The Ohio State University

onCampus

• Help
• Buckeye Link
• Map
• Find People
• Webmail
• Search

  Search Ohio State Go

How we’ll get there

Posted on | November 4, 2009 | 3,279 views |

By Jeff McCallister

Just days after he returned for his second term as president of Ohio State two years ago, Gordon Gee set down his vision of the path that would take the university, in his words, “from excellence to eminence.”

From their first utterance to a gathering of faculty leaders, Gee’s six imperatives have taken hold at the university; from colleges that use them as they create their own specific strategic plans, to individuals who have them posted on their office walls for a source of daily inspiration.

“Those imperatives are precisely what we ought to be doing, in the near and far terms,” Gee said. “I measure everything we do against those and I want to get everyone else to do the same. They are at 10,000 feet, and what we are working on each day is to develop very specific strategies to make them happen.”

Those specific strategies, created in consultation with the Board of Trustees and faculty, staff and student leaders — and fully incorporating the Academic Plan that’s been in place since 2000 — have helped form a set of thematic goals that make the imperatives more concrete, definable and measurable.

The thematic goals, including the strategies and tangible action needed to attain them, form a Strategic Roadmap to success, and that is how Gee himself is to be judged on his performance as president by the board.

“We have to always remind ourselves that we do not simply have a job, we have a calling, and that calling is to make a difference in others’ lives,” Gee said. “We have to be tenacious in pursuit of the greatness of the institution.”

• One University

We must create a sense of “One University” where everyone is driven by a shared common vision, supports trans-institutional execution and is aligned by a strategic planning process and one integrated Master Plan.

The Board of Trustees already has noted the progress in this area by way of the completion of a clearinghouse for university policies, the establishment and funding of two collaborative Centers for Innovation and three Innovation Groups and realigning the governance of the Medical Center.

• Students First with Academic Excellence and Access

We will develop and execute strategies to consider needs of “Students First” in all that we do; move Ohio State rapidly into the academic front ranks of American public universities; promote full diversity; and facilitate university system-wide strategies for positive student outcomes and higher education access for all qualified Ohio citizens.

The quick and decisive movement toward the conversion to a semester calendar is part of that, and success in the area also shows in the across-the-board improvement in numerous national rankings, high student retention rates and the ever-improving quality of the freshman classes being admitted.

• Faculty, Staff Talent and Culture

We will assemble a diverse and talented leadership team that will recruit, support and retain world-class faculty and staff while creating a high-performance culture driven by our Institutional Principles and high standards of ethics and compliance.

The transformation to a high performance culture continues across the university. A Faculty Talent workgroup has been appointed and recommendations made, and new ways to measure the competitiveness of faculty compensation have been created. Also, Trustees have approved a plan to modernize the university’s Classified Civil Service rules, and the first set of those changes has been implemented.

• Research Prominence

We must support and encourage innovative, ground breaking within-discipline and across-discipline research contributing the quality of life in Ohio and beyond, thereby also enhancing our world wide reputation to one of consistently recognized excellence.

Much work is being carried out to develop research pipelines and partnerships, including the establishment of the Industry Liaison Office, master planning for SciTech and expanded partnership with Battelle — a partnership typified by the recruitment of Battelle’s CEO, Jeff Wadsworth, to head the realigned Medical Center Board. The university also is developing stronger relationships with the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.

• Outreach and Collaboration

We will develop public and public-private partnerships focused on economic development for our communities, the University, and the State of Ohio, while also developing ventures that establish our international leadership.

Two of the most recent outreach efforts outreach efforts typify this goal — a $12.9 million partnership to prepare teachers to be successful in high-need areas for the Columbus City Schools; and the hiring of an internationally recognized expert on internationalization of higher education who now has preliminary plans to open International gateways in China, Brazil and India, with several others in the works.

• Operating and Financial Soundness and Simplicity

We will move the University to a more robust financial position with new levels of productivity and higher return-on-investment using transparent, simple and flexible systems, thereby attaining a high level of financial responsibility and stability.

Operating margins, days of cash on hand and other metrics have stayed at or better than target ranges; the university reported $94 million in savings from improved operating efficiencies last year; the University has maintained its AA2 credit rating; and fundraising has been consistent. Numerous offices have implemented simplification procedures in advance of University-wide implementation.

The university also is making substantial progress on its fund-raising efforts, even in the turbulent economic times. The inaugural Pelotonia event was a rousing success, putting more than $4.5 million directly into the hands of researchers at The James.

Gee said the progress that’s been made toward reaching his imperatives has been laudable, but is only the beginning.

“I believe the times are really quite remarkable — people see this as a moment of real challenge, and it is. But I also view it as a moment of real opportunity,” Gee said. “One only needs to read the newspapers to understand that there is a massive process of change and challenge going on out there. But this time of great change enables us to act and think differently, to make difficult choices for the long-term good of our institutions.”

Comments