After months of mounting tension between system and UT Knoxville administrators, President John Petersen announced a plan to resolve issues regarding university organization and responsibility Monday afternoon.
An outline of the plan, sent to faculty and staff via e-mail, defined many of the responsibilities of the system and its campuses and institutes in response to concerns expressed by the Knoxville administration about the management of the Cherokee Farm Campus and the administration’s organization of Information Technology.
The outline also officially negated Peterson’s original “Mission of the University” document as UT’s official mission statement, saying it was “meant to describe in simple terms a commitment to the state” with no “intention that it be the mission statement of the university.”
The outline was part of a report entitled, “The University of Tennessee Management and Reporting Responsibilities,” which was created after weeks of deliberation between system, campus and institute administrators.
“We … believe we have reached a point where we can implement steps that will enable us, working together, to achieve the highest ambitions of the University of Tennessee,” Chancellor Loren Crabtree said in the outline’s introduction.
According to the plan, the system’s principal duty is the “oversight and accountability (of the entire system), strategic direction and acquisition of resources,” and the primary responsibility of the campuses and institutes is to execute their own “strategic plans” as long as those plans are within the parameters of the system’s policies.
“We looked at how best to manage this complex organization … (and) identified areas that have outgrown some of the historic management and organizational processes,” Petersen said.
Concerning the Cherokee Farm Campus, the plan explains that the system will manage it, and a four person team composed of UT Executive Vice President David Millhorn, UT Institute of Agriculture Vice President and member of ORNL management Joseph DiPietro and Crabtree will lead the campus’s development.
The plan denotes Knoxville faculty and research staff as the “major participants” in developing science and technology programs, but an advisory committee made up of stakeholders from the Knoxville campus along with others from the UT Health Science Center, institute of agriculture, ORNL, local government and community, the medical center and the Board of Trustees also will participate.
A new IT management plan, also included in the outline, is pending a final decision from Petersen, after he considers a report on the IT system. The outline said that “there is a general agreement” campuses will control routine operations and a system chief information officer will be appointed.
The plan also defines the responsibilities of the system, campuses and institutes regarding financial operations, alumni affairs, the management of ORNL, joint institutes, the governor’s chairs and construction, and authority over human resources, the UT Foundation and UT athletics.
Officials predict the plans will see completion in March 2008.
