Strategic Planning Steering Committee
Town Hall Meetings
- November 17, 2006
- September 29, 2006
November 17, 2006 | 1:00-3:00 p.m. | EN A120
Dr. Williams: "Good Afternoon on such a beautiful Friday afternoon. Who says you can't take California with you. This is our second town hall meeting on the strategic planning effort and it is my pleasure to kind of convene the session this afternoon and to moderate. We have a number of the members of the steering committee who will be reading portions of the documents that we have been developing for some period of months now. Just to give you a little bit of background to those who were not able to participate earlier or not aware of everything that is going on with the strategic planning process. We started last year with this process and moved into an active phase of developing the strategic plan back in February of this year, 2006. We constituted a 24 person steering committee which did just that, steer the conversation and formulate language and put together a document that we can all look at some point and critique. And we also put together 10 strategic working groups focusing on different themes and general topical areas to begin formulating some strategic goals for the University. The Steering Committee now has the responsibility trying to pull the various pieces together. At our first Town Hall Meeting, on September 29, we heard some very interesting criticisms, suggestions, and recommendations for us. We tried to the best of our ability to so far incorporate some of those ideas and concepts into this next iteration of the mission and vision statements and we will hear a little bit more today about the overarching goals and strategic initiatives. Let me just say as background that this is a work in progress, and when we get to talking about the overarching goals and the strategic initiatives, underneath each one we will have to do some editing today on the fly, because some of the wording we had originally discussed did not quite come out that way make on paper, so we will make those adjustments as we go. In keeping with the original plan that was to be as open, transparent and participatory as possible, this town hall meeting is organized for that purpose. Also to let you that although we had set the deadline to get the strategic plan completed by Dec.15, we also said that if we needed to slow down to work to get more input and to do more work on language and incorporation of other pieces of the plan, that we would do just that. So we are falling a little behind right now because we found out we needed a little more time to work on some of these documents, so we are probably planning now closer to the middle of January before we have a document in some kind of draft form. We will keep you apprised of the timelines as we go along. Again, if we feel we need more time we will do so, one of the reasons we are trying to get the plan done as quickly as possible so that we can build some of the initiatives into the spending plan for next year. If we don't have the document done, or at least in large part by early march, we will have missed the window for building some expenditures into the spending plan for next year, so that is one of our overall goals. We are going to do something a little bit different from the first town hall meeting. At the first town hall meeting, we had different individuals or groups read different parts of the plan and then we dialogued on the individual segments of the plan. This time, we would like to have individuals read the various segments, but we want you to hear the whole thing at one time, rather than critiquing the bits and pieces, so you can see how the various pieces fit together. So you may have a question about "why didn't you say this here, why didn't you include this there. It may be included in a later portion of the documentation. I think we will start off today with a reading of the Core Value statements that you have in front of you."
Core Values: Read by Thuan Vu
Excellence: The University values exemplary and distinguished performance in all aspects of University life by all members of the University Community, especially in the areas of teaching, learning, scholarship, and service.
Access: The University values its responsibility to provide opportunities for individuals with potential and motivation to become productive members of the University community and demonstrates that value by eliminating barriers that hinder full participation.
Diversity: The University values an educational and work environment in which individuals and cultures are celebrated and respected for the unique talents, insights, and perspectives that they contribute.
Student success: The University values all students, believes in their potential to achieve, and commits to challenging, supporting, and empowering them to transform their lives.
Life-long Learning: The University values the pursuit of knowledge and provides an environment for all individuals to intentionally learn and develop throughout the various phases of their lives.
Community Involvement: The University values community service, civic engagement, and social responsibility by all university members and encourages the integration of these principles in the learning experience of students, invites community participation in university affairs, and promotes local, regional, national, and international collaboration.
Mission Statement (Revised 11/13/06)
Read by Maria Diamantis:
Southern Connecticut State University is an intentionally diverse, public, comprehensive university, situated in a dynamic and culturally rich community. Its mission is to empower undergraduate and graduate students with the critical skills, knowledge, and perspectives to become effective participants and ethical leaders in a rapidly changing, global society. Its teacher-scholars actively engage students in the intellectual life of the university, through rigorous academic courses, research opportunities, community service, and applied scholarship, preparing them for life-long learning and participation in Connecticut's economic vitality.
