I am writing to personally invite you to participate in an all-college discussion focused on our budget. Your experiences and perspectives are important as we work to identify activities that are excellent and essential to our mission as a land-grant college and explore opportunities for increased efficiency given budget uncertainties.

Chancellor Martin has already called for your ideas during her series of campus-wide brainstorming sessions. I would like the opportunity to expand upon and more deeply explore those conversations within the CALS community. Everyone in the CALS community — faculty, staff, students and friends — is strongly encouraged to come.

During the forum, we will be asking for your ideas and input on the questions below. I hope you will have time to think about them prior to the meeting.

Questions for discussion:
1) What core activities and qualities of our community must we protect at all costs and why?

2) What efficiencies and opportunities should we pursue to increase resources and help grow a stable funding base?

3) Do you see the need to eliminate or add items to the list of the principles that will guide us in this process?

We have created a web site (https://cals.wisc.edu/budget/) that has additional information you may find useful as we navigate this process, including details on this forum and the latest agenda. For those of you unable to attend the forum, the web site includes an interactive feature where we encourage you to share your ideas.

Thanks very much for all of your hard work on behalf of our students and the people of Wisconsin during these challenging times.

Molly Jahn

CALS Budget Principles

We commit to:

1. Protect and enhance the CALS undergraduate, graduate student and trainee experiences through innovative, coordinated and properly aligned programs.

2. Promote professional growth and opportunity in the workplace.

3. Improve, enhance and expand the impact of our programs in partnership with key industry, government and public sector stakeholders.

4. Working to ensure accountability and transparency in the stewardship of public investment in our college.

5. Invite community engagement to assess in an open and honest way how our programs, activities and investments are meeting current and future needs.

6. Critically analyze programmatic, administrative and operational boundaries in order to optimize and magnify our ability to serve the needs of our constituents.

7. Respect and celebrate the diversity and synergies in our community that are a hallmark of our college.

8. Protect state-supported programs that are at, or near the top nationally and internationally in productivity, importance, and impact.