Nearly a year ago, I had the great privilege of becoming the University of Wisconsin-Madison's 27th leader. I was aware then, as I am now, of the enormous responsibility such a position carries. This is a place like no other, one with an enormous legacy of achievement and greatness, but also of constant activity and change.

Every day I see the work of our faculty, staff, and students described in news media throughout the world. We continually produce new knowledge that shapes public policy, technology, business, art, and the humanities. We constantly add new chapters to our esteemed history and solidify our role as a beacon for the state, the nation, and the world.

Our diverse voices come together, teaching each other and passing along to others what we have learned.

I believe this combination of past success and continual advancement is at the heart of what makes UW-Madison unique. In a recently completed reaccreditation process, our peer reviewers identified us as one of the nation's outstanding public universities. Their report called UW-Madison a "miracle" — one that is achieved through our dedication to an educational mission and our fundamental commitment to serve the state and the community.

We are the progenitors of the Wisconsin Idea, which for nearly a century has embodied our service relationship to the needs and interests of the people of Wisconsin. We have gained esteem as a place where people can say what they think, constrained only by the free exercise of personal conviction. This inviolable principle was memorialized forever in the Board of Regents' 1894 declaration that "the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found."

These ideals are not merely the artifacts of our history, but the guiding principles for our future growth. Our values, which are amplified by more than 150 years of history, guide us as we face new challenges, helping set priorities and clarify our purpose.

We must ask how we can harness these legacies to strengthen our position as leaders in higher education. What further actions can we take that will help us sustain the excellence of the past and build new traditions of innovation in the future?

The answer, I believe, lies with strategic planning, which for the past decade has been a key component of the university's progress. Strategic planning is invaluable for identifying strengths and weaknesses, pointing out critical needs, and helping determine how best to meet those needs. In the past, solid planning has helped us overcome many obstacles and has given us the tools to protect the valuable resources of the university. Now, as we face new opportunities for growth, it remains crucial to our future success.

I am a physicist by training, and perhaps because of that, or because I have spent most of my professional life at UW-Madison, I have a deep appreciation for the constancy of change — for the many ways in which each member of this community propels the university toward new frontiers. Our business, in one sense, is to create understanding amidst uncertainty, and few communities do it with such energy and enthusiasm as UW-Madison. Yet these ever-present changes never become — and never should become — a matter of random chance, with our collective efforts shooting off on uncoordinated trajectories.

We are shielded from that potential chaos by two crucial standards: first, the interconnectedness of our base values — our sense of history and of place — with all facets of our institutional imperative to create, integrate, transfer, and apply knowledge; and, second, our care and attention to the practice of strategic planning.

Our values constitute an enduring structure through which the constancy of change is filtered, offering stability and continuity without retarding innovation and creativity. Planning offers a method through which we manage the process and the course of change to meet the defined needs of — and demands upon — the university community. Together, our values and our commitment to planning embody community-oriented leadership.

Effective strategic planning is a continuous process, entailing constant reassessment of institutional needs, resources, and operating environment. Our planning during the past decade has been aimed toward one succinct objective: to sustain and strengthen our position of preeminence in research and higher education.

Recently, we assessed our needs, resources, and environment as part of an extensive self-study that led to a 10-year reaccreditation in 1999. This three-year effort, involving the coordinated participation of hundreds of faculty, staff, students, and community members, forms the backbone of our current strategic plan.

In the pages of this report, we outline the elements of that plan, which center on five key priorities that will guide our future:

• Promote research
  
  
• Advance learning
  
  
• Accelerate internationalization
  
  
• Amplify the Wisconsin Idea
  
  
• Nurture human resources

The university is connected by the voices of the many, a shared responsibility of faculty, staff, students, alumni, and other important stakeholders throughout Wisconsin and the world. We have, from relatively modest beginnings, and with judicious application of limited resources, grown into an educational giant considered one of the preeminent research institutions in the world. Sheer persistence, good fortune, and the great works of countless individuals — qualities that distinguish virtually all successful institutions — have helped us to arrive at this moment in UW-Madison's history.

We have much to celebrate, yet much left to accomplish. This is your university and, as always, I invite you to add your voice as we plan its future.

John D. Wiley, Chancellor

More information about the Strategic Plan