Strategic Planning in Student Affairs E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B SS Single Issue Student Services
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 206

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Here, finally, is a publication completely dedicated to strategicplanning in student affairs. This volume applies business andnonprofit techniques to higher education, bringing the topic ofstrategic thinking, planning, and acting to the daily work of theprofession. Editor Shannon Ellis, vice president of studentservices in the College of Education at the University of Nevado,Reno, and contributing authors take the student servicespractitioner through the process of preplanning, implementation andassessment. They explore the role that student services strategicplanning plays in budget work, academic relations and crisismanagement. With case studies from Tulane University and University ofNevada, Reno and in-depth advice from the field, this volumeprovides student affairs professionals with the guidance needed tolaunch collaborative, flexible and effective student servicesstrategic planning in their own institutions. This is the 132nd volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly reportseries New Directions for Student Services. Anindispensable resource for vice presidents of student affairs,deans of students, student counselors, and other student servicesprofessionals, New Directions for Student Services offersguidelines and programs for aiding students in their totaldevelopment: emotional, social, physical, and intellectual.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Editor’s Notes

Chapter 1: Introduction to Strategic Planning in Student Affairs: A Model for Process and Elements of a Plan

What It Means to Be Strategic

Benefits of Strategic Planning to Student Affairs

A New View of the Environment with Strategic Thinking

Elements of a Strategic Plan

The Strategic Process: The Key to Success

Elements of a Strategic Planning Process

You Know It’s a Good Plan When It Gets Put to Good Use

Chapter 2: Strategically Planning to Change

How and Why New Leaders Should and Can Use Strategic Planning

Models and Steps

Tools to Facilitate the Necessary Mentality, Skills, Thinking, Courage, and Time

Developing a Vision and Strategy

Roadblocks to Effective Strategic Planning

Conclusion

Chapter 3: Values Drive the Plan

The Only Constant Is Change

Returning to Our Roots

Defining and Refining Student Affairs Values

Articulating Values

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Data-Driven Planning: Using Assessment in Strategic Planning

Steps for Data-Driven Planning in Student Affairs

Conclusion

Chapter 5: Strategic Planning and Financial Management

Being a Good Financial Manager and Strategic Planner

Financial Management and Planning

Advancing the Strategic Plan When the Fiscal Climate Changes

Dealing with Retrenchment and Reallocation of Resources

Conclusion

Chapter 6: Involving Academic Faculty in Developing and Implementing a Strategic Plan

Overcoming Culture Clash with Communication

Importance of Faculty Involvement

Where Are We Now?

Collaborators in Implementing a Strategic Plan

What Is Important to Faculty

Involving Faculty in the Process

Mars and Venus Reconsidered

Chapter 7: Strategic Planning: Renewal and Redesign During Turbulent Times

The Tulane Renewal Plan

The Response of Student Affairs to the Tulane Renewal Plan

Implementing the Revised Strategic Plan

Recommendations for Strategic Planning in Institutional Renewal

Conclusion

Chapter 8: But Does It Really Work? A Vision for Student Services, 2002–2007

Student Days at the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2007

Realizing the Vision

Student Services Accomplishments and 2003 Goals

Index

Strategic Planning in Student Affairs

Shannon E. Ellis (ed.)

New Directions for Student Services, no. 132

Elizabeth J. Whitt, Editor-in-Chief

John H. Schuh, Associate Editor

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Editor’s Notes

Here, finally, is a publication completely dedicated to strategic planning in student affairs. This volume applies business and nonprofit techniques to higher education, bringing the topic of strategic thinking, planning, and acting to the daily work of the profession. The chapter authors understand the realities of applying strategies from other sectors to higher education—in particular, the work of serving college students in their learning environment. They write from experience and a firm belief that strategic planning, applied appropriately, can mean success for student services in good times and bad.

Some student affairs professionals cringe at the mention of the term strategic plan. On one campus I visited, colleagues warned me time and again not to use the phrase since the last implementation of such an effort had resulted in a lot of people losing their jobs. Terminating employees is not the objective of a strategic plan. Others think it is a lot of show without results. The plan sits on a bookshelf in a thick binder, gathering dust. Many say they are engaged in strategic planning, but it is merely operational planning. The inspirational benefits of creating one’s own future and aspiring to achieve motivating results are lost on them. One of my staff thinks it is all just the latest trend and a waste of time. Such a person keeps you true to your belief that strategic planning need not be cumbersome, wordy, boring, or the gateway to unemployment. If done right, it is visionary in its goals and exciting in its mandates, and it creates a workplace where the best in the profession seek to be employed and where the students you desire come to learn.

Strategic planning can make the difference on whether student affairs flourishes, survives, or ceases to exist in the rapidly shifting sands of postsecondary education. A well-developed and well-executed strategic plan provides student affairs professionals with the best position to bring visibility and focus to current and future issues. Student affairs professionals who think and act strategically will lead their institution into the future with foresight, flexibility, and purpose.

