Workshop: Linking Planning and Assessment in Higher Education: A Practical Guide

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

You could not find a better presentation or a better, more-informed set of presenters on this topic.

Audience: Planners new to the use of the assessment process in accreditation activities as a springboard to integrated planning

Abstract: This workshop focuses on strategies for effectively utilizing information drawn from a broad range of assessment activities. It goes deeper into the content found in the SCUP volume, Integrating Planning and Assessment in Higher Education: A Practical Guide (2006). Participants will identify the information that should drive the strategic planning process at a college or university and that provides the evidence needed to make more targeted decisions in the allocation of human and fiscal resources. The presentation will also highlight the linkage between assessment and planning as a critical compliance criterion among all regional accrediting bodies in the United States. The workshop will use a series of exercises throughout the presentation to interactively engage participants and reinforce the concepts and principles being presented. Each participant will receive a comprehensive workbook containing presentation materials and a list of resources for use upon completion of the workshop.

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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"

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"

Workshop: 'Reimagining Higher Education Post Recession'

SCUP–45 Connections Abound!

We were exploring the careers of our SCUP-45 plenary speakers and located Mark Milliron's current "Reading List." Lo and behold, an article by SCUPers Linda Baer, Don Norris, et al., is the first listed item. A link to that article, Action Analytics: Measuring and Improving Performance that Matters in Higher Education, is here. We also need to share with you the opportunity to spend Sunday morning, July 11 with Norris and Baer in this preconference workshop: "The current recession requires both immediate, severe adjustments, and longer-term innovation and reinvention of higher education. An emerging, new generation of “action analytics” will enable higher education leaders to lift out of the recession, establish financial sustainability, and sustain competitive advantage. This requires re-imagining our policies, processes, practices, and performance for the post-recession global economy. The focus is on value: achieving elevated expectations in an era of diminished resources. Action analytics, vision, and strong leadership will be critical to our success." -Linda Baer, Minnesota State Colleges & Universities System Office and Donald M. Norris, Strategic Initiatives, Inc., Abstract for the Preconference Workshop titled "Reimagining Higher Education Post Recession" at SCUP–45.

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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"

'Design Thinking' and Higher Education

Do you "bristle" at the thought of running a university more like a private sector business? Steven Bell proposes that instead you consider "design thinking."

Design thinking is no panacea for all that ails higher education. Resolving challenges such as low retention and graduations rates, escalating textbook costs, an over-dependence on adjunct faculty, lean budgets, for-profit competitors and myriad other problems will take more than a business as usual approach. However, higher education is not a business, and faculty and students will always respond caustically if they believe corporate solutions are being foisted on them by an unsympathetic administration.

This is where design thinking can make a difference. It's more than a short-term strategy for boosting profits. It's a roadmap for future-proofing one of society's most valued resources. And since it involves no acquisition of or investment in sophisticated new technology, only a desire to try a new way of identifying and tackling institutional challenges, it's right for the times. Those who want to engage with these ideas can begin with the Deep Dive video mentioned above or choose from a host of blogs written by experts in design thinking and user experience.

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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 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Getting Serious About Internationalizing SUNY

SUNY System Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher is convening a strategic planning session to "set priorities for internationalization systemwide, with a focus on how SUNY can help New York's economy." We can't find anything about this right now except for this brief Chronicle piece by Karen Fischer, but it sounds interesting. We hope someone inside the process will report out, both on the process and how integrated it will be. "The daylong session will yield two or three measurable outcomes for international success, Ms. Zimpher said, including targets for international-student recruitment, study abroad, or scholarly exchanges. Having clear gauges for success will hold SUNY officials accountable, she said."

