Outcomes & Next Steps: VP&S Strategic Planning
Dear Colleagues:
Thank you to everyone who joined us earlier this week for our latest VP&S Open Forum. It was good to be with our community and to hear from you at this important moment in the medical school’s evolution. For those who were unable to join us, a recording is available here. And particular thanks to those who submitted questions—if we couldn’t get to them this time, we are hoping to be able to address them in future meetings.
Following the momentum of that conversation, I wanted to follow up with a report on the first phase of our VP&S Strategic Planning effort. This period of information gathering and fact finding was made possible by more than 250 members of our community who participated in in-depth strategic planning interviews and more than 1,700 colleagues who responded to our survey. Your thoughts and engagement have been invaluable to this process as we decide on our highest priorities and set course for the future.
This brief report includes data and high-level takeaways about VP&S as seen through your eyes, including strengths and opportunities. It also includes the list of opportunities that was developed through this data collection, guided by the strategic planning steering committee. Now that Phase I has come to a close, these outcomes will inform Phase II of our strategic planning effort, which includes the creation of working groups to advance our strategic objectives. These groups will be charged with identifying opportunities to address our pain points, advance our mission, and grow VP&S’ status as a leading academic medical institution.
The objective of each working group will complement ongoing initiatives like the Anti-Racism Coalition, CUIMC Well-Being Initiative, and Simple is Better, to name a few. We have been glad to see that many of the issues uncovered by Phase I are already being addressed by these groups and numerous others. Those efforts include addressing clinical compensation in collaboration with NewYork-Presbyterian, creating a shared vision for our sprawling research enterprise, refreshing the medical school curriculum, and streamlining administrative processes. In establishing these complementary Phase II working groups, we hope to clarify our vision around key priorities and leverage the talents of our exceptional people to create a VP&S that’s even greater than the sum of its parts.
More information on Phase II will follow next week, including how you can get involved in this effort. In the meantime, I wanted to offer my thanks and express my excitement for what comes next. This is a special moment for VP&S. I am grateful to be here with all of you as we bring the future into focus.
All my best,
Katrina Armstrong, MD
Dean of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Columbia University