Make investments in faculty, staff, graduate students, and facilities in three focus areas:
Sustainability and Human Rights
Selectively build upon our cross-University strengths in advanced energy research.
Pay special attention to opportunities where sustainable energy and human rights researchers can work together to advance the common good.
Aim for an NSF Science and Technology Center.
Autonomous Systems
Leverage University strengths — including sensing, controls, machine learning, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence — while also considering contributions from humanities, social sciences, law, and business.
Become the first university in the country to develop and deliver a dedicated, interdisciplinary autonomous systems master's program.
Aim for an NSF Engineering Research Center.
Health and Bio-Sciences
Perform an honest assessment of how our strengths can be complemented by key partnerships and aligned with funding opportunities, and work together to identify a coherent thrust worthy of University seed investment.
Aggressively pursue corporate partners interested in deep and mutually beneficial relationships to make major investments on campus and work with researchers, faculty, and students to advance these focused research realms.
Invest to create more opportunities for undergraduate research and experiential learning both in these strategic areas and more broadly.
Provost, deans, department chairs, and the academic senate to work together to evaluate research-related policies including release time, differential course load, and mentoring of undergraduate students.