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.  As Vice Chancellor, Susan serves as the senior strategic planning and academic policy official of the Oregon University System and is responsible for the broad array of strategic and academic issues development, planning, analysis, and evaluation in support of Board strategic planning and policy making. 

These functions include development of agency-level OUS strategic plans and initiatives; coordination with OUS campus strategic plans and with inter-sector planning conducted by the Joint Boards of Education; leadership as co-chair of the OUS Provosts’ Council; development and implementation of the system-level performance and accountability framework; development and evaluation of system-level academic policies in coordination with OUS provosts; development and alignment of system-level student success initiatives among OUS institutions and with other education sectors in Oregon; and oversight of Chancellor’s Office information development, environmental scanning, institutional research, and OUS performance measurement activities. In addition, Susan organizes and coordinates OUS’ preparation and presentation for each biennial legislative session.

Susan applies a team-based approach to the management of information and policy organizations, as well as to collaborations with OUS institutions. During her tenure with the System, she has developed an institutional research organization with strong analytic capabilities and rigorous quality controls, and led the development of OUS peer institution lists through a systematic, data-based approach to peer analysis that became a model for other states.  She initiated a strategic planning function that ties together system level goals and guiding principles, institutional quality and funding perspectives, performance measurement, benchmarking through peer analysis, and a careful delineation of the policy roles of the Board, System, and institutions. In her earlier work with OUS, Susan developed the methodologies for OUS enrollment projections and faculty compensation modeling and created the OUS Fact Book and institutional profiles prototypes.

Susan joined the OUS Chancellor’s Office in 1979, and has previously served as Director of Institutional Research, Chief Information Officer, and Deputy for Planning. 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.