A. Growth

Goal: Increase enrollment to 32,000 students by 2015-16, with at least 25 percent graduate enrollment.

• Increase majors and academic programs as described below to accommodate more students.
• Expand Summer Session.

Goal: Manage enrollment, including admissions and distribution of students among units, to match strategic plan.

• Expand and focus resources for recruitment at undergraduate and graduate levels.
• Use selective admissions to improve further the general quality of students, increase diversity and reinforce campuswide programmatic objectives.
• Integrate courses offered in Summer Session more thoroughly into the general curriculum to help accommodate some of the projected growth in enrollments.

Goal: Use some of the faculty FTE generated by enrollment growth for opportunistic investment in excellence.

• Utilize aggressive responses in recruitment and retention that are competitive with the offers from the best universities.
• Expand hiring at very senior levels, including more Distinguished Professors.
• Release multiple FTE across departments and schools to hire groups or “clusters” of faculty working on related topics.

Goal: Continue allocating some of the growth faculty FTE and some turnover positions to reinforce excellence in designated programs.

• At least 25 percent of the faculty FTE vacated for reasons other than denial of tenure will be returned to the EVC and provost for selective reallocation of resources in pursuit of excellence in designated programs.
• FTE will be preferentially allocated to high-quality programs that are now at or near the level of great distinction, especially those that are currently modest in size relative to aspirational peers and/or that have an extraordinary opportunity to advance in quality during the present period of growth. Emerging programs in especially promising new fields will be considered for preferential allocations.
• FTE also will be allocated to maintain the strength and excellence of the core academic disciplines, recognizing that these fields are the intellectual foundation of the university and that no major research university can be considered truly excellent if it does not boast of outstanding programs in these areas.
• While the potential for excellence must be the principal criterion guiding this allocation, relative costs for developing programs in one field vs. another must be considered among other factors guiding such planning.
• FTE will be preferentially allocated to areas of potentially strong growth in research and graduate programs, including new and existing professional programs.
• FTE will be preferentially allocated to areas with a high potential for generating extramural resources, especially where funding is available for centers and multi-investigator awards. Extramural resources include not only grants from governmental and private agencies but also other sources such as foundations and private donors, contributions and grants from business and industry.
• FTE will be allocated to areas of strong growth in undergraduate majors - or potential for such growth through new programs - when those areas also are characterized by strong research and graduate programs.

Goal: In conjunction with the allocation of resources based on excellence in research, some new faculty FTE every year will be allocated to support teaching in departments and programs with exceptionally high workload as measured principally by student-faculty ratios.

Goal: Create greater flexibility in resource utilization by leveraging state-funded FTE with non-state sources, joint hiring with an FTE split between two (or more) units, improved efficiency in curricular offerings, and the development of centers and institutes.

Goal: Consider and if necessary revise the administrative structure of the campus to accommodate growth better in all parts of the university.

Goal: Further diversify faculty, staff and students as UCI grows.

B. Research

Goal: Recruit more outstanding faculty who are leaders in their fields.

• Create approximately 100 more named endowed chairs to complement the 60 chairs already established at UCI (the estimated total cost of the new chairs will be $150 million-$200 million)

Goal: Continue aggressive retention efforts to keep the best faculty here, and mentor younger faculty carefully to accelerate their professional growth.

Goal: Increase levels of grant-supported activity among the faculty, increase support for grant-writing and liaisons with foundations and government agencies. Provide support for large multi-investigator proposals for research and training.

Goal: Facilitate and support interdisciplinary research at a higher level on campus, with special attention to problems with personnel reviews, space, staff support, computing services and other infrastructural issues associated with work that crosses institutional boundaries between departments and schools.

Goal: Balance the emphasis on interdisciplinary programs with attention to the core disciplines, recognizing that many of those core disciplines have themselves been transformed by interdisciplinarity.

Goal: Provide appropriate research support, office and laboratory space for emeritae/i faculty who remain active in their scientific, scholarly and/or artistic careers.

Goal: Develop more research centers and institutes (e.g., a stem cell center, center for international studies, etc.) and support the best of the existing centers and institutes to assure they reach world-class status.

