Priority Ideas

Planning Implementation Priority Ideas

Presented as conversation starters at the Planning Implementation Workshop, the following planning priority ideas were gleaned from a series of meetings UNT President Neal Smatresk hosted with various groups of UNT administrators, faculty and staff during the past few months. Other than being organized by category, the list of ideas offered by others is presented in a non-priority, random order. Certain recommendations appear more than once in the list.

  1. Overall Operations and Infrastructure
    1. Operational Infrastructure
    2. Physical Infrastructure
  2. Revenue Growth and Reduced Expenditures
  3. Education and Research
    1. Research
    2. Education

Overall Operations and Infrastructure

Operational Infrastructure

  • Rebuild business office and processes
  • Reorganize at the cabinet, division and department levels
  • Break down silos and silo-like behaviors and improve horizontal communication
  • Review budgets to incentivize cost savings and efficiency
  • Look for revenue growth opportunities
  • Identify and refocus/eliminate legacy “We’ve always done that.” operations/projects
  • Develop budgets based on actual revenues and expenditures (adopt best practices for budgeting)
  • Hire a VP for Diversity and Inclusion
  • Consider the ROI of existing programs, services and projects
  • Address critical academic and administrative areas that are low performing
  • Improve purchasing processes to avoid a 7-8 week pre-yearend blackout period
  • Eliminate duplicative/unnecessary memberships and event sponsorships; achieve discounts at conferences through institution-level registrations
  • Grow adequate reserves for building and maintenance purposes
  • Create plans for building renewal/renovation
  • Update mechanical and electrical infrastructure
  • Improve compliance, safety and risk management operations
  • Improve Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Affirmative Action functions
  • Provide EEO training campus-wide
  • Create campus-wide and division-level diversity plans
  • Engage the services of Human Resources and the Division of Institutional Equity and Diversity to surface qualified candidates and build networks for the same
  • Improve institutional research, data application and analytic capabilities for decision-making
  • Reduce bureaucracy; streamline processes to improve business functionality and operations
  • Increase electronic/paperless business processes
  • Perform financial and business transformation (finding and fixing)
  • Build financial reserves
  • Create financial dashboards and functional account ledgers
  • Adopt best practice financial controls
  • Recruit and retain staff, provide better training and development
  • Deliver first-rate service, with accountability
  • Integrate technology to support business functions
  • Improve information technology and related services
  • Examine the local and system-level issues and opportunities
  • Examine IT organization and governance
  • Acquire necessary tools and support to accomplish institutional objectives
  • Improve human resources and support culture redevelopment
  • Establish clear accountabilities for executive and management positions
  • Improve annual assessment of all employees
  • Provide customer service training; emphasize customer service at every level
  • Promote more informal networking and problem solving
  • Improve development, career progression and retention of most talented employees
  • Provide training in policy and procedures
  • Improve employee banding and reclassification processes; avoid position and salary creep
  • Improve advancement fundraising operations and relationships to foundation
  • Improve operations and management of affiliated 501c3 organizations and other groups: Professional Development
    Institute, UNT Alumni Association, Mean Green Club, etc.
  • Improve and train departmental budget staff campus-wide
  • Strengthen image, internal/external relations, community engagement and fundraising
  • Grow UNT Alumni Association membership dues revenue; explore opportunities for affinity program revenue
  • Create a culture of collaboration
  • Increase campus-wide engagement
  • Promote caring for others as a value, especially for students
  • Consolidate and improve university-wide and college-level events
  • Improve town-gown relationships in Denton and surrounding cities
  • Improve institutional brand, image and marketing/communications operations and outcomes
  • Generate more traditional media coverage and increase social media engagement
  • Employ multichannel promotion of defined image and key reputational points. Increase use of digital technologies.
  • Create more impactful internal communications using town hall gatherings, web, email, social media, etc.
  • Employ cultural and athletic events to cultivate and engage residents and alumni
  • Focus on areas north of the Lake Lewisville Bridge
  • Employ athletics coverage and interest as a “window” to the university overall
  • Shape future community engagement operations
  • Develop and implement new, authentic institutional identity

