CUPPA Strategic Plan - University of Illinois at Chicago

2012 Strategic Priorities
Update of the CUPPA Strategic Plan
Prepared by Strategic Planning Committee
Charlie Hoch, Chair (UPP)
George Beam (PA)
Michelle Boyd (IRRPP)
Allyson Holbrook (PA)
Taryn McCook (GCI)
Jennifer Parsons (SRL)
David Perry (UPP)
Steve Schlickman (UTC)
Introduction
The work for this CUPPA strategic plan update began in spring 2012 when the CUPPA Executive
Committee (EC) aligned the Chancellor's six goals with CUPPA's 2009 strategic plan. The EC then
handed off the work to the Strategic Thinking Group (STG), four faculty members who worked
during the summer of 2012 to create a draft framework for the update.
In fall 2012, the CUPPA Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) was charged with preparing a draft
2016 Strategic Planning update for the College to consider and approve. The SPC designed and
issued an email survey in October 2012 asking respondents to rank the three most important
objectives developed by the STG. The committee chair hosted a college wide meeting to discuss
the survey results and to provide an additional forum to obtain ideas and input. This document
describes the outcomes of these efforts and identifies priority objectives to guide what CUPPA
units do in the next three years (2015).
Process
The Committee met in September to discuss the scope and purpose of our charge. Although
many of us recognized the value of a more in depth SWOT analysis; we concluded this was not
the time do this. CUPPA did not lack purpose or direction. We did agree that we need to review
some of the major changes that have happened since we last conducted a strategic planning
review in 2009. Our emphasis should be on updating the current strategic focus of CUPPA using
outreach among the CUPPA stakeholders (teaching faculty, research faculty, staff, students and
alumni) to solicit feedback on priorities among current CUPPA and UIC goals.
The committee conducted a priority setting exercise with its members and while the interactive
review and deliberation yielded some convergence, the process took too much time to be

scaled up across the CUPPA community. After discussing a stakeholder meeting approach, a
unit meeting approach and a survey the committee agreed that a survey would work best
reaching the most people in a timely fashion. The survey was designed by Allyson Holbrook and
Jennifer Parsons at the Survey Research Laboratory (SRL). Dean’s staff helped compile the
sample frames of CUPPA faculty, staff, students and alumni. The survey was programmed by
SRL Project Coordiantor Anne Diffenderfer and launched on October sent out by SRL in October
and the results collected and analyzed in November. The results were used to prepare the
Strategic Plan Update. Section I describes the overall condition facing the college and its
present commitments; Section II describes the committee’s process for soliciting feedback from
the College about strategic plan priorities; and Section III describes how CUPPA units and
members may translate objectives into more specific actions.
Section I
A. Current CUPPA Mission Statement and Core Values
Mission:
Provide innovative urban planning and public management education that puts engaged
research to purposeful use at home and abroad.
Core values:
• Striving for academic excellence and providing inspirational learning experiences for our
students.
• Making a contribution beyond the university that informs and empowers citizens, clients
and communities in the neighborhood, city, region, state, nation and across the globe.
• Respect for the unique individual contributions of faculty to scholarship, students to
learning, and staff to service with a concern for each member's intellectual and
professional development.
• Encouraging cultural diversity in the composition of faculty, staff and students given the
importance of multi-cultural understanding for effective governance of a rapidly
urbanizing world
• Collaboration that crosses disciplines, programs and other institutional divides to
generate more successful inquiry, learning, and service outcomes than insulated
approaches
• Innovation in the pursuit of new resources and responsibility in the stewardship of
existing ones
• Learning that anticipates future needs and crafts sustainable solutions

