Draft Process

The structure of this plan is as follows:

Steering Committee

The Steering committee is charged with coordinating the overall activities of the Strategic Planning Process. The Steering Committee, will have 12-15 members representing in some configuration the following constituencies and stakeholders:

• Provost (Chair, to co-chair with chair of the Design Team)
• 1 Vice President (in addition to Provost)
• 3 Faculty Members
• 2 Staff Members
• 2 Students
• 1 Student Affairs and Campus Life Representative
• 1 Alum
• 2 Trustees
• 1 Community Member

Among the members of the Steering Committee, it is important to have people who have a commitment to the design principles as well as sufficient legitimacy with the campus community to work through potentially difficult (but hopefully ultimately empowering) conversations about making choices as a community. The Steering Committee will also help to set the tone of collaborative responsibility within the Working Groups, and across the campus as the primary ambassadors of the Strategic Planning process.

The members of the Steering Committee will be chosen by the President and the co-chairs of the Steering Committee from among a pool of individuals. There will be a variety of nomination opportunities designed to access the largest array of possible participants in the process.  Individuals will be able to self-nominate, or nominate another member of the campus community, through the Strategic Planning website. The Design Team encourages everyone to activate their personal networks to help reach those members of the community who typically might not step forward. The Steering Committee co-chairs will also reach out to the governance councils and other campus bodies for names of potential nominees.

There are three main aims of the work of the Steering Committee.

1. The Steering Committee (SC) will assess the relevance of the current college mission and vision statements, and draft new guiding vision, mission and values statements that are in close alignment and that will help structure the Strategic Planning Process. The SC will examine previous campus self-study and reflective exercises (Appendix 1) to inform their work in drafting these new statements.
2. The SC will develop a set of high level themes that will become the basis and topics of the working groups. These themes will arise out of the assessment in step 1 above, along with feedback from the IC community broadly defined, and an evaluation of the identifiable opportunities and issues facing IC and higher education in the future. The work of the SC should show evidence of having reviewed these previous campus efforts and of having incorporated relevant insights from this work.
3. The SC will form, recruit and populate the Working Groups that will produce the goals and objectives of the planning process. The SC will utilize the college governance structure (for faculty, staff and students) and other resources (for instance Paula Younger and Eric Rosario for community member) to identify the relevant stakeholders who have expertise in and/or commitment to the themes in collaboration with the President and the Provost.

The Steering Committee is responsible for ensuring the timely progress and completion of the Strategic Planning process. The SC is also responsible for communicating with the IC community on a schedule defined in the communications plan, and for seeking advice and counsel from the Strategic Planning Partners (see below).

The SC will be responsible for producing the final report of the planning process. That report should be very explicit regarding how the groups working as part of the planning process got to their results. The report of the results and the writing of the plan should take into consideration the many audiences within the IC community, on campus and off. 

The final product of the strategic planning process will include:

• Guiding Vision, Mission and Values Statements
• Strategic Themes
• Goals (the destinations at which we hope to arrive)
• Objectives (the measurable steps we take to get to those destinations)
• An Implementation Plan
• A team of individuals that will be responsible for guiding implementation, and ongoing strategic reflection about the plan in the context of a dynamic institutional and higher education environment

Working Groups

The Working Groups are separate working committees associated with each of the themes identified by the SC. The groups are co-chaired by a faculty member and a staff member (or potentially a student and a staff member as appropriate to the task and personnel). At least one of the co-chairs of the group will be a permanent member of the steering committee. 

The Working Groups are composed of 6-8 additional members of the community, preferably a mix of faculty, staff, students and relevant stakeholders. The Steering Committee will seek out nominees, and will shape the committees with reference both to necessary expertise and demonstrated interest of the individual. The members should also have a stake in the area of focus.

To optimize engagement and promote empowerment among the members of the group, the Working Groups should have ownership of their theme, and be responsible for creating opportunities for campus engagement. The Working Groups will choose the channels, frequency, and mechanisms for collecting input. The groups will be responsible for scheduling these events, and collecting and organizing all feedback.

The Design Team recommends basic ground rules (Appendix 3) for all events run by the Working Groups to encourage robust feedback for event participants. The groups are responsible for identifying and reaching out to key stakeholders (see Appendix 2 for a provisional list) in advance of events, keeping track of those campus members who attended in order to report out with an official response, and explanations of how event feedback was considered and used (or not used). Ideally, the events will be engaging for the participants (outside speakers, for example, or interactive activities), and attendance will be high. 

There may also be opportunity for the Working Groups to travel to institutions to observe and learn about positive examples of the work that the IC groups are working on. If travel is not an option, teleconferencing could be useful tool for connecting with outside resources.

The co-chairs of each working committee will meet routinely with the SC and the members of the Strategic Planning Core.

The Working Groups are responsible for the formation of the Goals and Objectives that will become the major results of the Strategic Planning process. The groups will examine relevant sections of existing school strategic plans and other campus documents, and perform an environmental scan and SWOT analyses. 

The Working Groups can use a wide array of modalities to arrive at these results, and will consider the variety of ways to collect feedback from many different sources (web surveys, focus groups, easels on campus, etc.), and the best ways to catalog, standardize and analyze for their purposes the data being generated.

Examples of the work product of these groups appear in Tables 2 and 3 of the accompanying visual representation of the planning process.

Strategic Planning Partners

The Strategic Planning Partners are a group of delegates from across the college community (faculty, staff, students and others) who will meet with the SC and Working Groups at scheduled, key points in the planning process to provide feedback and critique of the evolving strategic plan. This group provides a mechanism for ongoing conversation between the participants in the planning process and representatives from a cross section of the community, especially those people who do not feel adequately represented through existing governance processes. It also provides a mechanism to increase participation in and increased ownership of the planning process and outcomes.

The membership of the Strategic Planning Partner groups will be:

• Tri-Council (governance council executive committees)
  • Faculty
  • Staff
  • Student
• Strategic planning delegates to be chosen by the President and Provost
• Senior Leadership Team

Consultants Group

The Consultants Group is made up of representatives from key stakeholders within the IC community, who will be involved in executing the final strategic plan. Given their central import to the final implementation of the plan that is devised, these individuals will serve two functions: they will provide advice and guidance on the development of the goals and objectives arising from the Working Groups and they will evaluate/validate the feasibility of the plan objectives and goals.

• Facilities
• Budget/Financial
• IEBC
• IT
• HR
• Legal
• Advancement
• Analytics and Institutional Research
• Enrollment Management
• Student Affairs and Campus Life
• Marketing
• OIPES
• Library
• External National Experts
• Auxiliary Services
• Etc.

The members of the Consultants Group will be chosen by the President and Provost.

Services Group

The Services Group will provide key operational support services to the planning process, as necessary and as requested by the Steering Committee and Working Groups. These individuals will be necessary at various points in the timeline of the planning process, but will be identified and assigned roles from the outset. Examples include:

• Website
• Survey Design and Deployment
• Advertising
• Social Media (esp. important for students)
• Graphics and Design for Reports and Publications
• Video Production: What is Strategic Planning and Why is it Important?
• Event Planning
  • Final Reveal
  • Off Campus/Alumni/Community Events
  • Kickoff
  • A writer for continuity of final report
    • Last stages of process

The Provost and SLT will make assignments and allocate time within the work schedules of these support personnel.

The accompanying visual representation of the planning process summarizes the committee structure described above.

Approval Structure

Please see the accompanying visual representation of the planning process.

Calendar

Please see the accompanying visual representation of the planning process for a preliminary timeline of events.  A full calendar and communication plan is still under development.