On behalf of the Coordinating Committee, I am asking academic units within the University to submit a strategic, ten-year plan. You should be bold and visionary in developing a plan to shape the future. Please assess where your unit is today, describe your aspirations looking out ten years, and articulate the key means to achieve your goals. Where are your unit’s distinct opportunities to excel, given disciplinary trends, student interest, and funding opportunities? Please specify priorities in the following way: how would your department or unit advance with significant new resources, with modest new resources, or with no new resources? As you think of fresh opportunities, what current areas should be modified or de-emphasized? How can your curriculum, graduate and undergraduate, be strengthened? In assessing where your unit is today, refer to relevant rankings or external reviews; to the records of publication, funding, and distinctions of present faculty; and to the placement of graduate and undergraduate students. Please identify interdisciplinary areas to which your own success I linked.
Each unit should assume the following operating environment:
1) The basic structure of the University – of departments, colleges, and schools – will likely remain the same. Proposals for administrative reorganization must demonstrate that the reorganization will significantly enhance our aspirations and goals.
2) Enhancements to the academic units from the present operating budget will be moderate. Economic conditions do not signal a growth in existing endowment comparable to results over the past decade. On the other hand, our aspirations remain high and our situation certainly is not static. One of the purposes of the ten-year plan will be to establish priorities for the University’s next capital campaign.
3) Academic investment in the next ten years is likely to focus on quality in hiring and promotion, not quantity. Faculty growth in the University will likely be more modest than the 150 positions identified in the Colloquy.
The Coordinating Committee suggests the following criteria for evaluating academic plans:
1) Priority will be given to units that are realistic in their assessment, frank in comparing programs with other universities, and forthright in calling for change.
2) Investment will be made in programs that promise significant academic advance. Rather than trying to raise all programs modestly, the final strategic plan will likely place emphasis on programs, ideas, and academic units that will have the largest impact in meeting our aspirations.
3) New investment will also be made in departmental programs and other centers of excellence that distinguish Notre Dame as a Catholic university. We encourage innovation to address issues of utmost importance for the future of humanity – those in particular that Notre Dame may have the capacity to address. By way of illustration, one could imagine projects in international studies, foundational and applied ethics, environmental studies, poverty and human rights, religious understandings of human nature and the structure of society, and a wide range of research opportunities in science, engineering, business and law that advance human flourishing.
4) Interdisciplinary collaborations, centers, and institutes will be a key component in the future success of the University.
5) Innovations are encouraged that enhance curricular coherence, active learning, and research participation among undergraduate, graduate, and professional students and that take into account the changing demographics of student population and demand.
6) Proposals should be specific and, where appropriate, should identify measurable goals. Every faculty line must be regarded as crucial. If possible, please identify the fields for new faculty and the methods by which eminent faculty might be recruited and nurtured.
7) Proposals will receive serious consideration which advance the University’s longstanding commitment to diversity, affirmative action, and social justice.