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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 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

New Plan for '21st Century Maricopa'

In an article titled Efficiency from Incompetence, David Moltz, writing in Inside Higher Ed, examines tensions in and around the Maricopa Community College District. Maricopa's board of directors hired external consultants for $1.4M and has asked its chancellor to review for implementation the many changes in the resulting plan, which is titled "21st Century Maricopa." There are many interesting dimensions to the circumstances. SCUPers will be interested in looking at the plan and its supporting documents. According to Molz, tensions are so high that many thought the consultants would be hired for the plan's implementation, but the board has charged the chancellor with the redesign of the entire district. From Moltz's report:

Months after it was chastised by an independent panel for displaying “a consistent lack of civility” and creating “a climate of fear and mistrust,” the governing board of the Maricopa County Community College District has asked its chancellor to review and possibly implement a sweeping series of recommendations to improve the “efficiency” of the Arizona system.

The plan to redesign the district, marketed under the moniker “21st Century Maricopa,” is the result of $1.4 million worth of Alvarez & Marsal consulting work requested by the governing board last summer. The request, however, was made before the college district’s accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, encouraged an independent panel to examine an anonymous complaint it received alleging that the Maricopa board had put the district’s accreditation at risk by severely micromanaging educators.

The board’s hiring of outside consultants to weed out redundancies in the district and find further ways to save money is viewed by many local observers as a slight against Maricopa's leadership.

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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 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Strategic Plan to Take Cornell to 2015 and Beyond: Reimagining Cornell

Here's a link to the Cornell strategic plan website draft and here's a link to a Cornell Chronicle Online interview with the co-chair of the planning initiative.

Q: What themes are emerging from the planning process?

A: They include how to promote faculty and staff excellence given intense competition and limited resources; diversity and inclusion; a distinctive education; collaboration across disciplines and colleges; and effective assessments of teaching, research and outreach.

We're looking at the university as a whole, and thinking of Cornell as a singular unit, while recognizing and affirming the importance of strong and distinctive colleges and other academic units.

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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 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Initial List of SCUP-45 Concurrent Sessions!

Preliminary titles, presenters, abstracts, and learning outcomes are available now on SCUP's website for SCUP–45 concurrent sessions. Higher education's premier planning conference has a set of concurrent sessions of value to every planner on campus. The current list includes:

