Work in Progress: Last Revision 5/10/02

We are committed, through the process of research and graduate education, to excel in the creation and application of knowledge. This places us in the critical role of producing intellectual capital that is central to the state's prosperity, as well as producing graduates who are well prepared to participate in both today's and tomorrow's economy. Because of the strength of our core mission in the liberal arts, our graduates have the critical thinking and analytical skills that allow them to adapt and thrive in a world defined by increasing complexity and rapid change.

In many ways, we are like all other major public research universities. In some ways, we are different. We have a relatively small student body and a very modest level of state support. We offer our students the education available at an AAU institution with the low student-faculty ratio typical of smaller campuses. And we do not let limited state support determine our quality.

The strategic directions listed in this document set forth the areas that will receive our primary focus for the next five years. They are: quality, access, the student experience, and research and economic development. The fifth component is a New Compact with Oregon, which will allow us to implement the first four.

QUALITY

A. Goal

B. Assumptions

• 1. Our programs consistently challenge and define the boundaries of knowledge and academic inquiry.
• a. We have a high percentage of faculty who are actively involved and highly successful in grant applications for new projects and studies. Their research is funded at more than $60 million per year. Our College of Education has the most productive educational research faculty in the nation in terms of research and training grant funds awarded per faculty member.
• b. We have particular strengths in genomics and proteomics, earth-friendly and cost-effective chemistry, and discoveries about our native Oregon (Department of Anthropology and the Northwest Indigenous Languages Institute).
• 2. Our faculty command national and international attention for discovery and dissemination of new knowledge in their fields.
• a. Two creative writing faculty, Ehud Havazelet and Dorianne Laux, received Guggenheim Fellowships in support of their work.
• b. Hill Walker's Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior received a $1.25 million federal grant to develop a version of its First Step to Success program for use by Head Start.
• c. Russell Donnelly received the Fritz London Memorial Prize, the highest international award in the field of low-temperature physics.
• 3. The University contributes extensive service to Oregon communities and beyond.
• a. Our international students teach in local public schools; students in English work with local literacy programs; student videographers from the School of Journalism and Communication assist with documentaries for Oregon Public Broadcasting; and law students offer free legal services to domestic violence victims.
• b. The College of Education educates Oregon's teachers and contributes research that shapes the state's educational system; the Pine Mountain Observatory conducts approximately 200 educational outreach programs in Oregon per year; the School of Architecture and Allied Arts organizes a national student conference on ecological design.
• c. Alumni Brent Walth and Rick Attig received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2001 for their coverage of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; Johnpaul Jones has been named the principal design architect for the planned National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institute; Helen Frye, the first woman to become a federal judge in Oregon, has ruled on important Oregon issues such as the Rajneeshpuram incorporation and the battle over the spotted owl; and Kathleen Weaver serves as medical director for the Oregon Health Plan.
• 4. UO students thrive under the direction of faculty mentors dedicated to creating experiential learning opportunities and research.
• a. Students consistently earn national academic distinction by being named among the top undergraduates in science and mathematics (Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship) and funded for international research projects in the humanities and social sciences (Fulbright Fellowships).
• b. Participatory experiences allow students to apply their learning to meaningful projects in their field such as: Flux magazine, winner for the ninth consecutive year of the Pacemaker award for student publications; archaeological field studies, such as the Northern Great Basin Prehistory Project; and scientific research, such as in the Ecology and Evolution Program.

C. Direction

• 1. Develop a faculty that continues to hold standing nationally and command attention for its excellence in education and scholarship. This requires that we:
•  a) Continue to increase faculty salaries relative to our peer institutions.
• b) Double the number of endowed faculty positions in the next five years to allow for the recruitment and retention of the most academically distinguished scholars.
• c) Double the financial support for faculty research activity in the next five years in order to increase the opportunities for faculty recognition as members of national academies, recipients of prestigious awards, and recipients of significant federal and private research funding.
• d) Recruit vigorously to add faculty of color.
• 2. Build the strength and quality of selected academic programs with particular emphasis on:
 
• a) sustaining excellence where it has already been achieved.
• b) promoting excellence where it has prospects for rapid emergence.
• c) withdrawing support for programs with little likelihood for long-term distinction.
• 3. Recruit an increasingly stronger student body by
• a) increasing standards both for admission and graduation.
• b) dedicating efforts to increasing its diversity.
• c) increasing financial aid.
• 4. Direct energy at improving our standing with regard to benchmarks traditionally used to rank institutions.
• a) propose revisions in the criteria used for normed federal R & D expenditures while increasing those amounts.
• b) normed faculty arts and humanities awards, fellowships, and memberships.
• c) normed number of doctorates.

