Jared Barton
CONTRIBUTOR
Last Friday, University of Nebraska president Ted Carter explained some his plans to help the NU system “regrow.”
Carter was elected to the position Jan. 1 and will be officially signed in on April 17. In the meantime, he’s been learning the ins and outs of what makes the University of Nebraska work. Carter has enlisted the help of a team comprised of students, faculty and staff from across the NU system to help him properly create and implement a plan.
The plan’s general purpose is to help the university meet student, state and national needs and will run parallel to current NU projects.
Carter’s plan intends to increase the NU system’s impact not only on a city, state, and national level, but across the globe.
“We’re going to think differently and creatively about what the future state of the university should be,” Carter said.
As for resources, Carter’s team plans to allocate them to the students. In particular, they hope to increase out-of-state enrollment, creating a “brain gain,” according to a statement released Friday.
“Everything we do is going to be about our students,” Carter said.
Another way the plan intends to implement the “brain gain” is by growing health programs at UNK, UNO’s new Science, Technology, Engineering and Math building (STEM), and UNO’s College of Information Science and Technology (IS&T). This most recently manifested in a system overhaul that merged the online frameworks for NU schools into one, cutting costs by up to $15 million over the next several years.
Carter also plans to make education more accessible for those who have attended college but not obtained a degree. This is part of a general focus on accessibility in the past few years.
Carter’s plan intends to continue NU’s community engagement and outreach through its various programs, including community coalition programs and keeping talent in Nebraska.
Last, Carter said in a statement that there will be a focus on staffing, bringing and keeping the best possible staff in the NU system. This will be achieved by working to fix pay gaps between NU schools and allowing the NU system to compete for the best options available.
Everything is still in the planning stages until Carter is officially installed on April 17.