Vision Statement (Revised 11/13/06):
Read by Christine Broadbridge
Southern Connecticut State University will become nationally recognized as a model teaching and learning institution where faculty engage in outstanding research and creative activity and where students are intellectually challenged by regionally, nationally, and internationally recognized faculty. As an exemplary student-centered institution, Southern will empower its students with the academic skills, the intellectual tools, and the practical experiences to be successful in their chosen fields of study and in their life's work. The institution will fortify its existing graduate degree programs and create new ones to maintain its position as one of the strongest graduate education centers in New England and to create new leadership opportunities for its graduates. Southern's students will become highly sought after by local and international employers in education, industry, and the public sector because of their excellent critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, cultural literacy, and understanding of technology, quantitative reading, ethical values, and effective oral and written communication.
Through a variety of programs, the institution will become known for its contributions to the intellectual, cultural, and economic growth and vitality of the region. Through its professional partnerships in the surrounding area, Southern will make significant contributions to closing educational achievement gaps, reducing health disparities, and achieving social justice. The university will prepare students for social responsibility and global citizenship through the provision of opportunities for community engagement and expanding international education programs. Southern will also demonstrate itself to be an invaluable resource to the Greater New Haven community and the region, through educational partnerships, professional development opportunities, and community service.
In all it does, Southern will strive to be innovative, always looking for new and creative approaches to accomplishing its mission, while being socially and environmentally responsible.
Overarching Goals with Strategic Initiatives (11/10/06)
Overarching Goal A: Read by Sam Andoh:
Maximize student success by strengthening undergraduate and graduate academic programs and effectively integrating academics, administrative services, community engagement, and campus life.
Strategic Initiatives:
1. Formulate a clear and concise plan for the development of new academic programs and prioritization of existing programs.
2. Develop a cohesive undergraduate general education program.
7.B.1- Identify technology dependent programs (digitization initiatives, federated search engine development, additional automation of resources) and the appropriate campus technology providers necessary to complete them.
7.B.2- Develop a comprehensive program of information and library literacy that helps to develop research and life-long learning skills.
7.B.3- Align library resources to meet academic program needs.
2.1- Incorporate community engagement activities into the life of the University.
9.2- Improve student support services to enhance the academic mission of the University.
9.3- Develop or enhance programs for all students to improve retention, academic achievement, and graduation rates.
10.2- Improve the learning experience and achievement of students.
1.3. Enhance and support the quality of graduate education by providing the appropriate resources and infrastructure furthering academic excellence in research, creativity, scholarship, and instruction.
Overarching Goal B:
Read by Thuan Vu:
Enhance structures and resources to support faculty development.
Strategic Initiatives:
4.1- Review, revise, and implement R-SAC plan in support of faculty research and creative activity.
4.1.2- Increase resources available for faculty research and creative activity.
10.1- Cultivate an institutional climate of excellence in scholarship, creativity, and teaching which promotes excellence in student learning.
10.1.4- Enhance faculty recruitment, orientation, and development efforts.
Overarching Goal C:
Read by Maria Diamantis:
Ensure institutional effectiveness by improving communication and strengthening the organizational operation to meet the needs of the University.
Strategic Initiaiatives:
6.5- Improve services for students and employees.
5.1- Streamline fiscal responsibility and accountability.
5.2- Enhance professional development of all staff.
5.2.1- Create and communicate an administrative manual so policies and procedures are explicit and available to all employees.
6.1.1- Clarify and redefine reporting structures, responsibilities of units and staffing levels.
6.1.8- Improve mechanisms for efficient communication within the University community and its constituent parts regarding all developments at the University.
6.2- Improve policy and procedure development and implementation, including establishing mechanisms to formalize and regularize the creation and review of all policies.
8.1- Create a comprehensive and integrated marketing plan that communicates a clear image of the University's mission and vision to both internal and external constituencies.
8.4- Create and maintain an ongoing assessment of the Strategic Plan.
10.3- Develop or enhance systematic and comprehensive assessment methods to measure, monitor, or enhance program, faculty, student, staff and administrator performance.
