Editor’s Note: In Chancellor Kent Syverud’s inauguration address in April 2014, he listed four goals to improve Syracuse University. This series looks at the status of those four goals, two years after the speech.

“Fast Forward” has been the phrase at Syracuse University associated with change since Kent Syverud took over as chancellor, despite the issues and confusion surrounding it.

It’s defined on its website as “a roadmap for the future and a guide to help ensure the success of the University in the context of a changing and challenging higher education environment.”

Syverud said Fast Forward took its name from the student entrepreneurship competition that took place during his inauguration weekend. It’s been an exciting process that’s been moving fast in some ways and slower in others, he said in an interview with The Daily Orange.

But many on campus see flaws with Fast Forward, some minor and others many worry could undermine the entire process. There are concerns among faculty about communication and transparency breakdowns within the process. There are worries from students and faculty that participation and investment in the initiative is lacking. And there is a sense of fatigue from many after two years of brainstorming sessions and listening meetings.

“I don’t think Rome is built in a day,” said Deborah Pellow, an anthropology professor. “All I know is that there’s a real communication breakdown. I don’t think people know what’s going on.”

In his inauguration address on April 11, 2014, Syverud declared that he wanted SU to become an institution that embraces change. Since then, Fast Forward has become the central vehicle for that change. It encompasses the Academic Strategic Plan, which maps out the future of the university’s teaching and research; the Campus Framework, which aims to determine what the physical shape of the campus should be; and Operational Excellence, which looks at ways the university can save money and become more efficient.

According to its website, there are 20 working groups — including oversight and advisory committees — within Fast Forward. Additional workgroups existed last academic year during the discovery phase of the process.

A draft of the Academic Strategic Plan was released last summer, and identified six broad pillars that would guide the plan moving forward: internationalization, discovery, innovation, the student experience, commitment to veterans and military-connected communities and “One University.”

Mehrzad Boroujerdi co-chairs the implementation group for internationalization and was involved in the discovery phase last academic year. He said he’s fully supportive of Fast Forward, and believes it’s important for the university to have a vision moving forward. Every major university he knows of has done the same thing, he said, and “it would be idiotic not to have one.”

Boroujerdi attributes that partly to significant turnover in leadership. Up to this point, there has been an interim provost. Michele Wheatly will take over in mid-May and will oversee the implementation of the Academic Strategic Plan. Since January 2015, five colleges on campus have hired a dean or had a dean announce their departure, and other administrative branches have dealt with changes, including some within human resources. This has forced some decisions to be postponed.

Another factor that has put some decisions on hold is funding. Multiple members of Fast Forward committees said they were told in the beginning of the process to come up with ideas within their respective group that would improve campus, and not to worry about the cost at the time. Lisa Moeckel, co-chair of the One University implementation committee, said there was no budget provided to set parameters for what would be feasible.

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“If we knew right up front that this was not affordable, we wouldn’t waste our time,” Moeckel said. “But I get the flipside that we want to think big because even if it might take us three or four years to get there, it could be really good.”

A portion of the funding for the Academic Strategic Plan is supposed to come from savings through the Operational Excellence aspect of Fast Forward. In an effort to create savings without reducing services, the university has changed office suppliers, changed the telecommunications plan and, with significant backlash, changed the travel policy for professors and staff who book flights through the school.

Andy Clark, senior associate vice president of the Operational Excellence program office, said only some of the efforts identified have quantifiable savings estimates. It takes about a year following implementation to determine accurately how much money is saved. With that in mind, the Operational Excellence committee will have a better idea of how much money is available in June and the fall, he said.

At a University Senate meeting in early April, it was unclear how much money would be available for the Academic Strategic Plan and how that would affect SU’s budget. Many faculty and staff members said they’ve heard that the money that will be available from Operational Excellence is expected to fall short of the original goal.

In interviews with The Daily Orange, several on campus voiced concerns about the lack of communication and absence of information shared as Fast Forward progresses.

Under a tab on the Fast Forward website labeled “News,” the most recent post is from Feb. 26. The next most recent post is from December 2015. Many of the articles available on the site advertise listening sessions or comment periods, which some professors say are ineffective. Others don’t attend.

Kevin Quinn, senior vice president for public affairs at SU, said in an email that about 230 students, faculty and staff have been directly involved in the academic strategic planning process since it began through workgroups and committees. In addition, he said the administration received more than 1,300 pieces of feedback, which helped shape the final draft of the plan.

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Last Thursday, a pair of listening sessions for students regarding the Campus Framework initiatives drew about a dozen attendees.

A few faculty members said they simply don’t have time to go to listening meetings because of their responsibilities to teach, work on research and serve on other committees and faculty groups.

Several professors noted that they were sent about a half dozen surveys in the last few months, but haven’t seen the results or how their responses are being used in relation to Fast Forward.

“With the academic plan, it would be nice to see comments and what was cherry-picked and what was not cherry-picked and so on,” said a professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs who asked not to be named.

Many faculty members have deeper concerns — due to a lack of communication — that the end results of Fast Forward may not be as inclusive as they seem. Some are unsure where the six broad pillars of the Academic Strategic Plan draft came from. Others say they believe the university gets its message out when it forms working groups and when it has results to display, but only reveals a select portion of information in the middle of the process.

“There is widespread skepticism about whether the investment people have made in it, in time and in thought, will have any influence on what is actually done,” said Samuel Gorovitz, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

A few professors used phrases such as “happy talk” and “fake participation” in discussing how they felt about communication surrounding Fast Forward so far.

Michael Santiago | Contributing Photographer

“My perceptions about this might be all wrong, but because there’s been no communication, because there’s been no trust building, because there’s been no transparency, people are assuming the worst about this,” said another professor in the Maxwell School who asked not to be named.

Others aren’t quite as skeptical, and believe that some faculty will naturally be more invested in the process than others — just like students. Many on campus agree that planning for the university’s future is a good, common sense move. But most acknowledge that it’s time to see some results to counteract the fatigue that the campus is experiencing from two years of listening sessions and workgroups.

The implementation groups will technically conclude their work at the end of the month. They will present their final ideas and recommendations, and Fast Forward will move to its next phase in the next academic year.

Wheatly, the provost-designate, said the university should be moving ahead and gaining some traction with the Academic Strategic Plan. It’s time to prioritize certain ideas and move the thinking into action, she said in an interview with The Daily Orange.

In the meantime, there is a portion of campus that won’t be satisfied until the disconnect between those leading Fast Forward and those on the outside is resolved.

“You’re not going to make everybody happy all the time,” said Moeckel, one of the co-chairs of the One University group. “But I think we could increase our percentage a bit.”

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Published on April 26, 2016 at 11:53 pm

Contact Brett: blsamuel@syr.edu | @Brett_Samuels27