Strategic Plan and Responsibility Center Management

In April 2004, the Board of Regents requested that a five-year Strategic Plan be developed. The board worked with a consultant to gather extensive input from the university community and define the type of institution that UNT wishes to become by 2011.

According to President Norval Pohl, while there are multiple committees working on various parts of UNT's Strategic Plan, four subcommittees are working this summer to draft university parameters that will identify the university's specific goals, desirable actions and measurable outcomes as based on the Academic Plan. These parameters will be previewed with the regents in August and then posted to the UNT web site to allow for the campus community to provide feedback.

A final set of university parameters is expected to be in place by mid to late September, when all campus units (departments, colleges and schools) will begin translating the university-level statements into unit-level strategic plans to be achieved by 2011.

"Part of the overarching theme of the strategic plan is to incorporate an entrepreneurial spirit into the campus community," Pohl says. "Several strategies are likely to emerge from the unit-level plans but at the university level, considerable effort is being given to evaluating the possibility of implementing a decentralized budgeting process generally known as Responsibility Center Management."

RCM is a decentralized approach to financial management designed to give more areas across campus greater control and responsibility for the university's budget process, while also making the budget process more transparent. Under an RCM model, a responsibility center (a college or school, vice presidential or auxiliary unit) could keep a significant portion of the funds it generates instead of having all revenues flow through a centralized university budget. A 27-member committee led by the finance and business affairs office has been working since December to design a model and implementation strategy for RCM that could work at UNT.

Other featured articles in this issue

• Implementation of Academic Plan begins
• 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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