Today, University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross reiterated his commitment to maintaining and enhancing operational excellence in the UW System, the fourth component of the System’s strategic framework, 2020FWD: Moving Wisconsin and the World Forward. The framework will provide strategic direction for the UW System in four key areas: the educational pipeline, the university experience, business and community mobilization, and operational excellence. It also serves as the basis for the UW System’s biennial budget request.
“As a public higher education system, we are known and respected for our efficiency, our accountability, and for being responsive to changing needs. The initiatives outlined in our 2020FWD framework reflect that,” said UW System President Ray Cross. “Much of what we are doing could only be achieved by a system, which allows us to standardize, streamline, and consolidate some of our common and shared functions.”
2020FWD outlines these four main priorities in the area of Operational Excellence:
- Commitment to Operational Reform and Excellence – or CORE. The UW System will continue to create operational efficiencies by streamlining its non-instructional operations, such as human resources, information technology, purchasing, and budgeting operations.
- Dashboard. The UW System’s interactive website provides a one-stop platform to view the UW System’s extensive range of performance measures. The accountability dashboard was launched in September 2015 as another method to provide transparency in reporting. The UW System will expand the dashboard to include measures that benchmark and assess the System’s progress in implementing the priorities and initiatives outlined in 2020FWD.
- On-time Degrees. The UW System will develop policies and adopt practices to help UW students graduate more quickly in order to reduce the cost of their education. This includes managing academic courses and programs offered at institutions, as well as regularly reviewing standards and practices supporting the collaborative management of electives and enrollment.
- Rewarding Faculty and Staff Excellence. The UW System is committed to rewarding faculty and staff, who are considered among the best in the world. This will be discussed further in the December 2016 meeting.