U-M's Vision 2034 Update (March 8, 2023)

Dear Colleagues,

President Ono announced his University of Michigan strategic visioning initiative – our Vision 2034 – in January. This university-wide priority will include all three campuses and Michigan Medicine. 

Vision 2034 chairs, Geoffrey Chatas, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Laurie McCauley, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Marschall Runge, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, shared the communication below with the UM-Ann Arbor campus today. 

As you know, over the past four years, with broad and extensive input from our community, we have developed and refined our own UM-Dearborn campus-specific strategy and associated metrics, Go BLUEprint for Success. 

During one of President Ono’s recent visits to campus in December, he was asked how our – Go BLUEprint for Success plan – will fit into and complement Vision 2034. He quickly shared that UM-Dearborn got a head start and our work will influence the final enterprise-wide plan. 

Indeed, our strategic planning efforts are recognized in the Vision 2034 website, as a foundational element of the visioning process. It will be important for our campus community to view engagement in this process through the lens of our own strategic initiatives, KPI benchmarks, and distinctive identity as a practiced-based regional university. 

Our campus community will have many opportunities to engage in this strategic process. While this process is in the early stages of development, there are future participation opportunities outlined on the Vision 2034 website. 

I will continue to keep you apprised of planning developments and engagement opportunities. I encourage you to participate in the Vision 2034 process to strengthen and integrate the UM-Dearborn’s branch on the Michigan family tree.

Go Blue! Go Dearborn!

Domenico Grasso
Chancellor

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Dear U-M Community Member, 

We are writing to share with you an update on the University of Michigan’s strategic visioning initiative — our Vision 2034 — and to request your engagement in the process.

In January, President Santa J. Ono asked us to coordinate a year-long strategic visioning effort to chart U-M’s path for the next 10 years.

In the short time since then, we've already made progress including: 

• Partnering with deans and executive officers to develop a framework for delivering the vision.
• Creating an advisory committee that represents the diverse perspectives and interests across the institution.
• Organizing a wide variety of engagement opportunities for students, staff, faculty and
  others, including focus groups, town halls and a broad campus-wide survey that will be deployed later this year.
• Launching a new website — Vision 2034 — to share updates on the process and gather input and feedback from the U-M community.

To create a collective vision for the University of Michigan, we have the opportunity to imagine what is possible and what we can create together, on all our campuses, in our communities and for our world by the year 2034. Our collective vision will aim to sharpen U-M’s impact and create new opportunities for faculty, staff and students to challenge the present and enrich the future.

Please share your thoughts and ideas by participating in the many community outreach and engagement opportunities that will occur over the next several months, including a number of town halls that are open to the entire U-M community on all three campuses, including Michigan Medicine.

In addition, many schools, colleges and campus units will be hosting unit-level information
gathering sessions to inform the visioning effort. Targeted focus groups also are being offered and will be used to inform a campuswide survey planned for later in the year and developed in partnership with the U-M Institute for Social Research.

In the fall, the teams will use the feedback collected to develop draft strategic pillars to be
presented to the community and university leadership for feedback, with the final strategic vision to be announced by President Ono in early 2024.

As we embark on this effort, we will anchor the visioning process to U-M’s mission and core values: integrity, respect, inclusion, equity, diversity and innovation. It also will incorporate the strategic planning efforts occurring across the institution — including at UM-Dearborn, UM-Flint, and Michigan Medicine — as well as other initiatives such as the Bold Ideas, Bold Challenges, DEI 2.0 and Campus Planning.

We encourage you to share your thoughts, ideas and aspirations for the university by joining the Vision 2034 effort. Please visit the Vision 2034 website for more information and how to get involved.

Sincerely, 

Geoffrey Chatas, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Laurie McCauley, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Marschall Runge, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs