Sullivan
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Irving Younger Professor of Law
RE: Strategic Positioning December 2004 Update
I write to update you on the progress of our strategic positioning effort.
In November, we published and invited feedback on working drafts of two
parts of the strategic positioning document: the framing concepts and the
criteria for reviewing programs and services and setting priorities.
* Through a system-wide email, a new Strategic Positioning Web Site was
announced. The Web site contained the strategic positioning working drafts
along with some background information, and provided a mechanism for
sending feedback directly through the Web site. Nearly 300 people provided
thoughtful comments through the Web.
* I held three Town Hall meetings to discuss the strategic positioning
process with all interested members of the University community. Faculty
leadership from the FCC moderated the Town Halls. More than 300 people
attended and approximately 100 submitted questions and comments. All
questions submitted at the Town Hall meetings have been transcribed and
reviewed.
* In addition to the Town Halls and a number of other presentations on
campus, working drafts also were presented to and discussed with scores of
alumni.
* Discussion and consultation at the college level was encouraged during
each college's preparation of its own document describing its core mission
and activities. The documents were due to the Provost's Office on
December 1.
During December we continued our efforts:
* All feedback from faculty, staff, students, and alumni was reviewed and
analyzed.
* The strategic positioning document is being revised in light of the
comments received.
* We analyzed the environmental scans submitted by departments, colleges,
and campuses throughout the University system to identify trends and
benchmarks and to see what the scans tell us about strategies for the
future.
Looking forward to January:
* We will continue and complete our revisions of the strategic
positioning document, to be presented to the Board of Regents in February.
* An academic task force and an administrative task force appointed by
President Bruininks will take what was learned through the strategic
positioning process to date and begin to formulate recommendations to the
President regarding specific strategies for propelling the University to
new levels of greatness. The strategic planning process is the
University's opportunity to continue to build excellence through a coherent
vision. The task force members will be listed on the strategic positioning
web site. I invite you to send your ideas to any of them or to me at
provost@umn.edu . To be effective, to truly position this University within
the top three in the world, we will need ideas from all parts of our
University community. All task force members will listen to and bring back
to the task force comments received. The President has asked for the task
forces' reports by the end of March.
What has come through loud and clear from all constituencies faculty,
staff, students, and alumni is that the University is at an important
crossroads. The opportunity to be bold, creative and transformative now
presents itself. The people who teach, work and learn here do not simply
want the University to be among the top research universities they want us
to set a higher and more specific goal. They want us to be one of the
three best public research universities in the world. The challenge has
been issued. The time has come to join together, to be smart and nimble,
to think boldly, creatively, and inspirationally, and to act.
E. Thomas Sullivan
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
University of Minnesota
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