Shared Vision: September 1998 Update

San Diego State is a community of learners committed to academic excellence, dedicated to educating our students for positions of responsibility and leadership in the twenty-first century, focused on addressing the challenges and opportunities of San Diego and California, confident that, if we will provide service to this fast-changing region and its people, we will emerge as a national and international leader in higher education.

The men and women of San Diego State have identified five interwoven challenges that must be met if we are to realize our aspirations as a leading university community.

To prepare our students for the twenty-first century and to fulfill our obligation to the communities we serve we must:

• Enhance San Diego State's commitment to academic excellence expressed through superior teaching, research, creative activity, and public service.

• Nurture a learning-centered university that supports the growth and development of the whole person.

• Create a community proud of its diversity and committed to furthering social justice on and off campus.

• Promote the growth, development, and wise use of our precious human and fiscal resources.

• Create a genuinely global university.

We will consider each challenge separately and then list the initiatives associated most directly with it.

Academic excellence is central to SDSU's work of providing high-quality education for students as well as high-quality research and scholarly activity to address the needs of our community. Together we push back the frontiers of human knowledge through teaching, research, creative activity, and service.

San Diego State will continue its support of student and faculty research to enhance its evolution toward a greater national reputation, including recognition as a Carnegie Research II institution by 2002, (i.e, as defined by Carnegie criteria, one that awards more than 50 doctoral degrees annually and receives between $15.5 million and $40 million in federal support).

We will explicitly recognize and support teaching excellence. To enhance academic excellence, SDSU must be at the leading edge of instructional technology; mediated and distributed learning should be appropriately integrated into the educational process. We will celebrate the wide variety of research and creative activity on campus, including applied endeavors; expand the reward system to support various expressions of academic excellence; broaden the traditional sources of funds; and support grant and contract activity.

The university of the next century must function with a spirit of partnership and social responsibility to create useful solutions to "real life" problems. The university assumes a responsibility to the larger community - be it the region, the state, the nation, or the world. San Diego State will build greater community interaction and communication and will prepare its students to live productively in a diverse, global society.

A learning-centered focus on the individual student is at the heart of San Diego State's commitment to its students. Our students must graduate with a full complement of intellectual, cross-cultural, leadership, and personal and interpersonal skills to work effectively in a diverse, global society. Toward this end, SDSU is committed to curricular and co-curricular experiences on and off campus that nurture the growth and development of the student personally and professionally. Furthermore, we understand that support of the growth and development of our faculty and staff, and our ability as an organization to collaborate across disciplines and divisions, must model the wholeness we seek to teach. San Diego State will continue to enhance the quality of life in the greater San Diego metropolitan community through the numerous professional contributions and volunteerism of its faculty, staff, and students.

San Diego State believes deeply, and experiences daily, the value of diversity. Together we strive to create fair and equitable opportunities for access, participation, and success, promoting a free, open, and respectful intellectual environment and advancing the concepts of social justice and fairness on and off campus. We will expand our diversity efforts in the hiring and development of faculty and staff, enhance our education programs and opportunities, and encourage examination of curricular and instructional issues related to diversity and social justice.

San Diego State University is responsible for the effective stewardship of its resources, whether they be human, financial, intellectual, or physical. Responsible stewardship involves thoughtful acquisition, maintenance, and distribution of resources in support of university goals and priorities. There is a need for wider accessibility to information about financial and physical resources, for a greater investment in the education and development of our human resources, for an effective resolution to resource imbalances in Athletics, and for innovation in the acquisition of new sources of revenue. As a major university, SDSU will focus both attention and resources on private fund-raising to aid the university, its programs, and its students.

The great universities of the twenty-first century will be global universities. Capitalizing on its existing ties with international institutions and universities, we will expand opportunities afforded by our special location on the U.S.-Mexico border. SDSU will seek new and innovative ways to prepare students to function effectively in a variety of cultures and settings. We will increase the number of students and faculty studying abroad as well as the number of international students and scholars on our campus. We will use our considerable network of international partnerships both to learn and to teach in the global community.

• Augment Academic Department Budgets. The ability of the university to carry out its goals of academic excellence depends significantly on the financial health of academic departments. This initiative will help augment academic department operating budgets across the university.

