Click image to enlarge.
Chancellor Rebecca Chopp will describe a vision for the future of University of Denver during her inaugural address today, as she shares a draft of a strategic plan that the campus community will help to refine over the next two months.
“This draft of our strategic plan outlines a vision of how we can transform the University of Denver and what DU will look like in 10 years. The vision is informed by the imaginative ideas of more than 2,500 faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and friends,” says Chopp. “With feedback from the campus community this fall, our goal is to have a refined plan to present to the Board of Trustees for approval in January 2016.”
For more information on today’s ceremony and other events, visit the inauguration website.
Imagine DU, as the planning process is called, began in December 2014 as a broad, consultative effort driven by three working groups of faculty, students and staff. These groups consulted with community members across campus and throughout the Denver region, as well as alumni and friends around the country. Working groups also made site visits to other universities, interviewed experts across the country and provided research on three areas of focus — “The Shape of Knowledge,” “The Student Experience” and “Denver and Beyond.”
Members of these three working groups convened as a full advisory group in June to make recommendations based on their interviews, site visits, research and expertise. A subset of that group then created the draft document that will be shared today.
“I couldn’t be more pleased with the thoughtful recommendations that contributed to this vision,” Chopp says. “An effort of this magnitude takes a lot of cooperation and depends on input from everyone in our community.”
Chopp will share a broad vision in her inaugural address, and the draft plan will then be posted on the Imagine DU website late Friday afternoon, with an email to the campus community to follow on Monday.
The campus community will provide feedback through an extensive series of meetings with faculty, staff and students across campus, in addition to two town hall meetings and an online discussion forum. Implementation will begin once the plan is approved.
“As we envision our future, we will build upon our strengths: a strong liberal arts undergraduate program; well-respected professional and graduate programs; renowned faculty who are as committed to their scholarship as they are to transformative teaching; and a deep commitment to the public good,” Chopp says. “We must maintain DU’s path-breaking spirit, drawing upon our strengths and creating a model for a 21st-century global university. Continued input from our community is absolutely critical to realizing a shared vision of our future.”