EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

These archived pages present the Academic Plan adopted by the Board of Trustees in August 2003.

A new academic plan is being formulated. Please check the Academic Plan homepage for updates.

Academic excellence demands effective planning.

The Academic Plan provides a set of planning principles and objectives to assist trustees, administration, and faculty in choosing academic priorities over the next decade including 21 st Century UConn and capital projects. It will function as a general roadmap for capital and operating expenditures. The goal is to use selective strategic investments to bring the University into the top tier of public universities.

The Academic Plan sets out six broad Areas of Emphasis to focus the creative energies of faculty. The resource reallocation model builds on existing processes that have been concentrating University resources on selected programs through budgetary realignment and strategic hires. Competition for resources within the framework of priorities is designed to enable the University to achieve excellence in each Area of Emphasis. This competitive process gives direction to the many kinds of research and teaching that mark great universities.

The Academic Plan process is supervised by the Provost for Academic Affairs who assigns resources to programs through colleges, schools, and centers, and through the proposed Provost’s grant competition. As in the past, strategic investments in faculty, equipment and facilities will achieve measurable advances in excellence. To assess progress in such areas as student performance, diversity goals, external grants, productivity, and best academic practices, the University will measure achievement according to internal and national benchmarks. By focusing University resources, the plan will lead to higher levels of faculty achievement and student excellence.

The Academic Plan is intended to assure that the State of Connecticut’s major investment in University facilities will achieve the maximum return for the entire range of University missions. Accordingly, the Plan sets out principles for facilities and physical planning on the several University campuses. Guidelines are provided for structures that best serve academic programs for maintenance efficiencies, and for consolidation of activities in fewer buildings. The plan also supplies a management model that ensures responsive, flexible use of classrooms.

The Academic Plan recognizes the necessity of assuring a strong administrative and professional infrastructure. A sufficient number of highly qualified staff will perform essential activities, with incentives for excellence. The plan also recognizes that library resources and information technology require support consistent with the aspirations of the University.

The Academic Plan supplies a general roadmap for decision-makers, not a blueprint. Familiarity with this map will enable all participants—trustees, administrators, faculty, staff, and students—to direct their energies toward advancing the missions of the University of Connecticut, elevating its stature, and fulfilling its purpose as a source of educational, economic, social, and cultural development for Connecticut, the nation, and the world.

Next: Benchmarks Toward Excellence