• Establish a Center for Teaching Excellence. The center will support teaching excellence by identifying, studying, and sharing outstanding and innovative teaching. It will recognize faculty performance and innovation, will provide workshops and programs to support teaching, and will include assistance in integrating instructional technology. The Center for Teaching Excellence will not only assist faculty who seek individual help in enhancing their teaching, but will also serve as a clearinghouse for information on state-of-the-art teaching practices, learning-centered approaches, research on teaching, national teaching awards, and resource materials. The center will initially be housed in the Office of the Provost. Funds allocated will support faculty and graduate assistant salaries, faculty awards, supplies, and services.

• Strengthen the University Honors Program. SDSU will enhance its Honors Program with an Honors Center for special academic counseling; colloquia and small, seminar-type classes; and program-related activities. In keeping with the university's goal to broaden support to students, private funds will be sought to increase scholarships for honors students. Opportunities for student and faculty participation in regional and national conferences and international programs will also be enhanced.

• Become a Top 10 Nationally Ranked Department of Geography. SDSU will increase support for the Department of Geography as a center of excellence. Special attention will be given to environmental analysis with an emphasis in geographic information systems applications. Increased research and grant activity will be encouraged to enable the department to attract outstanding undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students. This initiative will contribute toward increasing SDSU's national recognition. Funding will be used to enhance faculty, staff, and student assistant support; honoraria for distinguished guests; and supplies, services, and equipment. SDSU will provide support to other outstanding programs to enhance SDSU's overall reputation in future years.

• Seek Approval for a Joint SDSU/USD Doctorate in Education. The College of Education, in partnership with the University of San Diego, will offer a joint doctorate in education to better serve educational needs in this area and to further SDSU's national reputation for excellence in teacher preparation. Funds will support faculty, staff, supplies, and services. The Ed.D. degree will focus on curriculum development, unlike the current Ph.D. degree offered jointly with Claremont College, which has a research emphasis.

• Establish Project 1000 in 2000. This project will assist the SDSU community to submit 1000 proposals to funding agencies in the fiscal year starting July 1, 2000. We presently submit 771. To help reach this goal, interested faculty and staff will be invited to a series of funding opportunity meetings and program development groups. Information will be provided about traditional and nontraditional funding sources. A pilot mentor program, Professors Helping Professors, will be initiated whereby successful senior principal investigators will be paired with talented junior faculty members to develop grant proposals. The senior faculty member will receive an honorarium of $1000 and an additional $1000 if the proposal is funded. This initiative will support our research capabilities by increasing grant and contract activity. Funding will support faculty in their grant and contract development efforts.

• Create a Technology Transfer Office. The Technology Transfer Office (a joint venture of Academic Affairs, Graduate and Research Affairs, and the Foundation) will foster the creation of potentially valuable technologies by helping faculty and staff develop and market new ideas and by informing them about intellectual property issues (patents, copyrights, software licensing, spin-off companies, and material transfer agreements) to ensure that intellectual contributions are adequately and fairly rewarded. This office will support the wide variety of research activities of faculty, staff, and students that contribute to the academic excellence of San Diego State; will expand reward systems for academic excellence; and will to broaden traditional sources of funds to support faculty and university community efforts. Funds will support the hiring of office staff and legal counsel, supplies, and services. The annual investment has the potential to yield significant future revenues to faculty, departments, and colleges.

• Fund Program Development. The College of Extended Studies will establish a fund to support the creation of new innovative courses. These courses will enhance SDSU's overall curriculum. The initiative will be financed from self-support funds. Funds will enable faculty to develop course content not currently available.

• Provide More Graduate Teaching Assistant Out-of-State Tuition Waivers. The Office of Graduate and Research Affairs will offer additional out-of-state tuition waivers to attract the highest quality graduate teaching assistants from throughout the nation. This initiative will enable the Graduate Division to double the number of such waivers for top-level teaching assistants, thereby increasing the quality and effectiveness of teaching, specifically that done by the teaching assistants, as well as supporting the university's graduate and research programs.

• Increase the Number of Doctoral Students. The Office of Graduate and Research Affairs will increase by up to 30 the number of doctoral students and graduates by offering financial support in certain joint doctoral programs for programs to meet their full enrollment potential. This will help ensure our progress toward becoming a Carnegie Research II institution and increase SDSU's national reputation and recognition. Departments will match funds for these doctoral students.