Goal: Expand transfer of innovation from the campus to the community.

• Improve the link between our existing physical, intellectual, cultural and technological resources and the changing needs and emerging economic opportunities in society.
• Identify new institutional mechanisms that can facilitate the connection of innovative research and extramural applications and remove procedural and bureaucratic obstacles to the development of intellectual property on campus and in collaboration with industry.

Goal: Bring more federally supported research institutes to the campus and University Research Park.

• Establish a consortium of campus and community leaders at the highest level, including state and federal leaders.
• Establish a stronger presence in Washington, D.C., to promote the UCI research agenda.

Goal: Attract more research and development-intensive businesses to University Research Park.

C. Academic Programs: Undergraduate, Graduate and Professional Education

Goal: Identify and expand existing programs of high quality that are currently modest in size relative to aspirational peers and that are especially likely to advance in quality during this period. Special attention will be given to the relationship of size to strength in some fields, and to new programs in emerging fields of great promise.

Goal: Provide continued support for smaller programs of high quality.

Goal: Develop new programs related especially to graduate academic and professional fields that enhance the advantage of UCI in realizing its academic vision. Assessment of proposals for new programs should include attention to the following criteria (among others):

• ability of program to enhance the excellence of research in letters, arts and sciences, and in professional fields;
• in fields where appropriate, the potential to increase extramural funding for research and/or instruction;
• UCI’s strategic advantage relative to similar programs at other universities;
• need for the program in the region/state/nation;
• cost to the campus and related units.

Goal: Expand curriculum of Summer Session to supplement and enhance programs offered during the fall, winter and spring quarters. See Summer Session Report at www.evc.uci.edu/SummerSession/.

Goal: Develop organizational structures that are flexible enough to accommodate change and that can support first-rate departmental programs for undergraduate experiences and interdepartmental and interschool efforts in research and graduate education. Permitting institutes and centers to offer degrees and take on curricular initiatives may be one means of achieving this end.

Goal: Enhance instructional technology for use in academic, instructional and administrative contexts, including:

• greater technological support for traditional classroom environments;
• further development of technologically enabled distance-learning modes in conjunction with classroom instruction and for fully online courses where appropriate;
• greater coordination with academic support services including student housing, libraries, laboratories, and Network and Academic Computing Services;
• implementation of recommendations of the Work Group on Classroom Environment and Facilities (see www.evc.uci.edu/undergrad/facilities_061104.pdf);
• additional attention toward providing course resources online through the Electronic Educational Environment (EEE), including Web sites and evolving technologies.

1. Undergraduate Education

Strategic planning for undergraduate education will aim to create modern, stimulating baccalaureate programs that appeal to a broad range of bright and ambitious students. These programs will be streamlined and flexible enough to be completed in four years while allowing time to explore interests in other fields.

Planning also will include reconsideration of our present breadth requirements in light of the “Goals for Breadth Requirements” developed by the Council on Educational Policy in fall 2005: “Breadth courses introduce students to a range of ideas and intellectual activities that engage UCI scholars, providing both scope and balance to a university degree beyond the study of a specific major. The breadth requirements are intended to help undergraduates place the specialized study undertaken in the major within a broader context. They are designed to cultivate the skills, knowledge and understanding that will make students effective citizens and leaders in matters local, national and global. The breadth requirements should enable UCI undergraduates to apply the abilities developed in their studies to identify significant issues, gather and evaluate available evidence, analyze alternatives, reach conclusions, communicate the results to both academic and general audiences, and take appropriate actions.”

Consideration of these and other objectives for undergraduate education will be closely coordinated with the campus response to the Report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education (www.evc.uci.edu/undergrad/tfuged_2003-04.pdf). Discussion of that group’s recommendations is taking place separately as well as within the general context of the strategic plan. In cases where there is significant disagreement with the task force’s recommendations, the campus will have an opportunity to consider alternatives and/or to reject the recommendation in favor of the status quo.

