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Dear Colleagues,
This message follows my June 15 and August 30 communications to you as we share further information about the implementation of the 2023-2028 University of Maine System (UMS) Strategic Plan. I initially planned to share this message earlier in the month before it became clear that waiting until now would allow me to provide you with a greater degree of detail. Three updates for you:
The universities' goals for enrollment, retention, research, and workforce and economic development. As many of you already know, the presidents were asked last spring to work with their university communities to develop goals in the four areas named above by October 1. It will not surprise you to learn that each of our presidents met that deadline and that each did a terrific job of articulating goals reflective of their university strategic plans while identifying targets and aspirations for the years ahead.
Getting involved. In coordination with Trustee Emily Cain, Vice Chancellors Carolyn Dorsey and Jeff St. John shared a set of updates with the Board's Strategic Planning Committee at its October 19 meeting. In addition to providing a summary of the universities' October 1 goals, Carolyn and Jeff outlined the process by which they will be working with the presidents, me, and many others to organize our collective implementation efforts. Three objectives will guide us:
First, to the extent possible, we will align this work with existing processes for university-level strategic plan implementation. Avoiding needless duplication of effort is our abiding aim. Second, we will work with and through existing functional groups— e.g., the provosts, the chief student affairs officers, university faculty governance bodies— whenever and wherever we can. And third, we will sequence the work of implementation to allow us to meet specific deadlines without unduly burdening any of our critically important constituencies: our faculty, our staff, our students, and our leadership teams.
In close consultation with the presidents and me, Carolyn and Jeff will soon begin issuing calls for faculty, staff, and student participation in specific Strategic Plan initiatives not tied to existing functional groups. We will transmit those calls through the presidents and post them on the Strategic Planning website. Jeff will also share them with the UMS Faculty Governance Council co-chairs and the presidents of our universities' faculty senates and assemblies.
We are well underway. I will close with an encouraging fact: A number of goals in the Strategic Plan are either in progress or have already been fulfilled. This includes, for example, several of the tasks assigned to us by our regional accreditor, NECHE, last March at the conclusion of the comprehensive evaluation process. I share this to emphasize that by working together, we will fulfill the goals of our system-wide Strategic Plan. We are doing so as we speak.
Thank you.
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