Chancellor's Report, August 9, 2006
Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Jr.
Board of Regents Meeting
We started our new fiscal year on July 1, and a new academic year is about to begin as well. This month marks my sixth month on the job. Although a lot is still new to me, I realize that every meeting and every action of this Board and this System is part of a continually renewing cycle. The first six months have been exciting, and the excitement continues.
Yesterday, you approved what will be my first budget in my first full budget cycle. I am very excited about seeing it grow into a full state appropriation next spring. I am accountable for this budget and look forward to spending time with the appropriate legislators to ensure that our aspirations and goals are in fact met. But looking forward, there will be additional procedural changes to our own internal procedures. This year, for the first time, we will be assigning analysts to each institution, and they will be working with institutional representatives to develop “shadow budgets.” We will compare our “shadow budgets” with those developed at the institutions in an effort to challenge thinking and assumptions made at the campus level. Ultimately, this will become a proxy for a zero-based budget approach where every dollar – not just the incremental ones – must be justified. This will be an ongoing process. I expect that our capabilities as well as the capabilities of those defending budgets will in fact improve over time. I am looking forward to the first year of this, and hopefully, we will get some meaningful dialog with the campuses. It will help us understand their needs a little bit better. While on the surface, it will give us an opportunity to challenge, it will also give us an opportunity to learn. We will all be better as a result of this process.
Instead of talking about what has happened over the last six months, let me talk a little bit about what you should expect over the next six months. First, we will continue to evaluate our processes and determine where we can drive improvements. At the presidents’ meeting in July, I announced a number of actions related to this effort. The most visible of these actions was the reorganization of my staff and my reporting relationships. I now have a more manageable number of people reporting directly to me. This is a work-in-process, and we will continue to test its effectiveness and will not hesitate to make changes. We also shared with the presidents for the very first time a list of Systemwide responsibilities, and I indicated that I wanted to assign one or more of those to each president and have them pursue that responsibility and maximize its effectiveness across the System. The presidents were given the list to review, and we asked whether there were topics they believed should be added to the list. Surprisingly, we got over 27 additional topics to consider. So, that was a very robust exchange between my staff and the presidents. The next step is to set specific expectations and make specific assignments. Then, we’ll start the true hard work of maximizing these functional responsibilities.
Under the leadership of the Chief Audit Officer and Associate Vice Chancellor for Internal Audit, Ronald B. Stark, we have identified a number of key approval processes that can be moved from the System to the institutional level. While I thought initially this would be a small number, it has turned out to be a quite voluminous number. This was discussed with the presidents for the first time at the July meeting. We have divided these processes into a number of categories, such as academic and financial. We will assign to the presidents for review and then suggest appropriate changes to The Bylaws. The point is to push decision-making as low as we can, as close to the problems and issues and hold people accountable for the decisions they make at that level.
We also introduced to the presidents a new behavioral evaluation model, essentially a 360 degree approach where we will begin to get a more holistic view of presidential performance, which hopefully will lead to more intelligent discussions between the presidents and their supervisors. We will be able to define a bit more crisply what behavioral modifications we might be seeking going forward. So, that was a quick summary of what we discussed at the presidents meeting.
At the end of July, the System joined Governor Perdue and other state agencies in the launch of the new Customer Service Initiative. It is the Governor’s goal to make this the best managed state, and the tag line for the program is to do things “faster, friendlier, and easier.” We have already launched programs on every campus. We are taking this effort by the Governor very seriously, not just because it is a mandate or directive from the Governor, but also because it will serve our interests, as well. I believe very strongly that customer service is a powerful tool that will help us become a continuous improvement or continuous learning organization, both at the campus level and at the University System Office. This initiative is critical in turning our culture from introspection to one that is much more customer-focused and customer-driven. I am very excited about this initiative, and you will receive reports on a number of projects that are exciting.
We are starting to launch a strategic planning process. We have made a number of tactical decisions or changes that ultimately depend upon the existence of a strategic plan. I have mentioned that budgets should be strategy-driven documents. Absent a strategy, we cannot fulfill that mandate. This is also true of our capital allocations. These processes are dependent upon a robust strategic plan being put in place. It is important as we enter into this planning to look toward the future to try and define what we hope to get as outcomes from this planning process. I mentioned earlier that one of the outcomes will be that we will align our resources with our strategic priorities. Thus, it will be critical that you help define and fully accept those priorities. Our planning will focus on these strategic priorities for the System and for the state, and then, we will look at the resources needed to address these priorities. This will be a collaborative process. Campus-level involvement is critical for buy-in, and many institutions will be involved in this process. We are sensitive to the needs of institutions, and we will try to balance the need for pace versus the number of people involved in the process. There are other outcomes we hope to get from the process. We hope to improve responsiveness and accountability. We hope to create a stronger sense of System with a corresponding strengthening of our individual institutions, as well as a better understanding by us all of the missions of the particular institutions.
Let me talk a little bit about the quality of teaching in our System. Our planning efforts will build upon a strong base, particularly in the key area of our mission of academics and instruction. One of the key impressions from my campus tour was a high and consistent level of teaching. The latest affirmation of that impression comes from President Bruce Grube of Georgia Southern University (“GSOU”). He pointed out that for the third year running, Georgia’s K-12 “Teacher of the Year” is a GSOU graduate and a product of this System. Dr. Pam Walker is this year’s honoree. President Dorothy Leland was also quick to point out that Dr. Walker also holds degrees from Georgia College & State University. So, I want to take this opportunity to compliment the institutions on their teaching excellence and congratulate Dr. Walker for winning this award. This is a good reminder of our goal to strengthen and sustain the excellence within our System.
In conclusion, we have embarked upon a number of major changes in the way we operate. The University System is a very large and complex organization. So, by definition, the changes are often going to be big. One of my favorite management gurus is Dr. Sheila Sheinberg, who once said you do not leap cultural chasms in three baby steps. So, we will make big changes. I am sure my next six months will be as exciting, if not more, than the last six. I look forward to working with Chairman Vigil and each of you in this process.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That completes my remarks.