Campus Conversations with President Cassels
I have embarked upon a series of campus conversations. I want to hear from faculty, staff and students across campus about your hopes and aspirations for our university.
Time and location of meetings
A series of meetings are being scheduled across campus, and the time and locations of those meetings for your specific area will be publicized. I will be consulting with students and the broader community as well.
Purpose and goals
My goals for the consultations are to listen, communicate information, reflect on challenges and opportunities over the next several years and my orientation towards them, and meet members of our community who I don't yet know. I want to hear from faculty, students and staff about where you feel our strengths lie and learn more about the excellent work being done in different areas so I can better communicate those strengths wherever I go.
My goal is not to develop a new strategic plan. However, there is an opportunity to develop an even sharper and widely shared vision of this university's distinctive characteristics and strengths, to prioritize the many worthwhile objectives set out in the plan, and to explore the most effective ways for us to realize our goals together. The consultations will also assist me to further refine my own mandate and priorities.
Key questions to consider
I very much want the conversations to be inclusive and interactive. To help frame the discussion, I've suggested some key questions below, in the hope that you'll have a chance to give them some thought in advance:
- What do you see as the key commitments and priorities in our strategic plan from the perspective of your area? How can we best achieve them? Are there any specific objectives or strategies which should have particular priority, which require a course correction or which miss the mark entirely?
- What do you see as some distinctive strengths in your area or across the university as they relate to the plan? Are there any key opportunities in your area or across the university that would help to advance the commitments in the strategic plan?
These questions are not intended to limit our conversations, and I look forward to a dialogue on other issues that you would like to raise.
For those of you who are not able to attend a meeting or who wish to provide input in other ways, a web form has been established to allow for your comments and suggestions. Following the sessions, I plan to report back to you on what I've heard.
Yours sincerely,
Jamie Cassels, QC, LLM
President and Vice-Chancellor
Posted September 6, 2013. Updated September 11, 2013. Download this page as a printer friendly PDF.