February 2018 Monthly BRT Update

On Wednesday, Marjorie Kostelnik, Ph.D., senior assistant to the president of the University of Nebraska, sent the following Budget Response Team update to all university faculty and staff.

February 28, 2018

Dear Colleagues,

This month’s BRT Update is encouraging. It includes some good news from the Human Resources team that will benefit many of you as individuals. Also, in February, the Communications BRT group conducted listening sessions across the four campuses with the aim of developing ideas related to campus publications as well as how to use promotional items more strategically. Take a look at some of the takeaways that came out of the conversations they held; they are informative.

Finally, this Update includes information from the Digital Education BRT. Their report identifies the goals of that team—as well as some ideas about how individual units could contribute to enrollment growth and new program development. We anticipate that these strategies could help us enhance our work with students as we reach out to new learners in Nebraska and world-wide.

The other BRT groups are working hard, slogging through a lot of details that don’t make exciting reading right now, but which will ultimately influence how well they accomplish their goals. Typical tasks include developing internal operational strategies, determining lines of communication, figuring out what activities can be consolidated and how, as well as creating ways to genuinely provide excellent services with fewer resources. Those teams will have more to tell you next month. In March, we will also post our next fiscal report so you can see how we are progressing in terms of achieving our ‘dollar’ goals.

Allow me to conclude by thanking you for the hundreds of reactions, suggestions, observations and informational items you have passed along to the BRT groups. That material has been vital to shaping the strategies being pursued. Finding the 30 million dollars we need from the operational BRTs is hard work. Although I am confident we will achieve our goal, getting there requires collective effort and imagination. Take a moment to tell someone you know on your campus who is doing this work that you appreciate it.

If you have additional ideas for how we might proceed send them to the team to which they apply, to the web address at the end of this communication, or to me directly at mkostelnik@nebraska.edu. I am available by phone at 402-472-2111. The teams appreciate hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Marjorie Kostelnik

Senior Associate to the President

Additional BRT Updates for February 2018