• "Free" Property - Look That Gift Horse in the Mouth
• "Rapid Conceptualization" Path to Scientific Funding...
• A New Vision for the Core Campus at Clemson University
• A Sustainable Campus? - Yeah, Right! More Hype and No Substance ?
• Academic Resource Management System: Introducing Centralized Strategic Resource Planning to Independent-Minded Faculties
• Access Mis-Management: "We've Met the Enemy and He is Us"
• Achieving Strategic Alignment
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• An Incremental Approach to Creating Technology-Enhanced Learning Spaces
• Assessing the Internal and External Variables that Contribute to Institutional Risk in Support of a "Risk Scorecard."
• Benchmarking Benefits for Energy/Water Use - 54 College Campuses in Minnesota
• BIM's Value in Pre-Design: Use of Information from Programming Through Occupation
• Bodies in Motion - Brains in Motion
• Campus Heritage Builders
• Carbon, Energy, and Water: Sustainable Planning Strategies for Indiana University
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• Connecting Alumni to Campus through Innovative Planning and Design
• Creating a 180-degree Turnaround In User Satisfaction With Home-grown Software
• Creating a Community College for the District of Columbia
• Creating New Collaborative Learning Environments
• Creative Project Funding When Your State is Strapped for Cash
• Cultural Competency for Educational Leaders
• Culture Shock: Managing Change in the Land of Academia
• Delivering on a Big Vision: Implementing a 75-acre Campus Expansion
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• Does Net Zero Design LEED to Zero Cost?
• Embracing Continuity and Change: Penn State Brandywine's Planning Approach
• Following Through on Strategic Plans: From Words to Deeds
• Friending Gr8 Ldrz: Leveraging Social Media on Campus
• Funding Higher Education Facility Preservation: A Streamlined Comparative Condition Framework for All State Facilities
• Funding the Future: Taking Advantage of Federal Grants
• Future Ready: How to Integrate Strategic Direction and Campus Planning
• Hardwiring Flexibility into a Strategic Plan’s Implementation: Strategies, Risks, and Rewards
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• HEASC Fellows Project Report
• Help! My Building Doesn't Have a Cavity: Re-cladding Solutions for Energy Inefficient Existing Buildings
• Hey! Where do you learn best? (Student Video Contest Winners Share their Stories!)
• Home, Classroom, Community: Creating a Comprehensive College House Residential Program
• How Do Smart Meters Make a University More Intelligent
• Implementing Academic Analytics: Promise and Performance
• Integrated Planning in Community Colleges: Current Realities and Future Possibilities
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• Integrated Project Delivery—A Catalyst for Collaboration/Planning
• Integrating Academic, Facilities and Community Needs at BCTC's New Campus
• Integration of Healthcare Education Across Disciplines and Departments
• Interaction Between A Community's Healthcare Needs and Coppin University's Academic Program as a Catalyst for Campus Transformation
• Inventing the Next Century of Living-Learning Environments
• Legacy System to Integrated Information System in Record Time!
• Lifecycle Cost Analysis of Campus Solar and LEED/Sustainable Projects
• Location Location Location: An Unlikely Approach to Sustainable Growth
• Making Your Strategic Plan a Bestseller on Campus
• Managing Space as a Campus Resource
• Master Planning for a Sustainable Marine Science Campus at UCSC
• Maximizing Land Utilization Through Creative Campus Planning and Development
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• Measuring the Impact of Enterprise Asset Management Programs
• Multi-faith Religious Space: The Solution to Diverse Campus Religious Pressures
• Multidisciplinary Learning, Sustainable Environments and Architectural Design = Positive Educational Experience
• New School Fogelman Library - Urban Case Study of the New Library Experience
• Notre Dame's Investment in the Future of Engineering
• Places for Collaboration: Art Buildings as Models for Collaborative Spaces
• Planning a Balanced Scorecard Approach at a NJ State College
• Planning for an Uncertain Future
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• Planning for Athletics and Recreation - Making Every Yard Count
• Planning for the Experienced Planner I (Session offered twice)
• Planning the Next Generation Library: User-driven, Technology-rich, and Resource-savvy
• Poly Canyon Village: Integrated Project Delivery Brings Sustainability Home
• Positioning for the Future During Uncertain Times'
• Presentation by the 2010 Excellence in Institutional Innovation and Integration Award Recipient
• Presentation by the 2010 SCUP Founders (Casey) Award Recipient
• Putting the Strategic Plan into Action: The Operational Plan
• Realizing The Impossible Dream: Developer-Led; Client Satisfaction; Architectural Excellence
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• Redefining Campus Boundaries: Strategies for Successful Student Growth
• Repurposing a Building - Morrill Hall, Sustainable in 1890
• Res Life Must Go On
• Revolutionizing Learning in the STEM Disciplines
• SCUP Excellence in Planning, SCUP Excellence in Landscape Architecture, and SCUP/AIA-CAE Excellence in Architecture Awards
• Simulation Centers - A New Model for Integrated Learning
• Smart Change: Tools for Strategic Planning and Adaptive Change
• Stalled, Squeezed, Shelved: Finding Project Momentum in a Wobbly World
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• Successful Public/Private Partnerships - A Case Study for Capital Funding & Development
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes
• Sustainable Campus as Pedagogy: Opportunities For Enhancing the Curriculum
• Sustainable Residence Life "Flexible Living Unit" Design
• The Power of Community and Place - Medical Education in West Michigan
• The Young and the Agile
• Tools to Assess the Marketability of Your Academic Programs
• Utilizing Technology and Data in Strategic Planning
• Vision, Beauty and Fun: The Success of Embracing Collaborative Planning
• Click through to the abstracts and learning outcomes

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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 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Is Your School Managing Its Way Through the Fiscal Crisis With a Through-Cycle Mind-Set?

