5XÉçÇø

June 18, 2024  
  
Dear Colleagues,   

Wow. Just wow. Since we put out our call for volunteers to serve on Transformation 2028, we’ve had more than 200 of you respond. We have already received over 275 ideas submitted through our . Thank you for your commitment to and engagement in helping to shape the future of Academic Affairs at 5XÉçÇø. This survey will remain open until September 20, 2024 and can be taken as many times as you wish.

The goal of Transformation 2028 (T28) is to positively strengthen the Division of Academic Affairs through strategic and sustainable reorganization, effective use of our financial and personnel resources, and the delivery of meaningful and desirable academic programs. A strategic redesign is necessary for our learners, for greater collaboration among our disciplines and services, and to position Kent State for future growth.

T28 has already started meeting this summer, with a leadership team and three working groups starting the conversation on the framework, data, and other considerations that the university community will need as we plan for the years ahead. The goal of our work this summer is to have information and resources ready for the start of the fall semester, at which point we will be fully engaging faculty, students, and Academic Affairs staff. We will also engage additional T28 members to address specific issues as needs arise.

You’ve all read about the cuts universities across the country have had to make to academic programs in recent months. In a lot of cases, these cuts have been abruptly announced with little to no consultation. Kent State will not respond in this way; we will make decisions following our core values and through our shared governance process. We will not waiver in our commitment to these principles. The decisions we make together must be finalized by early next year, to be implemented over the coming couple of years.

Now is the time for all of us—faculty, staff, academic administrators— to collectively examine the appropriate balance of a leaner academic environment that strategically invests in high-demand programs and appropriately aligns those programs for greater visibility and access. We cannot do this without strategic reduction to meet this current financial challenge AND plan for further reduction and consolidation to stretch resources so that we may invest in our future.

To do this, we will have to sunset programs and initiatives that are not driving interest or are not in demand from our learners. Additionally, we will have to examine the way Academic Affairs is structured to best facilitate collaborations, to reduce overhead costs, and to ensure organizational sustainability.

Essential to this larger conversation of institutional longevity is to know ‘What’s our Why?’ This process is about how we reorganize and elevate the Division of Academic Affairs for the future. To be clear, in order to achieve our university goals all areas of the university are also examining operations, inherent costs, and changes required. However, T28 will provide the information, processes, and tools to assist our Division of Academic Affairs in this work. 

I have charged the T28 Leadership Team to create a toolkit, enabling the Academic Affairs community to have a clear and accessible understanding of action steps and processes, with data and information readily available for informed and strategic discussions with continuous engagement of our faculty and staff. Consultation and engagement with faculty and staff are at the forefront of our guiding principles for creating change.

I will continue to ask you to think big. As you complete the imagine the Division of Academic Affairs as a blank slate where you could build up academics from scratch. How would it look? What might you create? What might not be around, or might be combined? What colleges might you create? What programs would you add into our portfolio and what would you take away to make room for new?

Thank you for your critical engagement in this important process!

My best,