To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff &
           All Undergrad Students & All Grad Students <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "Vice President and Chancellor Robert A. Easter" <chancellor@illinois.edu>

Reply-To: stewardingexcellence@illinois.edu
 Subject: MASSMAIL - Stewarding Excellence @ Illinois

Date:	September 23, 2011

From:	Robert A. Easter
	Interim Vice President, University of Illinois
	Interim Chancellor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

	Richard P. Wheeler
	Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost

Re:	Stewarding Excellence @ Illinois

We write to update you on some of our Stewarding Excellence@Illinois 
activities.

We have made progress regarding scholarship and waiver policies and 
practices on our campus.  In our September 2010 Next Steps Letter 
regarding the Refocusing Scholarships Project Team report, we identified 
three essential tasks to be completed:

launching a fundraising initiative focused on meeting the growing unmet 
financial needs of our students;

creating a campus policy that establishes our priorities and guides our 
waiver and scholarship program; and

improving coordination of campus and unit level scholarship and waiver 
offers.

We are pleased to report that as a campus we have moved forward on all 
three of these important tasks.  In October 2010, the campus launched an 
Undergraduate Scholarship Initiative.  The Council of Deans created a 
Scholarship/Financial Aid Implementation Working Group to make 
recommendations that were used to support and implement that major 
scholarship initiative.  Similarly, the Offices of Student Financial Aid, 
Undergraduate Admissions and the Provost's Office worked together to 
draft a campus Undergraduate Scholarship and Waiver Policy, which we have 
adopted.  Finally, a campus-wide Scholarship Committee is being formed to 
address scholarship coordination issues.  For more information regarding 
these reports and the Undergraduate Scholarship and Waiver policy, please 
visit:  

http://oc.illinois.edu/budget/nextsteps.html
http://www.osfa.illinois.edu/aid/scholarships/undergrad_policy.html

We would also like to update you on the work of the Stewarding 
Excellence@Illinois Facilities and Services (F&S) Project Team.  The 
team's charge was most certainly an ambitious one, especially given the 
size and scope of F&S, the services it provides across campus, and the 
time allotted for this review.  We are grateful to the Project Team for 
its efforts to examine several aspects of F&S including its funding, 
structure, and policies.  After consultation with key stakeholders and 
after significant internal deliberation, the Project Team concluded that 
its work should be continued as a lengthier and more comprehensive 
review, possibly aided by an external consultant.  We concur with this 
approach.  To this end, we will charge a new team outside of the 
Stewarding Excellence process to examine F&S in greater detail.  We are 
encouraged by the willingness of some of the Project Team members to 
serve in this capacity, and we will reach out to them as soon as the new 
team is constituted.  We have posted a report that summarizes the project 
team's work and its recommendation that a more extensive review take 
place.  The report can be found at 
http://oc.illinois.edu/budget/projectteams.html. We will keep the campus 
apprised of our progress as we move forward.


This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor

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