Colleges, which have each established their own nominating procedures, are limited in the number of nominees they can submit based on the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty FTEs in each college.  Nominations are limited to assistant professors who have been reappointed for a second term, all associate professors, and professors within the first three years of appointment at that rank. Nominations from the colleges the 2012-2013 academic year are due to the provost in mid-September.

The provost has created a University Faculty Scholars Program administrative advisory committee which is composed of senior faculty from each college. The committee will review the nominations and make recommendations to the provost, who will make the final decision on awardees. The provost plans to name the University Faculty Scholars by November 1.

Read the provost’s 5/11/12 memo to learn more

Provost Arden will chair the Steering Committee, with Dr. Duane Larick, Senior Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives, serving as the vice chair and administrative lead of the committee. Other members of the Steering Committee are the deans of the six STEM colleges: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, College of Engineering, College of Natural Resources, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, College of Textiles, and College of Veterinary Medicine.

The Steering Committee will have its initial meeting later this month with the goal of presenting its plans by October 2012, if possible.

Read the provost’s 5/11/12 memo

The provost has also asked Dr. Margery Overton, Professor of Civil Engineering, and Dr. Laura Severin, Professor of English, to serve part-time as Special Assistants to the Provost for the 2012-13 academic year in support of key strategic initiatives.

Read the provost’s 5/10/12 memo

The provost also announced that the Shelton Leadership Center, formerly housed within the Office of Extension, Engagement, and Economic Development will report to the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Outreach and Entrepreneurship, in partnership with the Poole College of Management and that the Office of Faculty Development and the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, Dr. Betsy Brown, will continue to provide support in the areas of engaged teaching and learning.

Read the provost’s 5/10/12 memo

The new college will include the physical and chemical sciences, the mathematical and statistical sciences, earth system sciences, and the biological sciences. As part of the realignment, the undergraduate biology program will move from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to the College of Sciences.

Find out more from the Chancellor’s announcement regarding
the new College of Sciences.

The new initiatives – which include a number of student-success and faculty-investment measures and an enrollment plan for the year 2020 – bring shape to strategic planning and realignment, invest in priorities and put the university in position to become a stronger, more efficient and more effective institution.

Focus on Faculty

The Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program invests $5 million in about three dozen new tenure-track or tenured faculty in a dozen multi-disciplinary “cluster” areas like environmental health science or personalized medicine. Investing in new faculty in targeted areas is an important part of the strategic plan and is one of our main priorities.

The Chancellor’s Innovation Fund provides “seed” money for researchers to help bring ideas and inventions to the marketplace. Four faculty projects received funding last summer; more awards will be granted later this year.

The University Faculty Scholars Program, slated to go into effect in the 2012-13 academic year, will recognize and reward up to 20 faculty members with $10,000 annually for five years for program support.

Solidifying Student Success

A task force appointed to study undergraduate student success noted that supporting students for optimal success – which means retaining students after their freshman year, timely graduation and educational and personal growth – requires a more coordinated, integrated and flexible administrative structure that emphasizes both the academic and non-academic student experience.

Merging the Undergraduate Academic Programs office and the Student Affairs office into one unit – the new Division of Academic and Student Affairs, or DASA – is on track for full implementation by July 1, 2012.

The new division consolidates a number of programs into four main sections: academic programs and services, arts NC State, campus life, and student development, health and wellness. A search for a vice chancellor to head DASA is under way.

In another important change, full-time, on-campus students will no longer need to pay an additional fee for taking one or more distance-education classes. Students enrolled in a distance-education degree program will be charged on a per-credit-hour basis, consistent with UNC system policy. These changes will go into effect in the fall 2012 semester.

An Enrollment Plan for 2020

Replacing a previous enrollment plan that projected faster growth, a recently approved long-range plan calls for student enrollment to grow to 37,000 by the year 2020. The new plan replaces a previous enrollment growth plan that projected 40,000 students by 2017.

The new enrollment projections better fit the framework provided by the university’s strategic plan and aim to improve the quality of our academic programs while maintaining access for North Carolinians.

Much of the proposed growth over the next eight years – from the current total student population of more than 34,000 – will be in graduate student populations, especially doctoral students.

Investing in tenured and tenure-track faculty to mentor and train graduate students is critical to the plan. In the last decade, the total student body grew by more than 20 percent while tenured and tenure-track faculty grew by just 1 percent.

The full 2020 enrollment plan can be found here: http://www2.acs.ncsu.edu/UPA/enrollmentplan/2020_enrollment_plan.htm.

Past Realignment Activities

The new initiatives aren’t the first steps in realigning the university. A number of offices have already been streamlined – including the consolidation of two equity and diversity offices into the new Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity and the discontinuation the Office of Extension, Engagement and Economic Development – and an extensive review of all policies, rules and regulations to further cut red tape has been undertaken.

