Strategic Planning Process to Span Three Weeks
Over the space of three weeks beginning on Sept. 18, a total of 16 facilitated strategic discussion sessions will be held to advance UCO’s strategic planning process. Invited to participate in focused sessions are cabinet members; deans, faculty; professional staff; academic department chairs; associate and assistant deans; associate and assistant vice presidents; program executive directors and directors; students; and external partners.
Many individuals and groups from across campus have already received notice of the appropriate meeting for them to attend, and the schedule is
reproduced in its entirety in this newsletter. There will be two special sessions on Monday, Oct. 1, and Tuesday, Oct. 2, for those individuals who are unable to make a college or interest-‐group session.
As you participate in these sessions, you will be helping to determine the future directions of UCO in achieving our institutional vision statement. As President Betz described this at the Fall Forum, this includes mapping out a plan that
establishes our role as a metropolitan university, strengthens our commitment to student transformative learning through the tenets of the Central Six, and shares UCO's story as an exceptional place to study and to work.
Here are some important points to know as you participate in the sessions: • They will be facilitated by strategic planning consultants Dr. Connie Foster
and Ms. BethMarie Ward. Their bios are found in this newsletter.
• The facilitated conversations will revolve around your responses to three “strategic pillars” defined by the President’s Council. The process to achieve them and their descriptions also are found below.
• The process will include a variety of techniques to achieve a shared future vision. Some questions you may be asked to consider about the strategic pillars are:
o What is our current reality?
o What happens if we do more of the same? o What might we experience during change? o How will innovation make us leaders? o What are some of the risks we need to take?
o What is Transformative Learning and how will it impact our strategic directions?
• There are a variety of documents on the strategic planning web page that you can explore to understand the work to date. But the most important facets of this conversation are the knowledge and experience you bring about UCO.
Thanks for participating in this process.
UCO Strategic Planning: Defining Core Strategic Themes
The UCO President’s Council has been meeting regularly since late April to develop a university strategic plan. In the first Council meeting President Betz clearly
articulated our vision of becoming a top metropolitan university. The assignment of the President’s Council has been to work with the campus community and external partners to develop that vision into a comprehensive strategic plan applicable for the next seven years.
The first objective of the Council was to complete a series of external environmental scans. These scans were designed to discover the major issues facing similar
metropolitan institutions and to help frame the more detailed strategic discussions to follow. The Council completed this phase with its meeting of June 4. Following this meeting, the facilitators submitted a summary report of these scans to the President’s Cabinet. This document may be found at the following link:
http://bit.ly/OlhrCW
The second major activity of the President’s Council has been the discussion of institutional strengths and weaknesses and potential external threats and
opportunities (SWOT). The purpose of these discussions was to identify a set of 3-‐5 overarching strategic themes. These strategic themes, or “pillars,” will be used as a guide for the next phase of campus-‐wide discussion that will lead to
operational/action planning.
From the data generated in the various meetings between June and August 30, the facilitators have proposed three groupings that appear to represent reasonable consensus among the participants. These categories are not necessarily in their final form; however, they do incorporate ideas that have been expressed by a great number of participants over the past weeks. http://bit.ly/PfrifH
We will soon be engaging in a number of sessions with various constituencies across our campus. These conversations will provide an extended opportunity for the entire UCO community to participate in the planning process. We will be using the following strategic themes as the basis for these discussions. Please make your voice heard. In September and October there will be multiple opportunities to be involved in this discussion.
Category 1 -‐ Transformative Learning
UCO employs student-centered interactive learning, engaging students in critical reflection and preparing them to be lifelong learners.
UCO is a student-‐centered teaching institution with broad experience in delivering small-‐class interactive instruction on a large scale. This, along with a strong
commitment to transformative educational experiences, places UCO in a unique competitive position. Category 2 -‐ Value
UCO provides a quality transformative academic experience to a regional population at a reasonable cost.
As a large institution with a long history, UCO enjoys significant benefits of scale and experience. This allows the institution to offer services of good quality at a
reasonable cost. Few if any regional institutions are able to match this combination of quality and price.
Category 3 – Place
UCO engages in unique, mutually supportive interactions with the local community to produce productive, creative, ethical, engaged citizens and leaders.
