As co-chairs of OpenMSU, we'd like to take a moment to reintroduce you to the OpenMSU initiative and share plans with you for the upcoming semester.

OpenMSU is an initiative sponsored by President Cruzado, Provost Potvin, and Vice President of Administration & Finance, Terry Leist. We're charged with improving our worklife at MSU. One of our main objectives is identifying ways to make our processes and procedures more efficient and effective. Please visit our website (www.montana.edu/openmsu) to learn more. As a new semester begins, we want to let the campus community know what's been happening with OpenMSU. It's been a busy summer, and you'll see the results of that hard work soon.

Over the summer, the OpenMSU team was at work analyzing data from two major surveys (links to overviews of both are at our website) and gathering additional information from folks involved in the day-to-day tasks that keep MSU moving forward. The Information Gathering Team talked to people in functional areas and departments, getting a better understanding of how things work at all levels. That information then passed on to the Recommendations Subcommittee, which started developing the proposals you'll see in October. Their work began in earnest in August, taking your comments and concerns and crafting them into proposals for changes that will make our work lives easier at MSU.

Because of the amount of data and information we collected, many ideas and possibilities emerged. As a result, the Recommendations Subcommittee developed a process for ranking proposals and evaluating ideas that could have an immediate impact on MSU's operations, as well as achieve the university's goals recently adopted in the MSU Strategic Plan.

We want to make sure that all MSU community members have a chance to learn about and comment on these proposals. To that end, we'll post the proposals online around mid-October, with an open public forum on October 24 in the SUB. You'll be able to submit your comments and thoughts at that time, and we encourage you to do so. The Steering Committee will review all comments after the forum and incorporate any changes. Only then will the recommendations move to OpenMSU's sponsors (the President, Provost, and VP of Administration and Finance) for their final review. They will then select the recommendations to be implemented.

Summary of Next Steps:

• September & October Updates: OpenMSU team members will visit committees and councils, such as University Council, OSP Roundtable and Faculty/Staff Senates, to provide "live" updates on OpenMSU's progress.
• October 24 Public Forum: Please plan to attend in order to share your thoughts on the proposed solutions and which challenges to address first and as we; as how best to engage MSU communities in implementation of solutions.
• November: The OpenMSU team will deliver a final report and proposal package to the MSU's Executive Sponsors.

We would like to thank everyone in the campus community who contributed valuable time and thought to this process. And, we encourage you to remain involved. If you would like more information about OpenMSU or if you have any questions, please visit the OpenMSU website at www.montana.edu/openmsu.

William Van Horn, Admin Assoc III
Military Aerospace Studies

Nicholas Ward, PhD
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering