Being Bold
Collaboration, inclusion and empowerment are embedded into the very DNA of this university. The following Boldly Illinois-inspired initiatives reflect the unique values and vision of the university that inspire us to accomplish uncommonly extraordinary things.
What does it mean to be “bold?” Formally, it means to be fearless, intrepid and to act with a daring spirit; it also means to stand out and to be distinctive from others. Boldly Illinois initiatives, like those listed below and those we encourage your unit, college, department and teams to envision, embody the best of both meanings of the word.
The following example initiatives are in various stages of development. Please check back for updates on each of these and for new initiatives.
The Boldly Illinois Transformational Health Innovation (BILT-HI) Task Force is working to establish campus and Champaign-Urbana as a national and global leader in health innovation over the next 10 years. Through collaboration, education and discovery, BILT-HI aims to boldly transform health innovations into meaningful solutions and partnerships that improve the health and well-being of patients and communities around the world.
As it works to identify infrastructural and operational capabilities and resource needs, BILT-HI will catalyze new cooperative efforts in areas where Illinois provides leadership nationally and globally, while also identifying growth opportunities for existing areas of excellence on campus. The taskforce’s work will broaden our current educational, research, innovation and engagement activities, expand and leverage our culture of collaboration, and foster initiatives that will not only benefit our campus and community, but will also be scaled for state, national and global impact.
The Bold Plan Teams bring together experts from across campus to discuss how to address bold aspirations for increasing the graduation rate and closing equity gaps — throughout the student pipeline — for underrepresented students. The teams operate within a collaborative framework, recognizing that no single individual, office or unit can solve all the issues alone. The Academic and Wellness Support Team focuses on creating a comprehensive ecosystem of academic and community support. This team has developed its own strategy maps and generated dozens of initiatives to be considered for implementation. The Policy Barriers Team examines college-level and campus-level policies that may represent unnecessary barriers to academic success and works to identify data beneficial to making data-informed policy decisions. A Data Analysis Team also meets monthly to support the other two teams, share insights and discuss specific issues that facilitate collaboration across colleges. Guidance and strategies from the Bold Teams move beyond advocacy for individual campus units to advance the overall success of students across the university.
The Boldly Illinois Horizon Groups will bring together a variety of thinkers to help scan the environment outside the university to identify and analyze trends, new technologies, big ideas and shifting paradigms that point to the next waves of opportunities and challenges affecting campus over the next 10+ years. Through these efforts, the Horizon Groups will enhance our strategic planning capabilities, allowing us to better prepare to align our goals, values and strengths with these coming changes as we strive to boldly serve our community, nation and the world in the future. (More information will be available soon about this initiative.)
The Boldly Illinois Better Work Initiative aims to review and evaluate ways to better support our faculty and staff, including equitably addressing day-to-day workplace pain points and identifying and addressing sources of excessive administrative friction (i.e., “sludge”) that lead to frustration and fatigue. The aim of the Better Work Initiative is to free up our talented faculty and staff to focus more on high priority activities that advance the mission and values of the university and on more satisfying core work activities where they can have the greatest impact here at the University of Illinois. (More information will be available soon about this initiative.)
The Boldly Illinois Curriculum Innovation Collaborative aims to enhance our portfolio of educational offerings and credentials that both anticipate and respond to market demands. The Collaborative will focus on exploring processes that could facilitate more rapid innovation, such as pilot testing and experimentation with new course/program offerings on a provisional basis, with full approval to be sought if early indications look promising. This group will also be charged with exploring ways to accelerate ongoing innovation among existing programs on campus, fostering a climate that promotes interdisciplinary programs, identifying opportunities to experiment with new course/program/credential designs and evaluating opportunities for educating learners in new markets, both in the U.S. and globally. (More information will be available soon about this initiative.)
In support of the Boldly Illinois 2030 Strategic Framework, the Boldly Illinois IT strategic plan, sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the CIO, acknowledges our shared duty to deliver outstanding IT services that support and improve every aspect of the institutional mission. Through this planning process, we aim to reshape how we collaborate to fully align with Illinois’ strategic mission as a leading, world-class institution. Our goal is to develop a campuswide technology vision with unified strategies for IT subdomains such as academic-, research- and administrative-IT, cybersecurity, data and infrastructure.