The larger environmental context that shapes how investments are made in the 7 areas requires that we:
- Ensure that IT investments create value for students, faculty and staff
- Collaborate as members of the IT community to adopt, improve and communicate the strategy
- Support President Drake’s vision to reduce operating costs and to generate new revenues
Create Value
Information technology brings value to the university by assisting in the running, growing and transformation of the academy. IT is a key ingredient for innovation in fulfilling the university’s mission, and enables improvements in institutional efficiency and cost effectiveness. Technologyenabled innovation opens doors to new and creative ways of teaching, discovery and community engagement. As a competitive necessity in higher education, and as a strategic partner to the university’s operations, IT helps the institution be more efficient and stay focused on its priorities
Generate new Revenue, Reduce Cost
Ohio State is committed to reducing the student financial burden and has frozen in-state tuition and mandatory fees for undergraduates since 2012-2013, meaning two classes will graduate with no increases. Beyond tuition, Ohio State instituted a comprehensive freeze, including room and board, for 2015-2016 – the first of its kind in at least four decades.
Additionally, The President’s Affordability Grant program is part of an initiative to dedicate at least $400 million by 2020 to improve the value of an Ohio State education. In 2015-2016, it provided aid to more than 12,000 low- and middle-income students; in 2016-2017, the program will expand to approximately 15,700 students.
In his March 2015 address, President Drake spoke to these goals, “To that end, I have directed my senior leadership team to submit plans to identify $200 million in administrative efficiencies and $200 million more in revenue generation over the next five years. These resources will be reinvested to lower the cost and improve the quality of the university.” In order to meet these financial commitments, we must work in tandem to reduce costs and generate new revenue.
As an IT community, we will collaborate on initiatives that:
- reduce direct IT costs
- leverage IT to reduce costs in other non-IT areas
- facilitate new revenue generation
Learn more about President Drake’s 2020 Vision and the pillars of community engagement,
diversity & inclusion, and access, affordability, and excellence by going to:
https://president.osu.edu/2020-vision/
Culture of Collaboration
We, as members of the OSU IT community, dedicate ourselves to a proactive effort to adopt these strategies and communicate to our stakeholders in a consistent manner about their benefits. We are unified and empowered in our continual improvement commitment to all facets of this strategy, as well as how we jointly set and meet high community expectations about our values.
It is critical, as an IT community, that we be an exemplar of inter-unit collaboration, thus affording our community of IT professionals to be sought-after, active partners contributing solutions across all functions of the institution. Actively cultivating a culture of collaboration advances each member (and representative stakeholders) by drawing on the whole and embodying the expertise and services across the entirety of OSU.