Listening and Learning
Summary

During the Fall 2011 semester, Chancellor Phyllis Wise embarked on a Listening and Learning Tour, to hear why faculty, staff and students came to Illinois, why they stay and the challenges they plan to address together to ensure our continued excellence and relevance.

Strengths

Clearly, our greatest strength is the people who have made the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign their home. Faculty, students, staff and alumni contribute to our excellence in diverse – and meaningful – ways. Together, we have built a world-class intellectual community where connections and partnerships are easily made and collaborations lead to cutting-edge discoveries.
The vision that created a comprehensive university with a destination library has created an environment where quality of life and scholarly impact are the natural results.

• People: bright faculty and students (graduate and undergraduate)
• Interdisciplinary research opportunities
• Intellectual community (living near each other in a small town too)
• It’s easy to make connections with other people
• Collegiality
• Collaborative/open/friendly environment across the entire campus
• Diversity
• Comprehensive research university
• Library
• Quality of life

Challenges

Virtually every major challenge facing the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign involves financial resources – salaries, deferred maintenance, student access, diversity, increased workloads and recruitment and retention.
To fully utilize the resources currently available while securing new revenue streams, the campus must prioritize emerging areas of impact; create incentives for colleges, departments and individual faculty to collaborate on these shared priorities; attract the best and brightest students regardless of their financial ability; continue to build a welcoming and supportive environment for everyone in the campus community; and fully engage alumni and friends as ambassadors for the institution.
• Budget/salaries/retention/identifying new revenue sources
• Diversity/Inclusivity
• Infrastructure/ Deferred maintenance
• Staffing levels/work load is heavy/finding time to write grant proposals
• Remaining relevant – continuing to solve society’s vexing problems
• Balance between investing/concentrating on what we do very well and the responsibilities/expectations of being a public research university
• Lack of stability at top university and campus administration
• Lack of incentives and structure for collaborative/interdisciplinary efforts
• Keeping today’s students engaged as tomorrow’s alumni
• Access to an Illinois education