Academic Priorities
Printer-friendly versionThe priorities central to the mission of the University of Oregon remain the same year after year:
- The education of each of our students, undergraduate and graduate,
- The creation and promulgation of research and scholarship in support of that education and in support of the intellectual infrastructure of Oregon and the larger world it is part of,
- Service to our communities: local, regional, national, and international.
These enduring priorities are addressed through the excellence we achieve in our academic departments and programs, in our research institutes and centers, and through our many outreach efforts. So, the focus of most of the energy of most new faculty and officers of administration will, most naturally, center on teaching and scholarship and service.
Nonetheless, there are several academic priorities complementary to these enduring priorities that will receive considerable emphasis across campus...
Academic Priorities for 2008-2009
We are in a period of challenging and exciting transition. A presidential search is underway and as provost I have been in place only a few weeks. When asked for my academic priorities I could give the easy answer - my priorities are excellence, diversity, interdisciplinarity, globalization, the undergraduate experience, expanding graduate education and research, and outreach, in no particular order. They are all important, and we have much work to do on each. But this statement does not get us very far. If we make everything our first priority, we make incremental progress on each and complete none. My first academic priority is to lead our community to focus on a few areas and become world-class with regard to these.
This is not to say that we will become a University that is excellent in only these few foci. We must be committed to excellence in everything we do. What I mean to raise here is a matter of process. How can we systematically raise the quality of this institution to the next level? In a few years of concentrated attention and investment these initial focus areas will either have achieved excellence, or will have proven they cannot. In the former case, we should expect them to continue their excellence while we move focus elsewhere. In the latter case, we should seriously discuss if we can continue to support them at Oregon. In either case, we will be free to select a next set of foci and to repeat the investment. This is a never-ending cycle of focus, invest, evaluate, and repeat.
The goal is not to require faculty to change their research agendas to conform to the set of foci. If we choose the right foci, we will already have many faculty working on components of the broader area. We will engage faculty captains for each initiative to scout existing research, communicate intriguing synergies, and present the larger whole of the combined impact of the disparate advances.
At the same time, many other faculty are working on agendas disassociated with any of the foci. This exploration is critical to defining and discovering the areas that will be candidates for the next set of foci. Deans and Vice Presidents will be encouraged to seed these future foci, though not with the level of investment committed to the current focus list. In the ecosystem of our research community, we must balance exploration of new ideas with exploitation of developed strengths.
I believe our traditional departmental/collegiate structure is important and must remain strong; the added excitement is building on combinations of these disciplinary strengths to address important issues. These issues are frequently interdisciplinary. Choosing critical interdisciplinary issues as foci has three primary advantages; they will touch more of our faculty interest areas than a few disciplinary foci, they will excite students with visions of making a difference, and they will be more compelling to our stakeholders in the donor base, legislature and populace of Oregon.
The mechanism to select our foci is the Academic Plan that will be developed this fall with the broad UO community. It will help us decide who we are, where we are, where we are going, and how we are going to get there. As we speak, a small group is drafting the foundational sections of the plan. They will also present an initial pool of potential foci. The larger community will then be engaged to add to the set, and eventually evaluate the options. Examples of potential foci suggested during early discussions include:
Sustainability: How do we pass a sustainable world to our children? Research and teaching might include environmental law, green chemistry, sustainable business practices, green built environment, environmental studies, eco-criticism and others…
Human Performance: How can the human body perform at its peak? Research and teaching might include brain biology, human physiology, psychology, music and dance, education, theater, athletics and others…
Healthy Communities: How do we build and sustain healthy communities? Research and teaching might include education, journalism, business, sociology, psychology, law, public policy, the arts and others…
Engaged Humanities: How do we lead a successful life in the modern technological world? Research and teaching might include philosophy, religion, education, journalism and others…
Nano/Micro/Bio: How do we remain safe in world of new nano and bio engineered products? Research and teaching might include biology, chemistry, physics, philosophy, psychology, law and others…
The Academic Plan will be important input to presidential candidates, telling them what Oregon is really about. And conversely, the new president will have significant input to the Plan, a Plan that will evolve over time as our institution evolves.
We cannot tread water until the new president is in place. We can celebrate the progress we have made in the past decade, we can develop an Academic Plan as a roadmap to the next decade, and we can work on our communication and processes so that we are prepared to move to the next level.
James Bean
Senior Vice President and Provost
Academic Priorities For AY 2006-08
ACADEMIC QUALITY. All major research universities sustain an enduring commitment to improving steadily the quality of their academic endeavors. There is a time, however, in which this enduring commitment to excellence benefits from more concerted and focused attention. The new Provost, Linda Brady, has asked all of us to take advantage of current changes in key administrative appointments to review our academic and administrative efforts with the aim of emphasizing academic quality in our faculty, our academic programs, and our individual teaching, research, and service activities. During this academic year the UO also will undergo a 10-year accreditation review by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU).
DIVERSITY. The University of Oregon is committed to a campus environment that is enriched and informed by the personal, cultural and intellectual differences of its students, faculty, staff and visitors. The UO Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity (OIED) plays a central role in fulfilling that ongoing commitment through leadership on issues that enhance institutional fairness and equality, eradicate discrimination and celebrate the strengths of a multicultural community. The University, including the President, the Provost, and all senior administrators, under the immediate direction of Prof. Charles Martinez, Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity, will continue work towards improving diversity at the UO.
NON-TENURE TRACK FACULTY (NTTF). The UO employs a considerable number of non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) in both instructional and research appointments. After several years of thoughtful work by the Senate's NTTIF committee, the UO will press forward again this year with efforts to increase the transparency and care with which NTTF appointments are made and to review and improve NTTF academic appointments in all of their dimensions. For more information on this effort, please see the Senate committee's site or the new NTTF information site in Academic Affairs.
INTERNATIONAL MATTERS: UO EAST ASIA INITIATIVE. Grounded in extensive disciplinary excellence in languages and cultures, literature, history, art and the social sciences, and coupled with academic entrepreneurialism aimed at extending UO academic efforts into East Asia, the UO has embarked on an initiative to make the UO a key resource in the State and the region for developing projects, both academic and non-academic, that seek to engage China and other parts of East and Southeast Asia, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. For more information on this effort, please contact Stephen Durrant, Vice Provost for International Affairs.
PORTLAND. The UO has had a continuous and long standing commitment to Portland traceable to its inception in 1872 when by an act of the Oregon legislature the charge was 'to serve the educational needs of the entire citizenry of the new state of Oregon'. In 1884 the University of Oregon approved a new curriculum in law, creating a UO Law Department that had its first residence in Portland - in fact, in the very same building that many of our current programs are housed in today. From that time forward the UO has had an ongoing, if not always highly visible, presence in the greater Portland area. Today in Portland the University has graduate degree programs in architecture and journalism, a growing presence in the area of law, a robust executive MBA program offered jointly with OSU and PSU, and numerous administrative and support offices including AHA International Study Abroad Programs, the Career Center, the Development Office and the Office of Continuing Education. Current objectives include identifying the means to increase both the quantity and capacity of our current academic offering in Portland, as well as consolidating our presence into a larger "UO Portland Center" in the next 3 to 5 years. For more information on developments in Portland, please contact Wendy Larson, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs.
