Dear IUP Family:
Monday's Strategic Visioning Summit was a tremendous success. I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of all of you! More than 400 students, faculty, and staff members came together to dream about IUP's future and refine the draft strategic vision. The draft vision drew upon the work of the Strategic Visioning Team, which interviewed 450 IUP stakeholders and distilled the results into key themes. I am especially pleased that the Strategic Visioning Team is made up of our own students, led by Dr. Michele Papakie, Journalism Department chair.
Our keynote speaker, Dr. Richard Morrill, spoke about the importance of engaged planning, especially in these times of dramatic change for public higher education. He also encouraged us to become a national model of a successful comprehensive doctoral university for the 21st century.
With the help of 30 breakout-group facilitators, process monitors, and scribes, the 10 breakout groups provided nearly 40 pages of feedback on the draft vision. We are analyzing the information and will use it to revise the draft vision, which I will then present to the University Senate and Council of Trustees for their endorsement in December. The information will also serve as a basis for our strategic planning efforts, which we will work on together over the next 18 months.
The summit generated press coverage in the Indiana Gazette and The Penn and the draft vision and other documents provided at the summit have been posted on the Strategic Visioning Project website along with a gallery of pictures capturing the action of the day.
IUP, and higher education in general, are facing challenging times, and we have much work to do together to define and achieve our destiny. But Monday's summit reaffirmed what I've known all along: IUP's smart, dedicated faculty, staff, and students, working as a team, can and will make sure our great university remains great for generations to come.
We are all in this together, and at IUP, that's a great place to be.
In gratitude,
Mike