Overarching Goal D:
Read by DonnaJean Fredeen
Foster a campus climate that respectfully includes and celebrates diversity by recruiting, supporting, and retaining students, faculty, and staff who represent a broad spectrum of cultural backgrounds.
Strategic Initiatives:
4.1- Attract, retain, and support a diverse faculty.
4.2- Attract, retain, and support a diverse staff.
4.3- Attract and retain a qualified, economically and culturally diverse student population.
Overarching Goal E:
Read by Ron Heron
Increase external resources to improve the learning experience for students, enhance faculty research, advance the institution, and better serve the community.
Strategic Initiatives:
3.1- Determine the institutional priorities from the Strategic Plan for external funding support.
3.2- Clearly define the mission, roles, and goals of University offices responsible for soliciting external funding.
3.3- Create a comprehensive and coordinated program to increase alumni participation in, and support of, the University.
3.5- Expand and coordinate a University-wide community outreach plan.
Overarching Goal F:
Read by Christine Broadbridge
Develop an effective information management system to inform decision-making in all areas of the University.
Strategic Initiatives:
6.3- Integrate fully and make seamless and transparent the existing diverse information system platforms.
6.4- Create an effective administrative and instructional technology environment.
Overarching Goal G:
Read by Claire Novosad
Manage and align current and long-term enrollments to ensure the long-term future of the institution.
Strategic Initiatives:
9.1- Attract and retain a larger percentage of highly qualified students.
9.4- Create an organized and integrated process for enrollment management.
Dr. Williams: You will note that on H and I that the Steering Committee has not had an opportunity yet to identify clearly the strategic initiatives under each one of those overarching goals, so they remain as they were at the last town hall meeting. So, we are still working on these. Okay, at this point, we will leave the floor open for questions and dialogue about any one of these components or the whole picture. I am going to ask that because we are taping this that those who wish to speak come down to one of the microphones at the front so it can be picked up on the audio.
Ken Lear: I was curious; the changes from the first draft to the second draft are not highlighted. Is there a transcript from the first meeting that we had and is the transcript available so that we can look at the input, or is it summarized in some way so that we understand from one point to another where the shift and emphasis was and was not.
Dr. Williams: We left both drafts up on the website and we do have minutes from each one of the town hall meetings and sessions that we had. We can make the information available and post it up on the website. But right now what you have is just the former form and than the current revision.
Ken Lear: If we record the Town Hall Meeting, there should be some kind of transcription of that because I do not know if the comments have been inputted into this or not, to be honest with you. To me it sounds like I'm listening to the same thing we've listened to before. I would like to see the differences and have an opportunity to look at the detail, particularly the transcripts and feedback from the group.
Ron Herron: The Steering Committee can quickly run through what we know are the points of inclusion. Just by way of quick reminder, there was a lot of discussion about urban, metropolitan notion of purpose, location, and intention. If you now read mission, you will find the steering committee talked that through and came to a different resolution of that issue. Whether its satisfactory is another question, but that for one is there. Selase talked about another one: vision needed more passion. If you were to look at the two statements, we would hope that you know see far more passion action words in the vision than in the first draft of the vision statement. Were we to take this and highlight it using that wonderful drag through of yellow and pink, because we have been through so many revisions, it would be a mess. But thematically, location, passion, ethics, character development, a little more meat on what citizenship is all about is there.
Dr. Williams: We can identify those in some kind of summary form and the things we heard at the Town Hall Meeting and put them into the new version and make those available to you.
Dr. Novosad: One other point, input came from other sources besides the Town Hall Meeting and we took this to other groups on campus, and we also had feedback from other groups that we included. So it was not just from the Town Hall Meeting.
Ken Lear: The filtering processes we say something here, its filtered through the committee than its filtered through another committee and out of the other end pops something that looks different than the original input from the group. So it's more of a procedural thing, involvement and dialogue. I would like to see the transcript, to see the input.
Caleb Rosado (Sociology): First of all, I want to commend the committee on their wonderful work. I do this stuff for a living as a consultant and this is great work, in terms of developing the statements, especially the mission statement, given that it is quite strong. I do not reflect the same opinion about the vision statement. It is a little long and wordy. On the other hand, some of the things that are in the mission are not in the vision, essentially addresses the "where are we headed" question. In light of demographic changes, we are becoming an urban planet, and everything else, I don't see some that direction in the vision statement. I like the phrase intentionally diverse and the word intention, which is very strategic, but I see some of that missing in the vision statement, which is very important.
