Introduction1. Excellence in Undergraduate TeachingInternational Programs and Lower-Division Language Teaching2. National Leadership in the Humanities and ArtsInstitute for Advanced Creative ExplorationPAVAC II and III3. Biomedical Research and Environmental StudiesCenter for Tropical and Emerging Global DiseasesSchool of Marine Programs4. Workforce Development in Computing and Mathematical Sciences5. Outreach6. Administration and Information Technology Introduction The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest and largest of the thirteen schools and colleges that make up the University of Georgia. Some 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled in its degree programs. It consists of some 30 departments and an additional 30 programs, research centers, and international and studies abroad programs. It is the home college of approximately 40% of the tenure-track as well as non-tenure-track faculty who are directly involved in the fundamental missions of instruction, research, scholarship, creativity, and service that define this University. Our instructional mission accounts for approximately 63% of all the undergraduate credits and 35% of all the graduate credits earned each academic year on this campus. In addition, the Franklin College accounts for about 53% of all the external research monies awarded to the University, as reckoned by the Office of the Vice President for Research. Each year the College has steadily increased the external research monies it has received, with a slight dip in FY 1995. Our faculty also account for a substantial portion of the monies awarded to the University by the Georgia Research Alliance. The Franklin College is fully committed to the goal of helping the University achieve recognition by the measurable standards of faculty accomplishment, educational quality, and service as a leading institution of higher education in the nation and the world. Our Strategic Plan proposes to reinforce existing areas of strength in the College and to build new ones. A number of programs in the College have already achieved national prominence. In the Arts, the Lamar Dodd School of Art is receiving growing recognition for its undergraduate and graduate programs, while the School of Music plays a leading role in music education in the Southeast. Many of its faculty are internationally recognized performers and conductors, and its Institute of New Music is attracting attention. In the humanities, the strongest departments are History and English, whose faculty publish with the leading journals and university presses in their fields and play an increasingly prominent role in their disciplines on national and international levels. In the social sciences, the graduate program in public administration, in Political Science, was ranked fifth best among 248 programs in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. The program ranked first among the top 54 public administration graduate programs in the nation in scholarly productivity. The Political Science department ranked 10th in the nation and first in the Southeast in the number of publications appearing in three leading professional journals from 1985 to 1994. Geography and Psychology are also prominent in the social sciences, with Anthropology a program of emerging significance. In the physical and mathematical sciences, the number theory program in the Mathematics department was ranked by U. S. News & World Report as the 10th best in the nation. The Journal of the American Chemical Society ranked the Chemistry Department seventh best in North America. The Departments of Statistics and Computer Sciences are moving quickly to establish themselves as nationally recognized programs. In the biological sciences, the doctoral program in ecology and evolution was ranked 16th among 129 doctoral programs by the National Research Council. Five faculty members in the Genetics Department have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, while three faculty in that department have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Marine Sciences, Ecology, Biochemistry, Genetics, and Botany are all nationally ranked programs in this area. By the end of the next decade, the Franklin College hopes to accomplish the following goals: achieve national recognition for the quality of our undergraduate programs, which will be noted for their attention to the individual needs and interests of students, excellence of teaching, currency of content, and innovative use of technology. We will double the number of faculty who belong to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy Academic of Arts and Sciences. We will reinforce and enhance existing areas of strength in the College and will raise the quality of all our departments. We will double revenue generated by external grants and other sources of funding. We will be recognized for our programs in the arts and humanities. Our computer science programs will produce graduates at all levels capable of meeting job market demands in technology and related fields. Our faculty in genetics, genomics, and the biosciences will play a leading role in the burgeoning areas of molecular biology and biotechnology. We will have established significant links with the Medical College of Georgia, and perhaps other medical institutions, through the role our departments play in the biomedical initiatives of the University. The College of Arts and Sciences will have played a major part in elevating the University to membership in the American Association of Universities and to broadened recognition as one of the leading institutes of higher education. This proposed plan would require a continuing budget of $4,014,692 from the College of Arts and Sciences and of $2,986,250 from other sources, presumably half from state monies and half from through development and external grants. This plan also proposes approximately $173 million in money for construction of buildings for the School of Art, Drama, The Georgia Museum of Art, Marine Sciences, Ecology, Chemistry, and the Center for Emerging Global and Tropical Diseases, to be raised by the University through legislative efforts and fund-raising. The College of Arts and Sciences will provide its portion of this budget through redirection of existing resources. Major external funding will be necessary to provide new buildings for environmental studies and the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases as well as renovations for Marine Sciences and the Sapelo Marine Institute. The Center for Advanced Creative Exploration will require significant new outside funding. If no new funds are available, we will have to reevaluate this strategic plan. Although a few major proposals would have to be eliminated, and most others would have to be reduced in scope or ambition, the College would seek to put into motion as much of this plan as it was able while at the same time maintaining the existing levels of strength it currently supports. In general, the College of Arts and Sciences has funded many of its initiatives through redirection of internal funds. Although many of these initiatives have lacked in excitement and glamour, they have had the effect of strengthening the College and its programs and thus the University as a whole. A few examples of these initiatives follow. Over the past seven years the College has redirected some $1.75 million to create computer support positions for departments and