Goals and Values of the Administration of Rutgers

February 26, 2003

Members of the Rutgers Community:

Since becoming president of Rutgers University three months ago, I have received hundreds of communications from students, faculty, and staff and have had the privilege of meeting and talking with many of you about how our university can become an even better place in which to learn and explore new ideas. These exchanges have strengthened my commitment to our core missions of teaching and research, to the quality of our students' education, and to our collective goal of academic excellence. My communications with you have also suggested that Rutgers can achieve greater stature through a reorganized administrative structure that better supports our basic missions, empowers administrators to become even more effective and efficient leaders, and inspires a shared vision and organizational culture that is based upon a set of common values.

To advance our academic goals, five key values will guide my administration of Rutgers. The first is transparency and openness. A public university cannot be run in secret. For the university community to engage in meaningful discussions on important issues, everyone must have access to the facts. My administrative colleagues and I will continue to communicate broadly, often via email and websites, so that all members of the Rutgers community can obtain information about the most important issues we are facing. Openness and communication are especially important in times of financial constraint when everyone who wants to do so should be able to learn the facts about the budget.

The second value is service. The administration exists to build the academic excellence of Rutgers by serving students, faculty, and academic programs. The administration must serve our students so their experiences of learning and living at Rutgers are as full and intellectually rich as they can be. The administrative structure of the university must also support the faculty and staff so they, in turn, can provide outstanding instruction, research and public service. An orientation toward efficient, cost-effective service will be a hallmark of my administration.

A third value is the devolution of authority from Old Queen's to the university's campuses and units, whenever and wherever local decision-making can improve the quality of our work. Responsibility should lie in the places where it can be most efficiently and effectively exercised. That includes our campuses in Camden and Newark, as well as appropriate units and offices in New Brunswick/Piscataway. Along with authority comes the accountability that extends from each individual member of the Rutgers community to the highest levels of the administration.

The fourth value is teamwork and collaboration. We need to tear down any walls that separate us at Rutgers and replace them with bridges that link our departments and services. My administration will model the collegiality and cooperation that I hope will permeate every part of the university.

Fifth and finally, my administration will place a high value on clarity of responsibilities and functions. Everyone in the Rutgers community should be easily able to learn which offices and people are entrusted with which duties and where to go to get the services that are needed. For a start, please consult: www.president.rutgers.edu/structure.shtml for a basic organization chart and information about the central administration. Over time, we will provide additional details to enhance the clarity of responsibility within Rutgers.

Consistent with these values, I am reconfiguring the administration to establish two executive vice presidential positions — one for academic affairs and one for administrative affairs — each with clear lines of authority as described below. Please know that I am particularly sensitive to the costs of the central administration and will not expand unnecessarily the size of the central administration. Rather my goal is to realign functions and resources in a manner that will enable the university to operate at the highest levels of efficiency in support of the excellence to which we aspire.

The Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs will be the university's chief academic and budget officer and will be the clear number two position within the administration. The new Executive Vice President will replace the position of University Vice President for Academic Affairs, a post currently held by Dr. Joseph J. Seneca who has expressed a strong desire to return to his faculty position following twelve years of outstanding service and leadership. The Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs will have leadership responsibility for undergraduate and graduate education, research, academic labor relations, student services, admissions and financial aid, libraries, institutional research and planning, and continuing education. Responsibility for budgetary allocation will be moved to this position because the majority of the university's resources must be used to support its academic programs.

The deans of the faculties and schools on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus will report to the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. The deans of the undergraduate colleges in New Brunswick (Rutgers, Douglass, Livingston, and University College) will continue to report to the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. There will be no New Brunswick Provost. The Provosts of the Camden and Newark campuses will continue to serve as the chief academic and budget officers for their campuses and will report directly to the president. The administrative structures of the Camden and Newark campuses will remain as they are now, subject to decisions by the campus provosts. The Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, working with the Camden and Newark Provosts, will provide leadership for cross-campus academic initiatives and programs.

Earlier this week I launched a national search for the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. Dr. David Mechanic, Director of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, serves as chair of the search committee, which is composed of leading faculty from all three campuses as well as student and staff representatives. For the composition and charge to this search committee see: www.president.rutgers.edu/search_execvp.shtml.

The second new position, the Executive Vice President for Administrative Affairs, will be the university's chief business administrative officer with responsibilities for finance, human resources, facilities management, capital projects, information technology, and business services. Effective April 1, 2003, this position will be filled by Ms. Karen Kavanagh. (For the text of the announcement of this appointment see: www.president.rutgers.edu/kavanagh.shtml.)

Karen Kavanagh is currently the Vice President for Human Resources at the University of Washington, where she was my colleague in the administration of that institution. Prior to coming to the UW, she served as Vice President for Human Resources at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Karen, who holds a master's degree from Rutgers in labor relations and human resources administration, embraces and models all of the key values that I identified earlier in this communication. As Vice President for Human Resources at the UW, she has provided service-oriented leadership in a spirit of openness and collegiality that has permeated the whole university. She will be an outstanding addition to the leadership team at Rutgers.

After the two Executive Vice Presidents are both in place, there will be some further reorganization of the functions and responsibilities within their purview.

Later this year, I intend to launch a search for a Vice President for University Relations. Decisions still need to be made about the administration and organization of this area, which will include such programs as media relations, government relations, and community affairs. I will consult widely and reach decisions about the organization of these and related areas as soon as possible.

As each of you knows, Rutgers University faces significant challenges for the months and years ahead, especially that of maintaining and enhancing our academic programs despite the severity of budgetary constraints. Only by recruiting to Rutgers the best students, faculty, and administrators; by making the highest quality academic decisions; by deploying our limited resources to achieve the most; and by organizing our work as effectively as possible will Rutgers meet its challenges and achieve its goals. To these ends, I pledge to lead an administration that lives by the values described here. Thank you for your own respect for those same values and for your willingness to work with me to improve the university.

Sincerely yours,

Richard L. McCormick
President
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey