Saturday, November 29, 2014

More Questions about the Strategic Planning Process

Here are a couple more answers to questions you’re raising about CASL’s strategic planning.

What’s the final product? What constitutes a strategic plan?

This question has three answers – none of which can stand without the others. The first product is an educated, connected, and engaged CASL Community, investing together in our individual and collective success. Second, we will make many changes as we go, putting our inspiration and clarity to good use. Finally, we will end this process with a document that articulates our priorities and strategies for getting there for the next 5-10 years. We need to develop and test our ideas in the ways that can only happen by putting them in writing, and we need to be able to share that vision with others. It is my goal that we have that document complete during the 2015/2016 academic year.

Are other colleges doing this too?

At present, CASL is taking the lead at UMD in engaging in this kind of process. This arises from my desire, as a new Dean, to be in deep collaboration with the CASL community to ensure that our future is all we want it to be. This process is also being supported by CASL’s external Advisory Board. Historically, this group of alumni, donors, and industry leaders has held a more ceremonial function, distant from the day-to-day life of the College. But they, too, are aware that we need to change. These are former students who have risen through the ranks in their companies, and who know the skills that industry is looking for. But they don’t know how we need to evolve to meet these needs; rather they are here to support us in bringing our best thinking together to find our way. I am confident that our efforts will spill over to the other UMD colleges in direct and indirect ways, and I am excited by our potential to lead the way into this new territory.

Join the conversation. The CASL Strategic Planning survey is open through Wednesday, December 3, 2014.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CASLCommSPSurveyB

Friday, November 28, 2014

Questions About the Strategic Planning Process


Many of you are raising excellent questions about how we are conducting strategic planning in CASL. Here are a couple of answers!

How was the original planning committee assembled?

The Strategic Planning Facilitator Group was formed based on recommendations by CASL department chairs, staff supervisors, and student government leaders. It represents all CASL departments and brings a wide array of experiences and perspectives to the table. This group is charged with devising and launching a process through which the College can work collectively to envision where we want to go and how we want to get there. I was blown away by the quick response as I invited each participant. Their willingness to be a part of this, all on a volunteer basis, speaks to their commitment to the College, and to the difference that can be made.

How will final decisions be made?

We don’t yet know. I do know that our strategic planning process needs to be as interactive as possible and to take us to a set of decisions that have meaning across the CASL community. I also know that our decisions have to be thoroughly vetted by all who will be impacted by and responsible for those decisions. Some of our decisions may become self-evident in the process. Some may need to be vigorously debated and even voted upon. Some decisions I may make as Dean and others will best be made at the department level. As we become ready to make decisions, it is my intent that we will all be clear on the appropriate decision-making process for each. For now, though, our focus is on identifying the good questions that deserve our attention.

Join the conversation. The CASL Strategic Planning survey is open through Wednesday, December 3, 2014.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CASLCommSPSurveyB



Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Why do Strategic Planning?

As I'm eager to tell people, I am a first generation college student and the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and more specifically CASL, transformed my entire life. But when I returned to the campus as a faculty member in 1999, CASL looked very much the same as it did when I graduated 15 years earlier. That has not changed much even today, in spite of the fact that the environment and constraints are changing rapidly and in dramatic ways. We have the ability to change and transform lives. That part of CASL has not changed. We must, however, figure out how to continue this work in ways that are smarter and more efficient and that jibe with the reality that we have fewer resources to work with and that we must at the same time attract new resources, students, and partners, and continue to grow and evolve in our ability to offer the best of what a CASL education can be.

At the same time, and maybe more importantly, strategic planning is an opportunity to bring the CASL community together. We are disconnected too often, we don’t know what’s going on in other parts of the College, and we miss the opportunities to witness and celebrate the amazing things our students, faculty and staff are doing.

You are speaking about this as well in your responses to the survey:

"I am not quite familiar what is going on in other departments. It could be a good idea for each department to introduce themselves and their goals/plans in a college wide meeting."

"Building community is a great idea! I think students over 25 having a harder time connecting to the college life. CASL feels like home to most of us, but older students need ways to make deeper connections to campus."

"I am interested in hearing about the staff experience. What are their expectations and how do they feel about change in their job classifications and job descriptions? This would be very important information to share."

"It’s important for all of us to come together so that we can pull together to make a CASL education all that it can be. We have the ability to change and transform lives. Let’s do it."

Join the conversation. The CASL Strategic Planning survey is open through Wednesday, December 3, 2014.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CASLCommSPSurveyB

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

The Heart of CASL

What should be preserved as we look at change? Your survey responses highlight many aspects of our experience together:

• the community feel
• engaged faculty/student interactions
• small classes
• faculty collegiality
• inclusive nature
• respect for diversity
• the focus on the classroom experience
• our individuality
• the way we look out for one another
• the strong academic/professional relationships between faculty and students
• openness
• interdisciplinary spirit
• being a community of scholars aimed at enriching the minds and enabling the futures of students

And even your ideas about what might change reflect the passion for a liberal arts education that lies at our core:

"We need to create a new model for higher education around the liberal arts and focus on attracting incoming students rather than transfers. Students should want to come here because we offer something unique-- not because we're that place they can go and transfer all their other credits."

