About 200 members of the campus community gathered at a Jan. 31 forum to begin brainstorming how Western can respond to the needs of the state identified in a report recently released by the commission.

The UNC Tomorrow initiative was launched to determine how the UNC system can respond more directly and proactively to the 21st-century challenges facing North Carolina now and in the future. The commission conducted a series of campus visits, community and faculty listening forums, surveys, blogging efforts and scholarly research, and its report will guide UNC’s priorities, resources allocations, programming and planning.

Groups at the forum discussed how WCU is addressing and could better address the 47-page report’s primary themes: enhancing global competitiveness; increasing access to higher education; helping solve public education challenges; enhancing economic transformation and community development; improving health and wellness; addressing energy and environmental challenges; and expanding outreach and engagement efforts.

“Western is extremely well-positioned to respond to a lot of these needs,” said Chancellor John Bardo.

The forum was an early step in the process of preparing a preliminary response to the UNC Tomorrow report to send to UNC General Administration by May 1. A more detailed response will be submitted in the fall.

Funding and budgeting decisions for institutions within the UNC system will be strongly linked to how they address the priorities in the UNC Tomorrow report, said Bardo.

“This is a big deal – and a big job,” he said. “The more people we can involve the better.”

The process will include formation of a diverse steering committee with members representing faculty, staff, students and representatives from counties in the region that WCU serves. Working groups will meet to discuss each of the report’s major themes. Additional campus forums will be held.

WCU also has launched a Web site where news and updates about the university’s response to the report will be posted. A link to the site, located at http://www.wcu.edu/6264.asp, is on Western's home page.

“As soon as we get a draft response, we will sit down with Faculty Senate, the University Advisory Council and Staff Forum to ask for feedback,” said Bardo. “I have never seen anything with as much potential to affect our future in a positive way as UNC Tomorrow.”

For more information, check out http://www.nctomorrow.org/. Bardo asked that additional thoughts about the report be sent to him via e-mail at jbardo@email.wcu.edu.

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Last modified: Friday,  Feb. 8, 2008