In an email sent this morning from President Sullivan, she invites us "to continue [our] engagement in the development of this important roadmap to our future," in reference to developing the University's strategic plan to guide UVA into the future. Further along in the email she provided two links, one to a UVA Today article and one to an entire website devoted to the subject.If you are anything like me, the you read maybe the first paragraph of the president's email, noticed the hyperlinks and promptly archived it, never to be seen again.
There are substantial costs to trying to comprehend the monolith that is the strategic plan of our great school, and due to my lowly status as a fourth year there is not much I can personally do to change or implement the best policies for UVA. You might even say that the marginal cost of delving into the president's plan is much higher than the marginal benefit. This is caused by a distortion, as Johnson calls it, produced by rational ignorance. President Sullivan holds a disproportionate amount of influence on creating and implementing university policy, which means I have little incentive to gather information about the issue.
I am not completely void of incentive, however. My objective function is influenced by the University's utility, that is, we have interdependent utilities. When UVA's utility increases - in prestige, influence, etc. - my utility increases - in pride and the influence holding a degree from here has on getting a job - so maybe I ought to begin engaging. I would at least be able to sound smart around my friends.
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