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Introduction

The umbrella goals of the university (see Section II) define the broad areas within which this
strategic plan develops specific objectives and actions. This section identifies the main objectives
(ends) within each of these goal areas and a series of actions (means) for achieving each objective.
The objectives specify particular directions within the goal areas. The action items for each objective
identify a few key ways to make significant progress on these objectives over the next five years.
Some of these involve resources and some do not. The actions for a given objective should be read
as a package, but it is feasible to phase in the actions on the basis of priority, cost, opportunity,
timeliness, and the like. Decisions about phasing in the objectives or actions are part of the
implementation stage of the strategic plan.

It also is important to recognize that the university is currently making significant efforts and
achieving successes in several of these areas. By including an objective related to ongoing efforts,
this plan affirms the importance of such activities and proposes to focus more energy on that area
and push it even higher on the university's agenda. Whereas all of the objectives are important as
such, resource constraints (time, effort, money) will make it essential to set priorities among the
objectives for the next five years, and with this in mind, each section concludes with a statement of
priorities among the objectives. These priorities suggest which objectives should be addressed first
and thus have implications for the phasing in of efforts directed at each objective.

Overview of Objectives

Below is a listing of the objectives in the plan. There are five to seven objectives for each umbrella
goal. Priorities among these objectives are established in this section. The next section (V) develops
strategic initiatives that draw on themes of these priorities.

Faculty Excellence

1. Increase the size and quality of faculty in strategically important academic areas.
2. Significantly increase the diversity of faculty through new hires and enhanced retention
efforts.
3. Ensure competitive faculty compensation.
4. Develop and implement policies to retain highly valued faculty.
5. Devise and implement new mechanisms or policies for rewarding outstanding faculty and for
continually assessing faculty performance as scholars and teachers.
6. Foster an exciting intellectual environment by providing opportunities for more dialogue and
engagement.
7. Develop ways to enable faculty to focus their time on being highly productive in their core
academic activities (research, scholarship, and creativity; teaching; public engagement).
Educational Excellence

1. Create and sustain a culture that supports teaching excellence in all academic units.
2. Strengthen institutional structures that promote pedagogical innovations both centrally and
within colleges and programs.
3. Provide a more unified and shared educational experience for Cornell undergraduates.
4. Strengthen the educational impact of international opportunities and experiences for
students.
5. Promote the health and well-being of students (undergraduate, graduate, and professional)
as a foundation for academic and life success.
6. Strengthen efforts to attract and educate an excellent and diverse body of undergraduate
students.
7. Strengthen the capacity of graduate and professional programs to recruit and educate a
diverse body of the very best students.
Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creativity

1. Increase the number of Cornell departments or graduate fields that have achieved world
leadership in their areas.
2. Build and maintain world leadership in a select set of departments within the following
broad areas: humanities and the arts; life sciences and agricultural sciences; physical
sciences and engineering; social sciences; and professional schools and programs.
3. Strengthen support for and recognition of important interdisciplinary areas, while ensuring
excellence in disciplines as a foundation.
4. Significantly improve institution-wide services for the administration and support of
research grants (including government, foundation, and industry funding).
5. Maintain and selectively strengthen in cost-effective ways the core infrastructures for
research, scholarship, and creativity, including in particular libraries and shared research
facilities.
6. Encourage productive, mutually beneficial collaborations between faculty and students in
Ithaca-based programs and faculty and students at Weill Cornell Medical College and
Graduate School.
Excellence in Public Engagement

1. Make public engagement a distinctive feature of education at Cornell.


2. Construct a unified concept and vision for the university's public engagement mission.
3. Develop rigorous, systematic evaluations of all outreach and extension programs.
4. Strongly connect public engagement to on-campus research and educational strengths.
5. Promote stronger collaborations and partnerships between the university and stakeholders
that can make use of and strengthen Cornell's research (e.g., business, K-12 schools,
nonprofit organizations, government).
Staff Excellence

1. Give priority to retention of highly qualified staff in valued positions as the university
reorganizes to address budgetary constraints.
2. Attract a talented and diverse workforce to Cornell.
3. Be an exemplary employer across the entire spectrum of staff.
4. Provide job skill training to staff in a variety of venues.
5. Sustain and, wherever possible, enhance flexibility in the workplace and workforce.
6. Work with the local community to keep Ithaca and Tompkins County vibrant places to live
and work.
In addition to these five goal areas, a separate section (VI) on excellence in organizational
stewardship develops objectives and actions for creating and sustaining the necessary resource
conditions for achieving academic excellence. Topics include financial resources; capital and physical
facilities; and information technology. These are enabling conditions for the five goal areas above.

As a whole, the objectives suggest that the university should move on a significant number of fronts
to keep abreast of the competition, respond to a rapidly changing environment, and enhance
academic strengths. Resource constraints (e.g., money and time) will make this difficult in some
cases, but there are low-cost (or even no-cost) action items for most objectives and, as noted above,
attention to the objectives can be phased in over the five-year period. The priorities at the end of
each section provide a framework or guide for addressing such issues.

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