M E M O R A N D U M
DATE: September 29, 2000
TO: Members of Planning Committee on Contribution to Quality
of Life in New Mexico, Community Development, Delivery of Services, Urban
Agenda, State Agenda
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 “Contribution
to Quality of Life in New Mexico, Community Development, Delivery of Services,
Urban Agenda, State Agenda.” 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 David Stuart, Associate
Provost for Academic Affairs. 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 “Contribution to
Quality of Life in New Mexico, Community Development, Delivery of Services,
Urban Agenda, State Agenda Public Support/Institutional Image;” 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. “Contribution to Quality
of Life in New Mexico, Community Development, Delivery of Services, Urban
Agenda, State Agenda” concerns ways in which UNM is an important contributor
to the quality of life of New Mexico’s citizens, and how such activities
are at the core of our mission. The University’s contributions are
as diverse as delivering health care, sponsoring cultural events, stimulating
community development, delivering social services, and assuring the availability
of quality education to New Mexicans. More indirectly, the University’s
research about our environment and natural resources, our people, and our
cultures provide the basic knowledge on which public policy, political
action, and other important activities that affect our quality of life
are based. For UNM to meet this obligation effectively, we must understand
its relationship to our programs of teaching and research, and our planning
must account for it explicitly in a well-thought out urban and state agenda.
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