• Establish the SDSU Center for the Arts. This center will serve as a focal point for the arts on campus and in the San Diego region by enhancing, coordinating, and publicizing the many existing arts outreach programs in the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts, by forming alliances and partnerships with existing arts agencies in the region, and by bringing forth new initiatives to magnify the impact of the arts on this campus and in the community. The main activities of the center will be to promote and integrate the arts across the curriculum and into other disciplines, to provide a venue and support for bringing distinguished artists to SDSU, to initiate dialogues on critical issues in the arts, and to coordinate research and creative activities in the arts.

• Establish an Institute for Public Policy. The Institute for Public Policy will focus on collaborations by faculty and students with members of the private and public sectors from both sides of the international border. It will link the knowledge bases of SDSU, private industry, community activists, and governmental entities to address public policy issues relevant to changes in our social, economic, political, and health environments. It will sponsor public forums, education debates, and information dissemination, as well as operate certificate programs, train newly elected officials, and conduct multidisciplinary research related to policy issues and innovative curriculum development. This initiative will be funded through reallocation in the School of Public Administration and Urban Studies.

• Establish a Center for Community-Based Learning. Community-based learning links the campus with the community and practice with theory. Service learning, volunteer work for students, and classes that involve community work allow students' experiences to enrich the theoretical perspectives of the discipline. The center will develop partnerships between community organizations and faculty, thereby providing off-campus learning opportunities for students.

• Enhance the Campus Alcohol and Drug Prevention Program. SDSU will expand its current alcohol and drug awareness and prevention efforts by conducting research, by creating local community and Baja California collaborative programs, and by developing alcohol and drug prevention materials for high-risk groups. This program will support substance abuse education, research, and intervention among students, faculty, and staff while developing a cooperative liaison with the community to craft a comprehensive regional drug and alcohol interdiction strategy. Funding will support attitudinal studies, development of educational materials, and drug and alcohol prevention programs for audiences on and off campus.

• Establish a Teaching Award and Student Scholarship. Each year the College of Extended Studies will nominate and award outstanding faculty and teachers who demonstrate excellence in teaching. In addition, an annual student scholarship will be established in the name of the award-winning faculty member.

• Create a Distributed Learning Center. The center will partner with faculty, departments, and colleges in the identification and development of distributed learning projects, will assist in the articulation of these projects, and will create accessible learning opportunities via such distributed learning technologies as the Internet, SDSU Channel, and compressed video. Funding will support faculty release time, staff, graduate and student assistants, equipment, supplies, and services.

• Provide Distributed Education Technology and Computer Personnel at IVC. The Imperial Valley Campus will be provided with links to educational institutions in the Mexican border region with which SDSU collaborates. In addition, IVC will provide information technology and instructional technology training to faculty, staff, and students. This initiative will help assure that the Imperial Valley Campus is included in the move to make SDSU a "technology-savvy" campus. Funds will be used for staff, faculty and staff training, equipment, supplies, and services.

• Provide Math and Writing Courses for Incoming Freshmen. The College of Extended Studies will offer the basic math and writing classes for incoming freshmen during the last six-week summer session and will offer reduced tuition in those courses to low-income students to increase their participation and ensure their academic success.

• Strengthen Cultural Connections. The College of Extended Studies will initiate a program that will bring together international American Language Institute (ALI) students with American students at SDSU to learn more about each others' cultures and promote cross-cultural communication and understanding. The program will be coordinated with the International Student Center. SDSU students will be matched with ALI students based on common interests and personal characteristics. In addition, SDSU students will be invited to accompany ALI students on excursions and to other social events and activities to highlight various cultures. Funds will support event planning and student recruitment and exchanges.

• Assist in Locating Archival Library Materials on the Web. The Library will place finding aids for its archival collections on the World Wide Web to facilitate searches and dissemination of information about SDSU's unique archival resources.

• Increase Awareness of SDSU's Community Service. The SDSU Foundation, in cooperation with Graduate and Research Affairs, will increase the visibility of the SDSU's community service activities by promoting and publicizing the large number of grants, contracts, and community service programs that improve the quality of life for individuals in San Diego, throughout the region, nation, and globe.

