University drafts its future

The road map for the next 10 years of growth at the University is coming — eventually.

For more than a year, University officials from all sectors of campus have been drafting a new academic plan, the second of its kind.

And though the immediate economic outlook for the University might be grim and a draft of the plan is still weeks from publication, campus leaders are eager to seek wider input on the far-reaching and ambitious plan for UNC’s future.

In the next six weeks, committee members said they aim to release the first draft of the plan and gather input from the campus community.

“We’ve got to have something to start the conversation,” said Ron Strauss, executive associate provost and an academic planning committee member.

“This isn’t a plan that will sit on the shelf,” Strauss said. “Love it, hate it, give no response — this plan will shape in a big way the decade that follows.”

The plan is a comprehensive list of recommendations that will shape major funding decisions by reforming academic departments, construction projects and employee and faculty support systems, among other stated priorities.

“It’s an anti-depressant for the campus,” said Sue Estroff, co-chairwoman of the academic planning committee. “Thinking and planning doesn’t cost anything.”

Written in 2003 during former Chancellor James Moeser’s administration, the first plan served as a response to a budget crisis remarkably similar to the one today. It was meant to provide a concise and manageable outline of the University’s future.

The original plan has greatly influenced campus life. Its vision of increased global engagement boosted the international studies department and channeled funds toward the construction of the FedEx Global Education Center.

“It’s a sort of long-term vision — our to-do list,” said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Bruce Carney, whose office is in charge of implementing the plan.

Sections encouraging a more focused commitment to the freshman experience strengthened the popular first-year seminar program, and a call for curriculum and advising reform in the College of Arts and Sciences was instituted with mixed success.

“Even when we are facing the kinds of restrictions we face now, we do have to have a set of goals,” said Bill Andrews, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and co-chairman of the academic planning committee.

Large sections of the original plan were less successful than others. Still, administrators said they are hopeful the new plan will invigorate the campus.

“I don’t think things will get better unless we offer a map,” Andrews said.

Those involved with crafting the plan are silent on what issues might shape the new version, but the academic documents that serve as an informal reading list for the committee offer clues.

Texts like 2009’s “Carolina: Best Place to Teach, Learn and Discover,” the 1997 intellectual climate report and the 2003 academic plan itself suggest the new plan will be concise — with some familiar initiatives from the past.

“This plan is not a sequel,” Estroff said.

Issues that committee members said they hoped to address — like revamping the advising system, engaging graduate and professional students in campus life and instituting a fast-track, five-year undergraduate to master’s program — have appeared in University-published review material for more than a decade.

“A historically-informed plan does not mean it is an extension of the old,” Estroff said.

Issues as diverse and current as the reform of the Greek system and the adjustment of the cap on out-of-state enrollment could be revisited in the new plan, even though they were heavily emphasized in the original plan.

“Some things simply require bigger resources,” Carney said.

While direction and content remain murky, what is clear is that the new academic plan will be consulted in the decade to come.

“We might not get it all right, but input is valued,” said committee member Student Body Vice President Holly Boardman.

“Our goal is to see all the elements of the plan implemented.”

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.