ACCESS

A. Goal

B. Assumptions

• 1. Significant new state funding will not be available to us to expand our current facilities and allow for increasing student enrollments in peak demand times. Without such an increase in facilities, overcrowding and decreased quality of the student experience could occur.
• 2. Tuition will be an increasingly important source of revenue to the university, given the reality of limited state funding. State funds now comprise only 18 percent of the University's overall expenditures, and this percentage will decrease with the state budget cuts now pending.
• 3. Our principal focus will remain on the traditional day-time student. However, classes offered at non-traditional times will make university programs available to students who work during the day and do not now have access to degree programs.
• 4. We do not use our facilities to the extent possible in the late afternoon, evenings, and weekends.
• 5. A lower-cost tuition alternative would make higher education more affordable for students who could take advantage of it and therefore increase access.
• 6. We must increase our ability to assist fully qualified students for whom financial constraints affect access.

C. Direction

• 1. We will maintain traditional daytime enrollment at approximately 20,000 while increasing the academic profile of entering students.
• a. Develop a student recruitment plan focused on increasing the academic profile of entering freshman.
• b. Enhance the focus on increased diversity among the traditional daytime student population.
• c. Create a system to track progress.
• 2. Create financial incentives for student to take classes off peak time, which will make more efficient use of our physical resources.
• a. Implement new tuition structure that offers financial incentives for courses taken in low utilization time slots.
• b. Increase availability of courses and degrees that are offered in low utilization time slots.
• c. Create a system to track progress.
• 3. Increase the availability of UO programs and classes through the use of off- campus sites and distance learning technology.
• a. Bend
• b. Portland
• c. Distance learning technologies
• d. Create a system to track progress
• 4. Establish a $100 million endowment for merit-based scholarships within five years.

"A recent University of Oregon Orientation Week t-shirt sported a picture of a duck and the simple exhortation "Let your future take flight." The UO certainly offers many ways for those with lofty ambitions to succeed. With the UO's caring faculty, excellent academics, and abundance of social activities, the UO is all it's quacked up to be." The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2002 (Designated the UO for the 4th year in a row as one of the nation's top 40 "best buys" in higher education.)

A. Goal

B. Assumptions

• 1. We must maintain strong academic programs and a compelling campus life if we are to attract and retain capable undergraduate and graduate students.
• 2. The residential experience, offered through classroom learning, housing facilities, student programs, and co-curricular activities are an important dimension of campus life. To remain competitive, we must improve our facilities, including residence halls, the student union, recreation centers, and resource and cultural centers.
• 3. Diversity has strong academic benefits for students. By assuring diversity within our student body and in our faculty and staff, we can provide students with greater learning opportunities, more opportunities to develop interpersonal competencies, experience with a diversity of opinions, ideas and background, and preparation for greater involvement in civic and community service.
• 4. We are committed to international awareness and understanding and to developing a student body capable of participating effectively in a global society. We recognize that this requires strong programs of international student recruitment, study abroad, undergraduate and graduate instruction and research, and cultural activities on campus.
• 5. Our mission to cultivate a sense of citizenship, as well as the capacity for sound individual judgment, requires activities that allow students to assume responsibility for individual decisions and to embrace common goals. Student programs provide opportunities for participation and leadership that foster such character development.
• 6. Our recruitment and financial aid strategies, including both merit- and need-based scholarships, will bring to campus students who are academically strong and diverse in interests, cultural background, and socio-economic level. We seek students who have a strong sense of individual identity but who share a commitment to the highest standards of academic inquiry, personal integrity, and service.
• 7. We will emphasize the development of leadership ability, as well as the capacity to create and live by community standards that depend on personal honor and social responsibility.