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Physical Infrastructure

  • Create new gateway to campus
  • Consider high-amenity shopping center
  • Create new university visitors center
  • Obtain Tuition Revenue Bonds for new buildings
  • Make progress on campus master plan, capital projects and grounds
  • Provide parking and transportation solutions
  • Acquire property; development planning and implementation
  • Identify and maximize hotel-convention center and property acquisition opportunities
  • Create plans for building renewal/renovation
  • Update mechanical and electrical infrastructure campus-wide
  • Reduce costs for facilities maintenance and services
  • Improve the appearance of campus grounds
  • Improve space allocation processes to support teaching, research and service delivery
  • Examine the best use of Higher Education Assistance Funds (HEAF)
  • Improve condition of public streets on campus; work with city of Denton officials
  • Complete athletic facility infrastructure
  • Complete University Union and Honors Hall projects
  • Examine future needs for more student housing
  • Examine future needs for Greek student housing
  • Address maintenance and renovation issues in Pohl Recreation Center and Chestnut Hall

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Revenue Growth and Reduced Expenditures

  • Grow and support the Eagle Express 4-year tuition plan
  • Improve student recruitment and retention marketing and communications
  • Hire a VP for Enrollment, strengthen/reorganize enrollment management team
  • Increase student application, admission and retention rates
  • Integrate technology to achieve recruitment and retention objectives
  • Increase enrollments selectively at first-time in college (FTIC), transfer and graduate levels and within academic programs
  • Recruit out-of-state students
  • Grow summer enrollment
  • Grow distributed learning, distance education, accelerated online programs and certificate programs
  • Improve retention with a comprehensive program using data, early warning, advising, first-year experiences, academic success support, remediation, etc.
  • Implement Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) software solutions to gain analytics, automate contacts, gain transactional insights, predict outcomes, etc.
  • Leverage financial aid and scholarships
  • Grow continuing education, certificate and professional development programs and delivery models
  • Create unified continuing education programs
  • Grow degree-completion programs
  • Grow upper-division semester credit hours (SCH) in areas with high formula funding
  • Reduce our indebtedness
  • Focus on cost containment university-wide
  • Leverage marketing/communication and PR staff campus-wide
  • Consolidate and market continuing education
  • Examine cost models and service delivery for internal and external shared services
  • Utilize university-owned real estate/buildings to generate lease revenues, such as Woodhill Office Park
  • Employ multichannel marketing and increased use of digital technologies for marketing and branding
  • Improve year-end business practices and reduce year-end “purge” purchasing by increasing the number of accounts with fund rollover capacity
  • Identify and reorganize to eliminate duplicative services and full-time equivalent (FTE)
  • Consider cloud and internal shared services concepts, where appropriate
  • Improve and train departmental budget staff campus-wide
  • Leverage local area network (LAN) groups and help desks for business functions and student support
  • Create incentives to grow revenues
  • Evaluate the impact of I-35 construction on enrollment
  • Reduce substantially the number of individual course and other fees
  • Consider collapsing fees into several united fees, as allowable under the law
  • Consider “program” fees within each college, in keeping with varying approaches to allowable differential tuition
  • Increase revenues/contain costs in auxiliaries and service units
  • Outsource university services, where appropriate
  • Evaluate custodial services, landscaping, maintenance and repair of facilities
  • Provide more services and work products to UNT System and its member institutions, other higher education institutions, nonprofits, etc.
  • Launch products and services that will generate new revenues
  • Expand tech transfer, IP and licensing
  • Centralize university-level purchasing, where appropriate, to cut costs
  • Create a promotional items brokerage
  • Increase revenues from athletic sponsorships, ticket sales and concessions
  • Increase revenues from facility rentals
  • Increase use of multifunctioning printing devices
  • Review Apogee Stadium, Fouts Field, UNT Coliseum, Murchison Performing Arts Center, business models for revenue growth opportunities
  • Evaluate outcomes of programs/projects funded from reserves in recent years
  • Increase apparel and merchandise presence in retail marketplace; generate licensing revenues and advance university family of brands
  • Examine value of more centralized operations/revenue generation/marketing for summer camps and continuing education
  • Increase donations, develop systemic plan to improve the amount of gifts
  • Create clear donation levels for endowed positions and naming gifts
  • Increase trademark and licensing revenues; improve business model
  • Encourage timely payment of donor gifts
  • Complete Apogee Stadium suite commitments
  • Strengthen image, internal/external relations, community engagement and fundraising
  • Improve collaborations with the UNT Foundation
  • Develop the capacities of the UNT Alumni Association
  • Improve fundraising expectations of deans and other institutional leaders
  • Focus on obtaining strategic gifts, rather than annual fundraising
  • Cultivate new donor pool, especially for transformative gifts

