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July 8, 1997

To: My Campus Colleagues
From: M.R.C. Greenwood, Chancellor

RE: MILLENNIUM COMMITTEE CHARGED WITH PLANNING A CAMPUS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

I am very pleased to announce the appointment of the UC Santa Cruz Millennium Committee, a special committee whose work will encompass one of the most important campus priorities of the coming academic year.

Guided by the same high standards of scholarship that each member expects within his or her own profession, and building on the foundation of existing planning documents and processes, the committee will work during the next year toward the goal of positioning UC Santa Cruz to identify the opportunities and meet the demands of the new century.

The charge of the committee is to articulate key principles that will serve as touchstones for all campus planning into the 21st century. A team of distinguished faculty, plus leaders from among staff, students, and the UCSC Foundation, have agreed to serve. Professor Gail Hershatter and Associate Vice Chancellor Marc Mangel are the committee's cochairs.

Millennium Committee members are the following:

This seems to be an ideal time to launch a planning initiative. UC Santa Cruz is poised for enrollment growth in an era when other campuses already are at capacity, and it is important that we make the most of this unusual opportunity. To do so, we must be well-informed, thoughtful, creative, and adaptive. To foster that approach, the Millennium Committee will delineate its task through focus on the following objectives: to articulate campus values; assess existing campus strengths; anticipate future challenges; and identify strategies that will provide a blueprint for UCSC's priorities during the first decade of the new millennium.

Almost surely, those who thrive in the next century will welcome change as the norm. Those successful individuals will need to exhibit highly developed critical thinking skills, the ability to learn and relearn, plus both skill and ease with burgeoning technology. As we prepare our students (and ourselves) for such an environment, we share challenges with other institutions of higher education--and these challenges will be the topics of the Millennium Committee's deliberations.

As a result of a participative process, complete with extensive consultation and campuswide discussion, the Millennium Committee will produce a list of principles that will provide the framework for a broadly developed campus vision, within which department chairs, deans, directors, senate committees, and other campus leaders will form their own programmatic priorities.

The committee's work will follow these five general stages:

  1. Review of previous planning documents and examples from other campuses and universities; internal committee discussions and formation of subcommittees; articulation of themes or foci for fuller exploration. (Summer 1997)

  2. Interaction with and reliance on the work of existing administrative/planning committees and senate committees; utilization of focus groups, townhall meetings, invited speakers, and other means to inform and inspire campus deliberations on subcommittee topics. (Fall 1997)

  3. Preparation of an initial draft. (Winter 1998)

  4. Solicitation of campus consultation and informal feedback, including communication with senate committees and other campus planning groups. (Spring 1998)

  5. Preparation of final report and presentation for final review. (Spring 1998)

Because the work of the Millennium Committee ultimately will affect the entire campus, regular progress reports will be provided in Currents and at a Web site currently under construction. This information will complement the many opportunities for campus member participation and feedback as described above.

The first such progress report will be available soon after the Millennium Committee's initial meeting on July 9.


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