Strategic Planning Town Hall Announcement, February 13, 2020

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to share updates regarding the strategic planning process.

In order to have a more robust and structured conversation about the strategic planning process and ideas stemming from the working group reports, we have changed the traditional “Conversation with the Chancellor” event to a Town Hall format; three Town Hall meetings are planned (see below).  This format will be similar to the successful Vision 2020 Town Halls that allowed for highly-engaged table discussions centered on one topic. 

We communicated to the campus last month that all of the working group reports were posted to the strategic planning website for review. Understandably, 177 pages of working group reports can be challenging to absorb. To facilitate a better discussion during our next set of conversations, short summaries have also been created for each group. 

Last month we also published The Urban Futures Spire of Excellence white paper that aims to propose an organizing theme for UM-Dearborn to leverage its expertise and position itself to contribute to the greater good. Although Urban Futures is an organizing theme, not all of the strategic planning ideas have an Urban Futures connection. 

The working group reports and Urban Futures theme have been discussed in great detail with senior leaders, deans and other groups across campus. Chancellor Grasso also shared a synopsis of the strategic plan with President Schlissel and the Board of Regents during their recent retreat in January.

We would like to hear your thoughts and ideas regarding the working group reports. 

Three Town Halls have been scheduled for February 24 and 26. You are encouraged to:

• Read the working group summaries (totaling six, bulleted pages)
• Identify up to three ideas, from the summaries, that you believe will help advance the university, with an eye toward student success
• Register for a Town Hall meeting(s)
• During registration, select two working groups in which you would like to participate (there will be two table discussions totaling 35 minutes each)   

We look forward to seeing you later this month. 

Go Blue.  Go Dearborn!  

Domenico Grasso
Chancellor - Co-chair, Strategic Planning Initiative

Deborah Smith Pollard
Professor - Co-chair, Strategic Planning Initiative