The profession’s historic documents chronicle the ability of student affairs to refocus and achieve outcomes with changes in context and action. This begins with the 1937 Student Personnel Point of View by the American Council of Education, which creates “a new type of educational officer” to give faculty more time to teach the preservation, transmission, and enrichment of the important elements of culture. The 1949 Student Personnel Point of View reflects the shift to a post–World War II college atmosphere, flooded with worldly GIs, with an emphasis on preserving freedom, responsibilities at home, and democratic principles. The 1994 Student Learning Imperative by the Association of College Personnel Administrators acknowledges the throes of transformation that higher education found itself in with global competition, eroding public confidence, accountability demands, and demographic shifts. In 2004 the Association of College Personnel Administrators and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators’ Learning Reconsidered focused on the campuswide student experience in its argument for the integrated use of all education’s resources in the education and preparation of the whole student.

The past illustrates the benefits of forward thinking and planning, as well as the setbacks of avoiding such a challenge due to the daily demands of student services work. The development and implementation of a plan that is strategic about the future will not only ensure survival but will create opportunities for student affairs leadership to thrive on campus. As stated in Learning Reconsidered (2004), “A remarkable number of social and cultural trends, economic forces, population changes, new and emerging technologies, and issues of public policy will have powerful and lasting effects on the ability of colleges and universities to fulfill the demands of their mission and the expectations of their students and constituencies” (p. 6). In Chapter One of this volume, I lay out the nuts and bolts of a process to consider these conditions while crafting an effective plan that is a strategic creation of the preferred future for our work and for our constituents.

A strategic plan begins with a student affairs professional’s courage to lead change. Leaders do not wait; rather, they shape their own future, which is what strategic planning is all about. This call to action does not preclude the importance of planning to change. In Chapter Two, Kemal Atkins lays out the building blocks for a critical foundation to the work of writing and executing a plan that has buy-in, influence, and transformational outcomes.

The process of creating and carrying out a strategic plan inspires and motivates with a vision that is produced by conviction and ignited by a purpose. Thus, it is a significantly values-laden process for the values-based profession of student affairs. This is critical to the initial steps of the strategic planning process, which Les Cook elaborates on in Chapter Three.

The key component to planning, writing, implementing, and constantly updating a well-done strategic plan is assessment. From beginning to end, data and their analysis are a key driver in setting accurate context for current and future work. Marilee Bresciani drives home the point in Chapter Four that assessment is part of the never-ending cycle of thinking and acting strategically about the work of student services in higher education. The need to revise a course of action or stay with the plan is embedded in the ongoing measurement of impact and achievement of intended outcomes.

Nowhere has this point been driven home more than in the drastic budget reductions forced on student affairs units and their institutions in light of the global economic downturn. The strategic plan has proven itself a valuable partner in the budget allocation and reallocation process and, now, budget-cutting decisions. Jim Conneely writes about the link between strategic planning and financial management in good times and bad in Chapter Five.

A sound monograph on strategic planning in student affairs should include the academic faculty perspective on our work in the collegiate learning environment. In Chapter Six, Rich Whitney provides an original perspective on the work of our profession in setting a course for the future. His academic career was preceded by work in the private sector, then student affairs, and now firmly entrenched in the world of teaching and research. The insight and advice he provides will shape how we successfully include faculty as we create and put forth strategic plans on each of our campuses.

The required flexibility and nimbleness of a strategic plan may have been even more apparent at Tulane University after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. In Chapter Seven, Cynthia Cherrey and Evette Castillo Clark share the realities of a charted course gone awry and the rebuilding of a vision for renewal in the face of long-term diminished resources—mental, physical, and fiscal. If we think strategic planning and implementation are a challenge under normal circumstances, imagine the strategies that must be implemented when the things we take for granted are gone. Planning from long distance without infrastructure and diminished staff and students strewn nationwide requires passion, commitment, and strategic good sense. Tulane’s lessons are applicable to us all.

Chapter Eight provides additional proof that a strategic vision can be inspiring, measurable, and achievable. The example of a 2002 strategic plan from the University of Nevada, Reno does more than show how a plan might be presented. It demonstrates the power of articulating organizational values and setting visionary goals for an entire division of student affairs. The achievement of seven themes as varied as enrollment growth, building a new student union, and creating a climate of assessment are the best proof that strategic planning can work.

If the term strategic plan conjures up too many negatives for you and your staff, call it a renewal plan, as Tulane did, or a blueprint to the future, or Vision 2020. Whatever works for you will ensure the buy-in necessary to move ahead with achievements you and your colleagues once believed were impossible.

Shannon E. Ellis

Editor

References

American Council on Education. The Student Personnel Point of View. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1937.

American Council on Education. The Student Personnel Point of View. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1949.

Association of College Personnel Administrators. The Student Learning Imperative. Washington, D.C.: Association of College Personnel Administrators, 1994.

Keeling, R. (ed.) (2004) Learning Reconsidered. Washington, D.C.: Association of College Personnel Administrators and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, p. 6.

Shannon E. Ellis is vice president of student services and adjunct faculty in the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Chapter 1

Introduction to Strategic Planning in Student Affairs: A Model for Process and Elements of a Plan