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Education and Research

Research

  • Address merit and compensation issues
  • Improve grant and contract operations
  • Increase the number of grant writers
  • Grow contracts with other universities, national labs and the private sector
  • Increase collaborations and partnerships with municipalities and counties
  • Focus on cross-disciplinary and cross-departmental collaborations
  • Increase corporate sponsorships
  • Increase the number and technical skill of investigators
  • Increase IP, tech transfer and small business development
  • Increase multi-principal investigator (PI) and multi-institutional grants
  • Create new 501c3 for IP and tech transfer
  • Develop practical plan to become Tier One
  • Create Office of Grants and Contracts Administration
  • Create research institutes of excellence
  • Promote research in: Materials science, bio-discovery, logistics, collaborations of art and STEM (STEAM), entertainment-design, big data
  • Create a research and development facility at Discovery Park

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Education

  • Improve student retention URGENT ISSUE
  • Inculcate faculty and students to cultural expectations (behaviors and treatment of others) URGENT ISSUE
  • Strengthen faculty commitment to the retention of students URGENT ISSUE
  • Improve “early warning” grade system and interventions for students URGENT ISSUE
  • Focus on Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) successes
  • Develop practical plan to become Tier One
  • Focus on revenue generation as a core function of academic and support units
  • Address merit and compensation issues
  • Generate enrollment reports that demonstrate revenue generation through headcount and semester credit hours (SCH)
  • Improve access to university education
  • Create campus-wide and division-level diversity plans
  • Improve diversity of prospect pools in search process and hiring
  • Recruit more academically talented students; National Merit Scholars
  • Examine the tone and content of all print and digital communications sent to currently enrolled and prospective students
  • Provide better services and business support to students and faculty
  • Strengthen operations to support faculty and students
  • Invest in critical areas, such as library collections and faculty start-up packages
  • Grow academic programs that meet market demands, especially in DFW
  • Optimize formula funding through growth in certain disciplines
  • Determine which academic programs should be grown/reduced through strategic investment/disinvestment
  • Grow the number of degree-completion agreements with community colleges
  • Focus on cross-disciplinary and cross-departmental collaborations
  • Implement coordination of campus-wide student advising to help with retention, Eagle Express, etc.
  • Adopt best practices for student advising
  • Create class concierge for expediting graduation
  • Promote collaborations between Divisions of Academic Affairs and Research and Economic Development
  • Ensure financial and infrastructure resources are in place to support academic and research plans
  • Ensure timelines are attached to action plans
  • Develop plan for research focus in academic areas
  • Collaborate with the UNT Health Science Center
  • Continue to improve collaboration between the Divisions of Academic Affairs and Student Affairs
  • Implement new, holistic student success initiatives; improve existing programs
  • Create an Academic Success Center
  • Improve engagement of students and build community
  • Improve Sage Hall as Student Success Center
  • Ensure development of students’ skills, knowledge and competencies are woven throughout curriculum
  • Ensure class availability, eliminate bottlenecks
  • Improve student career development and related services
  • Raise academic standards for and performance of student-athletes
  • Employ brain strengthening programs; concussion treatment for student-athletes
  • Create a new Academic Affairs priority (program development) alignment and planning team
  • Improve communications to faculty and staff in academic and academic-serving units
  • Improve promotion and tenure standards; communicate them clearly, ensure compliance
  • Ensure compliance to teaching loads
  • Improve teaching and lecture delivery; observation and feedback; use of technology, learning outcomes etc.
  • Increase students’ understanding of the university’s expectations of them
  • Improve faculty mentoring of students; serve as success coaches
  • Grow number of accredited academic programs
  • Make continued progress toward Tier One a long-term goal
  • Improve customer services to faculty
  • Provide principal investigator (PI) training
  • Make services more accessible
  • Employ more grant writers
  • Encourage more cross-disciplinary PI collaborations
  • Examine UNT’s sustainability program; assess program ROI, review rankings; determine how it is related to curriculum
  • Improve cultural competencies; understanding of cultural sensitivities (include athletics)
  • Improve onboarding; include better inculcation to institution and position expectations
  • Improve evaluation methods; emphasis on rigorous and honest evaluations as developmental tools
  • Improve development, career progression and retention of most talented employees
  • Provide customer service training; emphasize customer service at every level
  • Promote more informal networking and problem solving
  • Create a culture of collaboration
  • Promote caring for others as a value, especially students
  • Improve entering faculty salaries by rank
  • Leverage athletics to improve perceptions of academic quality
  • Consolidate and improve university-wide and college-level events
  • Employ cultural and athletic events to cultivate and engage residents and alumni
  • Focus on areas north of the Lake Lewisville Bridge
  • Determine future organizational structure of Professional Development Institute (PDI), Center for Achievement and Lifelong Learning (CALL), outreach, etc.
  • Increase campus-wide engagement
  • Increase student service learning/volunteerism opportunities

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