DRAFT
UNM STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS
STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS WITH
VISION AND MISSION STATEMENTS
February 15, 2001
The Strategic Directions of UNM’s strategic plan are critical elements
that will give continuity and direction to the University’s development
over the next five to ten years. They might best be seen as the means for
achieving UNM’s vision and mission, and they cannot be read without reference
to UNM’s Vision (how we see ourselves and want others to see us) and Mission
(in broad terms what we actually do). The present draft will guide a set
of seven committees, each producing a working paper on the subject or "domain"
of one of the strategic directions. Ultimately in the Strategic Plan, each
strategic direction will be given further definition by a series of "Objectives"—statements
with clear implications for educational, research, and service outcomes.
Each of these objectives, in turn, will be given operational content through
a series of "Strategies" to specify concretely how the objectives will
be met. More information on the whole planning process can be found on
the Strategic Planning Web Site, www.unm.edu/~unmstrat.
In the text below, both the vision and mission statements accompany
the list of seven strategic directions, each of which is expanded by a
brief statement of its domain. The strategic directions themselves, along
with the explanatory paragraphs, were developed with benefit of six months
of work by the Planning Task Force, by nineteen working committees, by
numerous public "brainstorming sessions," and by substantial public comment
in a series of forty forums in December and January.
Vision
UNM will build on its strategic resources:
-
to offer New Mexicans access to a comprehensive array of high quality educational,
research, and service programs,
-
to serve as a significant knowledge resource for New Mexico, the nation,
and the world, and
-
to foster programs of international prominence that will place UNM among
America’s most distinguished public research universities.
Mission
The University will engage students, faculty, and staff in its comprehensive
educational, research, and service programs. UNM will provide students
the values, habits of mind, knowledge, and skills that they need to be
enlightened citizens, to contribute to the state and national economies,
and to lead satisfying lives. Faculty, staff, and students create, apply,
and disseminate new knowledge and creative works; they provide services
that enhance New Mexicans’ quality of life, promote economic development,
and advance our understanding of the world, its peoples, and cultures.
Building on its educational, research, and creative resources, the University
provides services directly to the City and State, including health care,
social services, policy studies, commercialization of inventions, and cultural
events.
Strategic Directions
No. 1: Draw strategically on UNM’s resources, building integrated, coherent,
disciplined activities to pursue our collective vision as an educational
institution.
Explanation: The underlying idea is to create a planning culture
at UNM—a thoughtful, inclusive, and disciplined way to think about using
our resources to achieve our vision. To achieve our vision, we must build
on resources that are unique to the University and the State, must identify
our competitive advantages, and must take appropriate action. We must be
realistic about what we can achieve, but we also must hold ourselves to
high standards in our efforts to reach high aspirations. We must engage
the entire campus and its many constituencies in a genuine conversation
about the University’s vision and mission and how to achieve them. We must
articulate the plans of colleges and service units with the broader UNM
plan. Finally, we must mandate periodic, honest, and public evaluation
of the plan and its implementation. The plan must be a living document
that evolves with benefit of honest evaluation and continuing dialogue.
No. 2: Apply the University’s education, research, and service capabilities
to advance the interests and aspirations of New Mexico and its people.
Explanation: Serving New Mexico is central to the University’s
mission. Everything that we do at UNM—education and research as well as
service activities per se—advance the interests of New Mexico. For example,
we offer a comprehensive array of instructional programs that provide quality
educational opportunities to New Mexicans; our programs meet the human
resource needs of employers, government, schools, and other constituencies;
they train professionals in many fields and educate good citizens. Similarly,
research programs provide support for government and other organizations;
they support business in collaborative relations and technology transfer;
they create knowledge about our environment and our culture and society.
In addition to our educational and research contributions, we deliver many
services such as health care, continuing education, social services, volunteer
work through service learning programs, and access to resources such as
museums, libraries, and cultural events. Together, our educational, research,
and service programs promote economic development and high quality of life.
No. 3: Value and benefit from the creativity, innovation, insight, and
excitement generated by the many dimensions of diversity that are the essence
of the University and the State.
Explanation: It is widely understood that diversity leads to
new insight, new methods, and new knowledge. For instance, we have long
known that much of the most important research occurs at the borders of
academic disciplines. Similarly, the best universities and colleges have
long made recruitment of students from a variety of international, geographic,
and cultural backgrounds a central part of their admissions policy. The
linguistic, cultural, national, disciplinary, gender, ethnic, and religious
diversity of UNM and the State of New Mexico is a resource of great value.
