Columns:: Great universities require great faculty leadership

since 12/15/98

Columns::August 20, 2001

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Forum essay
Great universities require great faculty leadership

By Donald Eastman

To faculty and staff colleagues at the University of Georgia: It has been an honor to serve you and the citizens of Georgia as a UGA vice president for the past 10 years, first as vice president for development and university relations, and for the past three years as the vice president for strategic planning. Thank you for your colleagueship, your friendship and your support of the activities in which I have been involved during that time.
I believe that, over my decade of service, UGA faculty and staff have become increasingly aware of the imperative for them to be involved and informed of institutional matters--in addition to issues related to their specific disciplines--if UGA is to reach the ranks of America’s very best universities. And they are right: Great universities require great faculty leadership, not simply great teachers and research.
Many of you have communicated to me how proud you are of the university’s recently approved strategic plan: I’m proud of that plan myself, though I recognize--as I hope you do--it will require continual review and revision to remain useful. The key to the value of that plan, though, was the process of inclusiveness, led by faculty and staff, that made possible the development of a vision of what the University of Georgia could be and should be that so many could admire and be willing to work to fulfill.
My role was to preside over a process in which your representatives--including Clyde Anglin (Physical Plant), Bob Boehmer (College of Business), Bob Bugbee (Budgets), David Clements (Institutional Research and Planning), Ernestine Copas (Georgia

Don Eastman

Center), Kathryn Costello (External Affairs), Betty Jean Craige (Center for Humanities and Arts), Jack Crowley (School of Environmental Design), Bill Davis (School of Music), Karen Holbrook (Academic Affairs), Felton Jenkins (UGA Foundation), Tricia Page (Student Government Association), Scott Shamp (New Media Institute), Danny Sniff (University Architects), and Claire Swann (National Alumni Association)--provided the leadership. I believe the success of this egalitarian process demonstrates that UGA is maturing into the kind of faculty-and-staff-driven institution that characterizes America’s finest universities.
You’re in charge! Don’t let go of the future! Godspeed!

Don Eastman left his position as UGA’s vice president for strategic planning in July to become president of Eckerd College.

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