B. Challenges and Issues Facing CUPPA over the next three years
Colleges across the UIC campus face continued cuts in state support. CUPPA faces the prospect
of relying solely on tuition, grant and contract related revenue within the decade.
Costs of higher education continue to climb, including for CUPPA. While tuition increases
substituted for loss of State contribution, the result shifted the cost to students. We need to
improve quality and productivity even as we align tuition growth to current inflation rates.
The consequences of the 2007-2009 Great Recession continue to depress job formation for
public and real estate sector employment. Students face difficulties obtaining entry level jobs
and spend more time looking for work, underemployed as contract employees or interns.
Human resource rules and conventions required by the State of Illinois increase transaction
costs without improving employee productivity and satisfaction. Other state and federal
regulations and requirements continue to draw greater resources into University administration
and away from academic and research units.
Some University policies (e.g., reimbursement policies for graduate students taking courses
outside their program and for UIC employees taking classes) discourage departments from
providing valuable services such as offering interdisciplinary classes, sharing classes across
graduate programs, and admitting UIC employees to academic programs.
The university needs to meet the legal and practical challenges to a racially diverse student
body.
The university faces increasing pressure to adopt corporate models of organization and
accountability that often conflict with the goals of public education, especially public education
in an urban setting like ours.
C. Current CUPPA Activity
CUPPA leadership, faculty, staff, students and alumni together pursue commitments to:
innovative education, engaged research and contributions to policy and practice. Every day
members of CUPPA strive to interweave the discovery of new knowledge with the education of
students and the application of research findings to pressing public problems – including
economic development and social justice.
CUPPA faculty, students and staff design and conduct multi-disciplinary scholarship using
knowledge, skills, resources and talents drawn from the domains of education, research and

service. Their collaboration often adds value to the more routine activities within each
domain. For example, classroom learning is enlivened by new research and practical case
studies, research reports are informed by relevant policy concerns, and collaboration with
partners gives access to excellence for those outside the university.
By offering innovative courses attracting talented students and professionals, by working
closely with colleagues in other UIC colleges to enhance urban scholarship, by attracting funds
from external organizations and individuals, and by providing informed advice to city leaders,
public service professionals and urban communities, CUPPA aims to show how UIC can make a
difference locally, nationally and internationally to the discourse about urban planning and
public affairs as well as the practice of city planning and public management.
Section II: Survey Outcomes
A. Who did we survey?
A web survey of the members of four CUPPA constituencies was conducted in October, 2012
faculty, staff, current students, and alumni (N=1432). All current faculty, staff, and current
students were sent e-mails inviting them to participate. A list of 646 alumni obtained from the
Dean’s office were also sent e-mails inviting them to participate (emails were not available for

CUPPA
Members
Sent email
Respondents
Response Rate % of Total
Respondents
Faculty 64 42 65.6% 17.8%
Staff 279 32 11.5% 13.6%
Students 443 85 19.2% 36.0%
Alumni 646 77 11.9% 32.6%
Total 1432 236 16.4% 100%
all alumni and this list probably is biased towards including the most active and recent alumni).
The 236 completed surveys (a response rate of about 16.4 percent) included faculty, staff,
students and alumni. Faculty participation was almost two thirds, others varied from about one
in eight to one in nine. We did not weight the frequency values for the total respondents
because we did not expect that the respondents for each group represented a valid sample for
each. We did not set out to infer the opinions of all CUPPA members, but to solicit feedback
from members about strategic plan priorities. In the web survey, respondents were asked to
select the three most important objectives for CUPPA from a list developed last summer by the
Strategic Thinking Group.
B. Priorities
The survey asked each respondent to rank their three top priorities from a list of 20 and to
judge if the objectives they selected met each of the six university goals. Additionally, each
respondent could offer written feedback for each objective. Most did and the results provide a
unique collection of ideas about why and how these objectives matter. Figure 1 shows the
cumulative frequency for all rankings across the 20 objectives. See Figure 1 for cumulative
ranking comparison.
Five objectives received the most first, second and third rankings from the survey. Based on
these outcomes, CUPPA students, staff, and faculty believe the college should prioritize the
following objectives:
• MUPP/MPA Job placement within 6 months:
• Recruitment of the best & brightest students
• Improvement of the intellectual climate via engagement
• Integration of faculty/center research on & off campus
• Increases in research productivity

Figure 1: Cumulative Frequency of Rank Values for Priority Objectives
Optimize size of PhD programs
Enhance diversity
Integrate faculty/centers on campus & off
More ivolvment professional assoc
Professional Development for faculty
Target growth opportunities with resources
Improve intellectual climate via outreach
Create a CUPPA Advisory Board
Recruit best and brightest
Financial transparency
Unit level financial viability
Improve communication & admin
Increase contributions and donors
Increase news coverage CUPPA
Engage CUPPA Alum Assoc
Grad admit or employ UPA in 1 yr
Place MUPP/PA in 6months of grad
Increase grad
Increase undergrad
Increase research productivity
Other
Faculty
Staff
Student
Alum
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
B. Goal Fit
How well do CUPPA priorities fit with the UIC goals?
UIC
Research Excellence
Education Excellence
Reputation
Financial Stability
Employee Satisfaction
Social Good
CUPPA
Grow and sustain scholarly research and grant activity
Teaching better prepared students that find work in good professional jobs
Increasing visibility of faculty, staff, student and alumni accomplishments attracts praise
Efficient use of resources, better research productivity & more fund raising sustains growth
Better professional development improves performance, promotion & satisfaction
Core research, teaching and service activity improves social justice and public good

