Spring 2001 saw the launching of the most ambitious academic plan in the University’s history. With her speech and distribution of the plan last spring, Vice Chancellor and Provost Deborah A. Freund set the course for the soul of the University.

The Academic Plan (the full text is available on the web at acadplan.syr.edu) calls for us to capitalize on our strengths in such areas as citizenship and social transformation, collaborative design, environmental systems and quality, and information management and technology. We are challenged to improve the undergraduate experience for all our students, to re-focus our graduate programs, and to attract much more support for research and for the University as a whole.

The plan also calls for us to come together as a community of scholars through University-wide programs that enrich our lives in and out of the classroom. Two such programs—the Syracuse Symposium and the University Lectures—are enjoying great success as the first fruits of this directive from the Academic Plan.