Dr. Williams: Let me come back to a point that was mentioned by Ron Herron a few minutes ago. The term urban that we had in the original draft, in terms of characterizing Southern Connecticut State University as an urban institution. The more we talked about that the more groups that we interacted with on that particular issue, the more we realized that that word was so loaded and had so many interpretations all the way from a plain geographical description to a architectural description, and all the challenges of urban communities. We finally decided that we needed to pull back away from this, because we could not address all the different nuances of that term in this statement. So we tried to address urban issues and components that we wanted in other ways, such as looking at social justice, closing the educational achievement gap, etc.
David Levine: Thanks to you and the committee for the hard work you have done and certainly a thank-less task and difficult. Its appreciated by one and all. I wanted to address the mission statement, which I think does a very good job in many ways. One aspect that does bring up some concern, it does not effectively show people where we are in the context of higher education in the state. In this respect, its different some of the better mission statements (in my opinion) of our sister institutions. Especially Eastern, which states their identity in the first sentence: Eastern Connecticut State University is a state public liberal arts university. We may disagree with that, but its clear how they identify themselves. Uconn claims they are the research institution in the state. Whether or not they are committed to excellence, they atleast say they are. In our former mission statement, we did make an attempt to try to identify the uniqueness of the campus and to situate ourselves: we are the lead institution of advance education in the CSU system. Its essential to do that. If I were a legislator, governor, or the chancellor, I would think that to understand exactly what our invisions are and how we view ourselves as a unique institution within this system is crucial. I would recommend that you think about that and incorporate and find the language how we are different from the other schools, such as Eastern, Western, University of Connecticut, and the community colleges.
Dr. Williams: Can anyone help us with the language or concepts or uniqueness that would help us characterize the campus accurately and still make clear how distinct we are from other comprehensive institutions?
David Levine: I can begin by saying that we are a campus that is focused more than others on graduate education. That is not the only thing that makes us special, but it is one facet. We also make reference to our location, which is important.
Dr. Williams: Your right, we did not incorporate our leadership in graduate education in the mission statement, we have embellished it in the vision and we will take that under advisement.
Stacey: Maybe also focusing on our education programs and helping professions, being the nursing program, social work programs that we are very well known for and are turning students away because we so good in those areas.
Dr. Williams: How does the campus community feel about that? The committee has wrestled with this issue, because any time you mention one school, one program, or one area as being our strong suit or our signature program than the question always is what about me, what about us, what about this other program. We decided pretty much to steer away from that, although there an inclination to do just what you are suggesting, but we need some buy in from the campus community on that.
Jim Dolan: I guess I would have a hard time buying into identifying a strength that was content specific, because organizationally the way you identify an area of strength that has to do with subject area is not something that you really want to perpetuate over time. In fact, the health and human services area is probably the area that has had the most shifts in its school organization. The only other area that is close is Information and Library Sciences in which different departments and the members of that school, in which nursing and library science was its own school. I wouldn't want to lock us into identification, based on that sort of identification scheme. It seems to me that at our best there is something more global that cuts across all schools and divisions, and that is that unlike the University of Connecticut, there is a sense that the research they do if people are interested in it and they are willing to say or contribute money to support it that's all well and good, but whether anyone is interested in it terms of the public good is almost an accident. That may not be where the public relations, alumni office presents it and certainly not how the president at Uconn presents it, but in terms of the evaluation of what is considered excellent and what it is not. The preparation of PhD students at Uconn is not based on the question of whether those PhD students will contribute to their community; it's based on whether they are experts. And here, I think that at our best, it is clear that we are probably the one institution in the state in which there is this tight integration of scholarship, teaching, and service to society in a very general sense. You might say that the health and human service departments are well recognized for excellence not so much on subject matter, but on a process level that we might not talk about it much, but the fact of the matter is there is a kind of tight inseparability between what people do in the way of scholarship, what people are doing with teaching and learning, and what people are doing in the way of supporting community needs, many different kinds. To meet a community need, is met by an MBA program that prepares executives. Its not just question of provide help and contributions to the community, its not a question of just providing say public education services to the community, it goes far beyond that. But its something that I think more or less viewing public higher education for a few decades seems very clear: Southern at its best does this to a remarkable degree. Taking new knowledge, development of new knowledge, the teaching mission, and the useful application of knowledge to our societies needs and nobody else really has it in their mission that they would do that. We do not really have it in our mission to do that, it happened more or less as a happy coincidence a confluence of people and opportunities taken and the sort of sense of personal mission that people haven't had, many people haven't had before.