This article from Business Officer magazine could have been titled, "Effectively Coping With the Financial Crisis on Your Campus Requires Integrated Strategic Planning." The author posits "a through-cycle mind-set—managing through the cycle, anticipating a recovery, and making investments to position the institution to be very successful when the recession is eventually over." There are some useful observations about how specific institutions are not just slashing budgets but continuing to make strategic investments in some areas despite cutting in others:

• Arizona State University continues to make investments in key capital expansion and high-profile faculty;
• Despite laying off 400 employees and stopping $1B in capital projects, Stanford University continues with $2B of capital investment, including homes for faculty;
• Franklin & Marshal College is taking advantage of the employment market to increase its faculty by 20 percent; and
• CalTech decided not to do budget-"smoothing" things like salary freezes, instead opting for surgical cuts in staff and programs.

[more]

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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 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

University Strategic Planning and the Foresight/Futures Approach: An Irish Case Study

An intimate sharing of the environmental scanning, strategic foresight/futures thinking used at Dublin City University.

Citation

Ronaldo Munck and Gordon McConnell. 2009. University Strategic Planning and the Foresight/Futures Approach: An Irish Case Study. Planning for Higher Education. 38(1): 31–40.

Abstract

The contemporary university operates within a global context characterized by ever-increasing uncertainty and complexity. Strategic planning must, therefore, be cognizant of future trends and how those trends will affect the university by creating both threats and opportunities. Our hypothesis is that an approach we refer to as “strategic foresight” can provide us with the tools, methodology, and process to creatively address uncertainty and complexity in our working environment. Dublin City University has taken the lead in Ireland in terms of its emphasis on strategic planning. Its 2005–2008 strategic plan, Leadership Through Foresight, was part of an ambitious foresight exercise that was aimed at informing subsequent strategic cycles. This article reports on this process in the context of the wider literature examining the value of foresight/futures thinking as applied to universities. The article commences with a review of current uncertainties and complexities in the current operating environment. It broadly outlines foresight/futures thinking and then examines universities specifically. It continues by focusing on Dublin City University’s foresight exercise as an example of how foresight operates in practice. Finally, the article concludes by exploring what a strategic foresight approach to planning might look like based on that experience.

Building a Learning University: Creating a Community of Purpose With Educators and Stakeholder Groups

This is an unexpectedly deep Learning Abstract that we found on the website of the League for Innovation in the Community College. Written by Tony Gurr, it begins:

The type of university needed for the new age of higher education will have to engage in a continuous process of self-review and refocusing over its lifetime. This will require systematic and purposeful processes of strategic planning that draw on the active participation of a broad range of stakeholders who, in their work together, align the institution’s policies, processes, and practices to make them more responsive to the changing needs of students.

Before this, however, the university needs to commit to a core purpose centred on student learning and what this means to how it does business. How do we get to this purpose? Surely, developing an innovative mission statement, hiring the best practitioners money can buy, and mimicking best practices should do the job for us.

Sadly, it does not.

Universities for Cities and Regions: Lessons From the OECD Reviews

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) does a lot of interesting research, often focused narrowly on Europe. For example, with regard to higher education and local and regional development, it has found that:

Regions can, with the help of their colleges and universities, play a key role not only in the development of national but also local and regional innovation systems. But much more needs to be done to take full advantage of higher education in regional and city development. It is becoming clear, for instance, that imitation and adaptation are no longer sufficient strategies in this kind of work. Unique advantages have to be constructed, and they have to be built on innovation. Universities and colleges can and should play a proactive role in providing the ideas and strategies to fuel that innovation.

According to this report from Barbara Ischinger and Jaana Puukka, in Change magazine, the OECD Reviews that led to that understanding are being repeated in many more countries, including two parts of the United States. This is probably something to be watching for more information about.

Using the Stimulus for Lasting Value in Higher Education

Paul E. Lingenfelter calls the federal state stablization fund a "tourniquet not a transfusion" and cautions that institutions need to think strategically about how best to invest in their futures. "The stimulus money is not a cure for fundamental problems. It is money to buy time, manage a short-term crisis, and build a foundation for dealing with the fundamental problems. Part of the stimulus is designed to prevent lasting damage; we should use all of it to create lasting value."

