Chancellor Linda Katehi today (July 23) officially unveiled “UC Davis: A Vision of Excellence,” a roadmap to help guide the university’s planning, strategy and actions over the next decade.

The vision statement recognizes UC Davis’ responsibilities to the public as a land-grant institution and highlights the university’s mission to advance the human condition through improving the quality of life for all. The framework outlines six primary goals to help align and steer everything from UC Davis’ academic, research and outreach priorities to its efforts to highlight and build on its legacy, and to help define new directions through a commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation and a culture of philanthropy.

Shapes university's identity

The ultimate purpose of the vision statement is to help guide the university’s efforts to meet and exceed its obligations to the state, the nation and the world by shaping a new and vibrant identity: UC Davis’ extraordinary capacity to educate our students to become society’s future leaders; to educate a competitive workforce for the state and nation; and to create the conditions that will allow our students, faculty and staff to excel and be recognized broadly for their achievements.

“By engaging our ‘Vision of Excellence,’ UC Davis will be known for its diverse educational opportunities, its innovative, interdisciplinary and collaborative research endeavors,” Katehi says in the document, “and its distinction in leading enterprises that support social responsibility and a sustainable global environment.”

The six primary goals are:

• Foster a vibrant community of learning and scholarship
• Drive innovation at the frontiers of knowledge
• Embrace global issues
• Nurture a sustainable future and propel economic vitality
• Champion health, education, access and opportunity
• Cultivate a culture of organizational excellence, effectiveness and stewardship

“UC Davis: A Vision of Excellence” includes a series of conceptual strategies and assessment measures for each of the six goals. Katehi and other campus leaders say that while many of the strategies will be accomplished on a campuswide basis, the success of each goal will be dependent on the individual and combined efforts of the campus’s schools, colleges and divisions to create objectives of their own that embrace and help achieve the vision.

“Thus,” Katehi said, “these high-level strategies, along with the more detailed ideas that follow many of them, provide a framework from which many more actions from the academic and administrative units can emerge.”

Process began 10 months ago

The vision statement includes a companion website, vision.ucdavis.edu, a “one-stop shopping” destination for those who are interested in many of UC Davis’ key planning and operational documents as well as points of pride. For example, in addition to the entire vision statement, the website includes links to the annual report, the Principles of Community, the Long Range Development Plan, campus rankings and the chancellor’s website.

The next step is for the individual schools, colleges and divisions to create their own objectives, based on the vision statement, followed by the development of campuswide strategies and investments that will help UC Davis reach the six goals of the framework.

Today’s unveiling of the vision statement culminated a process that began in earnest 10 months ago, shortly after Katehi arrived on campus. The chancellor assembled her Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors for a workshop last Sept. 14 to launch discussions of a framework to help guide and shape the university’s future.

Janet Gong, senior associate vice chancellor in Student Affairs (who has since retired), served as the project manager. Through the end of 2009 and into 2010, Gong put the document through several rounds of public comment and proposed revisions and additions, first from internal audiences and then from external groups, including alumni, donors and other supporters, local opinion leaders and the UC Davis Foundation Board of Trustees. A final draft was presented to the chancellor and the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors for their approval late last month.

Challenges, dreams

In comments included in the vision statement, Katehi emphasized the importance of acknowledging the difficult economic circumstances of the present, “even as we aspire to embrace the extraordinary opportunities of the future.”

She said she recognizes that this balance will be a challenge: “But as we focus on solving our problems of today, we cannot and must not compromise our dreams for tomorrow — our dreams for a stellar university, our dreams for our students who deserve nothing less than access to a world-class education, and our dreams for a thriving California populace, whose well-being is so intricately woven with our own.”