Dr. Williams: Is there a general agreement with that concept?
Ces Thompson: That is another question I think that is related to what you were saying that we struggled with because there were comments on the last mission or vision, I think is related to the whole workforce issue, certainly for my department. I think there were comments the last time if it should be our mission or vision to serve the workforce needs. But you are saying there is a relationship between the students we prepare and how they serve the community.
Jim Dolan: It isn't a question of preparing them to serve the community because there are lots of different ways to do that. But that's why it is a question of what is the process of academic activity here at our best. The thing that is distinctive and that has never been identified explicitly is the fact that that traditional or widespread notion, political notion of preparing students for the workplace pretends or in a senses observes that a lot of institutions that contribution to society is something that will take place after graduation by people who are not in fact at that time associated with the University. That we will do something and magically after they graduate, bingo, they have a whole different engagement with the world around them. That's one reason why people of industry and government say that traditional interpretation of workforce preparation does not work. Because that miracle that is supposed to take place on the day of graduation is a fantasy. So we are doing something that I think is uniquely good. At our best, we are not following that old paradigm that you do the academic thing and then later the people you prepared will do the contribution to society thing. I mean look at your own department, those registered nurses getting their Bachelor of Science degrees are already out their serving the needs of society. You have integrated them into the academic world and that is different from having nothing but traditional nursing majors and they're not serving the needs of society until after they graduate. Okay, maybe in their clinical placements they contribute, but again that is done for the purpose of training. But your department is a perfect example with the RN to BS route, that it is integrated and inseparable, a part of what you do and who you are, and that is true throughout the university.
Dr. Williams: Thanks, Jim. I hope you notice that many of my colleagues up here are taking copious notes that will be the centerpiece of our conversation at our next meeting.
Jack Mordente: I would like to start with the first sentence of the mission statement. Intentionally diverse, I would venture to guess that most universities try to be intentionally diverse and would like to suggest a change: "Southern Connecticut State University is a dynamic, forward moving, diverse, comprehensive public university, situated in an educationally and culturally rich community." As a student affairs person and a number of people mentioned the importance of the outer classroom experience on this campus, I really don't see that reflected in the mission statement. Suggested wording: "Its teacher-scholars and student affairs staff actively engage students in the intellectual and outer classroom life of the campus," or something similar to that. David mentioned distinguishing ourselves as an institution, I think in that outer-classroom experience two areas at Southern distinguish itself in the state is our Disability Resource Office and the Veteran's Office, there is not question hands down that we are known for that. Even listening to Jim, you notice that integration between scholarship, teaching and learning and service, without the integration of the outer classroom experience. I'm sensitive to it because of what I do; being in the student affairs' side of the house and the impact we have on our students in that setting. Also, maybe add student affairs into the first core values. In the Vision Statement, add something about the outer -classroom idea maybe in the second sentence between academic skills and intellectual tools.
