West Lafayette task force
presents revision of plan
By Kurt Esposito
Summer
Editor
The West Lafayette task force charged with developing
a strategic plan, projected to carry Purdue further as an academic institution,
presented a revision of their first draft to the Board of Trustees.
A strategic plan defines an institution's goals
and objectives and provides the basis for systematic and continuous
improvement.
The task force has been working since early March
to develop these goals.
"It's moving along fine. I'm quite excited to see
the level of progress we've made so far," said Rabindra Mukerjea, director
of strategic planning.
On April 6 the committee presented its first draft
of the plan to the board.
Mukerjea said the first draft of the plan contains
three goal statements for the University.
The first goal states that Purdue should become
a preeminent science, technology and engineering research institution.
It also states Purdue should achieve distinction for all other foundational
areas of the University.
The second goal puts more emphasis on the enhancement
of education. Some of the ways to do this include the teaching of critical
thinking skills, communication skills and information technology literacy
skills.
The third goal states the University needs to become
better as a teaching institution, which would include addressing the
needs of society and building partnerships with private enterprises.
Mukerjea said the revised version of the draft
contained minor rewrites, which gave clarification to parts of the draft
and made a common language between the different sections. He said the
changes were made based on feedback received which asked for clarifications
on some of the statements.
He said the revised draft will be available on
Purdue Web site, www.purdue.edu.
He said until the final draft is presented to the
board in November, the committee will still listen to any comments and
questions about the plan and make any necessary revisions
Linda Mason, professor of entomology and member
of the task force, said the next phase is to develop strategies for
the goals.
"We're going to take those and look at how we can
implement those and what are going to be the strategies we are going
to use to implement those goals," she said.
Mukerjea said to develop these strategies they
will look at other colleges and universities and set benchmarks based
on what they find.
He said that after the next draft is presented
to the board in July, the plan will be shared with everyone on campus
and will be the subject at many open forums.
"We appear to be on track. We expect to get it
done on time," said Mukerjea.
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