• Restructure the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity. The Office of Affirmative Action will become the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity. The full-time director will report directly to the President. He or she will sit as a member of the university Cabinet. This initiative will provide for strengthened leadership in fostering respect for diversity and social justice and augment the university's sexual harassment prevention efforts. The Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity will survey the campus climate related to students, faculty, and staff perceptions of the quality of life on campus, particularly those related to diversity and social justice. The director of the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity will administer training and educational activities such as participation of staff and faculty in the National Coalition Building Institute to enhance the campus expertise in building a more diverse faculty, producing more knowledgeable staff and administration, and helping create an environment where all students as well as faculty and staff feel welcome and valued.

• Create a Center for Conflict Resolution. A study will be undertaken to design a Center for Conflict Resolution to provide curricular and co-curricular learning experiences that will teach students practical interpersonal, cross-cultural, and conflict resolution skills. The study will evaluate the potential effectiveness of such a program to promote a community that values individual and group differences and establishes civil dialogue, mutual understanding, and negotiation as the preferred methods of managing conflict. The center will create curricular experiences as well as learning opportunities outside the classroom. Emphasis will be on teaching practical skills and principles of effective interpersonal and intergroup communication as well as mediation and conflict resolution for individuals and organizations within the SDSU community. The center will promote a campus climate that respects human dignity, where individuals and groups act with integrity and seek peaceful and constructive resolution to conflict.

• Communicate Diversity Information. To extend cross-cultural awareness beyond the campus, the College of Extended Studies will publish a page of advertising for SDSU multicultural events on campus and in the community in its catalog of courses, which is sent to more than 200,000 clients.

• Expand Employee Career Development. SDSU's key resource is its people. In a world of fast-developing technologies and changing student and community needs, expanded training is essential to SDSU's success. Employee training will be expanded to focus on development for career enhancement and the acquisition of new skills in support of university goals. Personnel Services will coordinate creation of an employee committee to survey training and development needs, to identify cost effective means of meeting the identified needs, and to recommend implementation strategies for the development program.

• Create a Shared Knowledge Environment. Through a combined effort by the Offices of Institutional Research and Business Information Systems, templates of institutional information will be developed and made accessible to all members of the university community, enabling the university to better know itself and consequently to make more informed decisions. Major operational systems are being upgraded (SIMS/R) or replaced (Oracle) to support improved business and services and to capture the data critical to improved institutional research.

• Develop an Increased Capacity for Dispute Resolution. The Employee Assistance Program will provide access to independent dispute resolution for employees. The independent professionals of the Health and Human Resource Center, providers of the university employee assistance program, will provide confidential services to individual employees to help resolve noncontractual workplace conflicts. When individual counseling cannot resolve such issues, with the permission of the employee, HHRC will work with Personnel Services to facilitate a solution. Mediation, outside consultants, and other workplace intervention strategies will be employed. (These services do not replace the contractual grievance and complaint processes provided for in collective bargaining agreements.)

• Achieve a Balanced Athletics Budget. The Athletics program is an important part of SDSU, contributing to SDSU's image in the community and the nation and vital to alumni relations and to fund-raising. A balanced budget is critical to the perceived and real success of the program. The General Fund support for Athletics (beyond base funding and gender equity) will be reduced to zero over three years through a combination of decreasing General Fund supplemental allocations and increasing ticket sales revenues, fund-raising, and cost-saving measures. Two million dollars of general funds will be devoted to the university's obligation to support gender equity, as acknowledged and approved by the Senate.

• Revise Campus Physical Master Plan. One-time funds will be allocated over two fiscal years for articulation of academic program priorities and opportunities along with associated facility requirements leading to a major revision of the campus physical facility master plan, a document approved by the Board of Trustees to establish capital funding priorities for state and donor funding.

• Establish "Suggestion Box." A process improvement and cost-savings program will be established, under the direction of an employee committee. A web-based e-mail mechanism will be developed to receive employee suggestions for improving the services and resources of the university. Annual awards of $2500, $1000, and $500 will be given for the best money-saving or fund-generating ideas that do not diminish SDSU or its service to students and the community.

• Proceed with the Community Development Project. In keeping with the goals of fostering partnerships and promoting a welcoming and friendly campus environment, the Community Development Project began construction in September 1998, after nearly ten years of planning. Phase I will include student apartments, fraternity housing, and commercial and residential mixed-uses. This project will foster a sense of community, enhance town-and-gown relationships, enhance the aesthetic quality as well as the quality of life in our immediate community, provide an opportunity for more students to live on campus, and offer more options to meet students' housing needs.

