Implementation of Academic Plan begins

The Academic Planning Council, an 18-member committee charged with making sure the university's academic plan is implemented, is making appointments to three subcommittees responsible for moving the Academic Plan from theory into practice.

"The Academic Plan was created with campuswide input to serve as a cornerstone for the university's Strategic Plan," says Celia Williamson, faculty assistant to the provost. "When we created the Academic Plan, we promised that it would serve as the pathway to where the institution is going academically and it would not just be a report. We have begun taking the first steps down that path."

The council began its work in June after Provost Howard Johnson appointed its membership within one month of the plan's completion.

Williamson says after the council hears its charge and discusses how to organize its workflow in coordination with the university's strategic planning committees and the Responsibility Center Managemet Committee, it's first official action will be to appoint members to the implementation subcommittee, the resource and accountability subcommittee and the   infrastructure and support subcommittee.

According to Williamson, the implementation subcommittee will work with the schools and colleges and other academic units as they develop their own plans. It will assure that clear progress measures are included in the plans to evaluate how the initiatives are being achieved and make sure that the initiatives are all embodied in various unit plans.

The resource and accountability subcommittee will be a collection of campus experts available to the schools and colleges and other academic affairs units to help make sure their assessment and monitoring methods make good use of available tools, benchmarks and indicators.

The infrastructure and support subcommittee will be responsible for making sure the universitywide structures affecting academics (such as research and teaching support, the tenure and promotion process, and communication) are in place and working efficiently to support the goals outlined in the plan.

"There is significant work to be done, but it is exciting that the university's leadership is honoring its commitment to let the Academic Plan serve as a foundation upon which we will create our future," Williamson says.

Creation of the Academic Plan began in fall 2003 with a campuswide collaborative process involving more than 200 faculty members, staff and students. The formal plan, which will remain a living document that is refined as needed, was approved in late April.

The first of its kind at UNT, the plan will help focus the university's responses to the pressures that surround higher education today while keeping academics at the center of the university's goals, Williamson says.

Specifically, the plan will build a common vision and determine key initiatives in undergraduate and graduate education as well as research and scholarship for the near future. It will focus the institution's energy on those areas and build the commitment to accomplish the initiatives, she says.

KELLEY REESE kreese@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• Strategic Plan and Responsibility Center Management
• Work to create a UNT child-care facility is moving forward
• Summer benefits enrollment begins July 25
• Two UNT music students earn Fulbright grants to fund international study
• Sunday Fun Day volunteers needed
• Murphy Enterprise Center awards $30,000 to UNT students with winning business plans
• Nineteen students earn Mayborn scholarships

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