The purpose of strategic planning is to provide the foundation for decisions concerning the future of the College and to serve as a guide for allocating resources. A strategic plan identifies issues and areas of concern, establishes priorities, and develops strategies for action to solve problems and improve the quality of the services we provide. It defines the goals toward which the College should be working. It also provides a mechanism for assessing how well the College is doing in achieving those goals.

Planning is not an event, but a process. Our goal is to create a continuous process for self-improvement, both short- and long-term. As we proceed with strategic planning, first at the departmental level and then for the College as a whole, I hope the benefits will become obvious to everyone: allowing broad participation in the governance of the College; sharing information widely among faculty, staff and students; helping to establish and clarify short- and long-term goals for the departments and the College; providing input into decisions on resource allocation; and establishing the basis for successful fund raising activities.

There is no single best formula for successful strategic planning. By its very nature, planning takes into account all of the variables that apply in a given situation. Thus, it would be a mistake for me to dictate a structure that each department should follow in developing its strategic plan. Instead, I would like to suggest some guidelines for areas of discussion that could be incorporated into a departmental strategic plan, but with the understanding that these are only guidelines and that they need not be followed religiously, nor should they form the limits of the discussions that occur within each department.

1. Identify who should be involved in the planing process. As a rule, the broader the participation, the better the outcome. This is true for at least two reasons: more varied participation leads to more (and hopefully better) ideas; and having the opportunity to participate often leads to greater acceptance of the results of the planning process. Think about this question in terms of both who provides services and who benefits from them. As a suggestion, you might consider including faculty, staff, students, alumni, employers who hire your graduates, representatives of other units of the University who rely on your department, and perhaps others whom you can identify.

2. Make sure that everyone involved is aware of the timetable. For the departmental stage of the planning process, a preliminary draft of each department's plan should be completed and submitted to the Dean's office by November 1, 2000. (But please remember that this is an ongoing process, and anything you commit to print now can be revised in the future. You will have a continuing opportunity (and obligation!) to revisit your department's plan at least annually, and to revise it in whatever way is appropriate as circumstances change.) Comments will be returned to the departments as soon as possible, hopefully by November 15, and a revised draft will be due by the end of fall semester 2000.

3. As a starting point, if you have not already clarified your departmental mission and goals, you should consider doing so. A mission statement doesn't have to be a long, detailed essay a few sentences may be sufficient. What is the reason for the department's existence? What services does it provide, and to whom? How does it help further the University's mission? It may help to begin by identifying a few key words or concepts and then building upon them, developing consensus as you go along. Before you write your department's mission, I suggest you reread the University mission statement, which can be found in the annual University Bulletin. Each department's mission should be consonant with the University's mission.

After defining the department's mission, identify its most important goals. Within the role of the department as defined in its mission, what does it hope to accomplish? This is obviously more concrete than the mission statement.

4. Next, you might want to identify some key strategies the department can use to achieve these goals. Again, be concrete. A word of advice is in order: don't get bogged down in a debate over the difference between a mission, a goal and a strategy. These are merely concepts to guide you, not to constrain you.

5. It is helpful at some point in the process to identify the kinds of information you will need to collect and analyze to guide you in the planning process. Once you have a list of the types of data that would be useful, you might want to contact the office of institutional research to see what it is able to provide to assist you. Or you may contact my office and we will attempt to provide whatever information you have identified as necessary for your discussions.

6. Somewhere in the process, perhaps earlier or later, you might want to include a brief historical analysis of how you got to where you are today. What has been the general trend of the development of the department? Has it been an organized progression toward a clearly defined objective, or a more haphazard series of events? Does the current situation make sense? This is not so important for the plan itself, as for the discussion that serves to develop the plan; it can help you identify areas of concern and strategies for change.

7. Be sure that everyone involved in the planning process understands and acknowledges the limitations on the resources available, both now and in the foreseeable future. As a starting point, I recommend that you review the assumptions defined by Vice President Covey in her memo to department chairs dated April 14, 2000, concerning departmental goals and objectives. A strategic plan should be realistic it helps no one to develop and submit a plan that is nothing more than an unattainable wish list.

