Dear University Community,

The most important endeavor of this academic year will be to determine the future of Seattle University through the strategic planning process. I have previously indicated to you the significance I attach to the collective engagement of the whole university in this process over the rest of the year so that we might seek the approval of the plan from the Board of Trustees.

I am grateful for the leadership of this endeavor by co-chairs Dr. Robert Dullea, vice president for planning, and Dr. Jennifer Marrone, professor of Management in Albers School of Business and Economics. I am now able to announce to you the members of the Steering Committee of the strategic planning process:

• Bob Dullea, Co-Chair, Vice President for University Planning/Vice Provost
• Jen Marrone, Co-Chair, Professor, Management
• Marc Cohen, Associate Professor, Management
• Brooke Coleman, Professor of Law
• Julie Homchick Crowe, Senior Instructor, Communication
• Rick Fehrenbacher, Dean, New and Continuing Studies/Director, CDLI
• Heather Geiger, Director, IT Administration
• Jess Juanich, Executive Vice President, Student Government of Seattle University
• Kent Koth, Executive Director, Center for Community Engagement
• Amber Larkin, Graduate Student Council Chair
• Stephanie Lewis, Core Academic Program Coordinator
• Henry Louie, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Erica Martin, Instructor of Hebrew Scriptures
• Natasha Martin, Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion, Associate Professor of Law
• Jimmy McCarty, Director, Office of Multicultural Affairs
• Chuck Porter, Trustee
• Katherine Raichle, Associate Professor, Psychology
• Lucas Sharma, S.J., Lecturer, Anthropology and Sociology
• Ruth Tressel, Trustee

These members were chosen through consultation with the Academic Assembly, the Steering Committee of the Staff Council, Student Government, the Board of Trustees and by my own additional appointments. On your behalf I would like to thank them for accepting to assist all of us through their service on this committee, which has as its central charge the consultation of the whole university in the development of the plan to present to me and to the Board of Trustees. You will be hearing more from them about the phases of the planning, the opportunities for your involvement and about the Strategic Planning website so that we can all follow the developments as the planning advances.

At the request of the Strategic Planning co-chairs, as input to and as a help for the planning process which is now underway, I have developed two documents. The first, a letter from the Chair of the Board, Nicole W. Piasecki, and me, on “Parameters for Planning” outlines key dimensions of the kind of university we are so that they might be taken into account in our planning. In drafting this document and having it reviewed by the Board of Trustees, I attempt to lay out the essential foundations upon which our planning will build. In the second document, which was requested of me, “The Jesuit Character of Seattle University: Some Suggestions as a Contribution to Strategic Planning,” I articulate how I understand our Jesuit reality as a university with the intent that it be an important lens through which we do the planning. I offer both of these to help launch the planning and to have it be in accordance with what we have decided and accomplished in the past and thus can now build on for our future.

I thank the Steering Committee and all of you in advance for your help in this most important undertaking.

Sincerely,

Stephen V. Sundborg, S.J.
President