University provides October updates on strategic initiatives

(Oct. 15, 2018) -- In an email sent today to UTSA faculty and staff, President Taylor Eighmy provided updates on the presidential, strategic and tactical initiatives underway to support the university’s strategic vision.

Classroom to Career

The 24-member Classroom to Career Task Force held its inaugural meeting Sept. 28, and is now beginning the work of identifying partnership opportunities in the community, surveying the landscape of UTSA’s current experiential learning programs, researching resource availability, and identifying best practices from UTSA and peer institutions. The Task Force will share its findings in December in a report that includes a recommended strategy to maximize the accessibility and value of experiential learning at UTSA.

Research Excellence 

A new speaker series is in the works where members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine will be brought to campus in an effort to draw national attention to UTSA's signature research areas. A new effort to utilize Academic Analytics to assess the strengths of the UTSA’s research areas is also underway. These assessments will lead to transdisciplinary teaming in pursuit of solving grand challenges and scholarly award nominations. Proposal support programming is in progress to assist faculty with applications to the National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship Program, one of several targeted programs recognized by the National Research University Fund. 

Campus Master Plan 

Last month, the task force administered the UTSA Campus Master Plan Discovery Survey, an interactive online survey tool developed by consultants from Page. UTSA faculty, staff and students were invited via campus-wide emails to participate in the survey, which was open Sept. 11-25. Participants had the option to complete a survey focused on the Main Campus, another focused on the Downtown Campus, or both. Preliminary findings from the surveys will be shared at campus forums that will be held Oct. 25 at the Downtown Campus and Oct. 26 at the Main Campus. The forums also present another opportunity for the UTSA community to ask questions about the initiative and provide input.

Finance and Budget Modeling

UTSA’s new Incentivized Resource Management (IRM) budget approach is running in parallel with the university’s current budgeting process for FY19. Huron Consulting Group is assisting with restating UTSA’s FY19 budget into the new IRM format. Phase I of this work encompasses revenue restatement and will be shared with relevant units by the end of October. Work has begun to create a timetable for the FY20 budget, which will be posted to the Budget and Financial Planning website once finalized. A set of new IRM governance committees are in the proposal stage, and include a Support Unit Budget Advisory Committee, Strategic Investment Review Advisory Committee and Executive Budget Committee. In addition, the IRM Steering Committee (formerly Finance and Budget Modeling Task Force) and Space and Planning Advisory Committee will continue to support IRM implementation.

Downtown Campus 

The UTSA Downtown Campus is on track to become the anchor for a new technology corridor in San Antonio. Financial support from the UT System Board of Regents, a $15 million gift from San Antonio business leader/entrepreneur Graham Weston, and land from the City of San Antonio and Bexar County will support the construction of two facilities for a proposed School of Data Science and National Security Collaboration Center. These events have effectively launched the first phase of UTSA’s 10-year plan to become an integral partner in the development of the city’s urban core and a driver of growth and economic prosperity.

Data Governance and Integrity

The Data Governance and Integrity Task Force is identifying data flow integration requirements among core application software that fundamental institutional business processes, Key Performance Indicators (KPI), and Operational Performance Indicators (OPI) depend on. These core application software platforms are Banner, Peoplesoft, FM Interact, 25Live, Hyperion and Salesforce. Identification of data flow integration requirements among these six core application software platforms is key to redesigning UTSA’s critical business processes that are currently cumbersome, inefficient and rely heavily on unnecessary manual steps.

School of Data Science and National Security Collaboration Center

Newly established programming teams began work late last month to determine priorities and opportunities for the new School of Data Science and National Security Collaboration Center buildings at the Downtown Campus. Nationally recognized design firm Gensler is working with San Antonio firm Facility Programming and Consulting to lead UTSA through the design phase of the facilities in close collaboration with internal and external stakeholders. UTSA secured a $2 million Defense Intelligence Agency - Center of Academic Excellence Award in collaboration with NSCC partners Booz Allen Hamilton, Army Research Laboratory and the 25th Air Force. On October 1, IPSecure was the first corporate partner to establish residency in the temporary location for the NSCC in the North Paseo Building on the Main Campus, with others slated for co-location in November 2018.

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