The University of Rhode Island
Three-Year Strategic Plan
“Measuring Progress”
July 1, 2003 to June 30, 2006
Introduction
The University of Rhode Island employs a dynamic planning process that builds upward from those closest to the work of the University and downward from those charged with more formal leadership responsibility. It is focused by our vision for the future and informed by our values as a learning community. That vision reads:
In our quest for knowledge, the University of Rhode Island is building a new culture for learning. We will share in the power of discovery through collaborative teaching, learning and research, and through independent inquiry and free speech. This culture generates a spirited public life for our students, who will become engaged and productive leaders. Our research, scholarship, critical analysis and creative expression serve Rhode Island, the nation and the world. In this evolving future, our commitment to continuous improvement and high quality will guide our decisions.
The University community respects the dignity of each individual, valuing the diversity among us. We demand of ourselves uncompromising integrity, with imagination and pride evident in every aspect of our work.
Literally every word of this statement of vision and values has significance for us, and we return to it to test the purpose and results of what we do and to evaluate every initiative that is proposed. Since its adoption in 1992, the University’s vision has stood the test of time.
Our planning includes the work of our Faculty Senate and Student Senate, our provost, vice presidents and deans; and a myriad of other work groups and advisory councils. The resulting plan is congruent with the goals and objectives of the Board of Governors for Higher Education and with the vision for Rhode Island articulated by the Commissioner for Higher Education, the General Assembly and the Governor.
That vision, stated more clearly now than in the past, is the increased attainment of higher education by the people of Rhode Island. More specifically, the Board has set a ten-year goal of increasing the percentage of the adult population of Rhode Island who hold the bachelor’s degree from the current 26% to 35%, a goal consistent with developing a citizenry and a work force prepared to participate in an economy in which knowledge is the strategic resource. The University accepts responsibility for helping to achieve that goal and affirms its importance to our collective future as Rhode Islanders.
Our Planning Process
Three years ago, in a strategic plan entitled “Balancing Mission with Resources,” we identified three strategic initiatives for 2000 to 2003 that pulled together the planning of our various constituent groups. Those initiatives were:
- Enhance student success and persistence
- Increase structural and operational efficiency
- Support research and outreach within the areas identified in our mission statement
These initiatives were coupled with implementation strategies (including the allocation of resources) and the methods to be used for evaluation purposes. Three years later, we can say that these broad initiatives were sound and that we made reasonable progress on most of them (see the 2002-2003 Management Letter for detail). However, it is also clear now that we need to be more specific in identifying the goals of each initiative. Accordingly, the initiatives and goals set forth in this plan have a greater degree of specificity. This will make it easier to direct our energies and resources toward achieving the goals we set.
We have not included in this plan what might be called “continuing goals,” those on-going activities which are absolutely necessary to our success. We remain deeply committed to increasing the quality and diversity of our student body, to high quality teaching, research and outreach, to support of our alumni and more. Our curriculum is more interdisciplinary than ever; our pedagogy more focused on learning by doing; our perspective more multicultural in nature. We remain fully committed to the liberal arts core of our curriculum and to the humanizing effects of the study of such disciplines as history, philosophy, literature, music and art. We remain as committed as ever to reducing the abuse of alcohol and other controlled substances by our students. Our existing program appears to be successful and while we always want to improve, it does not appear to be necessary to establish a new initiative in this area or in other areas where we are deep into the process of implementing change.
One of these continuing priorities at URI has been to reach out to our alumni and "call them home." We will continue, therefore, to pursue a comprehensive and innovative program designed to inform, influence, and engage increasingly larger numbers of our alumni. We will also continue to inform and engage our many and varied publics through a comprehensive public communications program that includes publications, media relations and media coverage, advertising, special events, and other forms of publicity or public relations. We understand that many of the strategic initiatives set forth in this Three Year Plan require an aggressive and sustained public communications program by the University in order to help create constituency awareness, understanding, engagement, and support for the objectives.
Finally, the University’s planning process itself must be continually reviewed and revised. To improve the overall planning process and to increase commitment to the vision, mission and strategic plan of the University, we have put in place a revised planning process that brings together the senior leadership of the University with the leadership of the Faculty Senate, the Student Senate and the University’s staff. We have also reorganized the staff dedicated to supporting our planning process. This spring, we will appoint an external advisory council to the President made up of leaders of Rhode Island and the nation, many of them members of the University’s alumni, in order to get a fresh perspective on the external environment and the University’s response to a world of accelerating change.
“Measuring Progress”: 2003-2006 Strategic Initiatives
- Increase total enrollment, freshman retention rates and graduation rates.
- Increase total institutional revenue and reduce operating costs on a per student basis.
- Increase support for research and outreach which most directly support Rhode Island’s goals for economic development.
Implementation Strategies and Measurable Outcomes
1. Increase total enrollment, freshman retention rates and graduation rates.
- The Goal: Grow total enrollment by 1000 fte undergraduate and graduate students (800 and 200 respectively) over the course of this plan.
- The Metrics:
- Increase the size of each incoming freshman class to 2600 students.
- Increase transfer enrollment by 20% over the three year period of this plan.
- Increase summer school enrollment by 10% per year over the course of this plan.
- Increase freshman retention to 83% by the end of this planning period.
- Increase enrollment of part-time, non-matriculating students by 25%.
- Increase graduation rates to 62% after six years, by the end of this planning period.
- Action Steps:
- Improve and integrate our data tracking system on student recruitment, enrollment, matriculation, transfer, attrition, and graduation.
- Reduce average unmet financial aid needs of undergraduate and graduate students by 5%.
- Create merit based scholarship programs for transfer students, growing to $500,000 annual allocation by year three.
- Increase the number of Kingston on-campus housing options by 500 “beds.”
