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Brian Foster, Provost April 2000 The following notes address the form and process for the strategic plan, going somewhat beyond the general guidelines included in the charge to the Task Force. We thought it might be helpful to specify more clearly how we envision the form of the plan and how you might get to it. We anticipate that the plan will be "layered," with three kinds of statements of different levels of generality: goals, objectives, and strategies (though we are not necessarily wed to this terminology). Goals articulate major directions that the University is taking and should be relatively few in number--perhaps six or seven at the most. Strategies, on the other hand should be concrete, operational activities with clear outcomes. Objectives are intermediate, providing the link between the very general goals and the specific, concrete, operational strategies. We would expect several objectives for each goal and several strategies for each objective. The plan will mean rather little if it does not position UNM well for success in the environment we expect for the next five or ten years. The Task Force should commission a committee early in the process to complete an “Environmental Scan,” in which the University's present and future environment is described and analyzed. The scan should take the form of a short essay with appropriate data appendices, exploring such environmental issues as economic conditions, "hot" areas in scholarship, employment markets, new instructional technologies, the competition in higher education, the legal environment, demographics of the state and the nation, and the political environment at both the national and state levels. One important measure of the quality of our plan is the degree to which it positions UNM well in the environment described in the environmental scan. Goals As suggested in the guidelines, we call the most general statements of what we stand for "goals." One way to think of the goals would be as names of the major dimensions of our plan. If the committee members were to list all of their ideas on what the University wants to be and then were to cluster or group them in half a dozen or so groups, these groups would represent our goals. Examples might have to do with service to the community; another might be related to infrastructure issues, one to instructional programs, and another to research. We strongly recommend that the Task Force take a semi-empirical approach to helping identify the UNM goals. We suggest beginning with the members listing all of the things that UNM needs to do over the next five years. The Task Force can then group or cluster these items into, say, seven clusters. Each cluster can then be stated in the form of a goal, with an eye to the environmental scan, the mission and vision statements, the strengths of the University, to earlier strategic thinking at UNM, and other relevant antecedents of the current plan. It is very important that broad support functions for the entire university--e.g., information technologies, fund raising, bricks and mortar, admissions, legislative relations, and financial management capabilities--be incorporated in a natural way in the plan, not as afterthoughts related to, say, goals on undergraduate education and research. Strategies Strategies should be statements with clear operational import. They should spell out something to do, and they should do so in a way that allows unambiguous determination later as to whether we have done it or not. Examples might be "Increase GA stipends by 10% beyond the appropriated compensation enhancements over four years," or "Have all students in freshman seminars by 2005," or "Develop effective printed recruitment materials for all graduate programs." All strategies should be associated with the resources needed to achieve them, which is to say, the plan must be clearly articulated with the UNM Budget, and with space, technologies, and other human, financial and physical resources needed to implement the strategies. Objectives There is a large gap between the goals and strategies, and it is difficult to articulate the relationship clearly. For example, it is not exactly clear how one would get directly from a goal concerning quality infrastructure to a strategy of purchasing computers. The objectives are the bridge--the statements that specify those relationships. Thus, an objective might be to have appropriate, well-supported computers on every faculty member’s desk; another might be to enhance information systems for departmental management; and another might be to develop web-based instruction for degree completion programs at the branches. Continuity and Change in the Strategic Plan It is important that our progress toward achieving our goals and objectives be evaluated periodically--say, every two years--and that the plan be adjusted to improve performance, to respond to changes in the environment, and even to change fundamental directions on very rare occasions. In general the goals provide institutional continuity and could be expected to change very little from one evaluation cycle to another. The strategies, on the other hand, can be expected to change dramatically. Some may simply be accomplished; some may be determined to be bad ideas; some may be achievable but not contribute to the objectives as expected; some may prove to be prohibitively expensive for unforeseen reasons; and so on. As the crosswalk between the goals and strategies, the objectives may change significantly as well from one evaluation cycle to the next--probably more than the goals and less than the strategies. Some, like the strategies, may disappear simply because they have been accomplished. More likely, they will be redefined in response to changes in the environment, to successes and/or failures in achieving key strategies, and so on. When progress toward achieving the plan is evaluated, it is important that the results of the evaluation be disseminated broadly in the University community and to our external stakeholders. If our planning is to have legitimacy and credibility, we must be willing to assess our progress honestly and make thoughtful adjustments after discussion with interested parties. We believe that this kind of honest self-assessment is an important step toward increasing the credibility of our resource and other requests to the legislature, governor, Regents, CHE, employers, and other important constituencies. Relation to Other University Planning We have already discussed the importance of articulating the plan to the important strategic thinking that has taken place over the past several years. Similarly, it is important that the plan be constructed in a way that more "local" or "specialized" plans can articulate with it. In fact, the evaluations and revisions of the University Strategic Plan should take explicit account of these plans of more limited scope. For example, we will expect that each college will have its own plan as will say, the University Press. Similarly, broad functional areas such as information technology, and building maintenance may have their own plans. All should relate to the University Plan in ways that can be clearly articulated and assessed. Copyright ©
2000 The University of New Mexico.
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