Comments, p. 3

Decision Making and Transparency

1. I am curious about the philosophy of risk taking.  There are some areas where one can’t take risks because of high degree of accountability required.
2. In assessing enterprise risk, we need to better tie decisions to the mission, and separate decision-making processes from personality and the loudness of voices.
3. All the process around decision-making should be targeted to bringing people closer together, since clearly all voices can’t be reflected in a given decision.
4. Transparency of decisions will be important – there is a lot of fear about the various pressures on the university, which is leading to posturing and positioning behaviors.
5. There is a hope that decision-making will be more decisive. Too often the university appears to default to “no decision” because the process is not clear and not deliberate.
6. Entrepreneurial impulses are difficult to carry out, especially given the regulatory environment and perceptions of internal constraints.
7. As someone who came recently from the private sector, I’ve noticed that the university seems less adaptable to change.
8. Staff without experience outside of the institution or experience only at Western are not as aware of best practices in higher education.
9. Decision makers need to converse more with the people who have parts of the implementation. This requires broad consideration of the impact of decisions throughout the university. (eg: student accounts is involved in charging the fees that get changed when a program is brought on budget.)

Facilities

1. The university is undercapitalized given the needs for renovations access and infrastructure.
2. The university is short on green space for playfields and stadium seating.   We need more ideas on how to maximize the functional space.  We could expand the use of space along the south campus entry, but there are no full sized fields now. 
3. We need a politically viable solution for the Carver Gym facility
4. Signage is not adequate on campus.
5. There is a project for signage on campus, but insufficient budget for it.
6. We hope to get out of the armory. It needs substantial renovation to make is a workable environment, even for storage.
7. The university has lots of old inventory of furniture and such. We need better central control of equipment replacement.
8. Close to start up of the quarter, too many room assignment changes are made at the last minute, making it difficult for the transport staff. We see some change in this with Francis (Halle) on board.
9. Book drops for Wilson Library should be provided at various campus locations.

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