Strategic Plan their course syllabi, it shall represent the intellectual capital of the UA&P faculty. Fourth: we need a more responsive business model. Our student population will always remain relatively small, by choice, relative especially to the enormous amount of research, extension, and developmental activities that our 2018 vision entails. It would be foolhardy to expect tuition revenue to cover all these activities, as we have been doing for the past five years or so. Our Development Office shall therefore coordinate universitywide efforts that will enable us to use, throughout the period 2010-2018, an alternative business model—one that relies on diversifying our fund sources through partnerships that contribute to our mission. And the fifth enabler: multi-campus expansion. We are now completing the master plan for the current campus—the Ortigas campus—that shall be the basis for an extensive campus development plan and the blueprint for the scheduling of all capital expenditure projects of the University. By 2018 we shall be ready to expand to a two-campus university, with the main campus just outside Manila, where the central administration, the College of Arts and Sciences, and most Graduate Schools are located; and the Ortigas Campus, where we shall locate the future Business School, possibly the Law School, and branch offices of the business-oriented graduate programs.
Institution Building This, ladies and gentlemen, is our vision for UA&P eight years down the road. We may imagine, perhaps, stretching ahead of us, an intense period of productive activity, of offering more and more innovative goods and products and services to society—from forms as tangible as papers corrected on time, bibliographies assessed on time, publications—even relief goods, when the occasion calls for it, as it did the middle of last school year—to things that can only be contemplated—abstract knowledge, the appreciation of values, wisdom. That is true, but only partly so. As we move forward to achieve our vision, we must be convinced that the most important product that will come out of the institution will be the institution itself. And it is this that I would like us now to consider. Given the considerable amount of internal capacity building that our 2018 strategic vision requires, we see the need, beginning now, to strengthen in all sectors of UA&P a work culture and environment that highlights the following features: 1. Accountability 2. Synergy 3. Communication Accountability. Through the business planning cycle that is about to commence, we shall work hard at translating these broad strokes into the specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals that each individual in each of our academic and administrative units can own as the concrete expression of his commitment to our institutional mission. Above all, we shall work at harnessing the free spirit of initiative that is one of the features of our corporate culture each one of us commit to when we sign on to UA&P. We all understand that the totality of that commitment includes fiduciary responsibility for the resources made available for the institutional mission. Since
26
UNIVERSITAS September 2010
If we invest effort in this manner, beginning today, the first day of the academic year, in building the institution by strengthening accountability, synergy, and mission-driven communication, we shall secure our capacity to grow towards our 2018 vision.
/////////////////////
these resources are not unlimited, we will have to select, to emphasize or de-emphasize, to prioritize and even de-list causes worthy in themselves but must for now go backstage or be altogether dropped. We will have to aim for the most comprehensive impact of the activities we do decide to undertake, as free as possible from conflicting interests and distractions, and with a view to sustaining the effort by ensuring an adequate flow of resources. And we shall strengthen the confidence we all invest in the collegial process for deciding how best to exercise fiduciary responsibility at any given moment of the institution’s history. Synergy. We shall strengthen a positive bias for interdisciplinary dialogue and team research, and for vigorous inter-unit cooperation in all the important activities we undertake. Alongside the commitment to advance one’s profession and to advance in one’s profession, we shall count on each one’s commitment to the organization beyond the bounds of his assigned functions. We shall count on his practical grasp of how its various units interrelate. And we shall count on his advancing inter-functional collaboration everywhere in the organization. Such a commitment is all the more urgent since our strategic vision urges us to look out of the University, and we would not be able to do that profitably if we cannot confidently attract to the University, if we cannot confidently point to UA&P as an embodiment of the ideals of unity and cooperation we are proposing. Finally: the communication of our institutional mission—and our Christian identity—in all details of university life. The institutional environment we desire, one that transmits values in all areas and in all situations, is essentially a human environment, consisting of our daily engagement with the interests and concerns of our colleagues, where we foster a work ethic marked by intellectual seriousness, attention and respect, agility in service, teamwork, diligence and punctuality, good grooming and refinement in speech, care for the facilities, and so on. To win over collaborators to a common mission, this university environment itself—the work culture physically evident, breathable, in the campus—should be the primary attraction and our most effective instructor. If we invest effort in this manner, beginning today, the first day of the academic year, in building the institution by strengthening accountability, synergy, and missiondriven communication, we shall secure our capacity to grow towards our 2018 vision. Succession planning will be less a matter of accretion from the outside and more an internal development that can be relied on. We can then diversify leadership, expand our potential for a second campus—even a third, if we like—and have enough to field in cooperative engagements all over the region. I trust that eight years from now, all I’ve said won’t just be words but a reality—the very institution we love so much, our University of Asia and the Pacific. Thank you and welcome to the new school year.