Peter Boppert: I would like to talk about the Overarching Goals, Goal C, where we start off by saying "Ensure institutional effectiveness" and I'm going to stick to the second half of that which says by strengthening the organizational operation to meet the needs of the University. Under that initiative (5.1) you say streamline fiscal responsibility and accountability. Now, I've been at this institution for a long time and I know what the state of the state is, and I do not see us getting a tremendous amount of more money to fund education, I'm hoping we will get some more to do these programs, but in this statement here that you are making (5.1), over the years that I've been here we have added a lot of programs that get started, we get the start-up money, but they flounder because they did not have enough money to continue it. I would like to make sure that if we are going to start-up programs that money continues to go to it if they are useful or if not they should be stopped. In terms of streamlining accountability, are we going to be responsible and honest enough to say this is not working and we need to eliminate it. I know that is going to hurt a lot of people, because everyone has their own little turf/area that they want to keep going, but lets face it, education has changed in the last twenty years and some things we did since then need to be dropped for things that need to be continued in the future. That is just a comment I had about that. One more area of the Overarching goals is Goal F, and initiative 6.3. We have a system right now that is supposed to let us communicate with out students and they are not using it (My SCSU). Every student I talk to on campus is using some other form of communication. We have to look at a different platform that is more effective and user friendly to students so they will participate. It is very frustrating when trying to deal with students and this is how we are going to communicate with you and they say we don't do that; we are on hotmail, etc. It seems like we are going in the right direction, but maybe need a different platform. The other day we had a candidate in for the library and she told us about system they were using that is similar to My SCSU, and is very effective. She said it is integrated into the college she is at and almost forced upon to the students to use, and they are using it more effectively than we are using My SCSU. If we are going to accomplish this goal, maybe we need better system to communicate with students.
Dr. Williams: I think we need to develop an Ipod system on campus to reach the students. Seriously, I think the question you raised is a profound one in a lot of respects. We are not adjusting to student modes of operation, instead its like the math problem, if you don't get it the first time go back and do it again the same way, as opposed to adjusting your teaching modes or what have you.
Lou Deluca (Financial Aid): Looking at the first sentence of the mission statement, I think as a student centered university saying that we are student centered university should be one of the first things we say: Southern Connecticut State University is a student-centered and then we can add all the other terms that are there. Looking at the second sentence, again I come from a marketing background so I am looking at certain words and trying to make them stronger. For example, the word perspectives, is the word experience a better word there, and then participants and I say is contributors a better word possibly there. Yesterday in my office I had a couple of freshman I posed this to them and said read the mission statement and tell me what you think. There were two comments that both students picked up on (both CT residents and freshman). One of them was not sure what applied scholarship meant, which might be because they were a first year student. But they both are Connecticut residents and when they read that last sentence about participation in Connecticut's economic vitality, they said well, I have a roommates who live out of state, and it should be CT and the world. I know that a majority of our students from CT are going to stay and work in Connecticut, but there is a percent and in terms of a recruiting perspective, if someone who lives out of state reads this, might question if they want to come to Southern because I am going to stay and work here in the state. That could be a potential problem from a recruiting perspective. In the first sentence of the vision statement, we are talking about the outstanding faculty before the students. I just thought that the students should come first: Where students are intellectually challenged by regionally, nationally, and internationally recognized faculty who engage, etc. A couple of sentences down, where it says "The institution will fortify its existing graduate degree programs and create new ones to maintain its position as one of the strongest graduate education centers in New England and to create new leadership opportunities for its graduates." I said would curricula or curriculum be a better word for programs and instead of ones, possibly use the term programs. Also, marketable or desirable might be better words to use than sought after. The next paragraph, in the second sentence, the word local community might be a better term than surrounding area. In the following sentence, the term "provision of opportunities" really did not make sense to me.
Dr. Williams: Thanks, Lou. And the bottom line is go back to the drawing board.
Bonnie Farley-Lucas: My point was excellent job, especially on the value statements. I would like to see more active language, especially in terms of becoming something as oppose to being something. The first thing I saw was in the mission statement, maybe change the second line to "Southern empowers students," more of an active voice. Later on we say "actively engage" maybe change to more active engagement. Following up on Connecticut's economic vitality, I also thought that perhaps if we are about diversity and a global economy, I really thought that instead of Connecticut it should be perhaps our global community. In the Vision Statement on the first line, in regards to becoming nationally recognized, I am not sure if that is our biggest issue. I think that we want to be recognized and serve as something, but to become nationally recognized doesn't seem like our first issue. Again, going to communities, we talked about being recognized as outstanding in New England Community and than later on in the Greater New Haven Community. Again I think we should have some language in there about the global community and our responsiveness to international issues, in addition to our local community.
