The Charting Our Future process has been created to bring together existing planning efforts and allow members of our community to participate in creating a unified plan. The Strategic Planning Group and university leadership worked together to create a starting point for university planning efforts. The resulting plan will align all areas of the University and allow us to respond to changing conditions and opportunities.
Between Monday, August 25th and Friday, September 5th we’ll be sending out Nine Days of Data — each day will be posted here so that you can comment.
Have a question — or comment — about the process? Post it by clicking the comment link below.
1:19 am - 8-28-2008
Comment: I’m very happy to see the President’s office using the new blogging system!
5:02 pm - 8-29-2008
As I have spoken with many over the past eight months about the Strategic Planning process three main points of discussion have emerged. It means to me that they are the right questions. In a nut-shell they are:
1. Is the Strategic Planning process simply a smoke-screen for a planning agenda that is already determined by the University administration?
2. Why haven’t the faculty been more involved in the process, especially the faculty senate?
3. Is this just another initiative that will be given lots of air time and in months later be sitting on a shelf collecting dust?
As I have become involved in working with the Strategic Planning Group there are a few things that I have come to truly believe in. The first is that things are changing for all of us in higher education. The new University System of Ohio, a declining economy and lower enrollments and other factors have come upon us quickly and there has been and will continue to be good deal of scrambling to respond. I have also come to believe that BGSU does not belong to one group, person, the administration or the state. These groups all have defined roles in governance but in the end the University belongs us all, faculty, students, staff, and alumni. Finding solutions to our problems and capitalizing on opportunities is the work of everyone.
I certainly don’t have all the answers. I doubt the administration, faculty senate or the Strategic Planning Group has all the answers either. Questions about the lack of the faculty senate’s involvement in the Strategic Planning process are valid. Principles of shared governance and communications can always be improved on all sides of the conversation. How we move forward will define who we are.
As a member of the Strategic Planning Group, I invite everyone to Charting Our Future week. With frank, serious and collaborative engagement, together I believe we will find solutions.
Bill Mathis
College of Musical Arts
Co-chair, Strategic Planning Group
1:45 am - 8-30-2008
One thing that could be concerning to this process is the current state of morale on campus among the faculty. I can not speak to the admin staff or classified staff.
The morale is extremely low and I wonder how much we can trust the data we gather given this current mental state.
Along with these, the group of faculty members that gathered at the library need to be factored into our process and decision-making. There is some serious questions and perceptions that we need to be aware of. I attended the first meeting at the library in late spring. The group constructed a list of questions for the provost and certainly a number of those questions and concerns are valid.
One of those concerns was the process by which this group was put together. The question of whether the proper process was followed or not is not the appropriate question and any response that addresses the process of formation is missing the underlying problem. The question or concern is the perception of how the group is put together and functions. This hasn’t been addressed satisfactorily with this group and this group has significant plans for our data collection.
11:54 am - 9-5-2008
I wonder if it would be possible to provide potential participants with the specific plan and agenda for the 2-and-a-half hour meetings, so each of us can decide whether it’s likely that we’ll be able to make useful contributions, and thus whether we should make room for the meetings in our schedules?
11:35 am - 9-9-2008
If you’re having doubts about whether the session will be worthwhile, please go. Like most people, probably, I’m busy and don’t love meetings, but I felt it was a good use of time. Not perfect, maybe, but I’m glad I did it.
Our session activities included discussing good and bad things at BGSU, making recommendations about mission, core values, etc., and voting on everyone’s ideas across the room. The session was well-managed in terms of time and content. Bring coffee if you need it! This is a no-frills operation.
However you feel–whether that’s entirely positive or you have doubts, anxieties, low morale, and concerns–this is a chance for your voice to be heard. The quality of the process and the recommendations it generates depend on the people participating in it. I think it’s especially important for faculty to participate.
3:01 pm - 9-12-2008
Two key points came up at our table yesterday (Thurs.):
– Are we asking the right questions &/or are these the “right” goals, mission, vision, core values to be working from?
– The lack of awareness/knowledge about the core values across campus… (so perhaps a revival of these can be pushed once again, once revised)
10:25 am - 9-17-2008
Now that the meetings are over, I agree with Carrie that everyone came in with their own agendas and knowledge, but knowledge wasn’t really shared effectively. I had an important topic that, when it came down to time to explain why it was important, apparently I didn’t have enough time. I’d suspect in some cases that I’d only get my message through by filibuster, but the point is that most people entered that meeting unprepared for the pace and process.
10:43 am - 9-17-2008
So I added my comments here:
http://blogs.bgsu.edu/strategicplanning/cof-5/
and here:
http://blogs.bgsu.edu/strategicplanning/2008/08/25/day-1-aug-25-a-new-educational-landscape/#comment-26
I suspect that these more lengthy explanations may be missed as well.
I also don’t want people to think that I’m simply altruistic with this information. If the changes I want are made, I suspect that my advising results will change (student retention and graduation improvements), which means my evaluations for the year will improve, which means I might get a better raise later on. Not that anyone else would benefit from having better prepared students in their classes…
Update: I started on the correlation work this last week. Went out and bought the US News and World Report 2009 edition “America’s Best Colleges” and Harvard ranked #1, with a 97% graduation and retention rate. The rest were in line except Miami University, which prompted some investigation. Miami just recently improved their course entry requirements (gotta love archived course bulletins!), so it will be interesting to see longitudinally if their move pans out in improved retention this next year. Still, struggling to improve a 90% freshman retention rate and an 80% graduation rate is more than 10% ahead of us. If this sounds too ambitious, perhaps we could just be competitive enough to give Kansas State University a run for thier money and bump them back to 3rd tier while we take their 2nd tier spot? It’s SO close…