The university has embarked on a long-range planning exercise to envision what it might look like in the year 2020.
As part of its decennial re-accreditation process, the university has formed a strategic planning committee to determine top institutional goals and priorities for the next 10 years and recommend ways to achieve them. The committee’s report will help guide decisions on academics and research, public service and outreach, student recruitment, resource allocation, physical growth and UGA’s leadership role in Georgia and the nation in the second decade of the 21st century. UGA must create a new strategic plan every 10 years as part of seeking renewal of its accreditation by its chief accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. SACS accreditation was last renewed in 2000, and UGA will seek reaccreditation in 2010.
Provost Arnett C. Mace Jr. appointed the 30-member strategic planning committee and named William Vencill, professor of crop and soil sciences in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, as chair. Rob Hoyt, in the Terry College of Business, is vice chair.
The committee already has begun seeking input for the plan with a survey distributed to faculty last month. Committee members will hold a series of forums in fall semester to gather ideas from faculty, staff and students. Suggestions also can be made on a strategic planning Web site.
The committee will refine the plan early in 2010 and submit it to the University Council Strategic Planning Committee next spring with a goal of having a final plan approved by September 2010, the SACS deadline, Vencill said.
UGA’s current strategic plan, adopted in 2000, centers on three major themes: building the new learning environment, maximizing research opportunities and competing in a global economy. Vencill said it’s too early to know exactly what direction the new plan will take but he expects it will focus on the same broad areas as the current plan, but will also include UGA’s growing leadership in medical research and education.
In addition to Vencill and Hoyt, members of the committee are:
Lonnie Brown, law; Ron Walcott, agricultural and environmental sciences; Marsha Black, public health; Alison Alexander, journalism and mass communication; Irwin Bernstein, arts and sciences; Betty Jean Craige, arts and sciences; Sarah Spence, arts and sciences; Jorge Atiles, family and consumer sciences; Ron Cervero, education; Eric Mueller, veterinary medicine;
Phillip Greenspan, pharmacy; Barbara White, the university’s chief information officer; Jim Prestegard, research; Steve Dempsey, public service and outreach; Florence King, university libraries; Ryan Nesbit, finance and administration; Shannon Scott, university staff;
Ann Crowther, instruction; Jan Barham, student affairs; Holley Schramski, accounting; Ralph Johnson, physical plant; Frank Crumley, Athletic Association; Tom Jackson, public affairs; Danny Sniff, campus architects for facilities planning; Trey Paris, UGA Alumni Association; and Donald Perry, Arch Foundation. Two students representing the undergraduate and graduate student bodies will be added to the committee.