"Provide additional opportunities for students to engage in the extended academic and business community."

"Better communication and relationships across departments. In other words, cohesion. I feel we're too fragmented. This would also encompass better organization and systematizing. I think issues/problems/students sometimes fall through the cracks in the midst of multiple disconnects. While systems and processes will help, this improvement will also be very dependent on the commitment of invested faculty who CARE."

"More intellectual interaction among faculty, more colloquia, forums, etc. Not more meetings."

"I would like to see greater support for the unique blend of teaching, research, and mentoring which characterizes the teacher-scholar model at quality liberal arts colleges. All of the time spent on deliberations and vision statements will be for naught if we do not invest the time and money necessary to truly support faculty, staff, and students. To be truly supportive of small classes, small programs, and research mentoring of undergraduate students, we will have to reconcile our financial constraints with a vision where faculty have time to meaningfully engage with students in this manner."

"We need a modernizing of our approach to higher education, e.g., a strengthened commitment to connect theory to practice, via academic service learning, work/study, community engagement and related programming. Students also need to better understand how to link what they are learning to careers that are family sustaining and meaningful."

Join the conversation. The CASL Strategic Planning survey is open through Wednesday, December 3, 2014.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CASLCommSPSurveyB

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Introducing the CASL Community

As the results from the CASL Strategic Planning Survey start to come in, I find myself meeting the CASL community in a new way. As you know, CASL has been my home for many (many!) years and I deeply value our students, staff, and faculty and the amazing education we make possible here. But now I get to see you in a new way – in the passion you have for CASL, the concerns you struggle with, and in the hopes and visions you have for what we can become.

Here are just a few of your comments that I have found heartening:

• CASL represents tolerance, debate, and imaginative innovation.
• It's one of the few educational options that surround words, thoughts and concepts, rather than numbers, formulas and algorithms. Some, such as myself, work in concepts and ideas, rather than absolutes, and CASL offers strong educational paths for people like this.
• My CASL education provided me with the foundation to be successful in business, industry associations, and the extended UM community. My multi-discipline UM-Dearborn education allowed me to adapt to the changing world and to function in a global society.
• I really value the small class size, which leads to fantastic opportunities for complex discussions in class.
• CASL is my home and a place where I have made my career. I care deeply about its students and their success after they leave the University.
• Done well, a liberal arts education and foundation can help produce compassionate, empathetic, well-grounded, open-minded and thoughtful citizens - who can help bring about a better world. That is my constant prayer as I work with other faculty and teach students.

Join the conversation. The CASL Strategic Planning survey is open through Wednesday, December 3, 2014. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CASLCommSPSurveyB

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Invitation to Help us Shape CASL's Future

A group of CASL faculty, staff, and students have been busily engaged in planning for the launch of the college’s strategic planning process. Specifically, the group’s charge is to identify important questions that we need to bring to the CASL community, to identify important data/information that we need to share to inform our discussion of these questions, and to think about how best to engage all of CASL and its varied constituencies in the planning process. To assist us in framing the conversation, we now seek your input via this short survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CASLCommSPSurveyB The survey will remain open through December 3 so please be sure to respond by then. Your responses will help us understand your perspectives and vision as well as how you would like to participate in the formal planning process. Many of my earlier posts suggest why strategic planning is an imperative at this moment in time. Two years of declining enrollments and a tightening financial picture for the college, growing media hostility toward the liberal arts and their relevance for today’s students, and an intensely competitive higher education market serve as important external reasons for engaging in strategic planning. But even more important are the opportunities that strategic planning offers us. Our college has been infused with new faculty and staff talent, we continue to draw talented and engaged students to our majors, and our alumni are making a name for themselves and for CASL is a wide array of professions. When coupled to the deep institutional knowledge and rich history of success embodied in our veteran faculty and staff we have the makings for a creative and empowering re-imagination of the college and of its priorities and future direction. Strategic planning will allow for those conversations, will prompt new ideas, and will enable us to tell CASL’s story in ways that are both meaningful to our community and understandable to those outside of CASL. As I look at the college and contemplate its future I am very excited about the opportunities that I see. The things I’ve come to value the most about my own time in CASL - the small classes, the engaged faculty, the opportunities for mentored research - are all still very much a part of what we do. It is my belief that the educational experience that we offer our students parallels, in these attributes, the education that students receive at smaller liberal arts colleges. I can readily imagine CASL embracing this model, aligning our structure and resources in pursuit of it, and becoming a public (and thus much more affordable) alternative version of this model. Doing so would enable us to tell a compelling story and would position us to grow in ways that are consistent with our values. A few words about our timeline CASL will begin our formal strategic planning process in the Winter term of 2015 with a goal of completing a plan by the end of the 2015 calendar year. Our planning process will look at the longer term (5-10 years) as well as the shorter term, and we expect our action plan to include both initiatives which require a longer timeline and improvements which can be undertaken immediately – even during the planning process. Your participation is critical to the success of this process: CASL is not defined by just one group or another, but by all of us together. Thank you for participating. I am very much looking forward to our collective work on behalf of CASL.