Kevin Zibluk: I am Kevin Zibluk, a Project Manager for the department of Information Technology. Before I was a project manager I was a DBA (data base administrator) and before that I was an M.D. One of the things we missed here and I am glad Dr. Norton stepped in, in the mission statement; I noticed the lack of the words "college of choice." When I came here to Southern Connecticut in 1980, I came here because I wanted to excel in the field of medicine. The Pre-Med program in that day only accepted 9 students every semester. I could have gone to George Town or University of Connecticut, I choose SCSU as a college of choice. And nowhere in the mission statement do I see that in here. I think that really needs to be reflected somehow. I am not sure specifically where or how, but people come here for the excellence of our programs.
Dr. Williams: Any other comments or suggestions?
Mike Shea: I just wanted to throw out based on what Jim Dolan had said. I wondered if the language might be something like: We balance undergraduate, graduate, and professional education. I think we are the only public university that tries to balance all three of those, rather than like Eastern just focusing on one or just graduate education, which I think would be a mistake to say.
Dr. Williams: One of the things I hope you all can appreciate from our conversation this afternoon is how difficult it is to try to craft a mission statement and or a vision statement for a university that is so complex, does so many things for so many different communities and audiences and still not misrepresent who we really are. It really is a juggling act. You will see that some of the committee members may have chuckled through some things when certain suggestions were made, because we had that conversation and we had gone this way and that way, and now we should go back the other way. It is very hard to craft that kind of method, but we continue to value the input that you have provided us and we hope that its reflected in later iterations of our statements. Any other comments or questions?
Peter Boppert: I think you corrected in the vision statement in which you put the students first, because the vision statement goes on to read "As an exemplary student-centered institution" you are bringing up the students again, and I know sometimes its hard to decided if the faculty or students come first, but I think we are all here for the students and if we are putting a document out that we want to attract students to the university with, we want to emphasize students first.
Dr. Williams: Okay, I have to say this, because the steering committee grappled with this issue long and hard. The question is: Do we put student centered in our mission statement. From all the surveys that we have gotten from students, they do not think we are very student centered right now. We made sure that we built it into our vision statement, this is what we want to become, and we want to become an exemplary student centered institution. But currently, we don't think we can claim that as who we are right now.
Jenny: I have a question from the overarching goals and strategic initiatives, Section D that is about fostering campus climate that respectfully includes and celebrates diversity. I think 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 can probably be collapsed into one sentence that simple says "Attract, retain, and support a diverse faculty, staff, and student population," rather than breaking them out, as well as just for the sake of making it shorter. I just wanted to ask the committee why they changed the language, adding qualified, economically, and culturally diverse student population. I do not understand that, it really kind of jumps off the page.
Marge Fadden: I can briefly respond to that: the reason that they are separated (4.1, 4.2, and 4.3) is that we have to write metrics to measure each one on an individual basis. As far as the qualified, I believe that came from the Student Services and Enrollment Management. I think that was one that came from that area that got moved over under this initiative.
Mike Shea: I think there is another reason why qualified is there, and that is especially for the faculty (I might be mistaken here, but someone can correct me), the Strategic Planning Committee and some faculty advisors like UCF, one of the things they keep arguing for is that there should be a qualified student body. Sometimes it feels like the access is in opposition to the qualified and so, access also means we want to graduate qualified people, but some people are arguing the need for admitting qualified people. So, that's where it comes from. We might want to debate it as a University, but I think some faculty are concerned about what is the student body that we are admitting.
Marge Fadden: This is actually a duplicate from 9.1 under G, that when we were trying to align the initiatives with the overarching goals, this actually came under both. We are still debating if we need qualified on that one, or are we going to keep it under G. As you can see, it is still a work in process.
Armen Marsoobian (Philosophy): This is related to the comments both Jim made in regard to the balancing and Mike. It is directly related to the first paragraph of the Vision Statement. In the second sentence, we are talking about a student-centered institution, and then we begin the sentence: "The institution will fortify its existing graduate degree programs and create new ones to maintain its position as one of the strongest graduate education centers in New England and to create new leadership opportunities for its graduates." I guess the question that I have is it our vision is to create more graduate programs in order to maintain our lead as a great graduate center? It seems like you create graduate programs that meet needs, not in order to stay ahead of the pack. It seems like it is sort of a vision of gloat, if we are going to create new programs just to distinguish ourselves from other universities. I find the language there strange, because the next sentence goes back to talking about both graduate and undergraduate students. This paragraph has a lack of parallelism; we are talking about student centered learning, graduates, and then undergraduates. I think something needs to be done. Besides that, the subsequent point I am making is this question of balance because as Peter pointed out, there are limited funds and if we are going to expand our graduate programs at the expense of our core liberal arts' programs because our vision statement says we are going to create new graduate programs; I feel troubled by that.
