SUBJECT:

Reminder - Monday, 5/7/18 Town Hall Meeting on Strategic Academic Program Development (SAPD), Health Sciences Campus

Please join me for a Town Hall meeting and discussion of UC San Diego's Strategic Academic Program Development (SAPD) Initiative, launched as a result of the changing landscape of higher education. A panel of faculty with experience in creating novel educational programs will be on hand to answer your questions and engage in a lively discussion. You will also have the chance to meet members of the SAPD Support Team, who have experience with the technical side of program development and initiation.

An increasingly competitive environment, evolving learner demand, financial pressures at the state and federal levels, and technological advances all require that universities expand the variety and modalities of educational programs we offer. Over the past year, under the leadership of Dean Peter Cowhey, we engaged a group of faculty and staff colleagues to consider these changes and develop an agenda for action. Those deliberations clarified the imperatives that will guide our campus' decisions-the need to develop programs that collectively meet student needs, enhance UC San Diego's reputation in research and education nationally and internationally, and grow institutional revenues to sustain investments in the education and research enterprise. The group made a number of recommendations to the Chancellor and me for how our campus might respond; based on many of those recommendations, we are prepared now to work towards implementation.

We have learned from peer institutions and campus experts that we must provide substantial support to faculty engaging with these new educational opportunities. To that end, we have established an SAPD Support Team (SST), a group of technical professionals, assembled from across the campus, charged with providing integrated business development support to faculty, departments, and divisions/schools that seek to launch programs within the SAPD Initiative. I have appointed Dr. Williams Ettouati to lead the SAPD Support Team (50% time) as Director. He will be a key resource for you as we move forward.

We look forward to sharing more information with and receiving input from interested faculty and key staff across all disciplines as we move forward with this important initiative for the campus. We will also discuss the RFP process for faculty, departments, and divisions/schools who wish to participate in the initial phase of the SAPD initiative.

In the meantime, details about the initiative, resources available to support participants, and a request for proposals describing programs you would like to develop are all available at http://sapd.ucsd.edu (Single Sign On log in is required).

The date and time for the Town Hall meeting are as follows:

Monday, May 7, 2018 4:30 – 6:00 p.m. Marilyn Farquhar Seminar Room, Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior (CNCB), SOM RSVP to evc-events@ucsd.edu Light Refreshments will be provided

Please email SAPD@ucsd.edu with any questions.

Elizabeth H. Simmons Executive Vice Chancellor