Goal: Consider recommendations from the Task Force on Undergraduate Education, which include but are not limited to the following topics:

• Majors (See report, pp. 3-4.)
• Encourage more students to postpone declaring a major and enhance the curriculum and advising for students who have not yet declared a major.
• Increase flexibility and structure of existing majors to accommodate greater flexibility and a broader scope of students’ interests.
• Develop more joint majors between schools and more minors to encourage interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study.
• Breadth - Revise present breadth requirements simply to require students to take classes outside the school of their majors, but retain requirement of three basic competencies: entry-level writing, American history and institutions, and language other than English. (See report, pp. 11-12.)
• Points of discussion concerning the task force’s recommendations on the breadth requirement:
• Good pedagogical reasons exist for requiring students to pursue a series of linked courses in a field, rather than letting them choose three unrelated quarters of coursework.
• Multicultural and international/global requirements are an essential part of contemporary university education and should be included in the breadth requirement.
• All students need to be exposed to the kind of analysis currently required under the category of “Mathematics and Symbolic Systems.” This requirement should be retained in some form.
• Research - Increase the degree of participation by undergraduates in research and creative projects. (See report, pp. 22-23).

Goal: Increase the number of majors offered at UCI to be consistent with the best public research universities nationally. New majors might be developed in such fields as business, health sciences, area studies, arts programs (particularly those that integrate technology and performance), self-designated majors (per the recommendation of the undergraduate task force), and other interdisciplinary and interschool majors.

Goal: Extend and enhance the continuing success of the Campuswide Honors Program in its role of providing challenging and rewarding education for California’s brightest students.

• Enlarge enrollment in the CHP to help accommodate some of the high demand for the program. Enrollment growth in the CHP should roughly keep pace with campuswide undergraduate population growth while maintaining the current standards of the program.
• Broaden the honors curriculum for wider appeal to students.
• Seek endowment funds to provide further honors scholarship support and curricular enrichment funding.
• Re-involve alumnae/i of the growing and lively Campuswide Honors Program via the honors alumnae/i program.

Goal: Increase both the number of joint majors between units and the number of minors.

Goal: Consolidate administrative structures for academic programs or eliminate the programs when justified on qualitative judgment (weak program); on academic grounds (e.g., to avoid substantial repetition between similar majors); on the basis of low enrollments and/or low administrative workload; or as otherwise beneficial to the campus.

Goal: Develop administrative structure to support interdisciplinary, interschool majors.

Goal: Sustain commitment to a diverse student body.

Goal: Enhance international and area-studies programs, including their academic support and the residential experience.

• Create an interdisciplinary program, institute, or some other similar organization to coordinate current research and educational programs focused on international or global study, and to encourage an international perspective on the full range of undergraduate education.
• Create an international village in student housing with a 50-50 ratio of international to domestic students.
• Integrate academic and cultural activities around international themes.
• Encourage greater participation in international educational programs including the UC Education Abroad Program and the UCI International Opportunities Program.

Goal: Increase and support access to language instruction and offer more languages.

Goal: Experiment with new forms of teaching and learning in and outside the classrooms.

• Integrate technological support more thoroughly into traditional classes, and explore more uses for distance learning and Web-based instruction, as noted above.
• Promote alliances among education, business and government via internships and other work-study programs.
• Recognize and reward faculty for more practice-based research and creative activities.

Goal: Establish a campus writing center.

Goal: Affirm and expand commitment to K-12 teacher preparation.

• Support development of subject-matter tracks in all relevant disciplines.
• Establish an interdisciplinary major for students seeking a multisubject teaching credential for elementary school (see “Pathway to Elementary Teaching” in the Report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education).

Goal: Guarantee access to on-campus housing for at least 50 percent of the students, with a priority given to incoming undergraduate, graduate and professional students. This housing will improve recruitment, reinforce intellectual community among the students, and create a more robust social life at UCI.

Goal: Develop instructional facilities capable of supporting all aspects of undergraduate education, including large- and medium-sized lecture halls, smart classrooms, seminar rooms and laboratories. (For further recommendations on this topic, see the report of the Work Group on Classroom Environment and Facilities [www.evc.uci.edu/undergrad/facilities_061104.pdf].)

Goal: Develop more systematic procedures for assessment and outcomes measurement of undergraduate programs and faculty instructional activities (see the Report of the Work Group on Accountability [Spring 2004] at www.evc.uci.edu/undergrad/accountability_062304.pdf).

