First steps on the Path to Prominence

Building on the enthusiasm generated during the May 10 UD Forum (See pages 4-5), President Patrick Harker updated the Board of Trustees at its spring meeting on the actions the University will take as it pursues its goal to gain national and international recognition as a premier public university.

Telling the Trustees he wanted “to give a little more texture and detail to the Strategic Plan” that he had outlined at the Forum, Harker began his presentation by thanking “the Strategic Planning Committee, all my colleagues, faculty and staff, who worked so hard on this.”

As a result of the initiative, he said, the University has undertaken or will undertake several actions.

“I really do believe that the University stands at a critical milestone,” Harker said. “We can’t stand still. No organization can stand still in this very competitive world. At this moment, we really do perceive this path that we are setting out on to be exciting, and will set the University up for what I believe will be a very terrific future—not just in the years, but in the decades, ahead.”

The plan, Harker said, is based on the five guiding principles of Delaware first, diversity, partnership, engagement and impact.

“We are the flagship of higher education for the state of Delaware, both by ensuring that every Delawarean has access to a top-quality education and by applying our strengths to help students be prepared for attending the University of Delaware, and also a financial commitment so that no Delawarean will be denied access to this University for financial reasons,” he said.

Harker noted that UD already has started addressing the principle of diversity. A Diversity Task Force was appointed in April to develop a number of concrete steps to improve diversity on campus. A plan is to be completed by December.
The third guiding principle, partnership, involves working together with industry, government and nonprofit organizations, he said, with a key step being the appointment of David Weir as director of the new Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships, which opened July 1. (See page 8 for more.)

“This is an important step for us, because we are a large university,” Harker said. “We want to make it easier for outside organizations and individuals to partner with us. We need to look at the strengths that we have and how we bring those out to the state, the community and the region.”

The fourth principle, engagement, “must involve students, staff and alumni in all the aspects of the University,” he said, adding that, in turn, the institution is engaged in asking all those groups to help it achieve its aspirations.

“Last, but not least, of the guiding principles is impact,” Harker said. “Our job is not done unless we get the ideas that are coming out of the University into the hands of the people who can use them, who can make a difference.

“We can’t work with people who have an impact if they don’t know about us. To this end, we have hired David Brond” as associate vice president for communications and marketing.

With the five guiding principles in place, Harker said, the University has identified six strategic milestones that demonstrate its response to the major challenges it faces. They are:

• Creating a diverse and stimulating undergraduate academic environment;

• Becoming a premier research and graduate university;

• Achieving excellence in professional education;

• Advancing the Initiative for the Planet;

• Extending UD’s impact through the Global Initiative; and

• Raising the commitment to be a more engaged university.

“We need to make sure that we are attractive to students from Delaware and that we continue to evolve a very broad and diverse student body, a student body that reflects the world so that our students can interact with each other and learn from each other,” Harker said. “Maintaining a flexible curriculum that allows students to find their intellectual passion at the University also is important, something that includes creating a stimulating first-year environment and recruiting highly intelligent undergraduates across the board.”

Harker said UD is looking at a more flexible transfer policy, which it will implement this fall, while seeking to increase financial aid and increase contributions to raise financial aid. An element of this increased financial aid would help students study abroad or engage in undergraduate research.

“With regard to creating a stimulating first-year experience, we have already appointed a University-wide steering committee to develop a pilot program for a new and improved first-year experience” to be implemented this fall, Harker said. “Our Honors Program also will be strengthened, based on the results of a full academic program review during the 2008-09 academic year.”

To fulfill the goal of becoming a premier research and graduate university, he said that UD must develop faculty leadership in key intellectual areas and lead high-profile research initiatives.

“We need to provide full support for graduate students,” Harker said. “We must also build an excellent research infrastructure and increase the profile and growth of UD graduate studies.

“My goal is to create three new faculty chairs...in the fields of alternative energy, the environment and health sciences. These are areas in which there is a critical need in our country, where the frontier ideas of science and policy are moving.These are significant areas, and we need to be players there.”

Commitments to these goals include the appointment of Mark Barteau as senior vice provost for research and strategic initiatives, and Debra Hess Norris as vice provost for graduate and professional education, both effective July 1.
In pursuit of excellence in professional education, Harker said UD will establish the University of Delaware Law Institute, launch an Educational Leadership Initiative and create the University Health Initiative, which includes a new coordinated degree program in pharmacy with Thomas Jefferson University and the exploration of expanded program collaborations in public health, nursing and rehabilitation sciences.

UD also will seek to strengthen education in business and corporate governance while achieving excellence in non-degree continuing education, Harker said.

He outlined additional action steps, including:

• The initiation of a major redesign (including the hiring of faculty) of programs in the School of Education that prepare school leaders;
  
  
• Increased support to the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, targeted to expand its scholarly and professional impact, and the opening of a student business incubator in the Lerner College of Business and Economics; and
  
  
• The establishment of a University-wide Institute for Environmental Research.
  

“If you take the collective intellectual assets we have at this University, around environmental science and environmental policy, energy, science and technology, I would put us up against any university in America,” Harker said. “These are clearly critical issues facing our state and our nation and the world. We have the advantage, and we need to strengthen that advantage so that not only do we prosper, but we can make a significant difference in the problems that we face.”
In support of the initiative to develop and demonstrate alternative technologies, Harker said UD would launch the Institute for Alternative Energy this fall.

The creation of a University-wide Institute for Global Studies, planned for July 2009, also will help provide students with increased opportunities to participate in study abroad and global studies, he said.

Goals in fashioning an engaged university include the new online community for alumni called “UDconnection,” a commitment to strengthening public education in Delaware and beyond, partnership with the city of Newark and an increased University presence and engagement in southern Delaware, Harker said.

“This includes a student life plan to be completed by October 2009, looking at the feasibility of a new University Center and the completion by October of an athletics and recreation plan,” he said.

To achieve success on the Path to Prominence, Harker said, UD needs to develop a set of key capabilities that include staff excellence, outstanding facilities, a continually advancing infrastructure, exemplary management practices, leadership-level financial resources and the willingness to embrace change when needed.

Learn more online

To read more about the University’s plans and follow its progress on the Path to Prominence, visit the new Web site [www.udel.edu/prominence].

The site includes a statement from Harker emphasizing UD’s mission and the goal of being “recognized around the worldas one of the great public institutions of higher learning in America.”

The five principles or core values and six strategic milestones that have been set forth are discussed in more detail on thesite, and links connect readers with the Path to Prominence Plan, the Executive Summary and the Strategic Planning Committee report.

Over the next year, the site will also present goals that each college, school and unit will set within the framework of the University’s overall mission.