Academic Stature

M E M O R A N D U M

DATE: September 29, 2000

TO: Members of Planning Committee on Academic Stature/Faculty Development, Recruitment, and Retention

FROM: Brian Foster, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

SUBJECT: Charge to committee

Thank you for agreeing to serve on the planning committee on “Academic Stature/Faculty Development, Recruitment, and Retention.” This committee is a critical part of the University’s strategic planning process. Attached is a membership list of the committee. To give you a sense of how your work fits in the broader strategic planning process that is underway, we have also included a brief summary of the planning process and its calendar, along with some other background materials. Your committee is one described in the section called “Working Papers” and will be chaired by Michael Dougher, Chair of the Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences. For more detail on the process, please consult the planning web site at www.unm.edu/~unmstrat.

It may be helpful if I give you some background on what has been achieved so far in the planning process. We have now completed several important foundational activities that will guide the next steps:

UNM’s mission, vision, and value statements - a small group has reviewed these and suggested changes.
environmental scan - the environmental scan examined the environment in which UNM will exist for the next five to ten years.
brainstorming sessions - a series of these sessions with a wide variety of university constituencies and community members produced a comprehensive list of activities that the University should undertake together called “the domain of the plan” (Your committee’s work will focus on one sub-domain.)

It is important that you keep each of these foundation activities in mind as the committee’s work proceeds.

Your committee is one of approximately twenty that are writing working papers on which the rest of the planning process will be based. A list of all of the working papers that are currently under development is appended to this letter. All of the committee reports will receive broad public distribution and commentary late this fall. The reports and commentary will be the source material for the central Planning Task Force to identify a small number of strategic directions (i.e., broad institutional goals), which will be the main elements of the strategic plan. Each of these strategic directions will be associated with a set of major objectives as well as tactical means of reaching the objectives.

The charge to your committee is to:

Produce a working paper no more than five pages long on “Academic Stature/Faculty Development, Recruitment, and Retention;” your topic is outlined more fully in the paragraph below.
Describe broadly: what are we now doing in your committee’s area? What should we be doing? How does it all fit together? How well are we doing it? What are the gaps in our inventory of programs and activities in this area?
Please consider the entire University in your thinking, including for instance the branch campuses, broadcast media, and the Extended University.
Your committee’s deliberations are likely to intersect with those of other committees (e.g., several have technology or financial components). It will be helpful if you communicate with other groups to understand the nature of these common concerns and perhaps cross-reference them in your report.
Consider UNM’s unique resources, strengths, and competitive advantages in the area as well as our limitations and prospects.
Include a one-page set of bullets on the issues that arise in your paper and what they mean for assessing where the University is now and where it is or should be going. (This is in addition to the five-page report)
You may append some background information to the five-page report (keep in mind the Task Force was not constituted with the kinds of expertise needed to analyze the subject matter of your report. That is the task of your committee, and we hope that you will present thoughtful and grounded conclusions based on your expertise that will guide the Task Force in its task of crafting the university’s strategic directions.)

The Planning Task Force encourages you to think broadly about your topic. This definition of your topical focus is meant not to constrain how you think about your subject matter, but only to demarcate the broad area that needs to be addressed in the planning process. “Academic Stature/Faculty Development, Recruitment, and Retention” should consider that UNM’s Vision Statement expresses our intention to rank among the distinguished American public research universities, with a comprehensive array of educational and research programs that includes several of global preeminence. It is important to consider how such high-stature programs should be considered in the planning process and in resource allocation. How should they be defined and supported? What role should they play in faculty recruitment and development? How should they enhance the ability of the university to meet its educational, service, and research missions? How can they build on the strength of New Mexico’s diverse population?

The charge to your committee is to: Describe broadly: what are we now doing that enhances UNM’s academic stature locally, regionally, nationally and internationally? What are we now doing to develop senior faculty members with local, regional, national, and international stature? What should we be doing? How does it all fit together? How well are we doing it? What are the gaps in our inventory of programs and activities in this area?

It may be helpful to mention two key elements of the Plan. First, it will be tied closely to our resource base. All objectives and tactics must be accompanied by credible and reasonable resource scenarios. Second, all working papers, reports, draft plans, and other materials produced in the process will receive close public scrutiny, and all comments received will be considered as part of the record in subsequent planning activities. Much dissemination of the information and public comment will be accomplished through our strategic planning web site (www.unm.edu/~unmstrat).

Again, for the Task Force and for President Gordon, and for me personally, I want to thank you for your willingness to serve in this important role.

cc: William C. Gordon, President
Members of the Strategic Planning Task Force

Attachments:
Summary and Schedule of Planning Process
Membership list
List of Working Papers
Environmental Scan
Mission and vision statements