Don't Let a Strategic Plan Stop Our Strategic Planning

The Problem

Most strategic plans result in the production of some glossy brochures and periodic reports about progress on plan implementation.  But they often amount to little as the really interesting stuff got lost in the process of producing something that was not too dangerous, not too specific.

And often enough the process proceeds backwards: we commit to big ideas about things we would like to do before we have done our homework finding out what we should do and what we could do.

A Solution

Those things my be unavoidable, but they inspire a remedy: ongoing strategic planning.  Let's make sure one element of this strategic plan is a commitment to permanent exploration and experimentation with innovative pilot projects and self study.  Let's build in a recognition that we don't have enough current information to plan the perfect new program and that building an infrastructure that supports innovation and experimentation is the surest route to long term sustainability.

How It Could Work

1. Be sure provost and divisional deans have sufficient "opportunity" funds that they can support good ideas when they happen.
2. Create policy infrastructure that streamlines fielding experimental courses and majors.
3. Have a ready to use optional sunsetting provision for programs that might not be approved if they were necessarily going to be forever.
4. We would have an Educational Innovations Committee with say $10-15K per year to encourage the formulation of ideas to test in small versions — something like this is being tried out in social sciences in connection with designing an interdisciplinary component in PLEA. This would be a voluntary committee of interested faculty members. Budget could fund travel for proposers to see other, better practices, it could fund some targeted research, etc.