Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from the writer’s Sept. 25 state of the university address.

Crisis may provoke the thinking that initiates change, but genuine transformation takes time.

We could have done dramatic things to demonstrate our poverty when the state made its latest budget cuts, but we’ve focused instead on how we will continue to fulfill our promise of transformative education delivered in a fiscally sustainable way. We’re in this for the long haul, and that is where we’re directing our energy.

Beginning in 2009, we redefined planning as an ongoing, iterative process of taking control of our own future. We started this work by thinking about who we are, building on the concept of the exemplary teaching and learning community we identified. Through a series of campus conversations, we articulated a vision to provide students with opportunities for transformative education by focusing on the intersections among academics, research and community.

To fulfill that vision, we’re now developing and connecting multiyear plans that address nine areas comprising UNC’s core mission and five major university-wide support functions. (You