From the Desk of the Chancellor March 9, 2010

Chancellor Charles R. Bantz View print-quality image

Last week, the Faculty Council discussed the results of my “fifth-year” review. This process provides incumbent administrators with insights into how to be effective leaders in advancing the mission of the institution. More than 2,000 members of the IUPUI and Indianapolis communities took the time to participate through the survey and interviews. This level of commitment to the future of IUPUI is truly impressive and has provided me with constructive suggestions on how to proceed in moving IUPUI to the next level. While the large majority of respondents believe that my leadership at IUPUI has been good to excellent, there is more work to do.

The Review Committee’s report also advocates the need for a planning “roadmap.” This means more fully integrating the IUPUI Academic Plan  with the IUPUI master plan for facilities . This must be accomplished with the broadest participation possible, so we will count on our faculty and especially the Faculty Council Planning and Budgetary Affairs committees to help create the roadmap. With this level of cooperation between the IUPUI administration, deans, and the faculty, we will chart precisely how this campus will grow and become more effective in achieving our aspirational goals.

The “roadmap” also needs to plan for optimal use of resources. In 2009, a Resource Planning Committee, chaired by Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Dawn Rhodes, was newly constituted to provide a cross-campus forum for discussing and proposing long-term strategies in resource management. It will be important that its work be broadly shared across campus, as we already are doing with the “Budget Notes” page. Taking careful note of resource planning we can also address the committee’s concern regarding our goal of becoming “an internationally recognized urban research campus.” We are well on our way to reaching this status, but we can further elevate IUPUI’s research reputation.

Increasing resources is as important as managing them wisely, and the IUPUI Impact Campaign, which officially will be launched in October, will demand more and more of my time in the coming years. My February 17 Report to the Community set the stage for the IUPUI Impact Campaign as nearly 300 community supporters and advocates came to hear an update on IUPUI’s activities organized around the themes that form the framework for the fundraising campaign.

The Review Committee’s report reinforces that I should serve as a visible leader of the new IUPUI fundraising campaign. Clearly, much of our success at IUPUI depends on our community’s commitment through their generous gifts of time and dollars. We have been the recipients of transformative gifts over the last six years and we must continue to secure such transformative support. Therefore, I will continue to provide strong leadership as this new campaign moves forward, but all members of the IUPUI community must share the fundraising responsibility. That is why I am proud of the many faculty, deans, and members of the Chancellor’s Cabinet that continue not only to seek philanthropic support from our community, but also make personal contributions to the IUPUI Impact Campaign.

We have achieved a great deal at IUPUI during the course of its history and especially in the last six years, but we have much more to do. My thanks to all of you who provided feedback and continue to work with me to further increase IUPUI’s success.
Comments? Write chancllr@iupui.edu