August 23, 2021

Dear Colleagues, 

The start of the 2021-22 academic year marks a reunion of more significance than usual. This year, we welcome our community back to campus wiser and – especially – more eager to be together. As we cautiously step back onto our vibrant campus with our colleagues and friends, we do so with increased gratitude for our health and for our opportunity to serve in higher education. And we reconvene knowing we will need to make thoughtful adjustments to protect this health and opportunity, all while caring for one another.

In the face of what are sure to be new challenges that require our adaptation, I am confident in all of you and grateful for the amazing team here at UM. Please take a moment to watch a short video message featuring Noah Durnell, ASUM president; Kimber McKay, Faculty Senate chair; and Brady Schwertfeger, Staff Senate chair. I am lucky to serve in partnership with each of them.

Students – returning and new – are arriving on campus, presenting us with both the gift and the responsibility of their hopeful expectations. I hope that you will join me in welcoming them as they settle in this week. I also hope that you will join us the evening of Thursday, Aug. 26, for a family-friendly thank you to all of our employees and their families who support them. The past year has been one of many challenges, and I could not be more grateful for the way in which the UM family has stepped up to serve our students and our community. Please join us in celebrating the incredible work of this campus over the past year.

The morning of Friday, Aug. 27, we will gather on the Oval for our Fall Welcome to look to the year ahead. Please join us for coffee and light breakfast items and to hear more about UM's strategic priorities for 2021-22, which are focused on translating the collective vision we’ve articulated as a campus community into concrete, actionable strategies.

As you know, the University Design Team spent the last year engaged in deep listening and research, here on campus and externally, to better understand how we can best serve the evolving needs of our students and our community. Their work led to a compelling vision for UM, a set of design principles to guide our ongoing efforts and a suite of ideas – termed strategic initiatives – that we could potentially pursue to advance along our path to be a flagship for the future. As a campus community, we must translate these promising ideas into action if we are to honor the good work of the University Design Team and if we are to live up to our potential to serve our students and state in new, impactful ways.

And so, over the last several months, we have done just that. We have used the work of the University Design Team to update the strategies under each of our five Priorities for Action, and we have outlined the actions that will bring them to life in the coming year. Students, faculty, staff and administrators will work together to refine and implement these strategies.

Our refreshed Priority for Action objectives and strategies include a host of efforts to more intentionally design academic and co-curricular experiences, to attract an expanding and diversified population of learners, to sponsor access to career-oriented experiential learning, and to build a more equitable and inclusive campus. Many of these strategies will come to life through a months-long Strategic Enrollment Planning process, as well as through the implementation of Operation Work Smarter, an initiative called for by campus, recommended through the University Design Team and focused on process improvements that empower our employees to do their best work.

We enter the coming academic year not just with inspired ideas and plans for executing them. Join me in pressing forward to ensure we continue to make the steady, tangible progress our great institution and its students deserve.

Thank you once again for your commitment to UM and to our students. It’s wonderful to see the UM family reunited for another academic year, and it is my honor to serve alongside you in the critically important work of this institution.

Seth