Ongoing

Academic Portfolio Review and Optimization

This committee is responsible for conducting a comprehensive, data-informed review of ECU’s academic offerings to ensure alignment with enrollment trends, workforce demand, and institutional priorities. It will evaluate academic program viability using multiple productivity metrics, assess opportunities for consolidation or phase-out, and develop a structured process for ongoing biennial reviews to sustain a responsive and efficient academic portfolio.

Assess HR Functions, Services, and Strategies

This workgroup is charged with analyzing ECU’s HR services to streamline workflows, eliminate duplicate administrative efforts, and explore models such as centers of expertise or task‑specific hubs for functions like hiring, personnel actions, budgeting, and grants.

Continue Strategic Enrollment Planning and Grow PKHxECU Report

The workgroup reviews, approves, and monitors enrollment growth initiatives—especially online programs via PKHxECU—in order to align academic expansion with institutional capacity, clarify resource implications, and ensure scalability within ECU’s academic structure.

Deploy Faculty Effectively Through Thoughtful Workload Planning

This initiative develops faculty workload planning processes that ensure productivity across teaching, research, service, and clinical duties while providing transparent mechanisms for reassigned time and adjustment requests—helping the university align faculty effort with institutional priorities.

Evaluate Low ROI Centers and Institutes

The Evaluate Low ROI Centers and Institutes workgroup will assess academic centers and institutes that demonstrated limited external funding, peer-reviewed research, grants, or scholarly output over the past five years, and recommend actions that reduce administrative burden, eliminate internal competition for limited resources, and better align remaining units with institutional priorities.

Facility Rental Revenue Workgroup

This workgroup is charged with identifying strategic ways to expand and optimize the rental of university-owned facilities to generate new revenue while maintaining mission alignment and regulatory compliance. Tasks include assessing current usage and rental policies, recommending updates, exploring external event opportunities, and proposing marketing strategies to better promote campus spaces such as athletic venues and academic buildings.

Financial Aid Optimization

The university is reviewing the administration of scholarships and financial aid across units (Admissions, Financial Aid, Honors, Foundations, Colleges) to improve coordination, timing of awards, management of stacking rules, and alignment with recruitment and retention objectives—targeting improved yield, student body profile, and efficiency.

Going Cashless Workgroup

This group will evaluate the feasibility, impacts, and implementation steps of transitioning ECU to a fully cashless operating model for university transactions. It will examine existing practices, propose policy or infrastructure changes, and consider the implications for students, employees, and vendors while prioritizing efficiency, security, and equity.

Improve Communication and Planning Related to Recruitment and Retention

This workgroup is concentrating on strengthening coordination and clarity in messaging across diverse student populations (transfer, military, international, non‑traditional) and on leveraging CRM systems (such as Salesforce™) to share communication plans and assess ROI across admissions, colleges, and student‑facing units.

Improve Implementation of Pathways to Increase Recruitment and Retention

Charged with enhancing ECU’s guided‑pathway strategy, this group works with community colleges and internal stakeholders to create articulation agreements, inventories of associate‑to‑bachelor degree pathways, and marketing efforts to shift toward degree‑based progression rather than course‑by‑course.

Increase Environmental Efficiency and Reduce Operating Costs

Identify short and long term environmental efficiencies and identify areas for operational costs savings.

Libraries Merger Steering Committee

Tasked with guiding the successful merger of ECU’s Joyner and Laupus libraries, this committee will develop and oversee an implementation plan that ensures unified leadership, strategic alignment, and operational efficiency. It will address key areas such as collections, services, budget, staffing, and communication to facilitate a smooth transition that supports the university’s academic and research missions.

Reimagine IT Services

Engaging external consulting, ECU’s IT services are being reviewed to evaluate the balance of centralized vs. distributed staffing, reduce duplicated technologies, and align enterprise infrastructure (CRM systems, classroom technologies) with evolving institutional priorities.

Summer School Optimization Taskforce

The Summer School Optimization Taskforce will assess ECU’s current summer session structure and performance, identify barriers to enrollment and instruction, and recommend strategies to increase participation and financial viability. It aims to align summer offerings with student needs and academic progression, enhance revenue generation, and streamline administrative processes.

Ticket Office Consolidation Evaluation

To enhance operating efficiency at ECU, this exploratory work group will review current event ticketing practices at ECU and explore the potential of consolidation of the central ticketing office, athletic ticketing, and McGinnis ticketing office.

Unified College Taskforce

The Unified College Taskforce is charged with designing the structure, academic components, and governance of a new college formed by combining ECU’s College of Allied Health Sciences and College of Health and Human Performance. The taskforce will propose a name, structure, and operational transition plan that reflects the strengths of the existing colleges while promoting academic synergy, administrative efficiency, and interprofessional education. The final report, due by March 6, 2026, will include detailed recommendations for personnel, budgeting, technology, and facilities, with the new college targeted to launch by July 1, 2026.