schools. These positions play an important role in supporting faculty research and instruction. The College has also funded more than $1 million in networking costs. On a yearly basis, the College has redirected funds to provide updated equipment, especially computers, for our instructional labs and classrooms, which contain more than 1300 computers. We have also sought to provide updated computing equipment to faculty and to departmental staff. Redirected funds enabled the rebuilding of the Department of Anthropology into a unit focused on ecological anthropology. New instructional and research labs were provided to the department, along with new faculty lines. Redirected funds also provided support for Arts and Sciences-sponsored international programs, including Asian Studies, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and African Studies, as well as for such study-abroad programs as those in Oxford, Avignon, Switzerland, Japan, and the exchange relationship with the University of Rostok in the former East Germany. We intend to continue this steady investment in the necessary needs of the College, but we will also seek to redirect funds, where possible, to assist in the strengthening of many of the projects listed in this plan: they include the Center for New Music, Creative Writing, Computer Art and Animation, new language programs, the expansion of Computer Sciences, the biomedical initiative, and other projects. A note on diversity: University of Georgia graduates are going to live in an increasingly diverse society composed of a rich mixture of cultural and social backgrounds. The University should reflect not only the changes occurring in society but set an example for a diverse, inclusive world in the 21st century. The Franklin College has led the University in building a diverse academic environment for students and faculty and will continue to do so in the future. The College is committed to enhancement of cultural diversity in educational programs both through formal courses and co-curricular activities. The College will continue to support the current expansion of minority studies programs and encourage the integration of diverse cultural materials into instruction. Proactive recruitment of minority faculty coupled with an aggressive commitment to retain them has helped the College attract a strong and growing group of minority faculty. Target of opportunity hires have also helped to develop a diverse faculty. These efforts will continue. The College will provide continuing instructional support to insure that students can satisfy its multicultural requirement without hindrance to their academic progress. This strategic plan in particular proposes added operating support for African American Studies and Women's Studies and their new undergraduate majors. It commits to the development of endowments to fund the Hamilton Holmes Professorship and a chaired professorship for Women's Studies and in addition calls for tenure-track positions on which to build these professorships. Support for study abroad programs, new foreign language programs, and interdisciplinary studies provides another layer of diversity in student academic programs. Building a diverse, inclusive, and comprehensive learning community of high quality for all students is a central goal of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences in the coming years. Conclusion: Despite its large size, the College of Arts and Sciences has been the home of the departments and schools that have provided the foundation of the University of Georgia's growing reputation. Programs in Marine Sciences, Ecology, biotechnology, Public Administration, Political Science, History, English, Art, and Music have all developed national recognition in one way or another, especially in the last ten years. These are programs the state can be proud to have built at the University. Arts and Sciences intends to continue providing steady support for these and other units so that the success they have achieved can be sustained and cultivated further. Our vision for the future is one of steady growth and improvement made possible by careful support and enhancement of existing programs and by the creation of new programs, or the reorganization of existing ones where appropriate. In the past the University could afford to build in only a few selected areas. But if we are to achieve maturity as a University we need a high level of quality in all our programs, and at the same time we should seek to build in selected areas of special strength. Our future reputation as a University depends on a minimum level of high quality and distinction in all the programs that we offer. None should be allowed to languish. Herewith is a selection of areas chosen for new or enhanced emphasis from the Executive Summary of the Strategic Plan of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. These areas are listed below and are divided into individual programs and initiatives. Proposed funding sources are indicated. We do not include here projects or initiatives that require no new funding. We also do not list a number of other programs highlighted in the Executive Summary. The College of Arts and Sciences has undertaken over the past decade to build a broad range of quality programs. All of these programs are important, and we intend to continue supporting them. Our efforts to improve and build programs across the College are based in part on our observation that the most highly regarded colleges and universities in the nation are recognized for the diversity and quality of a wide spectrum of educational programs. 1. Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Total: $1,205,000 Across the nation major colleges and universities are reemphasizing the importance of undergraduate education. Undergraduate students are the heart of the University of Georgia, and providing them with a high quality education is a central reason for its existence. The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences is committed to providing a first-class instructional program for undergraduate students. We will strive to provide our students with a learning environment that stresses the value of a liberal education, excellence in teaching, and meaningful contact with faculty. We will provide continuing and enhanced support to programs that help foster a student-centered educational environment. Such programs enhance the quality of student life and in particular learning opportunities in the subject areas that form the traditional core of a liberal education: English, mathematics, foreign languages, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. The Writing Intensive Program, Freshman Seminars, and the Mathematics pre-calculus learning labs were conceived to provide additional individual attention to undergraduate students. The Biology and Chemistry learning labs utilize instructional technology to provide a high-quality computer-based testing environment. By providing faculty and classrooms with modern computers and other instructional equipment we can insure a continuing and improving use of technology in the classrooms. Enhanced support for all of these programs will enable the College and the University to maintain and raise the level of instruction our students receive. The most highly ranked universities in the nation are known not only for their research and graduate programs but also for their excellent programs in undergraduate studies.