OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR

March 9, 2001

An Open Letter From Chancellor Dynes:

"A New Dialogue For A New Era"

Dear Colleagues:

This message launches a series of internal communiqués about front-burner campus issues. It also signals my pledge that this era of phenomenal campus growth will be shaped by a new and vigorous dialogue between the UCSD leadership team and the campus community.

As you probably are aware, UCSD’s success in just 40 years has positioned us to catapult into the highest academic ranks. That leap forward will coincide with an unprecedented growth surge: 10,000 additional students and 450 new faculty will join us over the next decade.

We are taking action on many fronts to ensure that campus growth is managed well. These efforts include: Charting the Course in Academic Affairs; partnership discussions with Children’s Hospital; aggressive student recruitment and outreach in Student Affairs; and the appointment of a Staff Retention and Support Steering Committee co-chaired by Steve Relyea, Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs, and Linda Williams, Assistant Chancellor.

Our management team has been focusing intently on current and new efforts to map out UCSD’s expansion. Every aspect of campus life will be affected, and every member of the campus community will be involved. All of you will need – and all of you deserve – regular updates about stewardship of campus growth, from the construction of new buildings to the creation of new data processing systems.

To keep you updated, we will improve upon our ad hoc methods of internal communication. We will develop more effective vehicles for disseminating information about UCSD's future. And, most importantly, we will draw upon the collective intelligence of our campus community as we seek balance between the need to grow and the need to excel in teaching, research, clinical programs and community service.

Over the next four months, the Vice Chancellors and I will all participate in this series of campus growth communiqués. We will provide you with new information on a regular basis.

I will deliver a State-of-the-Campus address on March 22 and March 30, and I will ask UCSD-TV to televise the address for those of you who cannot attend. I also am scheduling town hall meetings and other public events that will give us opportunities to talk face to face.

The Chancellor’s Web Page is undergoing reconstruction and will be online in mid-March. It will serve as a communication hub, and it will be an avenue for news updates and dialogue.

I want to assure you that campus growth will be managed in accordance with UCSD’s Principles of Community. As those principles state, UCSD will "foster the best possible working and learning environment" throughout this era of expansion.