• Establish an assessment officer and administrator within the Division of Undergraduate Education.
• Consolidate campuswide data bank within Office of Institutional Research.
• Integrate assessment and measurement with curricular planning and programmatic review and innovation.
• Re-emphasize the necessity for our students to write well by encouraging individual disciplines to incorporate assessment of writing by devices such as a writing portfolio in upper-division courses.

2. Graduate and Professional Education

Goal: Increase the number of graduate and professional students relative to the general student population to reach 25 percent by 2015. This will require highly focused growth at the graduate and graduate-professional levels well above the projected growth rate in undergraduate enrollments.

• Create new and attractive graduate and professional programs, including master’s degrees where appropriate for the field.
• Offer multiyear funding via block grants and endowments to make our level of support more competitive nationally.
• Provide incentives for decreasing the use of post-doctoral scholars and increasing number of graduate students where applicable.
• Increase funding to support more research assistants and teaching assistants.
• Support fellowship proposals, grants, and other funding projects initiated by graduate students.
• Calibrate growth in graduate and professional programs to reflect the conditions of employment particular to each discipline.

Goal: Find better means of recruiting and funding international students.

• Mitigate expenses associated with such students through strong advocacy for changing the UC policy about out-of-state fees as applied to U.S. and foreign students, which makes it difficult to compete nationally for these students.
• Separate these expenses from more general support for graduate students so departments are not forced to admit fewer students generally in order to fund more expensive foreign students.

Goal: Focus resources on areas of present strength and manage resources more efficiently.

• Target excellent programs that have demonstrable potential for significant improvement with additional resources.
• Apply outcome measures such as doctorates (or master’s degrees)/FTE/year and, where applicable, research funding/FTE/year.
• Avoid duplication of existing units and eliminate programs that are no longer viable.

Goal: Identify missing or underdeveloped programs in key disciplines with significant projected graduate and professional enrollments including health sciences, public policy and law, and grow those programs to critical mass.

• Increase the number of graduate-professional programs that are compatible with our strong academic graduate programs.
• Develop more master’s programs in areas where that is the terminal degree and/or where there is unmet community need (e.g., nursing), and/or where there is a significant interest in master’s-level study for professional development or personal enrichment.

Goal: Use Summer Session where appropriate to supplement and extend graduate training during fall, winter and spring quarters, especially for specific groups of students such as fully employed professionals in various fields or K-12 teachers.

Goal: Establish clear and accessible mechanisms to create and support graduate programs with faculty from multiple units, and evaluate those programs regularly to assess their contribution to the campus according to various outcome measures.

• Establish some graduate groups independent of departments to host degrees in areas that are not covered by existing units or that cross institutional boundaries.
• Align more graduate programs with research centers, institutes and interdisciplinary programs.
• Allocate faculty FTE directly to these multidisciplinary groups to be brokered for appointment in departments, and allocate “clusters” of FTE to units designated for fields that cross boundaries among departments and programs.
• Allocate support for graduate students directly to these groups.

D. Staff

Goal: Ensure that appropriate numbers of staff are part of all academic planning to support the specific research and educational goals of existing and new programs. In 2004-05, 23 percent of the UCI staff was eligible for retirement, and as they leave the campus, it will be crucial to minimize the loss of knowledge they take with them and so minimize the impact of these departures on productivity throughout the campus.

Goal: Increase leadership training and growth opportunities.

Goal: Increase retention. (The campus continues to face difficulties retaining new staff. Data from a recent survey indicate that 68 percent of new hires do not stay with UCI beyond five years. This represents a significant cost in recruitments, hiring and job training.)

Goal: Increase university housing available to staff.

E. Academic Support: Library, Information Technology and Physical Facilities

Goal: Strengthen and expand the libraries as an essential academic component of campus growth, undergraduate, graduate and professional education, research, campus life, and community service.

• Increase staffing to provide library services and build collections.
• Plan and construct new library building.
• Upgrade and expand technology facilities and infrastructure.
• Increase funds for electronic and print resources.
• Support expansion of library public programs, publications and exhibits.

