Courtesy of Unotes
The University of Hartford is going through a process that will redefine the University in future years.
Foundation of the Future, Strategic Planning and the Branding and Marketing campaign are three campaigns that were started last year and will continue in future years to change the direction and overall image of the University.
On Wed. Aug. 28, University of Hartford president, Walter Harrison, gave updates to faculty and staff in Gengras Student Union.
The strategic planning is a process that started over the summer and will be gathering ideas from students, faculty, staff and alumni on what they would like to see change within the University.
A consulting form with the University, Napa Group, will help the University gather the ideas and analyze on how the University should approach the changes over the next five years.
According to Harrison, now was the time to do strategic planning because for the 16th straight year, the University had a surplus in the budget, and with enrollment down, more students needing financial aid, among others, now was the perfect time.
Foundation of the Future, a plan released in September 2012, put 253 academic and administrative programs in four different categories, invest, maintain, restructure and divest.
A final report on Foundations of the future should be issued by the end of the month or early October. According to Harrison, the University will be saving up to 3.5 to four million dollars in savings for the next five years.
Students who started their major or minor that were in the divest category will be able to finish their degree.
Starting either next year or in two years, the programs that are being divested will not be offered to incoming freshmen.
The final initiative the University is going through is the Branding and Marketing campaign. The main purpose of the campaign is to attract students to come here. The initiative is a three-year plan and the University will be working 160 over 90, a Philadelphia-based agency to help with the rebranding efforts.
The University has already started this semester with the branding and marketing campaign by hanging banners all across campus. Some of the locations where the banners are located is on the wall of the front of the library, C complex and the Bates house, to name a few.
Every few months, the banners will relocate to a different area, all-hoping to give the University a new image.
Over the summer, the University also changed its word mark. Also, the anchored line at the bottom has a centered, directional arrow that is supposed to provide a theme of providing direction.
The facilities master plan that was passed in 2009 is continuing to make major improvements throughout campus.
The Shaw Center was one of the buildings that were part of the master plan and future plans will be coming in the next couple of years.
All of these initiatives should be completed within the next few years with the end result being to attract more students and to give the University an image for people to remember.