McCombs Alumni Network News

From Thomas W. Gilligan
Dean and Centennial Chair in Business Education Leadership

I am pleased to share the final version of the McCombs Strategic Plan Outline. This outline is the result of a collaborative process involving hundreds of hours of careful deliberation by faculty, staff, students, alumni and advisory board members of the McCombs School of Business. I want to thank all of you for participating in this process. I am delighted with the Plan Outline and believe that it will serve as a roadmap for increasing the stature and prominence of our school and university.

Please visit http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/e-news/e-releases/strategic-plan.htm to view the strategic plan outline in its entirety. In the weeks ahead we will augment this website to document our progress towards implementing the plan. This website will be updated as elements of the plan are developed. I encourage all of you to visit these pages periodically to follow our progress. I also encourage you to submit your comments and suggestions on our plan to strategicplan@mccombs.utexas.edu.

We are launching our new strategic plan in the mist of budgetary uncertainty at The University of Texas and the McCombs School of Business.  To be sure, the resulting constraints will affect the pace at which we implement some aspects of our strategic plan.  Though these conditions present many challenges, they do not preclude us from making progress on our goal of becoming one of the most prominent business schools in the world and our purpose of educating leaders that create value for society.

There is much we can do given our existing resources. For example, we are already taking steps to increase the intellectual influence of our faculty by refocusing our Communications and Alumni Relations functions.  Many of our other strategic initiatives, such as promoting and supporting teaching excellence here at McCombs, can and will be advanced while the world’s economies recover and the budgetary environment stabilizes.  And we will revise and complete our faculty and facilities master plans over the coming months.
Even in these difficult times, friends and benefactors have supported some of our new initiatives.  You will soon be hearing more about our new Energy Management and Innovation Center.  This Center complements some recent changes to our curriculum and is designed to address major societal problems involving energy use and sufficiency.  And many of our long-time friends have generously supported our efforts to attract talented students through new scholarship opportunities.   

Again, thank you for your help with this important process. And best wishes to all of you on the coming academic year.