Concordia to release interim academic plan in mid-August

Dear colleagues,

In its recently released report, the External Governance Review Committee recommends that “the first priority of the incoming President be the establishment, within the context of the already approved Strategic Framework, of an academic plan drafted in terms that are meaningful to both the Senate and the Board.”

We believe that the intent of this recommendation is wise and clear. Nonetheless, completing the search for a new President and developing a new plan would in all probability take two years. Our next President must have full freedom to plan strategically; even so, we need to conserve the valuable momentum that work on the plan has already created toward asserting our academic priorities and fully realizing Concordia’s enormous potential. In other words, we need an interim plan as part of the process of preparing for the appointment of our next President.

A revised draft of the academic plan is nearing completion and will be released for public review and comment in mid-August. With this in mind, we recently sought the advice of the Senate Steering Committee about how best to proceed, and were very pleased to learn that the members of that committee shared our view that the release and discussion of the revised draft should not be further delayed. We, therefore, propose that the plan undergo formal review early in the fall, that it be discussed at Senate’s October meeting, and that it then be put forward for approval at Senate and the Board of Governors as our interim plan for moving forward.

We fully trust the capacities of the dedicated faculty members, administrators, and senior staff who, as part of the Academic Plan Working Group, have invested a tremendous amount of time and energy to create and revise this draft plan. We are confident as well that the wider academic community will see reflected in the revised draft many of the concerns expressed in the voluminous feedback that the working group assimilated.

This planning process has been more open and collaborative than any previously undertaken at Concordia, and we are certain that tapping the commitment to engagement and institutional improvement reflected in the current process will result in a dynamic, engaging academic plan that will make Concordia an even more attractive and rewarding place to conduct our academic work than it already is.

We will write again when the plan is released to ask you to give us the benefit of your collective wisdom, and you will receive more information during the fall semester about how to take part in implementing it.

Frederick Lowy
President and Vice-Chancellor

David Graham
Provost and Vice-President Academic Affairs

Related link:
•  External Governance Review Committee