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There are only 12 months’ worth of revenue and expenditures in UVic’s 2007/08 budget framework, but the coming year’s funding allocations are the result of an integrated planning process that considers priorities and strategic initiatives for the next two years as well.
Throughout the fall and winter of 2006/07, UVic’s vice-presidents engaged in a process that analyzed the goals and objectives in the university’s renewed strategic plan in the context of the current environment for post-secondary institutions and identified UVic’s highest priorities. They then determined what resources would be required to support strategies to address those priorities over the next three years.
“The budget is the outcome of our planning process,” says Vice-President Academic and Provost Jamie Cassels who led the planning initiative. “By looking three years ahead, we can determine how to put the university’s strategic plan into action and provide a sense of the resources that will be necessary to accomplish its goals. This gives departments and faculties a better idea of the context and helps them plan more effectively as well.”
UVic’s strategic areas of focus for the coming three years include: enhancing the quality of teaching and research programs in light of student growth, especially at the graduate level; completing and implementing a strategic enrolment plan to ensure that the best graduate and undergraduate students choose to come to UVic (the plan involves recruitment, financial aid, student success initiatives, and residence expansion); developing initiatives to recruit and retain faculty and staff; expanding on community-based initiatives; increasing assistance to fundraising to support research and students; and developing a longer-term campus plan to address continuing space shortages for teaching, research and graduate students while also ensuring financial and environmental sustainability.
Not surprisingly, UVic’s strategic areas of focus and its priorities for the next three years align very closely with the new strategic plan. The integrated planning process is an ongoing one and will continue next year, with further input from the faculties and departments.
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