• Hire a Corporate and Foundation Relations Officer. University Advancement plays an integral role in facilitating communication between internal and external audiences, in articulating our vision to the external community, and in expanding our sources of external funding. Funding this new position of Corporate and Foundation Relations Officer is an important way to identify funding opportunities, forge creative partnerships, and focus on specific technology needs for SDSU.

• Enhance International Student Recruitment and Retention. SDSU benefits academically, culturally, and economically from the presence of international students. By expanding support for international student admissions and retention, SDSU will increase the number of students who come to SDSU from all parts of the globe. The Division of Student Affairs will initiate new recruitment and retention efforts in collaboration with other campus units to double international enrollment by the year 2002. This will increase international student enrollment from a current level of 650 students to 1300 students.

• Expand International Student Center. Through private fund-raising, SDSU will enlarge its International Student Center building from its existing 3500 square feet to 11,000 square feet. The addition will allow for expanded services for international students and will provide facilities for the Center for International Business Education and Research and for the international business major.

• Endow a Fred J. Hansen World Peace Chair. This position will be filled on a rotating basis and used to promote SDSU's efforts to foster world peace. Departments will apply for the chair position. This joint project of the university and the SDSU Foundation was established with a $500,000 gift from the Hansen Foundation. The money will be endowed and will provide support of $25,000 a year to the holder of the Fred J. Hansen Chair of World Peace.

• Present an International Symposium on Youth: Health, Education, and Economic Security. The College of Health and Human Services provided leadership in convening in May 1998, an international conference in cooperation with the United Nations and other youth-related organizations to provide a forum for policy makers, planners, and scholars to discuss issues in preparation for the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth.

• Reposition the SDSU International Communications Council. The San Diego-Baja Communications Council, a program of SDSU's International Center for Communications, has been renamed the SDSU International Communications Council. The current programs of the International Center--particularly the Japan-U.S. Telecommunications Research Institute, the Smart Communities initiative, and the Pacific Dialogue on the Media--make repositioning the council to better serve in an international role timely and appropriate. This is a one-time investment; subsequently the operation will be self-funding or disbanded.

• Create a Transborder University. SDSU will establish a Transborder University, in collaboration with the universities in the Baja region as well as other parts of Mexico. It will conduct innovative binational scholarship that will encompass both education and research, develop new curricula, gather a diverse faculty, and ultimately develop new job opportunities in the binational region. It will incorporate aspects of distributed learning, international programs, and diversity. This university-wide initiative will initially be housed in College of Sciences. Funds will support faculty, staff, honoraria for visiting professors, supplies, and services.

• Continue the Middle East Water Development Planning Project. A program to develop and manage water resources in the Middle East will be initiated in partnership with the Shimon Peres Center for World Peace and the SDSU Foundation's Hansen Institute for World Peace. The new water development initiative will expand this regional cooperation by involving Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, the Palestinian Authority, and Tunisia.

• Establish an International Educational Experience Utilizing the Imperial Valley Campus as a Base. Because it borders Mexicali, the capital of Baja California, the Imperial Valley Campus is uniquely situated to provide a low-cost international experience for SDSU students. By working within individual majors to optimize program enhancement and by partnering with Mexican universities, IVC will construct cross-border programs to become part of the SDSU collegiate experience. This project will foster connections between SDSU and the regional and international communities.

SDSU is a strong, vibrant, caring university, committed to serving its students, San Diego, the region, and the world through excellent academic programs, symbiotic community outreach, and an open, informed, and caring campus community. The journey will require not only our common sense of purpose, but our energy, patience, and continued focus in the years ahead. While we cannot realize all our aspirations overnight, we believe we are making a good and earnest start.

Many of the initiatives cost little or nothing; other initiatives will offset their cost with increased income; still others will be funded by external sources. We must, however, be prepared to invest some of our own scarce resources if these challenges are to be met. We believe that the investment of approximately $865,000 in new General Fund monies during the 1998-99 academic year will be a constructive first step; in subsequent years we will do more as resources and opportunities allow.

At the end of each academic year, in an annual report to the university community, we will review progress to determine the status of each initiative, measured by specific indicators of progress.

The initiatives will enhance the opportunities for students to become better prepared to lead productive lives professionally and personally and will assist faculty in preparing their students for the demands of the twenty-first century. Taken as a whole, the initiatives will produce more effective graduates who will enhance the reputation of the institution, which in turn will draw students, faculty, and staff of the highest quality to San Diego State University.