- Increase the number of full-time, tenure track faculty committed to undergraduate education by twenty.
- Increase total tenure track faculty by twenty.
- Complete implementation of the new General Education program.
- Further develop opportunities for learning communities so that at least 90% of freshman students are a part of at least one learning community.
- Increase the number of general purpose classrooms on the Kingston Campus by ten, including at least two with high technological capacity.
- Increase hours of use of Kingston and Providence facilities by 15%.
- Articulate and secure approval for a degree completion program in South Providence which would integrate the work of CCRI, RIC and URI to serve Rhode Island’s growing urban and immigrant populations.
2.Increase total institutional revenue and reduce operating costs on a per student basis.
- The Goal: Increase institutional revenue and direct those resources to a limited number of high quality programs and services.
- The Metrics:
- Increase tuition and fee income by increasing enrollment by 1000 students over the course of this plan and by increasing the tuition and fee rate by an average of 4% per year.
- Increase annual state support for the University by an average of 4% per year over the course of this three-year plan.
- Secure at least 60% of the Commissioner’s enrollment incentive grant.
- Increase private giving to the University by an average of $1M per year over the course of this plan.
- Increase operating efficiency on a per student basis by 5% over the course of this plan.
- Increase federal funding for research by 20% over the course of this plan.
- Secure earmarked federal funding averaging $3M per year over the course of this plan.
- Action Steps:
- Implement the enrollment strategy outlined above.
- Suspend or eliminate undergraduate degree programs with negative net contribution margins and which graduate fewer than five students per year.
- Suspend or eliminate combined graduate degree programs (masters and doctorate) which graduate fewer than three students per year.
- Achieve the integration of faculty salaries into major awards applied for and received from federal agencies, where federal regulations allow.
- Develop an electronic communications program which both complements and builds upon our existing alumni programming in order to increase by 20% the numbers of alumni with whom the University can be in regular contact through electronic means.
- Increase by at least 6% each year of this plan the numbers of alumni who directly participate in some form of support to the University (i.e. as donors, boosters, members of volunteer committees and boards, or attendees at University and alumni sponsored events).
- Increase income from intercollegiate athletic events and booster giving by 10% per year.
- Complete the Campaign for the Humanities with gifts in excess of the goal of $1M.
- Secure no less than $2M in endowment gifts per year over the course of this plan. (Should the national economy make a sharp recovery, this goal would be revised upwards.)
- Prepare for the next comprehensive capital campaign (including the conducting of a feasibility study), with a Leadership Gift phase occurring during 2005. Based upon the results of the feasibility study and the Leadership Gift phase, the campaign would go public in the spring of 2006. The campaign will be primarily an endowment campaign (for the purposes of student scholarships and fellowships, the library, faculty support, special academic programs, and athletics) but may include some capital projects, if donor support is clearly indicated.
- Assure appreciation of assets held in the URI Foundation by 7% per year.
- Achieve income from endowment held in the URI Foundation by 5% per year.
- Establish one or more ancillary businesses (e.g., a retirement village or companies spun off from faculty research) which will contribute a continuing revenue stream, with the first $500K per year to be dedicated to our library and information systems.
- Complete construction already authorized and funded for Independence Hall, Lippitt Hall, the Alumni Center, a second IEP house and the next phase of the residence hall rehabilitation.
- Fully institutionalize the Kingston Campus traffic and parking system such that the system increases in quality and user satisfaction each year of this plan. Change state law so that the University retains income from parking violation fines to support the program.
- Secure funding by 2006 and thereafter implement the Kingston Campus Utility System Improvements and the University's share of the remediation of the West Kingston Municipal Landfill/URI Disposal Area Superfund Site.
3. Identify those areas of research and outreach which most directly support Rhode Island’s goals for economic development, consistent with our founding mission as a land grant institution.
- The Goal: Focus the University’s research and outreach programs toward assisting Rhode Island achieve its goals for a strong economy, a highly productive workforce and an involved citizenry.
- The Metrics:
- Increase external funding from state and private sources for basic and applied research in biotechnology, disease prevention, financial services, health care delivery systems, horticulture, manufacturing, marine sciences, materials sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, transportation and other areas to be identified by 15% over the course of this plan.
- Increase patent and license income by 20% over the course of this plan.
- Secure funding for three major new facilities to support this research and begin design and construction by the conclusion of this plan.
- Increase the number of B.S., B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. graduates in the fields identified above by 10% over the course of this plan.
- Action Steps:
- Secure exemption from position caps for all faculty and staff funded for research and outreach.
- Encourage and facilitate the generation of new patents and licenses by faculty.
- Secure changes in legislation that would permit faculty to establish businesses and/or serve on the boards of such businesses using the technology which results from their research.
- Increase partnerships with major Rhode Island industries to meet research and outreach needs and thereby foster economic growth.
- Secure at least $1M per year in dedicated Rhode Island state funding for research and outreach activities at URI and establish a state matching grant fund aimed at increasing the University’s competitive position relative to research grant acquisition.
- Attract and retain highly productive research faculty in these areas of focus through competitive salaries funded in part by external sources and through investment in laboratories and related equipment and staff.
- Establish a research corporation, with all appropriate approvals.
- Reallocate graduate faculty lines and 10% of current institutionally supported graduate student assistantships to the areas of focus identified above.
- Invest in highly specialized library and data base systems specifically for those areas identified.
- Over the course of this plan, secure funding to design, construct and equip appropriate research facilities on the Kingston and Narragansett Bay campuses. These include specifically the Pell Campus Center, the Biological Sciences Center and the Center for Biotechnology and Molecular Biosciences; the Center for Integrated Learning and Technology, and a new facility for the College of Pharmacy.