David Levine: I did want to respond to something you said a moment ago. I would hope the committee would not feel bound in rewriting or working on the mission statement to simply describe the institution the way it is now. I think the mission statement should try to encapsulate our desires and visions in a sense, in a sorter statement, but it would be an error to not allow that mission statement to speak to our high ideals and to express those ideals. I am all for truth in advertising, but I think we can commit ourselves that license, so that people could understand what our wishes were as an institution. If we ever read it, we could feel energized by the mission statement and the greater vitality. Another thing, on the Vision Statement, you may accuse me of being Gilda Radner here, but I think whatever comes out of this meeting, whatever changes you do or not do, you must change the phrase in the first sentence "where students are intellectually challenged."
(Unidentified): "I think your vision statement should be short and sweet and your mission statement should be a little more thorough and address some of the things we heard today. The Vision Statement should not be a one page document; it should be clear and concise and just set up what we want to do (I am not from academia)."
Jim Dolan: This has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said before; it only has to do with the last small paragraph in the Vision Statement that talks about innovation. This where I have to talk not about what Southern does at its best, but at sort of a chronic obstacle to being our best, and that is an effort at excellence or standard of excellence so often applies when we do things, like crafting a strategic plan, and everyone wants it to be just perfect. And yet, we are more than content with many aspects of the status quo, that everybody (students administrator, faculty member, alumnus), everybody agrees is deeply flawed. There are things we do that everybody knows we should not be doing, but they are the way they have been done for along time and people can mistakenly believe that makes it safe to continue. Whereas a proposal for steps in a new direction, even if everyone agrees that will net an improvement, if it has a few flaws and needs a little more work we send it back to the committee. We should always think in terms if being an innovative institution and embracing creative progress is really something we want to get done as opposed to something that we just sincerely believe would be nice to do, then the plan itself has to put some concrete terms that are processes or business practices need to be designed not to give the benefit of the doubt to the status quo, but to give the benefit of the doubt to proposals for change that are obviously improvements. Even if they are not the best possible improvements we might get with another year of study, and I think this applies to the strategic plan as well. This is such a huge step forward, it really is and while there might be a phrase, a paragraph, even a whole statement or section that could with another years work be even a little bit better. I applaud the fact that you are trying to get to a conclusion and get to a plan, but I think that it needs to be part of the plan that this is the way everything should start: we should be unknowing to have higher standards for proposals than we have for the status quo. They should be judged at the same level. There is one other thing kind of connected to that and that is the notion of having every function (administrative function and academic functions) be evaluated not just by how well it does in its own spheres, but what impact it has on the institution as whole. One of the things that we used to have the luxury of doing is to do things in a way that use time not quite as efficiently as it could be used. We had that luxury 15 years ago, and we do not anymore and we have not for quite some time. There is still a sense that a function is judged only by how well that office performs its own assignments and if that means that they draw on faculty, department chairs, and students to contribute time and energy to their objectives, it might be that on the whole, the university is not really moving forward. There are going to be times where we really want to use everyone's time in way that makes them most productive globally, and that certain projects and initiatives that come from within specific offices are going to have to be first of all prioritized before that office can go to the faculty or chairs and say "we need you to do this." Maybe you do, but 16 other offices also need us to do that and do not forget the fact that we really know how to use our own time best. Maybe not all students do, but that is one of the reasons for faculty and it is not always something that is part and partial to how we do things.
Suzanne Tucker (Disabilities Resource Center): The academic piece of the university and comment regarding the word qualified, why are we using it when we talk about students, but not in terms of faculty and staff.
Dr. Williams: Thank-you very much for coming out, we gained a lot more insight from you and we will be coming back probably toward the beginning of next semester, in what we hope will be a pretty final draft of the Strategic Plan.
