Colleagues and friends across the University of Michigan community,

At my Leadership Welcome speech last November, I announced that we would initiate a strategic visioning process for our Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn campuses, one that would sharpen our impact and determine who we are, what we want to stand for, where we want to go, and what we aspire to achieve as a great public university. 

Over the next year, our entire university community will engage in a collective process to imagine our future and chart the course ahead.

I have charged Laurie McCauley, our Provost and Vice President for Executive Affairs, Geoff Chatas, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Marschall Runge, our Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs to lead this historic effort and work with all of you to develop a ten-year vision. I will also be directly involved since it is so important to develop a path ahead, one that determines who we dare to be, and addresses our great responsibilities as a great university.

In the coming weeks and months ahead, you will have multiple opportunities to engage in the process in a variety of ways including in-person and virtual townhall and focus groups, as well as surveys and online forums. It’s essential for us to have broad engagement, so we’ll be looking for input from students, faculty, staff and alumni across our three campuses, as well as key stakeholders such as donors, advisors and government and civic leaders. We’ll work with these key stakeholders to align our efforts to address the world’s complex challenges. And we’ll cast a wide net, to ensure we have the wisdom of the community. 

Yet a vision, on its own, will not be sufficient. We will need to ensure that our physical campuses also evolve to provide the living, learning and working environments necessary to fulfill the vision. So Geoff Chatas, in collaboration with leaders across campus, will oversee the development of a comprehensive, long-term campus plan, a process that will happen concurrently with the strategic visioning efforts. Long-term campus plans will also be developed by the leadership at Flint and Dearborn. 

Please watch for updates on these efforts. We will be providing information on a regular basis, including a midyear report and one at our conclusion.

I’m truly excited about this visioning process, and I encourage you to join us whenever you have the opportunity. It will be ours together – who we are, what we stand for and where we are going as a great public university.

Santa J. Ono