Planning to Plan to Plan . . . for Sustainability

Alright, it looks like Inside Higher Ed's "G. Rendell" (anonymous sustainability blogger) is coming to SCUP–43. He wants "to learn about planning from a sustainability perspective more than about sustainability from a planning perspective." I hope we accommodate him. Writing about his own institution and "planning" in his July 8 post, he says:

Planning, at Greenback, is a patchwork at best.

Oh, we have five-year plans, and academic plans, and campus master plans, and an enrollment management plan, and project plans, and development plans, and a large number of purpose-built plans of various flavors, but each of them is drawn up by a small cadre of people, referenced only by pretty much the same group, generally unknown to the remainder of campus, and in no way integrated (or coordinated, or obviously in contact) with the other plans in the mix. As a result, planning at Greenback can only deliver more of what we already are, it can’t help us become something else. And since we don’t measure the outcomes of our plans (development campaigns aside), being more of what we already are is just fine.