Nearly 400 UConn employees, including 113 faculty, took advantage of the Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP) offered by the state this summer, temporarily depleting the University's ranks but also offering a rare opportunity for restructuring and focusing the institution.

"We are losing many fine colleagues and friends, folks who have given much of their lives to serving the University of Connecticut," says Mark Emmert, chancellor and provost for university affairs.

He says the retiring employees will be missed. These people served the University well, some of them for more than a quarter century, and they deserve our thanks. We are losing a great deal through these retirements - skills that will not easily be replaced; institutional memory that will take years to regain; and we all are losing colleagues and friends," he says.

Emmert says officials have taken steps to lessen the impact of the 379 departures. Those steps include providing deans, directors and department heads with funding, based on the number of retirees in each area, that will allow temporary refills of some positions. Academic departments received $20,000 for each departing professor, which can be used to retain the professors or hire temporary replacements on a per course basis. Based on this capacity to fill gaps temporarily, combined with a number of recent full-time appointments, including about 60 faculty, he says he is confident that disruptions will be kept to a minimum.

Emmert adds, however, that the large number of retirements, coming from all corners of the University, offers UConn a rare chance to review the organization of each of its programs and to move more quickly toward fulfilling a number of the objectives laid out in the Strategic Plan. The opportunity is heightened by the convergence of the retirement plan; the best state funding package the University has seen since 1989; the elimination, by year's end, of the University's operating deficit; and the excitement surrounding major construction projects tied to the UConn 2000 initiative.

Add to that mix the debut of a new decentralized budget process that puts much of the decision-making power in the hands of the deans, directors and department heads who best understand the needs of their unit - and UConn finds itself at a historic point.

"These opportunities result from thoughtful planning and the hard work of many people, combined with good timing," Emmert says. "It is a great chance to move the University forward."

Decisions regarding the specific reallocation of resources are being driven by the University's priorities as described in the Strategic Plan, which include:

• emphasizing the undergraduate experience, including the honors program, the freshman experience, and the Center for Undergraduate Education;
  
  
• increasing the University's efforts to recruit high-achieving students and to further diversify the student community;
  
  
• strengthening the University's professional schools, particularly the schools of business, pharmacy and law, by adding faculty and programs that will help bring each to the forefront;
  
  
• enhancing the University's partnership with the state through the Critical Technologies program and a greater emphasis on applied research and technology transfer;
  
  
• strengthening selected graduate and research programs;
  
  
• supporting the regional campuses, especially the major programs and capital projects under way at the Avery Point and Stamford campuses;
  
  
• and developing a program assessment process that will help officials evaluate the needs of academic programs, identify targets and opportunities for development and improvement, and further refine the allocation and reallocation of resources.
  
  

Emmert says requests by academic departments for budget increases will be based on a variety of performance measures and related factors, including staffing levels, research and scholarly productivity, enrollment projections, admissions data, and information on student perceptions of departments drawn from exit interviews with graduating seniors.

"This period offers UConn its largest and best opportunity ever to move resources into high dividend areas within the institution," he says. "We have a chance to pause, look at our priorities, look at our performance and, without disrupting people's lives, personally or professionally, to move forward in a positive way."

Richard Veilleux