Fall 2018 | Ithaca College

Drafting the Vision, Mission, Values, and Themes

Structure for the Work Ahead

Before the formal kickoff of the process, a feedback period allowed the campus community an opportunity to offer input on the process draft and nominate candidates for the steering committee.

September-October

At the end of September, the steering committee comes together and begins the work of engaging the community about the overarching college vision, mission, and values that will inform the rest of the strategic planning efforts.

During the October 17-19 Board of Trustees meeting, trustees also engage in discussion about these guiding tenets.

By the end of October, the steering committee releases the guiding versions of the vision, mission, and values that will be used for the next stages in the process. They are not considered "final," but, rather, "guiding," because the rest of the strategic planning process could yield additional revisions.

The steering committee works collaboratively with the college community and the trustees throughout the process of identifying the guiding vision, mission, values, and themes. View this image at full size.

Themes Form the Core

November and December

After the vision, mission, and values are set, the steering committee turns its focus to identifying the handful of major themes around which the working groups will be organized. They draw insights from the work the community conducted on the earlier parts of the process, along with new cycles of ideation and feedback.

After the themes are identified, an intensive process to identify the theme-based working groups begins. By mid-December, six to eight people are identified for each group, taken from community nominations as well as from the steering committee's research into needed theme-based expertise.