Susan Weeks

Vice Chancellor for Strategic Programs and Planning

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Susan Weeks is the Vice Chancellor for Strategic Programs and Planning in the Oregon University System. She joined the OUS System Office in 1979, and has served as Director of Institutional Research, Chief Information Officer, and most recently as Deputy for Planning.

As Vice Chancellor for Strategic Programs and Planning, Susan is responsible for a broad array of strategic issues development, planning, analysis, and evaluation in support of Board strategic planning and policy making.  These functions include those that produce performance measures for the Oregon University System, enrollment and faculty compensation forecasting models, surveys of student choices and graduate outcomes, K-16 alignment models and analysis, peer institution benchmarking, and coordinated development of OUS strategic issues and plans.  She serves as primary staff to the Board of Higher Education for strategic planning, and chairs the Interinstitutional Planning and Research Council.

Susan applies a team-based approach to the management of information organizations, as well as to collaborations with OUS institutions. During her tenure with the System, she:

• Developed an institutional research organization with strong analytic capabilities and rigorous quality controls;
• Moved the information technology division through a significant reorganization and realignment, expanding its focus to emphasize a cross-functional team approach and its connections to the policy and decision support functions of the Chancellor’s Office;
• Led the development of OUS peer institution lists through a systematic, data-based approach to peer analysis that became a model for other states;
• Initiated a strategic planning function that ties together performance measurement; benchmarking through peer analysis; an integrated view of enrollment management, institutional quality, and funding; and a careful delineation of the policy roles of the Board, System, and institutions.

In addition, Susan developed the methodologies for OUS enrollment projections and faculty compensation modeling; created the OUS Fact Book and institutional profiles prototypes; and designed the biennial Where Have Oregon’s Graduates Gone? survey.

She earned her BA in French in 1972 and her Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Management in 1976, both at the University of California, Irvine.