New Strategic
Academic Plan for UC Berkeley outlines vision for the campus
in the decades ahead
22 May
2003
In this letter to the campus community, Chancellor Robert
Berdahl unveils a new Strategic Academic Plan to guide Berkeley
in the coming years.
To the campus community:
Not only does UC Berkeley have a long
and great history of achievement, both in creating new knowledge
and in imparting
this knowledge to generations of future leaders, but we remain
today the best public research university in the world. And
yet, the past several years have presented us with many formidable
challenges: the rapid expansion of research in areas, such
as the health sciences, that require the integration of multiple
academic disciplines; the substantial capital investment
required to improve the seismic safety of campus buildings;
the enormous
increase in both the number and the cultural diversity of
college-age Californians; and, most recently, the state budget
deficit
and its potential impacts on all state and local public institutions.
It became clear to us that, in order not just to meet these
challenges, but to meet them in ways that make us a stronger
institution, we required a common understanding of the critical
academic needs of the campus. In fall 2000, we established
a new committee composed of representatives from the faculty
and executive leadership, campus staff, and graduate and undergraduate
students, and charged this committee with preparing a Strategic
Academic Plan for UC Berkeley. Over the next two years, the
committee met regularly, posted draft versions of the plan
on the web for review, and held open campus forums in spring
2001, fall 2001, and spring 2002 to solicit the ideas of the
larger campus community.
This final version of the Strategic Academic Plan describes
the critical challenges UC Berkeley faces in the coming years,
recommends principles and proposals to address these challenges,
and outlines a comprehensive strategy for implementation. We
have already taken the first steps on several proposals presented
in the Plan:
-
The Plan recommends a yearly 'State of the Campus' address
by the Chancellor. This fall I will make the first such address
to the Academic Senate, in which I will outline the priorities
and initiatives I intend to pursue in the coming year.
-
The Plan
recommends a more coherent and rigorous process and criteria
for the review of academic programs, to ensure the
Berkeley standard of excellence is maintained in every program
we offer. We have designed a pilot version of this process
and are testing it on two programs this year. Based on this
experience, we will then finalize this process and apply it
to five or more programs each year.
-
The Plan recommends the campus identify
emerging new academic themes, and select the most promising
of these for encouragement
and investment. This process is underway, with over 30
percent of the academic community participating in the
initial round of
proposals in fall 2002. A distinguished external review
team has praised UC Berkeley for this inclusive approach
to program
building, and is working with the campus to identify those
proposals most ready for investment.
-
The Plan recognizes housing
as a critical element of the academic enterprise, and sets
ambitious goals to meet the future housing
needs of undergraduate and graduate students and faculty. The
campus has now established new housing objectives for 2020
based on these goals, and over 40% of these units are already
under construction or in design.
-
The Plan recognizes the substantial
need for renewal of the campus, to ensure our aging physical
plant can continue to
meet the performance demands of modern instruction and research.
Based on the principles of the Strategic Academic Plan, the
campus has prepared the New Century Plan, which outlines a
physical vision of the campus that not only meets our future
academic needs, but also ensures the unique environmental quality
of the campus and the city around it is preserved and enhanced.
-
We have also begun work on a new Long Range Development Plan
for the campus, which will describe the scope of capital
investment at UC Berkeley through the year 2020. The Strategic
Academic
Plan and the New Century Plan provide the framework of principles
and goals for the investment objectives to be presented in
the 2020 LRDP.
It should be clear from these initiatives that the Strategic
Academic Plan has already begun to help shape the future of
UC Berkeley, in response to changes both on campus and in the
world around us. This does not, however, mean our work on the
Plan is done. On the contrary, we have always realized the
Plan must remain a living, evolving document, and in fact the
very process of creating this inaugural version of the Plan
has revealed a number of topics that require further consideration
in the months ahead.
These few examples only serve to remind us that, in many respects,
the process of developing a plan for the future is as important
as the plan itself. However, this initial version of the Strategic
Academic Plan provides the campus with an excellent set of
principles and proposals, and I have already begun to organize
our senior management team to support implementation of the
Plan and its companion infrastructure. I will make annual status
reports and, in 2005-2006, ask the campus to undertake a progress
review of the entire Plan to ensure it remains a living and
evolving document. I urge you to read the Plan and share our
vision of the campus as we move into the new century.
Robert M. Berdahl
Chancellor
