Strategic by Design: Iterative Approaches to Educational Planning

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

In the push for accountability, colleges and universities resort to simplistic, linear thinking when planning—an approach not well-suited to academia. In this well-regarded recent article from SCUP's Planning for Higher Education, Shannon Chance shares her view that:

[I]t is not enough for institutions to simply shed mechanistic and deterministic traditions—the greatest rewards will accrue to institutions that are conscientiously, and consistently, proactive.

Helpful precedents for non-linear planning already exist on university campuses that offer studio-based curricula. Planning strategies employed in architecture and other design programs incorporate non-linear, iterative, synthesizing processes. The studio format itself requires high-order thinking in even the earliest classes; as such, studio-based curricula can serve as models for preparing educational planners to develop and implement responsive, well-synthesized plans. Universities can—and should—learn from the design studio example. Doing so can improve their strategic planning processes and foster critical thinking and adaptive learning among students, faculty, and administrators in all fields.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"