Charting our future

Before setting out on a journey, you need to kow where you stand and what you stand for

Alumni, students, faculty and friends turned out in large numbers May 10 to make the first-ever UD Forum a successful celebration of the University’s considerable accomplishments and its aspirations for an even brighter future.

The full day of special activities drew more than 1,250 guests and culminated with a presentation in which President Patrick Harker unveiled his blueprint for UD’s path to enhanced national and global prominence. He outlined a series of guiding principles and initiatives, including a commitment to Delaware and students from the First State and the creation of a University of Delaware Law Institute, as well as institutes for energy and the environment.

In the Forum’s closing keynote address at the Bob Carpenter Center, Harker described the University’s new strategic plan—its Path to ProminenceTM—and the process by which it came into being.

“I was attracted to the University of Delaware because I saw that it is already a gem of an institution,” Harker told the audience. “Now, I am pleased to describe today our plan to make this gem shine even brighter.”

After becoming UD’s 26th president in July 2007, he said, he met with individuals and groups across the campus. “The question we considered was: How can we become the University of our aspirations?” he said.

To answer that question, Harker said, he met with each college, school, department and unit and created a strategic planning committee to identify, shape and refine the goals of the University based on discussions with students, faculty, staff, alumni, Board of Trustee members, state leaders and the community.

The result, he said, was a lively and often passionate discussion of the University’s future that included identifying opportunities and developing the key initiatives for its Path to Prominence. Also detailed in the strategic plan are five central principles.

“Before setting out on a journey, you need to know where you stand and what you stand for,” Harker said. “Before designing the specific initiatives of our plan, we identified a set of guiding principles—our core values. They define the essential commitments that make us who we are.”

Those principles are Delaware first, diversity, partnership, engagement and impact. “After we established our guiding principles—where we stand—our next challenge was to define where we are headed,” Harker told the Forum audience. “We created a specific set of initiatives that are the heart of our plan. These are the milestones that define our path and propel us forward on our new journey.”

He described those six milestones as “bold, yet pragmatic initiatives that demonstrate our responses to the major challenges we face as a university and in the world.”

They are: creating a diverse and stimulating undergraduate academic environment; becoming a premier research and graduate university; achieving excellence in professional education; advancing an Initiative for the Planet; extending the University’s impact through a Global Initiative; and increasing UD’s commitment to be an engaged University.

Complementing the goal of cultivating intellectual curiosity and a passion for learning, Harker said, the University will build on an already strong commitment to students from its home state.

“We now extend that commitment to ensure that every qualified student from Delaware will have the resources to attend,” he said. “Beginning in the fall of 2009, the demonstrated financial need of every Delaware student admitted to the Newark campus will be met, up to the full cost of tuition, fees, room and board and books.”

Before the speech, Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner addressed the gathering and spoke briefly of UD’s strategic plan.
“I look forward to continuing our partnership with the University of Delaware and expect to see that relationship grow as we enter a new future for the institution, its students and its faculty,” she said.

To learn more about plans for the University’s Path to Prominence and the UD Forum, see the articles on pages 2-5 or visit the Web sites [www.udel.edu/prominence] and [www.udel.edu/forum].