December 1, 2017

Dear campus community,

The APASP Task Force has delivered its recommendations to President Stearns and the Cabinet. We invite you to read our recommendations and learn more about the APASP Task Force’s key findings, positive principles, and limitations of time, experience, and outcomes.

Next week will be an important time for the campus to weigh in on prioritization. Shared governance groups will be holding meetings throughout the week to discuss the Task Force’s recommendations and solicit your input. These groups may make recommendations of their own to the Cabinet and President as the latter deliberate about prioritization decisions. The President will issue preliminary decisions on December 11. Additional meetings will be held immediately following that, with final decisions to be determined by December 15.

The Task Force’s work will continue. A secondary part of our charge is to recommend components of the prioritization process that can be incorporated into UM’s systematic review of programs and services, and in particular, opportunities to link prioritization with UM’s Strategic Vision. We will draw on the experiences and lessons learned from this round of prioritization to develop those recommendations, and we welcome your thoughts as well.

In addition, throughout this process we have been building an extensive list of campus practices under the heading “Why do we do things this way?” We will deliver a list of these items to President Stearns and the Cabinet to stimulate further discussion about potential improvements and efficiencies.

We want to take this opportunity to thank the entire campus for your engagement with the prioritization process. We recognize that it added work on top of your other responsibilities at the beginning of the Fall 2017 semester. We appreciate your honesty in voicing concerns, providing suggestions, and complying with our timeline. We hope that the intense time and effort we spent on APASP in the past eight months will make a lasting contribution to the University of Montana as we undergo transition to new leadership, stabilize our finances, and begin investing in the strengths that make UM an outstanding University.

Sincerely,

The APASP Task Force