Faculty, staff leading process to develop new long-term strategic plan
Purdue University Northwest (PNW) this week will achieve a significant milestone in a process that began a year ago to chart the university’s future.
The comprehensive initiative, termed Imagine PNW, is intended to map PNW’s path forward and determine how best to invest the university’s resources to realize those plans. Working together, faculty and staff members from throughout PNW have examined each academic program and support function to assess how each contributes to PNW’s success. Decisions to be made by senior leaders over the next several months based on this assessment will help inform development of a new strategic plan for the university.
Two task forces comprised of faculty and staff members from throughout the university have been working diligently since early fall 2018 on the assessment phase of the Imagine PNW initiative, called Strategic Resource Allocation or “SRA.” The task forces will complete their work this week and share with the university community their recommendations, based on analyses of extensive data and information provided by their colleagues.
An inclusive, transparent process “Nearly every person who works at Purdue Northwest participated in some way in the strategic resource allocation process,” said Ralph O. Mueller, vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost. “In addition, following the release of reports from the task forces to the university community later this week, all students, faculty and staff members of PNW will have two weeks to submit comments on the reports.
“Imagine PNW represents a thorough, fair process for analyzing our resources,” Mueller added. “We look forward to the next steps in this important initiative as we work together to build the future of PNW.”
“Strategic resource allocation can be a difficult process, but it is one that helps institutions achieve improved effectiveness using a disciplined approach to examining all activities that consume resources,” said Larry Goldstein, president of Campus Strategies, LLC and the consultant who is facilitating the Imagine PNW initiative. Goldstein has assisted hundreds of higher education institutions in successfully carrying out the process. He noted that there is nothing “automatic” about the process, and no decisions about the future of any academic programs or support functions have been made at this time. The entire university community will have access to the full reports, as well as all information and all data used to support the reports. All PNW students, faculty and staff members will have two weeks to respond.
Next steps The next step in the strategic resource allocation process will be for the university’s senior leadership to consider all data and recommendations in the reports, along with the comments. Analysis will take place over the summer and decisions will be announced in mid-August at the start of the fall semester.
“We are grateful to all the members of the task forces who worked tirelessly for the future of Purdue Northwest,” said Stephen R. Turner, vice chancellor for Finance and Administration. “Furthermore, we would like to emphasize that we welcome and appreciate the input of everyone who contributed to the development of the data for this analysis, and those who will take the time to share their thoughtful comments on the reports. This is a monumental process and together, we are shaping the future of Purdue Northwest.”
Purdue University Northwest Purdue University Northwest (PNW) is a student-centered university that values academic excellence, supports growth and celebrates diversity. Located in Northwest Indiana, near Chicago, PNW fosters a vibrant academic community through high quality and engaging undergraduate and graduate education. For more information about PNW, visit www.pnw.edu.
