From Strategic Plan to Strategic Action

As I move to speak about our strategic plan, I am reminded of a question I asked the late Phil Merrill at a moment of frustration. "Who's in charge?" I asked. He advised me that no one is in charge. He said that leaders simply take charge and create the future; they are not given the charge. The same can be said of the University. To lead, it must simply take charge and create its future.

Our strategic plan is our best strategy for creating our future. It lays out ten-year University goals, spanning the whole institution and focusing on our values and mission. It sets deliverable objectives, fixes timetables and assigns the responsibility for them. There are few undelegated responsibilities. It is an action plan and not a stream of fuzzy platitudes. It lays out assertive actions and the support needed to realize its goals. Support, first and foremost, comes through campus actions followed by additional commitments from our alumni and friends and the State. We expect to be accountable for our support from all sources, to reach objective milestones, and to be impatient with our progress.

Our community, including our alumni and friends, has said that we should commit now to creating the great university. This is a monumental conclusion. This commitment to work together to raise the whole institution has been the largest missing piece in our effort to lift this university to the next level. This collective conclusion has come about, I believe, for two reasons. First, we now have the confidence that we can do it. Second, we are convinced that we must do it if it is going to happen, just as Phil Merrill advised. Both of these truths were not widely apparent a decade ago.

We will strategize, prioritize, synthesize and systematize our efforts in this three-way partnership that bridges the campus, the State and our alumni and friends. Only this partnership can deliver the $2 billion dollar price tag that is needed over ten years to implement the plan. The campus, along with alumni and friends, has committed to coming up with $1.6 billion for this initiative. Our internal commitment to these investments, including reallocation of supports and targeting areas of need and opportunity, is remarkable. Our commitment is essential to raising the remaining $400 million from the State. The State needs to see an opportunity that it cannot refuse.

Implementation of the plan has started. Following retreats for deans and the administration in August, first-year assignments have been given to the president, provost and vice presidents who will pass them to appropriate units and individuals for execution. A disproportionately large number of plan recommendations will be taken up this first year. Unfinished business, like the General Education plan, will be completed this year by a committee to be appointed by the Senate and administration. On September 10 we introduced the plan to leadership from the Governor's Office, the Maryland House of Delegates and the Maryland Senate, and to our strongest private supporters. They endorsed our aspirations for the State. Their enthusiasm for our plan was inspiring. At a Board of Regents' retreat being held today and tomorrow, raising their support for this plan is my goal.

I predict that one day the Senate's initiative in setting this course for the University will be a banner heading on a prominent chapter in the University's history. No example of shared governance will stand out as more significant than the Senate's participation in and endorsement of this plan.

Now I expect many of you are likely asking, how can we start this effort now as the State moves into a financial downturn that will lead to budget constraints?

About the only good thing about growing older is the perspective you gain about the way things work. Over the ten years of this plan we will have two or three budgetary down turns.

We must be determined to not be stopped by them; we will adjust and press forward to the return of the good times that will also come two or three times over this period.

Look at it as our first test of will. If we have sufficient determination, we will succeed. It is not bad to be tested early.