Baker@150.CAS.Progress.0201
October 1, 2004
SPLT Finalizes Strategic Plan
Complete document
goes to BOT for endorsement this month
The CAS Strategic Plan is alive and well and continues to evolve based
on feedback from around campus. The most recent adaptation has been
reviewed by representatives from the English department. So, I am now
quite comfortable that we can call the attached version “final”.
The Strategic Planning Leadership Team is deeply grateful for the
editorial assistance and appreciative of the time and effort our colleagues
invested in helping us make this document something that will represent us
well.
The initial draft was presented to the Board in May; but we asked the
Board to delay endorsement of the plan until we had time to receive feedback
from around campus and incorporate that feedback into the final document.
Now that our work is complete, we will request official Board endorsement at
their October 22 meeting. We
anticipate a positive response.
Planning template formatted
Academic, Service, and Administrative
Departments to Begin Developing Unit-Based Plans
In phase one, we planned the planning process. In phase two, we
conducted our strategic analysis. In phase three, we synthesized the
results into a SWOT analysis format. In phase four, we utilized all of
this information to formulate a Vision, Core Values, CAS Mission, CAS Strategic
Initiatives, and Enabling Factors and to create our strategic plan for Shaping
the Future of Baker CAS.
Now, we are ready for phase five: Developing unit-based plans that serve the overarching College plan.
To aid this process the SPLT executive committee created a strategic
planning template for departments to use as a tool for organizing their goals
and implementation strategies. Academic departments are now being
introduced to this planning tool so that they are prepared to discuss their unit-based
plans during the upcoming faculty in-service day. Service and
administrative departments will be trained to use the planning template during October
and November. The goal is to have unit-based plans completed by July 1,
2005. This deadline will allow us to incorporate funding requests
associated with departmental plans into the College budgeting process so that departments
can more easily implement their plan of work.
Recruitment,
Outcomes Assessment & Strategic Plan interrelated
Academic Program Assessment Plans Incorporated
within Department Strategic Plans
As we move forward on the new initiatives for recruitment, assessment,
and strategic planning all at the same time, it will be important to keep in
mind how all of these programs are interrelated and mutually supportive.
They are not competing initiatives.
The NCA evaluators who conduct the upcoming Focus Visit in 2006-2007
will be “focusing” on three major, inter-related aspects of
progress within the College: (1) Progress toward reducing the College
dependence on financial assistance from SPGS; (2) Progress on Learning Outcomes
Assessment; and (3) progress on a strategic plan for the academic direction and
priorities of the College.
These three foci are interrelated such that (1) The overarching
strategic plan shapes the future direction of the college in ways that should
promote the recruitment and retention of students and bolster the financial
viability of the College; (2) The College strategic plan includes the goal of “continuous
academic program improvement and innovation” which is accomplished in
large part through vigorous program assessment process; and (3) Feedback from the
program assessment process can be used to (a) modify curriculum in ways that
make it more attractive to prospective students and (b) to adjust planning
goals in ways that are most likely to support the College mission and strategic
initiatives.
In short, what this means is that for academic departments, learning
outcome assessment plans are actually an important part of their departmental
strategic plan. For departments who already have a well thought-out
assessment plan, this is great news: An important portion of your
department strategic plan is already complete!
Service and
Administrative Units to model best-practices
Council for the Advancement of Standards
Guidelines to be Utilized as Benchmarks
Academic programs must create their own program assessment tools or implement
those provided by discipline-based organizations. However, to aid the strategic
planning process for student support areas, it makes sense to adopt The Council
for the Advancement of Standards (CAS) in Higher Education standards and
guidelines, which provide performance benchmarks for thirty student service and
student development areas.
According to the 2003 CAS Book of Professional Standards, “CAS
standards are based on the premise that student support practitioners needed
access to a comprehensive and valid set of criteria to judge support program quality
and effectiveness. Further, it was viewed as essential that those standards
represent best practices that any college or university program can reasonably obtain.”
The CAS best practices are clearly outlined in a Book of Professional
Standards and will soon be available to the relevant administrative, service
and support units within the College so they can create their unit-based strategic
planning goals with these best practices in mind. This process begins by
utilizing the CAS self-assessment guides that accompany the best practice
guidelines. The current hope is that we will be able to utilize all CAS
standards that address existing College programs. The full range of CAS
standards is listed below. CAS standards will be distributed to departments
next week.
Review CAS Strategic Planning
Process and Supporting Reference Documents at http://www.bakeru.edu/splt/splt.html
This is volume two, number one of the electronic bulletin designed
to chronicle the planning process and organizational development within CAS as
we join the rest of the University in the Baker@150 campaign
for campus-wide growth and improvement. Baker@150.CAS.Progress is produced by Dr.
Jamie Comstock, Vice