Additional Realignment Activities

In the coming weeks and months, you will hear more about other strategic reviews wrapping up, including the review of academic programs, and recommendations stemming from reports by the Academic Science Program Task Force and the Business Operations Realignment Steering Team.

For more information about strategic planning, check out the new website that has all the information and updates you’ll need as the strategic plan continues its evolution into an action plan.

A single implementation plan was synthesized from the draft reports submitted by the five Implementation Planning Teams by identifying key actions that addressed multiple strategic plan goals and could begin within the next three years or were already underway. The actions were then categorized into three sets of overarching actions:

• Refine and Invest in Areas of Emphasis
• Enhance Student, Faculty, and Staff Success
• Improve Institutional Effectiveness While Growing and Realigning Resources

The Implementation Plan, a living document that will be updated periodically, was developed in a matrix format to make it easier to track actions across multiple goals, years, and responsibilities.

Metrics to assess NC State’s progress toward meeting its strategic goals were also chosen and shared with the Board of Trustees, with most of the performance measures selected being university-wide and global in nature, rather than related to specific actions in the Implementation Plan. Baseline values for each metric are being established and target values will be set in the coming months.

View the Implementation Plan and Metrics in matrix format [pdf]

To the NC State community:

I am pleased to announce that the strategic plan, The Pathway to the Future, has been approved by the Board of Trustees. The final version of the plan, as adopted by the Board, has been posted. Please take a moment to explore and better understand the document that will soon become the driving force behind the forward progress of our university.

We have reached out to and been amazed by the tremendous input and support this plan has received from the NC State community — from great leadership and commitment within our task forces to campus wide input through public forums and the web.  Your comments have been incorporated in order to make this a living document, reflective of the values and needs of our university constituents. In response to these recommendations, the final version differs from the draft in a few notable ways:

• Revised mission statement
• Expanded list of NC State values
• Additional consolidated accountability guidelines in place of accountability measures for each of the plan’s five goals
• Modified strategies under Goals 1, 2 and 5
• Minor modifications to text throughout the document to improve overall tone and flow

As many of you prepare for summer plans, I would like to make you aware of the next steps regarding the implementation of the strategic plan.  We will create an implementation plan, specifying responsibility and a timeline for the initiatives associated with the plan’s five goals. As part of this plan, we will define accountability measures and future targets based on peer benchmarks, best practices and today’s baseline.  This will establish clear goals, setting a tone of intentionality and direction.  The mission statement will be submitted to the UNC Board of Governors for approval, and we will soon begin the work of forming and charging various implementation teams.  Details of the implementation plan will be posted on the Strategic Planning web site in the coming months.

The support of the broader NC State community has forged a truly valuable roadmap for the future of this university.  Concurrent with strategic planning, NC State has been developing a realignment plan informed by the draft strategic plan.  As we move forward, we will further coordinate these plans. Our goal is to ensure that our strategic goals and our operational structure are complementary. We will keep the campus community informed of our progress and maintain an open dialogue along the way. At the end of the day, NC State will be guided by clearly defined goals, a commitment to accountability and a strong sense of intentionality to guide us into the future.

Thank you for your help and support and have a great start to your summer!

Sincerely,
Randy Woodson
Chancellor
NC State University

Throughout my first year at NC State, our goal has remained focused on making strategic shifts that hone our strengths, foster innovation and reflect our strong heritage. We have engaged the entire campus community through our strategic planning process and are now in the final stages of approving and submitting the draft strategic plan to the board of trustees. This plan will guide us throughout the next decade.

Last week, I accepted recommendations presented by Provost Arden and Vice Chancellor Leffler in the strategic realignment plan.  These changes are designed to strengthen the university, creating greater efficiency and effectiveness.

There is much work to be done as we begin a more formal review of programs and courses and implement business service consolidations. It’s important that we move quickly into the next phase of this realignment plan.

Over the next two to four weeks, several review and implementation teams will be assembled.  This work will ensure our sustainable growth toward a more agile university.  NC State has the ability and the responsibility to grow as an increasingly dynamic institution.

To this end, I encourage you to make comments on the strategic plan.  The draft strategic plan is posted online for comment until March 25.  Broad participation in this process improves our opportunities for success.

I have asked a lot of the campus community over the last year and you have taken it in stride.  While it might be tempting for us to sit back and reflect – especially with the end of the semester in sight – it’s important for us to continue our pace, positioning ourselves for a strong future despite impending budget reductions.  While this is no time to rest, it is certainly an appropriate time for me to thank you for all the hard work you have contributed to our planning processes.  With your help, we will position NC State for success, even in a budget-constrained environment.

I look forward to continuing this work together.

Sincerely,
Randy Woodson
Chancellor
NC State University

We’ve heard from people across campus and there’s still time, through Friday, March 25, for you to give your feedback. If you’ve been waiting to share your thoughts, now is the time to do it.

After you have reviewed the draft strategic plan, please take a few moments to share your constructive feedback with us via the form available on the strategic planning website to help us improve the document. All comments received by 3/25/11 will be considered.