As a regular feature of The Educator going forward, we hope to bring you an update on transformation happenings that week and since the last publication.
This week’s update is very general.
First, in case you missed it, there will be weekly update meetings that you can opt to attend. These will cover big happenings during the week, with reports as general as possible to be informative and leave room for questions and feedback. Here are details:
- The meetings are Thursdays, 2:00-3:00;
- They will be held on Zoom (look in your email for an address);
- You can submit questions anonymously up until 5:00 on the preceding Monday;
- The agenda will be published on Tuesday, when possible;
- The meetings will be recorded;
- All documents and recordings will be archived in a OneDrive folder.
Second, here is the big picture of where we are:
There are four overall working areas with numerous sub-teams; these areas include Academic Operations, Student Experience, Administrative Operations, and Workforce Development. In the project planning process being used by the VSC, the first two stages are “Discovery” and “Design”, with a review stage, called a “Discovery Gate” between them. You can review some specifics and the personnel involved in the project by clicking here.
For most of the fall, the teams have been working in Discovery. In this stage, teams have been talking about their specific areas of concern, determining what various people do in these areas on the different campuses, assessing what is working and what could be improved, and researching to find out what the established “best practices” for any given area are. Based on this research, they put together lengthy proposals about elements to “design” for the new university. The Student Experience and Academic Operations areas have moved through the Discovery Gate. As Tom Mauhs-Pugh observed in this Thursday’s meeting, most of these proposals are “optimizations” of things that are already done on different campuses.
These proposals were reviewed by the project “Sponsors.” This group includes the Chancellor and the President of each VSC institution. The Sponsors provided their feedback just before the break. This feedback included approval of proposals and directions about which projects to prioritize in the next Design phase. The teams are now finalizing prioritization proposals which will be submitted and used to create an overall “map” of the many project activities. The Transformation process is moving to launch the VSU in 2023, but everyone acknowledges that the development of important areas will take much longer.
The Administrative Operations and Workforce Development areas will be moving through the Discovery Gate in the next couple weeks.
In the Thursday meeting, we received additional updates:
- The review of the physical plants of the various campuses is complete. The outside consultants conducting the valuation assessment have produced a 600-page report. Tom gave the highlights in the meeting, but the upshot is that we will need to increase the funds used to maintain the physical infrastructure.
- A comprehensive financial analysis of the transformation plan is complete and currently under review.
- CORRECTION: A financial plan has not been completed. Much of the expense modelling has been produced, though there is work yet to be done, but the revenue model has not been completed.
- The groups working on athletics have been asked to produce a detailed report that will help the Sponsors to assess the value of athletics on the various campuses and produce a final plan. As Deana Tyson reported, the compiling of the report is under way.
Since Thursday’s meeting we have had a transformation update.
Click here for the latest Transformation Update. These updates are released every two weeks and past updates are available on the VSCS’s transformation website, along with other resources, at https://www.vsc.edu/transformation/. Of special interest is the statement from the Council of Presidents outlining the emerging vision for the VSU.
Finally, please nominate students for the Student Advisory Council.
Please submit your nomination of a student by Friday, January 28, 2022 for those interested in participating on the Student Advisory Council this spring. The nomination form is available here.
The Council will be meeting on selected Thursday evenings listed below between 6:00-7:30 p.m. The Council plays a critically important role in providing feedback and suggestions on issues relevant to the ongoing transformation work. There is an agenda for each meeting. For example, in the Fall, many of the meetings revolved around the ongoing discovery work and sought student input as to what was working well and not working well. As the teams move into the design phase, the Council’s opinion on proposed solutions will be sought. The Student Advisory Council is scheduled to meet on:
- January 27
- February 3
- March 17
- April 14
- April 28