Goal: Develop and support network and other information technology services at a level comparable in scope and quality to those offered at the best research universities in the country, and scale them with campus growth objectives.

• Carry out a campus information technology planning exercise to review current technology services and determine how they might be refined or enhanced to meet UCI’s academic development goals.
• Research and identify points of leverage to enable growth through innovative services and process improvements, such as distance learning, network infrastructure, alumnae/i and donor services, digital repository, and process re-engineering.

Goal: Enhance the “cyber infrastructure” supporting UCI’s multidisciplinary and other research programs, including investment in:

• grid and high-performance computing;
• large-scale storage arrays and data-preservation/collaboration services;
• high-speed dedicated optical network circuits;
• visualization facilities and services;
• clusters of hosting and system-administration services;
• a shared pool of professional support staff available to researchers, including scientific-programming, application-software and visualization specialists.

Goal: Expand housing in University Hills and other sites on and off the campus to keep university housing available as a recruiting incentive and retention tool for new faculty and nationally recruited administrators and professional staff.

Goal: Improve housing for graduate students.

• Increase on-campus housing at pricing and quality levels that will be effective in meeting the campus’s primary goal of attracting increased graduate enrollment of the highest caliber - up to accommodating 50 percent of state-funded graduate students by 2006 (requires 1,250 new beds).
• Subsidize off-campus housing.

Goal: House 50 percent of undergraduates on campus by 2010, compared to the approximately 32 percent now housed on campus. Facilitate integration of students who live within walking distance into the on-campus student community. (Currently about 2,750 students, or 11 percent, of total enrollments, live in Town Center adjacent to campus.)

Goal: Consider housing in relation to plans to expand Summer Session, including offering housing for students just in the summer or extending leases to 12 months (where possible) to accommodate students who want to take courses in the summer.

Goal: Re-evaluate current land-use practices where greater density discipline may be achieved. (For example, consider redeveloping the Campus Village site for higher density usage and utilizing the north campus more efficiently, including the possible relocation of the Arboretum.)

Goal: Augment state-funded growth in physical facilities for academic and office buildings, and increase development of campus-funded housing for students, post-doctoral scholars, and faculty. Augmentation of state funding will allow for the following:

• Buildings and campus infrastructure will keep pace with projected growth at least to maintain current standards;
• Higher percentages of students and post-doctoral scholars will be housed on campus;
• Faculty housing will continue to keep pace with hiring.

Goal: Expand and enhance other kinds of space and land-use, including:

• Mixed-use and commercial use;
• Artistic performance, exhibitions and other cultural facilities;
• Athletics, recreation and open space, including the Arboretum;
• UCI community support (child care, food services, clinical/surgical centers, student health, etc.);
• Traffic circulation and parking on campus;
• Instructional computing labs, technologically enhanced learning spaces and state-of-the-art data centers.

F. Campus Life and Cocurricular Activities

Goal: Make UCI the place to be.

• Emphasize the high-quality and invigorating academic instruction that motivates and excites students.
• Expand and enhance distinguished and highly visible series of events in arts and public lectures, with significant publicity in the community and expanded opportunities for student-audiences through subsidized tickets and other seating discounts in all campus venues, including the Irvine Barclay Theatre. (This initiative will require dedicated, centralized staff support in addition to local support in the units associated with specific activities.)
• Increase public-oriented exhibits, events and lectures in the UCI Libraries and academic units to create an interface between community visitors and the educational programs, research activities and artistic performances of the campus.
• Build and develop strong intercollegiate athletic programs, campus recreational/fitness programs and entertainment programs that bring energy, interest and visibility to the campus.
• Create centers for social gatherings.
• Schedule academic programming to utilize more of each day and the whole week. A full instructional program on Fridays also would help keep students on campus for cultural and social events on the weekends.
• Create expanded parking facilities to welcome campus visitors without impacting the on-campus population.

Goal: Reinforce UCI’s commitment to building a diverse community on campus for its students, faculty and staff, including attention to:

• adequate and attractive housing for students, faculty and staff;
• physical spaces for community activities that connect the social and intellectual elements of the university;
• social, cultural and intellectual programs that appeal to a broad range of the population.

