Spring 2011

The Drexel University Strategic Plan: 2012-2017

I am pleased to announce that Drexel University is embarking upon an exciting process to create a new, university-wide Strategic Plan. The "Drexel University Strategic Plan: 2012-2017" will provide vision and cohesiveness for all other planning documents in the university, such as the Master Plan for facilities, the Enrollment Plan, and the individual school and college plans. We will develop this Strategic Plan by employing a broad, inclusive, and transparent process which will engage faculty, professional staff, and student members of the Drexel community, along with other key partners, to create a document that embodies our best thinking and that with broad support charts Drexel's path for the foreseeable future.

The Strategic Plan Steering Team - consisting of the Senior Vice Presidents, Provost Mark Greenberg, Vice Provost Janet Fleetwood, and I - have set forth an ambitious timetable which will culminate with the launch of the new plan in early 2012. To set the foundation, I have already begun engaging Drexel constituencies in open forums which have helped identify many incredible opportunities as well as some serious challenges that we must address - some immediately and some through the planning process.

Our Planning process includes several stages. Phase 1 of the process has already begun with the establishment of five broadly representative Task Forces. Each Task Force has been charged with elucidating the essential, game-changing questions that face higher education, and Drexel, in the coming decade and beyond. Task Forces include the Task Force on Academic Quality and Innovation; Task Force on Research; Task Force on Quality of Life for Students, Professional Staff, and Faculty; Task Force on Community Partnerships; and Task Force on Scale. White Papers are due from each Task Force in May, and those brief reports will set the framework for Phase 2. Faculty, professional staff, and students will then work together to solidify Drexel's vision for the future and take the next important steps toward refining our goals and the strategies for achieving them. With a sense of direction and purpose derived from the responses to our essential questions, Phase 2 Task Forces will convene to create an agenda for action with goals and strategies for implementation, estimated costs, and modes of assessment designed to track our progress. By next winter, our year-long efforts will culminate in the dissemination and launching of "The Drexel University Strategic Plan: 2012-2017."

For more information about the strategic planning process, to share your ideas, to learn about the members of the Phase 1 Task Forces, or to check progress on "The Drexel University Strategic Plan: 2012-2017", please continue to regularly visit the Strategic Planning website.

Sincerely,

John A. Fry
President
Drexel University