As we learn to benefit fully from it, New Mexico and UNM will be in the
vanguard of a world pervaded by diversity in politics, diplomacy, economics,
arts, and every other facet of life.
No. 4: Foster a vital academic climate that actively engages all elements
of our community in an exciting intellectual, social, and cultural life.
Explanation: The most important mark of a great university,
and the most important determinant of student and faculty success, is passionate
engagement in important ideas—important not just in the strictly academic
sense, but also in meeting the needs of our external constituencies. This
kind of engagement raises aspiration, creates community, enhances commitment
and focus, and builds discipline; it produces habits of mind and behavior
that lead to student success and retention and to outstanding faculty contributions—in
general, to academic excellence. Such commitment cannot be limited to campus—indeed
to the academic world; it is essentially of the "real world." But as an
educational institution, the University must be an academic community
in the sense that the social, cultural, and academic life of students,
faculty, and others rests substantially on academic commitment. Curriculum,
co-curricular activities, academic events such as conferences and symposia,
cultural events, community service, research, and social activity all connect
in substantial ways to the academic experience. This strategic direction
is about creating the high level academic commitment and excitement that
is characteristic of great universities.
No. 5: Provide an environment that cultivates and supports activities of
national and global preeminence and impact.
Explanation: High aspiration can only mean a drive to compete
with the very best. UNM must build initiatives of national and international
prominence that give the greatest possible benefits to our students, faculty,
and community. The institutional and programmatic stature that follows
from building internationally prominent programs is in itself a strong
force for academic excellence: it helps recruit the best students, faculty,
and staff; it increases our public support and therefore resources; it
enhances our competitiveness for grants; it is attractive to donors. Such
prominence requires that we be uncompromising in supporting individual
and programmatic contributions that would bring respect and honor in the
most distinguished universities. Since no university can be preeminent
in everything, we must build selectively in areas for which our strategic
resources give us strong competitive advantages. At the same time, we must
build a set of high-profile initiatives that span the entire university
such that all programs can relate to one or more of these exciting foci.
We must be aggressive in pursuit of true excellence in recruiting and supporting
students, faculty, and staff to assure their success in instruction, research,
and service. We must expect research contributions that make significant,
widely recognized impact on academic disciplines, on practical applications,
and/or on quality of life. Creating an environment for this kind of achievement
is a prerequisite for becoming a distinguished university.
No. 6: Foster the responsible, effective, strategic, accountable cultivation
of human, financial, and physical resources.
Explanation: The University’s successes have outstripped its
resource base in many ways, and it is critical for UNM’s further development
that we be effective in both the cultivation and use of our human, financial,
and physical resources. Both the number and quality of faculty, support
staff, and students are critical to achieving our mission. Moreover, high-level
performance of our people and programs requires sufficiency of physical
resources—buildings, instrumentation, information technologies, classrooms,
and libraries, for instance. For some time a shortage of faculty and staff
(often related to level of compensation) and of physical resources have
placed constraints on our program growth and effectiveness. Creating the
right mix of these resources is a long-term process that depends heavily
on continuity in effective planning. Although adequacy of financial resources
is not sufficient for assembling the kinds of physical and human resources
that we need, it is absolutely necessary that our financial resource base
be increased significantly. We must pursue all possible revenue sources
vigorously, including state appropriations, tuition, private fundraising,
auxiliaries, income from technology transfer activities, and direct service
delivery, and we must work aggressively to achieve the most effective use
possible of our existing resources.
No. 7: Develop and sustain effective management systems and academic and
student support functions.
Explanation: Underlying every instructional, research, and
service function is a complex set of management systems—for example, systems
that place faculty and staff on the payroll; that accomplish purchasing,
building and grounds maintenance, student matriculation and registration,
and room assignments; that generate transcripts, graduate admissions, and
financial aid; that maintain information systems; and that support budget
processes, grants/project management, and fundraising. Many of UNM’s systems
are not effective, leading to students’ and faculty members’ frustration,
to regents’, legislators’, and others’ concern, to enrollment shortfalls,
and to other negative outcomes that seriously impact the quality of our
programs. Management systems and academic and student support systems must
be of a quality consistent with our high academic and service aspirations.
Similarly, the performance of individuals who design and manage the way
university business gets done must be of highest quality if the University
is to achieve its objectives; we must recognize, encourage, and reward
individual and programmatic efforts that promote UNM’s mission and values.