As an institution located in a dynamic metropolitan area, there is a symbiotic relationship between UCO and the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. The local economy depends on UCO to provide talented employees and specialized
knowledge. The presence of an educated populace improves local quality of life and makes the area a better place to live. Conversely, UCO depends on the community to provide jobs for students and resources that enable its programs to thrive.
Some light reading, if you must….
There are a variety of resource documents related to UCO’s strategic planning process: http://www.uco.edu/central/strategicplanning/index.asp. Click the link to visit the Strategic Planning webpage and then click "Documents" on the left side of the page.
There you will find a variety of documents for each Planning Step previously taken by the President’s Council.
Additionally, there is information that you might find helpful in areas that you find of special interest. There are short documents in selected topical areas: Academic Issues; Budget Issues; Higher Ed ROI Issues; Metro Issues; and
Technology Issues.
While browsing through these documents will be informative, they are not a pre-‐requisite to participating in any of the facilitation sessions.
Facilitation will be led by Dr. Connie Foster and BethMarie Ward, who will employ techniques developed over six decades through the international
Technology of Participation suite of discussion and information-‐gathering practices. Dr. Foster brings more than three decades of higher education experience to the process. She is the retired Chancellor-‐emerita at the University of Wisconsin-‐ River Falls. At UWRF she served as a tenured faculty member and was a coach in the department of health & human performance, was the Dean of the College of
Education and Professional Development, then served as Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs before being named as interim-‐chancellor.
Dr. Foster is a trainer for the Society for College & University Professionals, assisting higher education institutions in their strategic planning, and she is certified as a ToPs facilitator.
BethMarie Ward is owner and principal of Regenerate Group. She has over 15 years experience as a leader working in higher education, non-‐profit, and
philanthropic agencies such as the University of Minnesota, Great River Shakespeare Festival and Minnesota Public Radio. Among her clients at Regenerate Group are the Ashoka Institute, the City of Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota department of extension, and Normandale Community College.
Ms. Ward is an Institute of Cultural Affairs Certified ToP® Facilitator working with organizations on strategic and action planning, systems change management and team building. She holds a master’s degree in Human Development with an emphasis on organizational sustainability.
Schedule of Strategic Planning Meetings
Here is a listing of strategic planning meetings during the next three weeks. Dates, times, locations and invited campus groups are listed for each. Please note that meetings are set for each college and administrative sectors, but that there are also two optional dates on Oct. 1 and Oct. 2 for faculty or staff who are unable to attend those sessions.
Tuesday, Sept. 18. Academic Department Chairs. 2-‐4 p.m. NUC Kerr Room.
Wednesday, Sept. 19. President’s Council. 1-‐5 p.m. NUC 202.
Friday, Sept. 21. Administration: Associate/Assistant Vice Presidents, Executive Directors, Directors. 2-‐4 p.m., NUC 202.
Monday, Sept. 24. Associate/Assistant Deans. 10 a.m.-‐noon. NUC 202.
Monday, Sept. 24. Faculty & Staff, College of Education & Professional Studies, 2:30-‐ 4 p.m., NUC 202.
Wednesday, Sept. 26. Faculty & Staff, College of Liberal Arts. Noon-‐2 p.m., NUC Will Rogers.
Wednesday, Sept. 26. Faculty & Staff, College of Math & Science. 4-‐6 p.m. NUC Will Rogers.
Thursday, Sept. 27. Faculty & Staff, College of Business, 2-‐4 p.m. NUC Will Rogers.
Monday, Oct. 1. Noon-‐2 p.m. Campus staff and colleges faculty/staff optional date. NUC Cherokee Room.
Monday, Oct. 1. Students. 7-‐8:30 p.m. NUC Cherokee Room.
Tuesday, Oct. 2. Noon-‐2 p.m. Campus staff and colleges faculty/staff optional date. NUC Cherokee Room.
Tuesday, Oct. 2. Students. 7-‐8:30 p.m. NUC Cherokee Room.
Wednesday, Oct. 3. External Partners. 7-‐8:30 p.m. NUC Cherokee Room.
Thursday, Oct. 4. External Partners. 7:30-‐9 a.m. NUC Cherokee Room.
Friday, Oct. 5. President’s Council. 1-‐5 p.m. NUC 202.
