Focusing resources to achieve distinction in a few key academic areas is path often contemplated by colleges and universities and seldom taken. But last week, after several years of collective deliberation, UVM took the first bold steps to achieve just that outcome. Provost Jane Knodell and Vice President for Research and Graduate Study Domenico Grasso issued a campus-wide announcement asking faculty to nominate themselves to serve on one of eight working groups organized around broad "transdisciplinary topic areas" ranging from biological sciences and engineering to policy studies. The topic areas grew out of a dean's retreat held in August. (Faculty self-nominations are due Monday. For more detail, see the UVM Transdisciplinary Research website.)

Each working group is tasked with exploring the potential for developing a world class program, or "Spire of Excellence," within the transdisciplinary topic area and submitting a proposal making the case that the university should invest in it. A mix of internal and external reviewers will study the proposals and make preliminary recommendations for supporting a few of them; the exact number will be determined based on the merits of the proposals. The decision on the final group of spires will be made by the university's leadership during April and May.

To get a sense of what's driving the initiative and to address questions that may be in the air, UVM Today sat down with Knodell and Grasso earlier this week.

UVM Today: This amounts to a fairly major change in the way we do business at UVM. Why are we doing it?

Grasso: If we want to truly distinguish ourselves and be considered among the very best, we have to be strategic and focused in our allocation of resources. In the past we've tried to be all things to all people. Identifying spires of excellence is the path we need to pursue to become truly exceptional. I'd like to stress that this will be an ongoing process, and that this effort is intended to identify only our initial set of spires.

Knodell: In addition to our constant drive to improve quality, we can't ignore the fact that our country is experiencing a restructuring of its economic and financial systems. One result of this is that it's going to be increasingly challenging for families to afford higher education. Indicators also point to a demographic decline in New England. We're anticipating an increasingly challenging and competitive landscape for UVM. The spires strategy is a way to ensure that the most academically talented students continue to perceive us as a valuable investment — and continue to come to UVM. The entire university benefits from the reputational effects of excellence in a few areas.

Have other schools taken this approach?

Grasso: Stanford utilized a spires of excellence strategy when it went from being a regional school to an internationally renowned institution in the last century. They implemented strategic phased growth and investment, and they became great. Many other great institutions have also used this approach. A simple Google search will identify a spires of excellence approach at schools such as Illinois and Michigan. So even schools like those two, that have significantly more resources than we, believe that they must focus to be distinguished in particular areas.

Why the exclusive focus on transdisciplinary topic areas?

Knodell: We believe transdisciplinary research is important because much of today's interesting intellectual work is occurring beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. In addition, the complex societal problems we're facing, like environmental problems, will require multi-disciplinary solutions.

Grasso: As the provost said, it's clear that today's problems don't have well-defined boundaries and require solutions that span traditional academic disciplines. Moreover, by including faculty from many disciplines across the campus, the transdisciplinary approach is a way to not only create critical mass in each of the spires, but also the complex knowledge needed to address 21st-century challenges. We're well positioned to do that; because of our small size we have low energy barriers to work across disciplines, to use a thermodynamic metaphor.

I can see that enhancing our reputation is important to attracting undergraduates to UVM. But what about once they get here? What will the impact be on undergraduate education?

Grasso: UVM is going to be an even more exciting place for undergraduates. We hope to increase the research metabolism of UVM, providing more opportunities for undergraduates to work on important research in very distinguished laboratories with outstanding faculty members, and as the excitement from this type of opportunity grows, it will spread, as I said, to other fields that may not be in the initial set of focus areas.

Knodell: We've been successful in hiring outstanding faculty members. With greater focus, we'll be even more competitive for the very best people on the market in the areas in which we're building strength. This means we'll be able to offer our undergraduates, particularly the highest-quality students, opportunities to work with remarkable faculty members — to be taught by them and work with them on their research. That's something we can offer that the small liberal arts colleges can't, and that large research universities tend not to, because those opportunities are typically reserved for graduate students. This will be a tremendous benefit for undergraduates.

Speaking of graduate students, is there a danger the new system will move us away from our teacher-scholar model, with graduate assistants shouldering more of the undergraduate teaching load?

Knodell: Our teacher-scholar model is a hallmark that will only be strengthened by this initiative. We want every tenured and tenure-track faculty member on this campus to teach undergraduates, and to view it as an intellectually stimulating activity. If a faculty member isn't interested in undergraduate instruction, UVM probably isn't the best fit for that person.

So this doesn't imply a shift in emphasis to graduate education?

Grasso: As a whole, we won't be focusing on graduate programs to any greater extent than we are now. However we'll be focusing our resources on fewer graduate programs. Our current investment and graduate work is spread across a variety of fields. So it's not a question of taking resources away from the undergraduate and moving them to the graduate. It is a matter of strategic focus.

What about faculty who are doing research that's not in one of the focus areas?

Knodell: Our transdisciplinary spires will have a broad reach across campus, and will include faculty members from many departments. But even if faculty members may not immediately connect to a spire, that doesn't mean we don't value the contribution their research is making. We're going to support excellent scholars wherever they are. With greater focus, however, when we're making major investments, in a new building for instance, this strategic process will guide us. So you may not get a new building, but you'll still have everything you have today that makes it possible for you to pursue your scholarly or creative agenda, and be happy and productive at the university.

Grasso: As President Fogel says, we'll support excellence any place we find it, so if you're an excellent scholar, the university is behind you — but it is true that our future resources are going to be strategically allocated to the focus areas.

How will this be funded?

Knodell: Primarily through the strategic hiring process. In the future, colleges and departments will configure positions so they fit into this bigger transdisciplinary picture and we can say, yes, beautiful, that's exactly what we want to do. Instead of a tenure-track position being designed exclusively from a departmental point of view, it will fit into a larger perspective. The position will still be there; about half of its effort will be devoted to teaching and half to research, and within that, we're going to be very strategic about the research focus.

In addition, we're also always making decision about facilities. The use of those dollars will be prioritized, and aligned with our spires.

Grasso: The spires will also influence the proposals for external funding that we choose to support with matching funds. The allocation of our graduate assistantships is another component.

Describe the future UVM, if this works the way you hope.

Knodell: We'll know that we're successful if, in 10 years, UVM is even further positioned to be on the cutting edge of the production of important new knowledge; we're generating real solutions to complex societal problems; our faculty are working collaboratively and with great enthusiasm; we have an abundance of the highest-quality students enrolled; and we're in a very strong financial position in the context of higher education. One of the benefits of this initiative is, even if you're not in one of the spire areas, your employer will be very well positioned to support you.

Grasso: What I hope is that 10 years from now we can look back and say, we were right on target with these areas of focus. That we are increasingly attractive to both undergraduate and graduate students. That our graduates at all levels are highly sought. That they have developed and matured into outstanding nationally recognized programs — that people around the world look to the University of Vermont for our insight in these particular areas — and now we're ready to identify our next spires.