Project Outline

Arts & Sciences is embarking on a school-level strategic planning exercise this spring. Our external partner, the Huron Consulting Group, has outlined a five-phase approach for an inclusive and interdisciplinary planning process that will identify an exciting set of strategic goals that and build upon the foundational pillars and themes identified by our university’s leadership and that will engage our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and external community. This process is expected to take around 10 months. On the A&S side, the planning will be managed by Ebba Segerberg.
To this end, Dean Hu has assembled a steering committee co-chaired by Deanna Barch and Abram Van Engen to help articulate and drive ideas that will set us on a path to success, to interact thoughtfully across our broad and diverse group of stakeholders, and to advocate for the value of this undertaking.

The steering committee also includes: Jean Allman, Tim Bono, Sophia Hayes, Ignacio Infante, TR Kidder, Hedy Lee, Jonathan Losos, Beth Martin, Kater Murch, and Sara Ryu.
Faculty and staff members will also be nominated by their peers to serve as co-leads for various working groups. These co-leads will meet with large groups of stakeholders across the institution in April and May to solicit views on a range of topics in order to identify important findings and considerations. The Working Group co-leads will report back to the steering committee but are not responsible for producing a written report as such. The Huron team, who will collaborate with and support the co-leads, will help synthesize the findings and assist in communicating the main points back to the steering committee.

Guiding principles for all of the groups include academic distinction, diversity and inclusion, and equity and access. The first three Working Groups topics are: Undergraduate Education, Graduate Education, and Research, Scholarship, and Creative Practice. Once the first three working groups are underway, we will form a fourth group to focus on critical factors issuing from the first three to ensure implementation readiness. The fourth group will focus on integrating inclusion, equity, and access across the mission areas, building on ideas and observations from the first three working groups. We are calling this group “Critical Factors: Community and Climate.”
Working Group Co-Leads
Undergraduate Education: Thomas Bakupog, Linling Gao-Miles, Erik Herzog, Andrew Reeves
Graduate Education: Billy Acree, Julie Bugg, Michelle DeLair, Cynthia Feliciano, Ken Olsen, Brett Wick, Angela Wilson
Research, Scholarship, and Creative Practice: Denise Head, Anca Parvulescu, Gary Patti
Critical Factors: Community and Climate: Amanda Albert, Bruce Carlson, Diana Silva José-Edwards, Tom Rodebaugh, Nacho Sánchez Prado, Stacey Spruiel