Pursuing Global Excellence

‘Bold & daring’ is embedded in UW’s DNA.  Conceived by founders who dreamed an improbable dream, from its beginning UW has steered a course that has set it apart.  With a directed focus that nurtured specializations, in its short history of less than 50 years UW has already achieved enviable national and international recognition. 

The circumstance precipitating UW’s establishment in 1957 was the space race and the critical unmet need for engineers.  Half a century later a very different circumstance, global competition, is informing how UW needs to direct its energies.  To compete successfully in the global arena, excellence is a sine qua non.  And our Sixth Decade will be the decade where a new kind of boldness and daring will ensure UW achieves the excellence required to make it a premier global competitor.

The University Plan is operational, not prescriptive, and is balanced by plans at the Faculty and academic support unit levels.  The Sixth Decade Plan captures general principles which allow UW not only to advance its mission but to be flexible and able to respond as opportunities and challenges arise.  UW is already moving ahead toward some of the goals articulated.

The Framework (ref:  pps 2, 3), approved by UW’s Senate and Board of Governors in 2004, provides the structure for cultivating, nurturing and promoting excellence in all reaches of the enterprise by achieving an even greater degree of academic distinction, becoming more academically and socially relevant, and having its initiatives supported by the necessary resources.  In approving the Framework, the University’s two governing bodies gave direction, clearly and unequivocally:  pursue global excellence.

Amit Chakma
Vice-President, Academic & Provost

September 18/06