Goal: Enhance and further emphasize the increasingly international character of our student body and intellectual life in general.

• Create an international village to house students.
• Provide a meeting space for international students.
• Host national meetings of minority graduate and professional organizations.
• Develop structure to support and house international and area studies programs.

Goal: Develop a contemporary campuswide marketing and promotion plan to bring enhanced visibility to the campus.

• Establish a visitor’s center.
• Host nationally recognized speakers and forums.
• Enhance UCI’s overall presence on the Web.

Goal: Greatly enhance alumnae/i programs and benefits on and off campus.

• Provide UCInetIDs and UCI e-mail accounts for life in order to keep alumnae/i informed about UCI community events.
• Create a formal program that would involve alumnae/i in recruiting top students, similar to programs at other major universities.
• Create programs and activities for alumnae/i that recognize and more directly address different segments of that heterogeneous group with events that reflect those different interests.

Goal: Establish a place on campus that identifies UCI’s developing history and traditions, such as the lobby of Langson Library or the main entrance of the Administration Building.

Goal: Generate more interest in university events by expanding and better publicizing lecture series, performances, and sporting events.

• Develop a marketing plan to create awareness of UCI activities through print, radio and television media.
• Create formal partnerships with the Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register, KOCE, KCET, and classical music and NPR radio stations, in order to get more exposure at reduced cost.

G. UCI’s Public Role

Goal: Increase influence of UCI on research and policy at all levels of the public and private sectors.

• Where consistent with UCI’s academic objectives, focus more research and academic programs on international and global issues of importance and interest to the public, and encourage the application of basic research to those issues.
• Increase the level of corporate and foundation support in selected programs through greater engagement with industry and other elements of the private sector.

Goal: Become a cultural center of Orange County.

• Establish a larger and more prominent facility for art exhibitions on campus, and expand venues for performance in drama and music. Explore partnership with the Orange County Museum of Art while building on existing internship programs and collaborative relationships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Getty Center.
• Expand access to the Irvine Barclay Theatre for programming campus events/performances of great interest to the public, and encourage more student attendance through discounts for seating, rush tickets, and other incentives.
• Increase public-oriented programming in the UCI Libraries.
• Coordinate events with an international center on global topics of interest to campus and community.

Goal: Become an educational center of Orange County.

• Create and lead an “Orange County Educational Consortium” to promote and facilitate interactions among different stakeholders in local schools.
• Expand opportunities for life-long learning through University Extension and access to general-campus courses.
• Provide more educational support for local corporations and industry through University Extension.
• Make UCI’s scholarly resources, lectures and special events available to the larger community through the Web and the use of online streaming video and related technology.

Goal: Become a health center of Orange County.

• Develop an outpatient center on campus of a size and impact commensurate with the UC Irvine Medical Center.
• Coordinate programs and outreach to aging populations.
• Offer public programs and expertise on health education and disease prevention and management.

Goal: Build a stronger intercollegiate athletics program while emphasizing scholar-athletes and avoiding programs (such as football) that can compromise academic standards and undermine financing for a broad range of other sports programs.

Goal: Emphasize technology-transfer and deeper involvement in technology commercialization and work-force development.

• Produce expertise for the workplace focused on local industry clusters.
• Provide institutional support for start-up companies.
• Articulate and demonstrate more effectively the multiple ways in which UCI contributes to the region’s varied economy.

Goal: Create an internal structure to coordinate the main elements of our public roles and make sure those programs are known to the public.

• Create a comprehensive and centralized administrative unit to oversee communications and public relations. This unit should be charged with coordinating and connecting communications across the whole campus to overcome the inevitable inconsistencies and contradictions that arise from separate efforts in isolated units. The unit must be staffed and funded at a level to make such oversight possible.
• Establish a data-driven marketing program on campus aligned with the institutional goals of the strategic plan.
• Develop a multiyear communications plan grounded in target audience research, with specific goals, tactics and benchmarks of success.

Goal: Become an active participant in the planning and implementation of the “Orange County Great Park” Initiative.

University of California, Irvine • Irvine, CA 92697
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All Rights Reserved.

Last Updated: January 22, 2007