Academic Planning Clusters

The Academic Planning Process began last year with the appointment of the Academic Planning Council - a group designed to chart our academic future for the next decade. Although the Council was broadly representative of faculty and administrators across campus, one of its first recommendations was to expand representation in order to work on specific recommendations that will address the academic trajectories. Academic Planning Clusters include academic officers and faculty in a process of gathering information through local and statewide forums to recommend structural changes, new programs that will advance our academic vision, strategies for support and facility requirements. Initial Planning Clusters were identified and appointments were made in the following areas:

Planning Cluster (Chair):

• Aging and Generational Issues (Tom Storch)
• Commerce and Society (Nader Shooshtari)
• Communication and Information (Keith Graham)
• Connecting Performance & Priorities to Resources (William McBroom)
• Environmental Focus (Perry Brown)
• Health Sciences and Human Services (Richard Bridges)
• Human Values and Human Expression (Shirley Howell)
• International & Cultural Diversity (Jeffrey Gritzner)
• Western Studies (Gregory Campbell)

In their formation, the Provost emphasized the need to promote dialogue with external constituents to identify and strengthen mutual needs; to support campus conversations on important challenges to the academy; and to explore mechanisms to connect assessment data, performance data and quality criteria with planning and budgeting. Accordingly, each of the planning clusters were charged with:

• Suggesting new or reconfigured academic programs that advance the university's strength in niche areas;
• Evaluating structural, facility, and equipment needs for new or existing programs;
• Identifying programmatic, marketing, organizational, and structural strategies, that will facilitate accomplishment of trajectories in relation to the programmatic areas within the planning cluster.

The clusters met during Spring Semester 2002 and submitted on May 1 their initial recommendations to the Provost.

Office of the Provost
Vice President of
Academic Affairs

University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812
(406) 243-4689
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