FV’s town hall meeting this month was held on Oct. 22 at the Abbotsford and Chilliwack campuses. Town halls are held periodically throughout the semester by UFV president Joanne MacLean as a way of updating the university about ongoing plans.
This month’s meeting had two main items on the agenda: the first was welcoming and introducing UFV’s new provost and vice president (VP) academic James Mandigo, and the second was to outline how UFV’s new vision, mission, and values statements, formulated over the past year, will be put into action in the coming months and years.
The provost and VP academic’s role is to act as a coordinator between other high-ranking members of UFV faculty. His role at UFV is to ensure that all faculty members are working together towards a coherent goal. Mandigo expressed gratitude for his warm welcome at the town hall.
“I’m very excited about this work,” Mandigo said.
The main focus of the meeting was what Mandigo called integrated strategic planning (ISP). ISP intends to take the goals outlined by the new statements and translate them into teaching practices and interactions within the university, or to “operationalize our mission” in Mandigo’s words. Mandigo warned of “planning fatigue” and stressed the importance of making tangible progress in the near-term to keep those involved motivated and enthusiastic.
The town hall meeting laid out a road map of events to organize and goals to accomplish within the next month. The first of these was the first meeting of the president’s committee called “Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion,” which was scheduled for the next day, Oct. 23.
Another event planned is a presentation by Ken Steele on trends in higher education. Steele is a business analyst whose company, Eduvation, specializes in examining the challenges faced by post-secondary schools. Steele’s lecture is scheduled to be held in room B101 on Abbotsford campus on Friday, Nov. 15 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. The presentation will also be livestreamed for those unable to attend. Mandigo said that UFV is already primed to make the changes that Steele describes, and is in a better position to adapt to changing times than many universities that are very set in the traditional model of post-secondary education. A big part of UFV’s vision is reimagining the role of university in the 21st century.
The last immediate goal will be to create a strategic planning website that will allow students to give feedback and input on the changes that are coming to UFV. Mandigo and his colleagues hope to have this website operational by the end of November.
Mandigo shared an anecdote about former U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s visit to a NASA facility following his promise to put a man on the moon. At one point, Kennedy asked a NASA janitor what he was doing. The janitor replied, “Helping put a man on the moon.” Mandigo hopes that everyone at UFV — faculty, staff, and students alike — will be able to share that same sense of mission. He says that it is important that everyone sees themselves as part of a vision and that they are key stakeholders in it.
Community involvement is a key component of ISP, according to Mandigo. He used examples from UFV’s history to illustrate this point. In the very beginning, it was activism from Fraser Valley residents that provided the vital push to allow UFV (originally Fraser Valley College) to be founded in 1974. A more recent example given was heavy student involvement in the creation of UFV’s recently revised academic misconduct regulations.
“This can only work if we are all involved,” UFV president and vice chancellor Joanne MacLean said.
