Just as there is evidence of spring, change, and new beginnings all around us with the days getting longer and daphne and hellebores starting to bloom, so too are there signs of real change coming to PSU.
As a lifelong university academic, I know that change is not something that most of our industry readily embraces, welcomes, or celebrates. But since I’ve been dean, I’ve been amazed to discover how many faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members often tell me that “PSU must change” and “Dean Rosenstiel, when is real change going to happen?” Well, even though faculty and staff in our college have been doing some important change-making work for some time, I think we are all about to experience some acceleration of this work in the months ahead. Change is happening at PSU.
One of the early and important leadership decisions of President Cudd was to begin a much-needed and long-overdue strategic planning process, and as a member of the strategic planning steering committee, I can affirm that this process will be the catalyst for bringing real change to PSU. Now, I understand how sometimes just uttering the phrase “strategic planning” can make eyes roll and trigger all sorts of cynical feelings among faculty and staff, including “Yeah, we’ve heard this before”, “Sounds like more of the same”, and “Nothing ever really changes.” To me, this planning process is very different, and we are well on our way to developing a new strategic plan for PSU’s future that will build from our collective values and is highly focused and actionable.
As PSU’s largest college and our university’s true academic heart, we have a unique and essential role to play in influencing the shape, focus, and priorities of PSU’s strategic plan. As a biologist, I often think of PSU as one big, complex, and messy organism, and to help ensure that we have a healthy and thriving PSU, we need to ensure that we have a strong and healthy academic heart. I have long considered our collective care and feeding of CLAS as investing in PSU’s heart health! But as we all know, developing a healthy heart takes real discipline, and discipline means showing up. Given the importance of this plan for PSU’s future, I hope we each choose to show up and participate in this process, however we are able.
This week, President Cudd visited with the chairs of CLAS, shared her vision and reinforced how this plan will be used as a tool and roadmap to help her make critical investment and reallocation decisions university-wide. I would encourage you to talk with your chair about this meeting and what they learned if you haven’t already done so. Change is clearly coming to PSU, and our new strategic plan will be our guide.
In the weeks and months ahead, there will be many opportunities to engage in the strategic planning process, the first being ensuring that your values are captured in the “Heart of PSU” survey. Over the next two weeks, there are upcoming campus forums where everyone will have a chance to discuss and frame how we can better live up to the values we hold as a campus community. RSVP to one of the three engagement events: Feb. 12 (3:30-5:30 p.m.), Feb. 15 (9:30-11:30 a.m.), or Feb. 21 (9:30-11:30 a.m.).
Future gatherings this winter and spring quarter will focus on refining and developing our strategic imperatives and benchmarks we hope to achieve by 2030. I’m personally proud to be co-chairing the Vision 2030 working group with College of the Arts Dean Leroy Bynum, and you’ll soon be hearing more about how to engage in this hopeful and forward-looking work.
We have a unique opportunity to proactively help shape, drive, and influence the change we hope for and desperately need at PSU. If you are like me and are truly invested in ensuring that we create a more thriving, impactful, resilient, and future-ready College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, then please (please!) seize every opportunity you can to participate in our campus strategic planning and to make sure that your programs’ goals and priorities are fully represented.
With President Cudd’s focus and leadership, it’s clear to me that we will, and urgently must, create a new strategic plan that will lift up a bold new vision and thriving alternative future for Portland State. Yes, for sure, it’s a big lift. But it’s essential to our future, and also exciting and empowering work to do. I hope you agree. I’m looking forward to engaging with you as we all work to create a heart-healthy plan for a thriving PSU.