8. One way that I have found helpful in thinking realistically about planning is to conduct an "environmental scan". This involves identifying the department strengths and weaknesses, and then identifying opportunities and threats. Typically, strengths and weaknesses are an evaluation of the department from an internal viewpoint, while opportunities and threats are more from an external perspective, although this is not necessarily always the case. As an example, a strength might be a concentration of faculty in a given area or a successful record of external grants to support research; a weakness could be a gap in faculty expertise in an important area of knowledge in the field; an opportunity might be a prospective donor or several expected retirements (which could also be a threat!); a threat could be a recent decline in enrollment or a viability review by ACHE. These are just examples - use your imagination in this stage of the discussion. The environmental scan is not necessarily a part of the plan itself, but rather a part of the process.

9. After scanning the environment, you may want to proceed to identifying your department's priorities for the near- and long-term future. Remember that planning involves recognizing the potential for improvement through change. Where do you see the department as likely to be 2 years from now, or 5 years? How is this different from where you want it to be? What can the department, the Dean, the Provost, the President do to improve that situation? How can you take advantage of strengths and opportunities to make it happen? How can you shore up the department's weaknesses and avoid or overcome threats? In any discussion of the department's priorities for the future, be sure to tie any proposed changes to the mission, goals and strategies that you have previously defined.

10. Remember that planning needs to link new programs to available resources and/or to identifiable new resources. For any proposed change that requires additional resources, provide a thorough, careful and realistic assessment of the costs of the new programs and where those resources will come from. Also, be sure to document sufficient demand to justify any proposal for new programs use enrollment data, student surveys, and other means available. Do not assume, as in Field of Dreams, that if you build it, they will come.

11. Your task is not complete without including a discussion of how you will assess your department's progress toward achieving the goals set forth in your plan. What benchmarks will you use to measure your department's accomplishments? What methods of assessment will be used? How will you use the results of your assessment to provide feedback for continuous improvement and reevaluation of your goals?

12. Bear in mind that the 19 departmental strategic plans will serve as the starting point for the development of a strategic plan for the College of Arts and Sciences. Budget decisions, position authorizations (both replacement and new positions), and other decisions about resource allocation and reallocation will be based on the College's strategic plan. Proposals for resources will have to demonstrate how they will tie in with the College and departmental plans and how they will help achieve the goals of the College and the department.

13. In an ideal world we would be able to expand the amount of resources available for College programs so that new programs can be undertaken without cuts in existing ones. Unfortunately, we cannot count on dramatic increases in enrollment or a change in the funding formula used by the state to allocate support to the University. Tuition revenues are not likely to increase beyond the rate of inflation. Therefore, expansion of programs, as opposed to substitution, will require additional sources of funding, which will almost certainly have to come from new sources grants, private donations, endowments, and the like.

It will not go unnoticed, I am sure, that as we identify priorities for the College there will clearly be some shifting of resources to achieve those priorities. Therefore, I would suggest that each department's plan include a realistic discussion of how the department will respond to possible cuts in resources, both in operating budget and especially in faculty size. In conducting this discussion within your department, and in writing it up, I urge you to avoid the style of a doomsday prediction. We all recognize that when a department's budget is cut, the quality of programs it offers is reduced. No one wants to see that happen. But strategic planning is about choices, and often those choices are difficult and have undesirable consequences that must be endured. The alternative is to live with the status quo forever, which means no change and no progress.

Assume that there are no sacred cows. Good ideas will attract resources; old ideas are not necessarily better (or worse) just because they have been around a long time. Remember, the purpose of strategic planning is not to reaffirm the status quo. It requires creative thinking and risk-taking, willingness to set aside personal self-interest in order to do what is best for the department, the College, the University, and most importantly, for our students.

Think in terms of expanding the pie, rather than zero-sum solutions. Think in terms of interdisciplinary solutions that create synergy with other departments and colleges. Think of how additional resources can be obtained from outside sources. Avoid the trap of the "culture of argument" common in academia - arguing against the process of strategic planning is not likely to yield benefits to the department. Instead of asking why it shouldn't be done, ask "How can we make this happen, and how can we make it work to our advantage?"

Perhaps most important of all, use this opportunity to help bring your department together and forge a consensus about how you can improve the services you provide. It will be hard work, time consuming, and difficult, at times even painful, but I truly believe that it is necessary for the College of Arts and Sciences to attain greater prominence in the University and in the broader academic community.