CUPPA Priorities
Percent Each Top Five Objective Fits UIC Goals
1st
Choice
Tally
Research
Educate
UIC Goals
Reputation
Finance
Stability
Work
Enrivon
Social
Good
Place MUPP/PA < 6 mnth grad 59 29% 81% 95% 54% 31% 85%
Recruit Best & Brightest 44 89% 100% 100% 48% 73% 75%
Increase research productivity 25 100% 80% 96% 92% 84% 84%
Engage faculty/center more 23 87% 91% 96% 65% 91% 100%
Enrich intellectual climate 19 84% 89% 95% 58% 89% 100%
The survey also asked CUPPA members to indicate whether their top three objectives are
relevant to UIC Chancellor Allen-Meares six goals for the campus. CUPPA survey respondents
found a lot of coherence between the objectives they want CUPPA to pursue and the goals that
UIC seeks to accomplish. All of the five top priorities matched up with one or more of the UIC
Goals. Recruitment, integration and intellectual outreach each scored a greater than three out
of four match on five of the six goals. Placement and research productivity matched up with
three each illustrating distinct but complementary attachments to professional employment
and research accomplishment.
CUPPA leadership needs to recognize this fact and communicate it widely to the UIC campus
community and the wider community that UIC serves. CUPPA recognizes its commitment to the
UIC goals and expects to focus attention in the next three years on priorities that help fulfill this
commitment in important and useful ways. Currently CUPPA units have developed and adopted
outcome measures to guide assessment of strategic goals. The leadership of CUPPA units and
their members would use these priorities to add or modify measures that will help stimulate
and focus attention and action to help ensure effective pursuit of these priorities.

Section III: Recommendations
Based on these outcomes, the committee recommends that CUPPA members adopt the five
objectives uncovered by the survey findings and use these to identify and select actions that
will achieve these objectives in the next three years:
• MUPP/MPA Job placement within 6 months:
For example, CUPPA faculty, staff and alumni will improve current internship and job
solicitation efforts by preparing plans for a job placement campaign including support
for a staff person who will design and implement a comprehensive professional
development and placement program.
• Recruit best & brightest students
For instance, CUPPA degree programs will improve outreach efforts to attract more
highly qualified applicants, identify and provide resources for recruitment incentives,
solicit and obtain more student assistant awards from campus and foundation
resources, review and strengthen application review standards and procedures.
• Improve intellectual climate via engagement
For example, CUPPA staff and faculty will work together to improve the scheduling,
communication and delivery of speaking engagements, workshops or other educational,
research or professionally relevant events sponsored and supported by CUPPA units and
members.
• Integrate and engage faculty/center research on & off campus
For instance, CUPPA staff and faculty will work together to improve the scheduling,
communication and delivery of research products and jointly sponsored professional
development events to relevant campus peers and units; as well as agencies,
organizations and other off campus groups
• Increase research productivity
For example, faculty and research staff will improve efforts to increase the amount,
quality and impact of research activity. This should include obtaining more external
research funds, reducing the transaction costs for grant preparation & management,
increasing the number of manuscripts submitted for publication, improving the
publication rate, disseminating and communicating research results to relevant public
audiences,…

• CUPPA leadership will communicate the fit between College and Campus goals.
The dean and other units heads will communicate to the UIC and U of I leadership the
coherent fit between CUPPA priorities and UIC goals; and show by case examples and
measured results how CUPPA units and members contribute to the mission of the
university in pursuit of its goals
Conclusion
The ultimate intent of this update was to locate points of convergence among the priorities
chosen by college stakeholders that can, in turn, illuminate what specific actions should be
taken to best serve the core values and goals of the university and the college. The SPC
understands the objectives listed throughout this report are interdependent and dynamic, and
emphasis on nexus points such as enhancing the college’s reputation will have a substantial
impact across chosen priorities. As emphasized by stakeholder feedback, any choices for
resource allocation will of course also require trade-offs and innovative thinking to find win-win
situations across objectives.