College Launches Strategic Planning Process

Ithaca has started determining its guidelines and goals for the year 2000 -- and beyond.

As part of its response to the Middle States reaccreditation team recommendations, Ithaca College has undertaken an institution-wide planning process to guide it through the next several years. Outlined in a December 1 memo from President Peggy R. Williams to the campus community, the process began with the appointment of a standing committee. The All-College Planning and Priorities Committee, Williams explains, "will serve as a steering committee for the development of the plan and then be the ongoing body that keeps us on task" — the development and implementation of the overarching goals and priorities for the institution.

The planning process got under way with a retreat held January 13–14 in the Campus Center. Members of the ACPPC were joined by a slightly larger number of other deans, vice presidents, faculty and staff members, and student leaders, as well as trustee Bud Garrity ’68. The combined group of 45 people then spent the next day and a half discussing, as Williams puts it, "mission, vision, and priorities."

Participants in a January planning retreat help identify the College's top priorities. Photo by Dave Maley

The retreat participants seemed to agree that the sessions, facilitated by Suzanne Forsyth and Steve Brigham of the Kaludis Consulting Group, were a necessary and useful step in the planning process. "The discussions and exercises at the retreat were invigorating, productive, and, best of all, encouraging," says Gretchen DeBolt, M.M. ’93, administrative secretary to the vice president for college relations and resource development. "I am now more convinced than ever that the College is moving in a healthy and positive direction where voices are not only heard but are truly considered in the planning process."

"Planning of this sort used to be a top-down affair, with senior corporate staff setting strategic directions for other members of the organization to follow," notes Bob Ullrich, dean of the School of Business. "That doesn’t work in today’s complex world. People at all levels of today’s organizations have information, experiences, and skills that are essential to the process of planning organizational strategy. That’s why a cross-section of our community is involved in the current planning effort."

The issues and priorities agreed upon at the retreat will be the subject of four roundtable discussion groups in the next week. Open to all faculty, staff, and students, the discussions will solicit opinions and recommendations regarding the College’s top priorities (see story at right).

President Williams and the committee will use that feedback to shape a report in time for the winter meeting of the College’s board of trustees, February 17–19. Once the board has discussed and approved the committee’s report, the College will form a number of work groups and task forces to further examine the major issues. Based on the Middle States self-study model, the groups will include, Williams says, "volunteers as well as people with de facto relationships" to the areas under consideration. She estimates that there will be 10–15 people on each work group or task force, which will meet from March through December 1999. The All-College Planning and Priorities Committee members will be charged with revising the College’s mission statement as well as serving as liaisons to the task forces.

Williams expects the outcome of this extended process to be a plan that "in the future will guide our priorities and resource allocations. The ultimate plan will be concrete, concise, and easily understood by all members of the College community." It will not, she cautions, answer all questions, nor should it substitute for school- or department-based planning. Instead, the plan will examine "the big-picture issues that span the College as a whole."

James Malek, provost and vice president for academic affairs, is serving as chair of the ACPPC. "I can’t imagine anything more fundamental to the institution," he says. "It’s an exercise in self-definition — examining the College’s mission and identifying goals and priorities for the institution. It will also be aspirational — determining where the College wants to be."

Nevertheless, the planning process won’t stray too far from reality. "Above all," Malek says, "we’ll need to tie our institutional priorities to the budget process."

In fact, Williams hopes that the committee’s recommendations will be far enough along to have some impact on next year’s budget. She recognizes, however, that an institution’s strategic planning process is never finished. "You should never see the fifth year of a five-year plan," she declares. "Nothing stays static; you need to keep revising."

That’s why the last item on her time line for the committee is "ongoing implementation and revision: January 2000 to infinity."