The Imperative of Excellence

The Provost's 2003 State of Academics Address (cont'd)

Drexel University
March 11, 2003

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     President Constantine Papadakis arrived in August 1995. Under his leadership, our position not only turned around but Drexel has emerged as one of the most dynamic institutions in the nation. Enrollment is up, the caliber of our students grows stronger every year, and our faculty is being rebuilt. In the rebuilding, we also shaped our future as a new Drexel through our union with the health sciences colleges. The 5-year period of the last strategic plan was one, therefore, of financial recovery and strategic repositioning of the institution. Drexel emerged stronger than at any time in its history and is poised to lead nationally in the 21st century as it led locally at the beginning of the 20th century. In that phrase – poised to lead nationally – we see the challenge and opportunity of the next plan and the years ahead.

     This address to the faculty will be followed by a set of strategic planning targets toward which the departments and colleges can aim their plans. A University Strategic Planning Committee, the membership of which will be announced tomorrow, will merge, shape, prioritize and write the institutional document for presentation to the Board of Trustees.

     We face many challenges as we address our Imperative of Excellence.

     We must establish academic affairs as central to the operation of the academic enterprise as it is in the best of universities; create an academic union between our new colleges of medicine, public health, and nursing and health professions and the Drexel core colleges and schools; create a culture of accountability for the management of the cost and improvement in the quality of the curriculum and instruction; hire, retain, and support the best faculty according to a national standard of performance; and attract the best students. As we accomplish these goals we will move the university into the top tier of America's research universities.

     The Office of the Provost must provide a synoptic vision of the academic enterprise at Drexel and serve as its coordinating center, providing the structures and guidance that will enable the academic units to work toward their own goals and toward collective pursuits in an effective manner. Balance and fairness across the academic enterprise must be a feature of all of our policies and procedures, and must also inform and guide the distribution of our academic resources. We must, if we are to be true to our mission and our goal of quality, measure every decision that we make against the question of whether it contributes to our ability to build a stronger academic program, academic community, and academic experience for our students. We must, if we are to achieve and sustain our financial strength as an academic enterprise, develop and implement strategies that will improve our effectiveness as an organization and our ability to compete.

     We have undertaken an arduous effort to gather, review, and conform the wide range of academic policies that have heretofore existed across the institution, and we published the Academic Policy Handbook. The Handbook is a work-in-progress, a first attempt at collecting a complete and consistent set of academic policy statements. As we organize, evaluate, and create policy, it is essential that those matters that are local be decided locally. This includes issues as specific as the management of the local affairs of the medical school or the business school and as broad as the introduction of new courses and the evolution of the curriculum. Similarly, those that are institutional should be decided institutionally. Bodies of the University should regulate only intra-collegiate matters.

     We are a new university and our horizon is brighter because of our health sciences.