From the Provost

December 5, 2007
Volume 1 Issue 4

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A Message From the Provost

Dear Colleague,

The University of Illinois achieved eminence as a public research university with strong support from the state of Illinois. As we all know, state dollars as a percentage of total revenues have declined at all major public research universities, and our greatness as an institution is increasingly dependent on other funding sources – external research funding, tuition income, assessed fees, and gifts.

• The campaign now underway will bring some significant benefits to the university in the next few years, but the principal beneficiaries of the current campaign will be the students, faculty and staff of the future.
• Recent major grant funding we hope will reverse a short-term decline in external research dollars, but the sustained, aggressive pursuit of external funds is essential to support our crucial research mission.
• Student fees and auxiliary revenues make it possible to provide the impressive array of student services essential to attract and support our large and diverse student community.
• Most of the operational costs of making the university work as an educational institution, however, derive from state-appropriated funds and tuition.
• Currently, our total expenditures exceed our revenues.

In the combined general revenue base of state funds and tuition, Illinois fares well. Illinois is near the top of the public CIC universities and competitive with our peers across the nation in general revenue dollars per student enrolled. With this funding base, however, comes the responsibility to use these funds as effectively as possible to advance the core missions of the University. This responsibility, above all, drives our need for strategic planning.

One important function of the Strategic Plan is providing clarity and openness. It strives not only to make visible to all our constituents, inside the University and beyond it, the goals, priorities, and values that underlie our decision making, but to open up a conversation across the campus about what decisions best serve them.

We have significant efforts underway to rethink our budget model, to reform our promotion and tenure process, and to assess whether we are best using the considerable resources of our institution.  The goals of these efforts are to increase the transparency of these processes and to appropriately recognize performance.  The discussions have been rigorous and are ongoing.  I will continue to use this newsletter as one of the mechanisms to keep you updated on our progress. 

Sincerely,
Linda Katehi

Campus Resource Summit

President White has called a university system-wide resource summit on December 6, with the intended purpose of assessing whether the financial and human resources are appropriately aligned to best enable the institution to achieve its mission.

In preparation for this meeting, Chancellor Herman and I gathered the senior leadership of the campus on October 31, to discuss our financial situation and to begin to identify ways to best use the vast resources of the institution. This process is an act of strength. Great organizations continually assess themselves and challenge the status quo to identify new ways to build upon the successes of the past. Consistent with our strategic planning process, we must define our intended outcomes and identify the optimal methods to achieve these goals.

It is helpful to first understand the context in which the campus currently operates. To summarize:

1. The campus enjoys a significant amount of financial resources, over $1.3 billion, growing consistently over time.
2. Our funding is at a level consistent with our Big 10 peers.
3. The campus enjoys significant state support, but is becoming increasingly reliant on tuition and gift funding.
4. Our total campus expenditures are trending upwards at a rate that, to be sustainable, will require additional funding streams.

The campus leadership team considered questions related to the use of people and space, the required academic and non-academic programs to ensure a world-class institution, and the methods by which additional revenue streams can be captured. The results of these discussions identified key themes which can be used by all colleges and units as guiding principles for identifying opportunities to best use the resources of the university.

As we move forward with the campus and unit strategic plans, it is becoming apparent that the goals we have set for ourselves require substantial change in the way we think about our units and our campus. Reaching our goals requires financial strength and vitality that goes beyond what we have already accomplished. It is apparent that the progress we want to make as we move forward cannot be achieved without the support and active participation of unit heads, faculty and staff.

Therefore, I have asked all of the Deans and leaders of select units on campus to conduct this same exercise over the next couple of months. I will visit each college and unit to review the results of theses discussions. Change will be driven by each of you, at the unit level.

This is an important time for our campus. We have the opportunity to position Illinois for success for many years to come. All of us must work together in a transparent, fact-based process to identify how we can best continue to invest in our areas of strength to enable us to achieve the goals of our strategic plan.

Feedback

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