C. Direction

• 1. Within the next five years, we will construct new residence facilities to provide undergraduate students with living/learning centers that promote a campus culture of engagement with ideas, as well as one or more graduate student housing units.
• 2. Within the next five years, we will renovate and expand our student union, cultural and international resource centers, recreation center, and health and counseling centers.
• 3. We will enhance the opportunities for rich human interaction through strategic student recruitment, support of an array of vigorous programs including intercollegiate athletics, and campus and study abroad programs that promote the exchange of ideas and perspectives.

RESEARCH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

A. Goal

B. Assumptions

• 1. A knowledge-based economy is the key to Oregon's future.
• a. The economy will be driven by a strong high technology industry and by traditional industries enhancing their businesses through effective applications of research and technology.
• b. The economy will require a large investment in research and development that provides an efficient means of transforming basic discoveries into practical applications and commercial products.
• c. The economy will be linked to the digital information age and the applications of high-speed telecommunications, including specialized tools for knowledge management.
• d. The economy will be increasingly global in nature, requiring an effective integration of diverse cultural and societal perspectives.
• e. The economy will be dependent on the workforce having access to lifelong learning opportunities for specialized training and retraining.
• f. The economy will continue to need the broad perspectives acquired through humanistic culture-based education.
• 2. We have a direct and significant impact on the state's prosperity and competitiveness in the knowledge-based economy.
• a. Our graduates are an important component of the state's intellectual capital and are a primary indicator of the state's return on investment in the institution.
•  b. The strength of our faculty is a major factor in ensuring our ability to contribute to Oregon's competitiveness.
• c. University-based research will be increasingly important, not only for the creation of new knowledge but also for the transfer of knowledge into the economy.
• d. A diverse community (both in ethnicity and geography) is essential to the preparation of students who will thrive in a global economy.
• e. As a strong economic entity in its own right, the university will continue to anchor the local and regional economies.
• 3. Access to research resources will be increasingly more competitive and tied to greater demands for measurable benefits to society and the economy.
• a. Additional infusion of state or industry funds are likely to be in the form of targeted investment in workforce preparation and research that seeks a clear return on investment.
• b. Major funding trends for basic academic research at the federal level are unlikely to change substantially in the near future, and therefore will place a continuing emphasis on health and science-related programs.
• c. The market for top faculty and graduate students will remain highly competitive for the foreseeable future.

C. Direction

• 1. We will provide essential resources for the recruitment and retention of high quality faculty and graduate student researchers and associated research infrastructure.
• 2. We will seek expanded external sponsorship for research through an integrated strategy involving the Office of Development, Research, Academic Affairs, and Governmental Affairs.
• 3. We will build on established research strengths in areas critical to the knowledge economy, such as the biosciences and materials sciences, and will seek targeted state funding for these initiatives.
• 4. We will be increasingly involved in economic development, such as technology transfer and business start-ups through
• a. Support of collaborative programs with the Riverfront Research Park.
• b. Expansion of the Office of Technology Transfer.
• c. Development of new public-private partnerships to provide management, money and marketing services to support business creation.
• d. Support for public legislation and regulatory relief to enhance technology transfer from Oregon universities.
• e. Greater involvement in community efforts to recruit and retain new businesses.
• f. Expanding support of industry for our research, industrial internships, and technology out-licensing.
• g. Enhanced participation in local, regional, and state economic development groups.
• 5. We will promote performance measures that demonstrate our impact on the Oregon economy, such as the economic multiplier effects of research and development funding and the role of technology transfer (e.g. invention disclosure, licensing and royalty income, start-up companies, industrially sponsored research).
• 6. We will support an evolving telecommunications infrastructure to provide "bandwidth on demand" that would satisfy the broad range of Internet applications from basic e-mail services to data-intensive business and research applications across the state.
• 7. Biomedicine and biotechnology offer the combination of opportunity for increased quality of life and vast potential for economic development. Oregon should seize opportunities to advance a biotechnology industry, in part through a combination of academic strengths involving clinical research at OHSU, engineering at PSU and OSU, and the basic sciences at the University of Oregon.
• 8. We will continue our involvement with the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, with special attention to the part that we can play in the international economic development work of the organization.
• 9. We will continue to support the classic elements of a traditional liberal education that creates a value-based component for technical and scientific decision making.

