Hello everyone. I’d like to use this week’s column to talk about the Student Life Performance Plan. As part of The Rensselaer Plan, each year all of Rensselaer’s portfolios including all of the schools, vice-presidential divisions, and academic functions develop a performance plan. The Plan explains performance planning:
“Performance planning identifies priorities, lays out clear milestones, and forms the basis of resource allocation, through prioritization, restructuring, reordering, and realignment. Performance planning also identifies the metrics for measuring progress toward achieving goals. Resources for the 2001-02 budget will be allocated based upon an assessment by the President and the Cabinet of how well these plans can and will contribute to the realization of The Plan: the overarching goal, Institute-wide goals, and specific strategic goals.”
One of the vice-presidential divisions is called Student Life and is led by Institute Vice-President, Dr. Eddie Knowles. The Student Life Performance Plan encompasses athletics, the Archer Center for Student Leadership, the Career Development Center, the Dean of Students Office, the Office of First Year Experience, the Rensselaer Union, Resident Life, the Student Health Center, and Student Records and Financial Services. Since the core objective of the Student Life division is to enhance quality of life for Rensselaer students it is very important that students have influence over the performance plan. This is the document that will ultimately determine what gets funding and attention next year.
Tomorrow, we will be having a Student Life Performance Plan forum in which Eddie Knowles will present the current plan, and students will have the opportunity to ask questions, make comments, and give suggestions. The forum will be held from 7-9 pm in Union Rooms 3510 and 3511. Since the performance plan is something that affects students in a very direct way, I cannot stress enough the importance of student participation in the review process. I look forward to seeing many of you there Thursday.
As the semester winds down, the Senate is beginning to wrap up some of its projects. We are expected to have our advising system recommendation to the President by the end of the semester. We are finishing up our discussion forums with the Student Life Performance Plan. We have made lots of headway with our customer service initiatives. We are also continuing our communication initiatives and have reached over 100 students a week. We’ve been to more than half of the greek houses on campus and are having our second dorm storming session this month. We have received lots of valuable feedback from students and have also had the opportunity to report progress and discuss concerns. At the end of the semester I will give a wrap-up of the Senate’s progress.
For now, good night everyone, and see you next week.
