|
|
Over the past year the campus was engaged in laying the foundation for two major catalyst for change, titled Striving For Excellence and Administrative Excellence. These plans will function as unifying frameworks which will allow us to recognize, reward and celebrate our efforts aimed at improving the provision of services in the academic and academic support units.
The Administrative Excellence initiative, which was initiated by the Board of Trustees and the President's Office, has been defined as system-wide effort encompassing our campus and the Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, Worcester campuses as well as the Presidentís Office. The Administrative Excellence project consists of the review and redesign of administrative services to create the most productive environment possible. To date, the Administrative Excellence project focus has been on examining the quality of service delivery to students, faculty and staff and on evaluating whether resources were being applied responsibly and effectively in the delivery of such services. On our campus, the assessment of these service areas, in combination with our Continuous Quality Improvement projects, provided the impetus for streamlining the procurement process; improving travel approval and reimbursement; streamlining the hiring and approval process; all in an effort to improve the provision of services to campus constituents.
The Administrative Excellence project is guided by four goals:
These goals resonate with the guiding principles and objectives of Strategic Action. Strategic Action 1997-2001: Toward a Commonwealth of Learning provides the Amherst campus with the philosophical framework for the implementation of the Strategic Thinking and Planning that have taken place over the last three years. Strategic Action identifies the major initiatives that act as catalysts for moving the campus toward becoming a more integrative and collaborative institution.
In order to accomplish investments in the major initiatives detailed in Strategic Action, "restructuring" is identified along with the other strategies of allocation and reallocation. The restructuring effort, which has been set in motion, is aimed at achieving administrative efficiencies and recapturing savings through the deployment of new technology, the redesign of services and other fundamental changes in the mode of operation. In total, approximately $11M will be identified through restructuring and reinvested to fund major strategic initiatives. The Early Retirement Program (RISPP), which will yield a restructuring savings of $5.6M, already has been identified as a savings component of the $11M.
Our campus-based restructuring effort will be guided Striving For Excellence (SFE). This workplan is a campus product that reflects and addresses our unique organizational challenges. The size, complexity and ubiquity of our ongoing change efforts require a multidimensional approach that fuses together the work of each component and articulates with a system-wide Administrative Excellence effort. SFE is the integrating mechanism that will direct our campus change projects with the goal of increasing the quality of services to faculty, staff and students in both the academic and academic support areas. The purpose of this workplan is to identify new approaches to the organization of work and the deployment of human, technological and financial resources aimed at achieving the proposed goal of restructuring.
Overall, when carried out, the administrative changes spawned by SFE will position the University as an institution better prepared for the transformations taking place in academe and in general the environment that lies ahead. I ask your support in the coming months as we set in motion projects that will allow us to begin "striving for excellence" to create a more responsive and caring institution.
Chancellor David K. Scott
September 1997
Go to Goals & Outcomes
|
|
Copyright © 1998
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. |
