Executive Summary

This academic master plan focuses on the 1997-99 biennium. In setting 
goals for that biennium, we recognize that we are building on the goals, 
many of them accomplished and others on the way to achievement, that were 
set out in previous master-plan documents. For example, while this plan 
places emphasis on strengthening the undergraduate major, it does so not 
by abandoning our commitment to a core curriculum but by building on the 
strong core curriculum that has been established and that will continue.

The primary theme of our plan for this biennium is the building of 
partnerships both within the university and between the university and 
other entities, to integrate activities that have been separated from one 
another.

We seek to integrate undergraduate and graduate education through 
mentoring, through the increased involvement of undergraduate students in 
research, through the development of such scholarly activities as senior 
theses, and by making graduate courses more accessible to qualified 
undergraduate students. As part of this initiative, recognizing the 
maturation of the institution, we propose elimination of the "graduate 
faculty" status that now divides our faculty.

We seek to integrate on-campus learning and scholarship with off-campus 
activities by building partnerships with business, community and 
government entities throughout the state. These partnerships will take 
form in joint research projects, on-site offering of courses, 
internships, and the use of technology to provide access to information.

We seek to integrate our institution with others in Nevada's system of 
education by building strong, cooperative partnerships with the state's 
public schools and with our sister institutions in the UCCSN. We want to 
make it possible for students to move through Nevada's educational system 
without encountering artificial barriers. As partners in education, we 
believe we can contribute to the raising of standards and the 
re-orientation of education to serve the needs of citizens in the 21st 
century.

We seek further to integrate diversity -- ethnic, gender, and 
intellectual -- into our university culture and to educate ourselves not 
only as citizens of Nevada and the United States, but also as members of 
the international community. 

As we progress toward the accomplishment of previously set goals in 
building a technological infrastructure, we seek to integrate the 
technologies of our age -- computer-based multimedia as well as video and 
audio -- into our system of learning. These technologies enable us to 
move from a model of "delivering information" to one of mentoring and 
"coaching" students as they actively discover information.

These are some of the emphases of this plan. They will be found in the 
primary section of the plan, entitled "A Center for Learning and 
Scholarship." It is organized in four parts: Enhancing the Student 
Experience, Building Partnerships, Supporting Faculty and Staff 
Excellence, and Improving Infrastructure.

Following that section, the plan contains a detailed list of budget and 
program priorities for the biennium, and appropriate appendices.


A Center for Scholarship and Learning

The University of Nevada, Reno, is first and foremost a center for 
scholarship and learning, with responsibilities that extend to the 
citizens of our state, our nation, and our world.  This invests us with 
an obligation to gather, apply, convey, and preserve knowledge for the 
improvement and enrichment of human life.

The university's mission weaves teaching, creative activity, and service 
into a seamless fabric.  Our instruction includes not only teaching what 
is known, but also seeking that which is not known and instilling the 
methods of creative and thorough scholarly inquiry in our students.  Our 
scholarship is both a service and a learning resource for our local and 
global communities and, as such, is inseparable from our instructional 
activities.  The sum of our activities empowers our students to become 
educated women and men in society, armed with the intellectual tools 
necessary to surmount the challenges of today and tomorrow.  

The university mission has traditionally centered on undergraduate 
education as the means to express most of these ideals.  During its 
historical evolution, the university's educational mission has expanded 
to include graduate and professional programs, each of which tangibly 
enhances the quality of our undergraduate programs.  Moreover, that 
mission itself has changed as the university has come to serve a broader 
range of our citizens.  Our challenge now is to create a university 
community that recognizes these changes, one that bridges traditional 
separations between teaching and research, between faculty, staff, and 
students, and between the world within and the world outside our campus.

This plan offers our vision for the University's future, and our goals 
for the end of this decade in pursuit of that vision.  It suggests the 
framework within which we will make decisions about priorities and the 
allocation of resources.

This section delineates our goals for the coming years, centered around 
the needs of those men and women who come to the university -- either 
physically or through our outreach activities -- to learn.