A NEW COMPACT WITH OREGON

At the same time, we have no desire to move away from our mission as a public university. We simply believe that in order to fulfill our mission there must be changes in our relationship to the State of Oregon. We have no desire to separate ourselves from the Oregon University System. We value our relationships with our sister universities and see significant growth in cooperative activities. We recognize the need for some central coordination and for a high-level governing board. However, the state's current governance form leads to inefficiencies, delays, and unnecessary costs. Therefore, we propose a "new compact with the State of Oregon," with the characteristics described below.

Benefits to the State of Oregon

• 1. We will provide levels of quality in education, research, and public service that cannot otherwise be provided, given current levels of state funding.
• 2. We will provide this education to substantially larger numbers of Oregonians than is possible under current levels of state funding.
• 3. Oregonians will have access to our education at an affordable cost.
• 4. The State of Oregon will receive the benefit of our research and technology transfer.
• 5. We will maintain or improve the rankings and quality of all our programs.
• 6. We will maintain or improve our highly valued public services to the state, such as the Orbis library consortium, state of the art telecommunications networks, the Labor Education and Research Center, and the Community Services Center.

Responsibilities of the University

•  1. We will assure that an internationally recognized education of exceptional quality will be available to qualified Oregonians, with increased financial assistance as needed.
• 2. Oregon residents will be given priority in admissions. We will accept all qualified Oregonians up to 125% of the number that would be fully funded by the state in the Oregon University System budget model. Non-residents will be accepted only to fill the remaining available places.
• 3. To give cost predictability to prospective and current students, we will maintain resident undergraduate tuition at no more than one-third of nonresident undergraduate tuition and resident graduate tuition at no more than two-thirds of nonresident graduate tuition.
• 4. We will exert our best efforts, through the use of state and federal financial aid, privately funded scholarships, loans and fee remissions, to ensure that full financial need, as determined by federal guidelines, is met for all qualified Oregon applicants.
• 5. We will work with the state to match investments the state may make in research and public service programs.
• 6. We will, in cooperation with the State Board of Higher Education, establish a University of Oregon Board of Advisors.
• 7. We will provide an annual report to the State Board of Higher Education, the chancellor of the Oregon University System, the Legislature, and the Government that documents how this new compact has been implemented and will demonstrate accountability for the provisions of the new compact.

Three additional provisions are required for the new relationships between the state and the university to succeed.

• 1. Our ability to increase non-state revenues must be enhanced.
• a. Within the constraints outlined above, we must be vested with the authority and responsibility for setting tuition and fees.
• b. We must have the authority to spend funds from outside sources without legislative approval.
• c. We must have increased capability to borrow money when state revenues are not promised for repayment.
• d. We must have the flexibility to establish or expand academic programs, based on market demand.
• e. We must have the ability to protect personal information about donors from public disclosure.
• f. We must be given flexibility with regard to state regulations on the governance and use of private funds, including restrictive definition of the use of assessments on endowments and of pledges to match state funding.
• g. We must retain all interest earning on non-state revenues.
• 2. Our ability to operate more efficiently and flexibly must be enhanced. In light of the small percentage of funding derived from the state, we should be relieved from the regulatory restriction as described below.
• a. Allow us full authority in purchasing, contracting, information technology and telecommunications.
• b. Eliminate legislative approval for all construction projects when neither the construction nor the building operation will receive state funding.
• c. Vest with us the authority to buy and sell real and personal property.
• d. Grant us the authority to purchase insurance in addition to state self-insurance.
•  e. Grant us the authority to hire attorneys and outside counsel.
3. We must be allowed to increase entrepreneurial activity and technology transfer.
• a. Grant us the authority to hold equity in private companies.
• b. Grant us full management responsibility for all negotiations with the Federal government on grant and contract issues, including indirect cost recovery, and return 100% of indirect cost recovery to the campus.
• c. Grant us the authority to manage legal and contractual issues, including issues related to technology transfer and intellectual property.

CONCLUSION