In his latest blog, State System of Higher Education Chancellor Dan Greenstein focuses on the System Redesign, sharing the results of a survey he conducted within the System and urging for harder and faster work to make changes.”
Greenstein’s summary of his “Ready Willing Able” survey concludes that people feel the State System is ready for change, but less willing to change, and even less able to change.
Specifically, there appears to be much doubt about the effectiveness of the Sharing System approach to change, which will enable universities to work more closely to share their resources. Only 34 percent of respondents to the survey felt it would work, while 54 percent have not yet formed an opinion. And while many respondents feel they are able to change their approach, they at the same time feel that their broader university and its leadership are not able.
Greenstein is still optimistic about the System Redesign, but says they need “to clarify the detail of what is being proposed with respect of the sharing system”. He has formed a “Systemwide Leadership Group” of school presidents and administrators to address the perceptions revealed in the survey and outlined a number of next-steps to further the Redesign :
- Transparent—the work of System Redesign teams is published online to enable and invite community engagement.
- Inclusive of all key stakeholders—faculty, staff, students, university and system leadership, etc.
- Capable of efficiently enlisting talent at all levels of a university and distributing the workload so “redesign” takes place even as we operate this $2.3B enterprise.
- Clear with respect of the roles, responsibilities, decision rights, and expectations of redesign teams and their members.
- Supported out of my office with a coordinated approach to project management
Other advances include a re-tooling of the communications approach for the System Redesign:
- Improving the System Redesign website to allow for easier navigation and visibility into progress.
- An internal social media platform to engage employees in the dialogue.
- In the fall, work with the student government leaders to engage even more students in System Redesign.
- Next month, the launch of an e-newsletter that will provide regular progress updates and collect the most timely and relevant information into one, easy-to-access location.
