Strategic Planning
This is an exciting time on the Knoxville campus as we anticipate opportunities that will define the university’s future.
To build on our current momentum, Chancellor Loren Crabtree has asked me to direct a strategic planning process for the entire campus. I want to explain how I am organizing this initiative. I also want to strongly encourage your input into this process.
A broad-based strategic planning committee composed of faculty, students and staff will help move the process along and then shape and approve the final report to the chancellor.
This group and its subcommittees will use as an outline the six strategic initiatives set forth last year by the UT system. These include: access for students; student success in achieving progress and appropriate degrees; research activity as measured by scholarly output and grant activity; economic development that contributes to the fiscal well-being of the state; outreach to ensure accessibility to university resources for a great number of citizens; and globalization measured by the connectivity of the campus with the rest of the world and students’ ability to compete in the global economy.
Permeating these six categories are three themes of particular importance to Knoxville as the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee:
Accessibility: UT is the only public university in the state with such significant research activity. We must increase accessibility by increasing the size of our student body to 33,000 over the next decade. The projected graduate population will be 8,000. Current enrollment is approximately 21,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students.
Quality: In becoming larger, we cannot afford to dilute our quality. We must continue to attract highly qualified students, improve our educational processes and their indicators, and achieve significant increases in sponsored research and scholarly productivity.
Diversity and Inclusiveness: In keeping with the Ready for the World initiative and our diversity plan, we must attract a diverse population among faculty, students and staff, and promote intercultural and international programs.
The planning process faces several challenges, but two stand out as particularly important. The first involves funding and the uncertainty of the funding process. Expansion of the campus will require a significant infusion of resources. This must take place if we are to reach our full potential as a research-intensive institution. At our current size, already we are underfunded. We need the cooperation of the Office of the President, the Governor of Tennessee, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and the General Assembly to achieve our goals.
The second involves the structural anomalies we have in Knoxville, where reporting lines of some units do not run through my office or the Chancellor’s office. While most flagship campuses oversee the agricultural college and athletics, at the University of Tennessee these areas report to the system administration. Nonetheless, we are requesting that representatives from athletics and from the UT Institute of Agriculture participate in our planning process. We strongly believe that Knoxville can succeed only if we all work together.
This website will post documents and drafts leading to the final report, and it will encourage and enable input from the campus community.
The entire process will engage constituencies through forums and other discussions. I envision a final report that will have three iterations: The first will be an expository report of perhaps 40–50 pages, providing details on our challenges, strategies and goals; the second will be a shorter, bulleted summary of our initiatives; the third will be a spreadsheet with benchmarks that put our plan into action and indicate progress on attaining our goals.
If you have questions or comments or would like to receive any of the forthcoming materials in printed format, please contact the Provost’s Office at 865-974-2445.
The strategic planning committee will be announced in early December and begin their work immediately.
I look forward to working with you. Your engagement will ensure that we make the best decisions for the good of the campus.
Robert Holub, Provost
November 27, 2007
The Office of the Provost and the strategic planning committee welcome input from the campus community at any point during this important process. You may send comments here.