UC Executive Vice President and Vice Provost Wyatt R. Hume presented an overview of UC's academic planning activities- giving a glimpse of improvement initiatives - to the UC Regents Committee on Educational Policy on Wednesday.
The extensive academic planning process underway across the system will help drive decisions at all levels about the UC budget, financial resources and capital improvements, Hume told the Regents. The plans also will help inform the UC Long Range Guidance Team, which UC President Robert Dynes initiated to chart the future of the University.
The Long-Range Guidance Team's task is "to consider what challenges the next 20 years may pose to California and to discuss ways in which the University of California may begin preparing itself to address those challenges," Dynes said. Made up of representatives of UC Regents, faculty, staff, and students, the team will provide input on what overarching strategies will help position UC to make its maximum contribution to California by year 2025, according to the
UC 2025 website.
Current systemwide activities, which are coordinated in collaboration with the UC Academic Senate by the Academic Planning Council, include planning for:
* Doctoral and professional education
* Enrollment growth in the health sciences
* Information technology investments and
* Undergraduate education.
Planning studies and other reports on health sciences and professional education and training programs are posted on
UC's Division of Health Affairs website.
The Academic Planning Council is keeping an open dialogue with campuses, which are all at various stages of their planning process. Campus-based academic plans will be presented to the systemwide Academic Senate and its divisions in March and will be presented to the Regents in May.
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UC Regent Joanne Kozberg listens to speakers at the meeting of the Committee on Educational Policy on Wednesday at UCSF Mission Bay. |
UCSF is engaged in a strategic planning process with the overarching goal to develop a comprehensive, integrated strategic plan based on academic priorities. Involving a cross-section of the campus community, UCSF is now in the midst of strategy development, which is being tackled through six teams. These teams are addressing recruitment and retention, research directions, education and training, clinical care, infrastructure and resources, and leadership and governance.
UC officials are encouraging each campus to develop plans that build upon their unique academic strengths and to "feel safe to share ideas in order to ensure better decisions across the system," Hume said.
Power and Promise
Referring to what President Dynes calls the "power and promise of 10" - meaning the 10-campus system - Hume said that UC is looking at ways to take better advantage of systems and solutions developed across the entire University. UC is exploring ways to combine purchasing power and share common administrative systems to help campuses and the University as a whole achieve greater efficiencies and effectiveness, Hume said.
The IT Guidance Committee, for example, has been working for almost a year to analyze teaching, research and administrative functions, such as financial and human resources systems, to see where UC could benefit from sharing common systems. "If we think and plan for them as a system, like data on admissions, it would result in better management of the process overall," Hume said.
The University also is looking at how to better coordinate responses to major challenges, such as strengthening the K-12 public education system."K-12 education may be the most serious threat to California's continued well-being," Hume noted.
He also mentioned that the UC campuses should think and plan together on solving other societal problems, such as global warming, renewable energy, sustainability, health care and California's economic competitiveness.
Reacting to the presentation, Ex Officio Regent Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction, welcomed UC's continuing efforts in improving K-12 education. "One of the greatest threats is the achievement gap," he said, referring to immigrant and minority students who lag behind their peers. "My focus over the next four years is to try to close that achievement gap."
O'Connell said UC campuses are located in areas where public schools are failing, and that the system could benefit from the University's expertise in areas such as expanding teacher training programs in science and math.
Photo/Christine Jegan
Related Links:
Campus Develops Strategic Plan to Guide Its FutureUCSF Today, July 18, 2006
UCSF Strategic Planning Initiative
UC 2025
