Strategic Planning Open Forum (John's Notes)

Hi, all!

So we're back from the Strategic Planning committee's open forum on the process and the sub-committees' presentation of the top-line findings and recommendations in their interim reports. I (John) took notes by hand, and am presenting these to you.

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Provost Schlissel's introductory remarks:

• The Strategic Planning process privileges three core values:
• Excellence.
• Access (given rising costs).
• Service to society / "impact".
• The Process:
• Began with an information-gathering stage, across 6 committees (these six committees constituted the core of the presentation).
• There was also non-committee work, including.
• The Signature Initiatives.
• Ad-hoc advisory groups of trustees.
• And advice/feedback solicitation.
• Now, the work will be to synthesize all the inputs, over the summer. The plan will be presented to the community in the next few weeks, and in person to the corporation in May, with the plan being finalized in September.
• This is a budget-driven process--all committees have presented their best ideas, and the next stage is deciding what can be paid for.
• Other values given priority:
• Diversity.
• Internationalization.

Dean Wing, Committee on Faculty Recruitment, Career Development, and Retention:

• Priorities:
• Recruitment: an emphasis on a diverse and outstanding faculty.
• Mentorship / retention.
• Environment for success.
• Needs found:
• Time:
• Junior faculty sabbaticals, with support and guidance.
• Post-tenure sabbaticals, again with guidance.
• Dean's sabbaticals: funds to support senior faculty.
• Diversity:
• Necessary to have commitment from the top.
• Outreach and pipeline development a priority.
• Cluster hires?
• Provide mentoring.
• Exit interviews and attempts to improve retention based on the feedback.
• Recognition of senior faculty:
• Compensation review process.
• Support, a la seed grants to develop into larger projects.

Dean Weber and Professor Register, Committee on Doctoral Education:

• Opened by emphasizing the value of a strong graduate education program to the university.
• Scholarship, discovery, teaching, dissemination of knowledge, enrichment of undergraduate experience.
• Enhanced support:
• Improved baseline for summer funding.
• Uniform allocation of fellowships.
• Competitive academic year stipends.
• Support for travel/research.
• Growth:
• Not more $ to dept's but via named fellowships.
• Professionalization:
• Teaching--Expansion of Sheridan Center: course design workshops, etc.
• Supportive environment:
• Creation of a graduate student space.
• Enhancement of student life services.
• Health & childcare.
• Evaluation of progress:
• Necessary to gather data before proceeding with any decisions.
• Namely, before determining appropriate distribution of support.

Dean Bergeron, Committee on Educational Innovation:

• Preserving and building on the good, as well as innovating.
• 3 priorities:
• Increasing impact of Brown education geographically and temporally.
• Developing new forms of pedagogy.
• Rethinking time-frame of Brown degree.
• Possible means of realizing these goals:
• Community-based learning and research (a la Tri-Lab).
• Rethinking internships.
• Internationalism:
• New courses with embedded opportunities for international study & work.
• New international center.
• Commitment to curriculum diversity.
• Developing sophomore seminars in this area.
• New STEM initiatives.
• Big data?
• Engineering w/ the arts.

University Librarian Hemmasi, Committee on Online Teaching and Learning:

• Principles:
• Brown-specific ideas.
• Help prepare students for digital age.
• Infrastructure:
• Lightweight, nimble, responsive.
• Sheridan center's current experimentation to be expanded: new forms of online teaching?
• Needs span not just tech but student and faculty engagement as well.
• Goal: "learning to be" rather than merely learning to do--immersing students in the culture of a discipline.
• Policy:
• Need a means of evaluation for online learning.
• Questions of copyright & IP.
• Need to ensure the staying power of the content.
• Serve Brown community first, then moving beyond to other populations:
• Skills & workforce needs of RI to be taken into account?
• MOOC's & open education?
• Topical Lessons.
• Formation of a standing committee for reviewing ongoing needs.

Director of Financial Aid Tilton and Professor Harvey, Committee on Financial Aid:

• Principles:
• Fairness & equity.
• Diversity.
• Competitiveness.
• Retention.
• Goals:
• Long-term to go need-blind for international as well as domestic.
• Reduction of expectation of summer earnings, to free students up for internships.
• Increasing aid to middle-income students.

Executive VP for Planning and Policy Carey, Committee on Reimagining the Brown Campus and Community:

• Findings:
• Campus working quite well (on basis of surveys).
• Some constraints (e.g., engineering, arts need more space than their current buildings can provide).
• Principles:
• Modest improvements over time.
• Flexibility.
• Accessibility.
• Sustainability.
• Adaptive re-use prioritized.
• Goals:
• Meeting space (shared).
• Classroom space needs to be consistently excellent.
• Graduate students' space has borne the brunt of expansion disproportionately.
• Need for support both for college hill and jewelry district.
• Based on feedback about departmental identity, adaptive re-use has been prioritized.

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Q&A -- I wasn't able to get all of this down.

• Has need-blind for international students been prioritized above loan-free?
• Beppie Huidekoper: The answer is yes--there is not currently a goal to go loan-free.
• A. Summer research: not enough money. B. With respect to digital initiatives, the campus should take into account the need for students to have the appropriate devices to take advantage of these new resources.
• A. Katherine Bergeron: There is a desire to have at least once supported experience at brown.
• Space: There should be a distinction between wants vs. needs: money for need-blind, for example, should take priority over new buildings. A feeling amongst undergraduates that the strategic development process is not particularly open to input from the community.
• Provost Mark Schlissel: The strategic planning process is not democratic. Its goal is to integrate the aspirations of the various stakeholders, with the mission of the university. This meeting would be outside, on the lawn, and not in the new Metcalf building.
• Staff seem too absent from these documents:
• Harriette Hemmasi: The informational component is meant to address staff's needs.
• Mark Schlissel: University's wages for staff are set by the market. We are competing in the market for qualified staff.
• Jim Tilton: Quality of staff necessary for quality of research and teaching. Takes her point seriously.
• Difficulties with faculty recruitment: could use some social meeting space, like a wine bar, a coffee houes, a spruced-up faculty club--work with Thayer St. vendors or build it ourselves?
• In response to a follow-up from Mark Schlissel: Loves the new Metcalf building--helps to knit the community together.
• The representatives from the Re-imagining Campus Life Committee agree with the importance of having convening spaces.