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College
of Education
Strategic
Planning Process
During fall 2003, the
Chairs' Council (comprised of department chairs, associate and
assistant deans, representatives from Lakeland and Sarasota/Manatee,
and the Chair of the College Council) and the dean developed
a framework to assist the College in strategic planning. The
framework was also shared with Center/Institute Directors of
E&G funded Centers. We agreed that it is important
for the College to assess our progress and to set our priorities
in ways that are consistent with the nine strategic directions
emphasized in USF's strategic plan (http://www.acad.usf.edu/strategicplan/Directions.html).
In January, 2004, the dean formally invited all units (i.e.,
departments, centers/institutes, Student Academic Services,
and all College of Education faculty (Tampa, Lakeland,
and Sarasota/Manatee) to participate in developing the College
of Education Strategic Plan.
The directions provided
were as follows:
Challenge and
Opportunity
USF has challenged
itself to become a "premier national research university
that serves the metropolitan Tampa Bay Region, and the nation." To
accomplish this the University has set nine strategic directions:
-
Promote nationally
and internationally distinctive research and graduate programs.
-
Advance collaborative
learning and discovery to improve health for the community.
-
Attract the very
best undergraduate students by providing a challenging intellectual
climate.
-
Provide high quality
academic programs and support services.
-
Shape the enrollment
profile to reflect the educational goals of a major urban
research institution.
-
Promote the intellectual,
cultural, personal, and social development of students through
high quality student life services.
-
Provide a student-centered,
user-friendly administrative and service infrastructure.
-
Achieve fiscal
self-sufficiency and develop a stable economic base for
university programs and services.
-
Establish USF as
a national model for a university fully engaged with its
local, national, and global communities.
The College of Education
has the opportunity to determine how it can contribute to USF's
mission and goals, within the unique context of what we do and
value as educators: developing lifelong learners who make
positive contributions to the quality of human life and the
betterment of society.
Our identification
of the contributions we do and can make will be important for
direction setting for the College; for how resources are allocated;
to guide our development efforts; to help us better communicate
our goals, accomplishments, and needs to internal and external
constituencies; and to assist us in preparing for successful
NCATE and SACS accreditations, etc.
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Guiding Principles
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Build upon strategic
planning work in which the unit has already engaged over
the last two years.
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Not every unit
needs to be addressing or contributing to every one of the
nine strategic directions. In some units addressing the
nine strategic directions can be done well at the department,
center, or institute level; in other units it might be more
feasible to address the directions at another level (e.g.,
programs).
-
In some of the
strategic directions, contributions will be larger than
others; in some strategic directions challenges will be
greater than others. Together our achievements, efforts,
challenge, and needs paint a picture of the whole of the
College's work toward the nine strategic directions.
-
Do an honest and
honorable assessment of your unit's work toward the nine
strategic directions. Do not be concerned that your unit's
status in relation to any of the 9 strategic directions
will be perceived as “less than” or “not as good as” another
unit's work.
-
Keep in mind the
College's commitment to honor, value, and celebrate diversity
as you state how you will address the strategic directions
you propose to emphasize. We will incorporate DEO's call
for strategic planning into the College's strategic plan.
As soon as these two items become available from DEO, I
will distribute them to you to inform your planning: Diversity
Climate on Campus PowerPoint presentation and the guidelines
related to strategic planning for diversity.
-
Keep in mind the
College's commitment to value and integrate technology as
you state how you will address the strategic directions
you propose to emphasize.
-
Keep in mind that
this task is not meant to prevent a unit from pursuing initiatives
that are not in the USF strategic plan.
-
Think opportunities,
not barriers
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Focus on values
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Create a safe
environment for conversation
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Encourage people
to say what they think
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Encourage people
to allow ideas/perspectives to be fully stated without
interruption
-
Get as many ideas
out on the floor as possible without censure
- Emphasize that the goal is broad values that address
the department as a whole; it is recognized that individual
programs may not place the same level of value on all things
or may have unique aspects of individual programs
UNIT
TASK
Each unit will assess
its programmatic activities and goals in relation to the nine
strategic directions. Each unit will complete:
a) Template
A - Unit Mission, Values, Goals, & Vision,
following USF model on p. 2 of the 2002-2007 USF Strategic
Plan, also shown at http://usfweb2.usf.edu/president/vis_val.html;
b) Template
B – Unit Priority Setting and Accomplishments
Summary; and
c) Template
C – Unit Action Plan for each of the Strategic
Directions.
Draft strategic plans
were due to the Dean's Office on or before March 15, 2004.
The dean visited each unit to discuss their draft strategic
plans during spring, 2004 or made plans to visit them in fall,
2004.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK SYNTHESIS
It is important that
our strategic planning efforts dovetail with our preparations
for NCATE. To that end, a Conceptual Framework Synthesis
Group has been appointed, facilitated by Pam Magasich. The group's
task will be to a) review and synthesize the Unit, Mission,
Values, Goals, and Vision templates and b) review and synthesize
all existing COE conceptual framework documents.
COLLEGE STRATEGIC
PLANNING/PURPOSE AND OUTCOMES
Unit Priority Setting
and Action Plan Templates will be reviewed for common goals
and synthesized by the Dean and Chairs Council and Center/Institute
Directors with involvement by the College Council. The synthesis
of the unit priorities and action plans will guide the College's
overall strategy and resource planning. Strategic planning is
an ongoing process and plans will be updated regularly to ensure
an emphasis on continuous improvement.
As of this date, a
graduate assistant has been hired to synethesize the draft strategic
plans in preparation for a college administrators/leadership
retreat in August, 2004. Based upon those discussions
and input from the faculty in fall, 2004 the college will formalize
our strategic planning process.
Unit heads are preparing
their budget requests to be submitted in May, 2004 in accordance
with the University's strategic plan and their unit's draft
strategic plan.
END-OF-YEAR CELEBRATION
An end-of-year celebration
will be held to summarize our contributions to the nine strategic
directions, the priorities we are working toward, and what commitments
we are making.
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