Master Planning for Sustainability

Ben Eisen explores the relationship between sustainability initiatives and campus planning:

Call it a sign of the times. For decades, sustainability initiatives in higher education were conceived and executed through grassroots, bottom-up efforts, from sustainable investments to campus recycling programs. But as stakes and publicity rise, and sustainability initiatives like the American College and University President's Climate Commitment take center stage, higher education is witnessing the growth of a top-down institutionalized approach to sustainability.

One of the clearest signs of this paradigm shift is the prominence that sustainability initiatives are receiving in university-wide strategic master plans. Green initiatives are now taking their place alongside more established campus issues in the long-term vision process.

Finding One's Way By Losing It

In Inside Higher Ed, David Shi, president of Furman University, argues once more that it's best to not look at the current financial and budget situation as only a crisis:

 "There is, in other words, great value in exploring the unforeseen -- and in remaking ourselves in the process. The financial crisis has led all colleges to initiate or renew focused reassessments of their mission, their structure, their vision, and their constraints. Such exercises on many campuses have become more participatory because of the seriousness of the situation. That is a good thing. "

Read on:

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/09/01/shi

Embracing the Unknown

These are brief, mini-essays from a number of distinguished higher education leaders, published in Business Officer. They make quick reads between phone calls: "Acknowledging the critical need to examine the multifaceted nature of the global economic crisis and its effect on our world from myriad angles—and explore below the tip of the iceberg—NACUBO has invited leaders in higher education and finance to write about these turbulent, changing times. The following essays present a range of perspectives—historical, endowment-focused, community college, student, and more—on the issues higher education is currently contending with, including some solutions for these and future challenges."

The Next Big Thing: Crisis and Transformation in American Higher Education

On Inside Higher Ed's "Blog U," the latest post is titled The Next Big Thing: Crisis and Transformation in American Higher Education, which concludes: "It is good to attend crisis conferences, seminars, and meetings on the next big thing. We all need to worry about the global transformation of higher education, but it is even more important for each institution to stay closely focused on the performance that produces high quality and high productivity measured against a clear and precise understanding of the marketplace for its mission. . . . When the moment passes, the publicity dies down, and the pundits turn to other crises, the college and university winners will be those who paid attention to the fundamentals all along." We might add that the winners will be the institutions which have used integrated, comprehensive planning to align the campus with its mission and vision.

What then is the optimal behavior of institutions suffering through the peaks and valleys of these serial crises? Some common sense guidelines may be helpful. The primary imperative surprises none of us: Pay attention to the fundamentals, all of which speak to the competitive performance of institutions within their sector and subsector of the higher education industry.

a. Enroll students.

b. Graduate students.

c. Focus on revenue.

d. Track expenses precisely.

e. Measure faculty, staff, and student performance.

f. Understand the difference between core activity and enhancements.

g. Do the core activities first and do them well.

Another Religious Institution Going For-Profit

Elizabeth Redden has written a very nice summary of the current changes at Crichton College, as well as the further-down-the-road experiences of Grand Canyon Education, Inc. What happens when a faith-based institution decides to seek financial salvation by going commercial?

“They don’t want to go out of business, they want to find a way to be able to continue consistent with their mission…. I’m working with a number of institutions, some of which have a religious affiliation, some of which have a strong religious affiliation, some have none at all, but they all have missions. And a piece of the issue is how do they preserve them."

Read more here:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/03/christian

Dueling Scorecards: How Two Colleges Utilize the Popular Planning Method

This article compares and contrasts the use of the Balanced Scorecard by two small, private colleges. The article includes examples of how the model was implemented, how it is used for cyclical improvement, and how it can be used to improve communication concerning institutional planning. SCUP members can download a PDF of this article at no charge.

You can find it here:
http://ams.scup.org/i4a/ams/amsstore/category.cfm?product_id=8603

A Grassroots Approach to Strategic Planning at St. Louis Community College—Meramec

One institution's experience:

"In the end, Meramec has found that working from the ground up demands a significant amount of cooperation and collaboration; however, it is evident that there is tremendous insight to be gained from those who are in the trenches every day."

Read more:
http://www.league.org/blog/post.cfm/a-grassroots-approach-to-strategic-planning-at-st-louis-community-college-meramec