Transmittal letter to Board of Trustees
Executive Summary
Top 20 Business Plan
Appendix of Top 20 Business Plan
Purpose of the Top 20 Business Plan
President Lee Todd
I want to make clear what the Top 20 Business Plan is and what it is not. The Business Plan is designed to put in financial terms the Top 20 Compact the University of Kentucky and the Commonwealth agreed to in 1997. It is a statement of our specific needs for more resources. It is not a strategic plan.
The challenge we face is a Top 20 mandate that came to us without any definition or clear understanding of what it will cost. The first segment of our pursuit of Top 20 status, from 1997 until now, has been a time of enormous progress. Our students are stronger academically and our graduation rate is higher; our research agendas are more expansive and earning more external dollars; our annual giving and our endowment are up; and our reach into communities across Kentucky has never been greater.
Memorial Hall
Our faculty and staff have done a remarkable job of strengthening this institution, even though tight budgets have hampered us for much of the last eight years. We have lived year-to-year with whatever we get from Frankfort and whatever we are able to gather from other sources. We therefore have not managed our progress. Instead, we have been forced to react to the circumstances around us. Our faculty and staff have done that admirably.
But for the university as a whole, our work has not been planned or focused enough. A Top 20 university cannot be built through incremental budgets, short-term plans, and reaction to external forces. This approach has put at risk our academic ambitions for our students, the strength of our research agendas, and the reach of our impact on Kentucky.