Chancellor Defines Vision for UCSF

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Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, outlined her visison for UCSF to "be the world’s preeminent health sciences innovator," as part of a three-year plan to chart the future course of UCSF.

She shared that vision, as well as the mission and goals, with the UCSF community at her recent State of the University address. The 2014-2015 plan builds on UCSF's mission of advancing health worldwide.

Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann

“The tagline doesn’t change,” Desmond-Hellmann said. “Advancing health worldwide speaks to everyone across the campus. UCSF advances health worldwide through innovative health sciences education, discovery and patient care. That is meaningful, no matter what you do at UCSF, be it something locally, something aspirational to change the future, teaching to provide health care providers and leaders for the future, or in global health sciences.”

Working with members of her leadership team, the Chancellor’s Executive Cabinet, Desmond-Hellmann developed the three-year plan building on tenets of the 2007 strategic plan, the first-ever campuswide blueprint for the future.

“The 2007 strategic plan was a very inclusive, cross-campus plan that did a fantastic job of reflecting our values,” Desmond-Hellmann said. “And we used that 2007 plan and all of the collective wisdom and input of this campus as the framework for this update.

“This [the three-year] plan serves as our near-term action plan, reflects our immediate priorities in the current environment.”

Developing the Goals and Strategies

The Chancellor's Executive Cabinet (CEC) worked on defining the five goals as a team, each representing and obtaining input from their school or organization. The process began with a CEC retreat in January 2011. The CEC discussed the 2007 Strategic Plan as well as changes in UCSF's environment, such as health care reform, reductions in state funding, forecast for the National Institutes of Health budget, etc.

Over the next eight months, the CEC worked on crafting the vision and outlining the five most important goals for UCSF. These goals are aligned with the chancellor's five stated priorities: patients, discovery, education, people and the business. Once the goals were established, the CEC worked with small groups of subject matter experts to develop strategies – paths to achieving each goal. 

Next Steps: Finalizing the Tactics

The next and final step in the planning process is to develop a list of the highest-impact tactics (specific projects or initiatives) for each strategy. A member of the leadership team will be assigned to each goal and set of metrics will be defined for each. 

These tactics will be finalized by March 2012 and will be communicated to the campus. Progress against them will be tracked quarterly at the CEC.  To learn more about this process and to find out how you can provide input, please go here.