This synergy has particular significance for the students and the states we serve. For the states, it means the ability to tap easily into the combined brainpower of multiple institutions to address economic, environmental, health care, and other public service needs. Closely allied to a system's synergistic value is its strategic value. By setting common goals, assigning complementary roles to the constituent institutions, and coordinating tactics, system members can more successfully meet their individual objectives than if they operate at cross- purposes. Fund raising provides a useful illustration of how valuable strategic, systemwide effort can be.
Systemwide strategies are also an important element in academic planning.
Again using the UMS example, we have begun reducing redundant academic program offerings throughout our system in order to reinvest limited resources in high-priority areas. We are currently either eliminating or reconfiguring well over 100 programs, a monumental streamlining that never would have occurred among autonomous institutions. The result will be a family of institutions with more sharply focused missions in a system with an expanded capacity to meet its clientele's needs. Although it may be self-evident that a system of institutions functioning coherently can be more efficient than those same institutions operating independently, realizing this potential is not easy. It is about as likely that a group of autonomous institutions will spontaneously take concerted action as it is that a pile of lumber will spontaneously form a house.