Spectrum - Volume 20 Issue 11 November 6, 1997 - Meszaros addresses Faculty Senate

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Meszaros addresses Faculty Senate

By John Ashby

Spectrum Volume 20 Issue 11 - November 6, 1997

Provost Peggy Meszaros met with faculty senators at the October meeting of the Faculty Senate, and discussed the university's Academic Agenda Implementation Plan.
The plan includes six strategic directions for the university: 1) create multifaceted, supportive learning environments; 2) enhance the university's status as a major research university; 3) position the university as a leading provider of outreach services; 4) enhance the university's status as one of the leading innovators in the application of advanced communications and information technologies; 5) more fully integrate an international dimension into the university's programs; 6) encourage interdisciplinary collaborations within the university, and strategic partnerships outside the university.
The purpose of the strategies is to maintain the university's status as a leader in teaching, research and outreach, and programs designed to respond to society's changing needs.
Meszaros also discussed the seven cross-cutting initiatives within the academic agenda. Designed to build upon established and emerging strengths of the university, the initiatives are in biological systems and biotechnology; computing, information, and communications technology; environmental sciences and energy systems; food, nutrition, and health; learning communities; materials science; and transportation.
"Building on the seven cross-cutting initiatives will help us stand out from the rest, and enable Virginia Tech to rise in the next century," Meszaros said.
Meszaros also announced that a group will look at how national publications rank universities, and how Tech measures itself and responds to these publications.
Asked if and when the university's allocation of resources will be based on the greatest areas of need as defined by the six strategic directions noted by Meszaros, she said that point had not yet been reached. "We will probably be there within the next two or three years. We will begin to make those kinds of allocations."