President’s Blog
Planning and More Planning
October 13, 2008
Dear Campus Community:
Last year, we took our first steps in strategic planning. We developed a mission statement that was discussed across campus and approved by the Oregon State Board of Higher Education in February 2008. We also formalized a number of smaller plans for initiatives that were already in process when I arrived in 2006 (you may view these and other planning documents here).
This fall, a number of other very significant plans are underway. Provost Jim Klein is heading a Master Academic Planning (MAP) process, which will enfold most of the smaller plans developed last year (online instruction, theatre, Medford, and so on). An Enrollment Management Plan has been drafted under the leadership of Peg Blake. An Affirmative Action Plan is emerging from work being done by Marion Boenheim and Deborah Frierson. A branding process led by Christine Florence is also underway. Sylvia Kelley, our incoming Vice President for Development, will create short- and long-term fundraising plans. All of these will enrich the vision behind the SOU strategic plan.
Jim Klein has developed a MAP steering committee, a timeline, and a consultative process that will provide opportunities for input, in person and online, from existing councils and committees, as well as individuals on and off campus. The academic planning process will be enriched, also, by the planning being done within academic departments and in the schools/college. Jim's timeline shows the academic planning process concluding in March 2008.
The strategic planning process will be a few months behind the MAP and branding processes. In the coming weeks, I will post a draft table of contents on the planning website, and I will seek input in a variety of ways. As always, I welcome ideas, questions, recommendations, revisions, and suggestions.
The University's Strategic Plan will be finished by the end of the academic year. It will provide an overarching framework for the academic plan and the other pieces of our complex organization. Based on input from our campus and external communities, and building on the work done throughout the University, SOU's strategic plan will provide vision and goals for the Institution.
Our strategic plan, of course, will be refined in the coming years. It won't be set in stone. But it also won't be put on a shelf and forgotten. It will guide us in budgeting, in hiring faculty and staff, in recruiting and retaining students, in communicating internally and with external constituencies. It will be a touchstone for us as we reinvest, as we reorganize the new SOU.
I look forward to working with you on this project in the months ahead.
Mary Cullinan
