Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning Committee
Minutes/Notes - Wednesday, March 13, 2002
Teague Library

Present: Doug Bennett, Rick Foreman, Margaret Hampton, Wes Miller, Paul Ogren, Sara Penhale, Newell Pledger-Shinn, Bob Southard, Monteze Snyder, Kirsten Bohl

White Papers

We should see revised (final?) drafts of all the white papers very soon. We'd like to "reintroduce" the white papers to the Earlham community shortly after break.

Game plan for the next few months

Doug shared a handout that sketched a game plan for completing the work of the Strategic Planning Committee in the next few months:

• white papers: nearly complete
• analytic efforts (enrollment and budget models, "Value and Perception of Value," comparison groups): completed by the end of March
• primary report (for faculty, staff, students, trustees): completed by mid April (Earlham's strengths, the enrollment/budget nexus, terms of solution for the enrollment/budget nexus, commitments and priorities for 2002-07, and benchmarks and strategies for assessment)
• public report (for alumni, parents, etc.): completed by mid August

Doug will write a first draft of the strategic plan, for the committee's discussion, as soon as possible after break.

Value/Perception Matrix

Sara and Monteze invited the committee's feedback on a value/perception matrix summarizing survey and focus group data regarding Earlham strengths and weaknesses as perceived by prospective and current students. We agreed it would be important to refine its design to distinguish carefully between the perspectives of non-enrolled and enrolled students. Can we add a dimension of relative certainty for each of the findings? We discussed how to make use of the grid, once completed - e.g., to prioritize among strengths we intend to sustain and areas of improvement we intend to address. In some cases, we'll seek to improve performance. In other cases (where perception lags performance), we'll seek to improve perception. Or both.

We talked about one aspect of the college's performance as perceived by prospective and current students in which we do not fully satisfy student expectations: career preparation, job placement success and internships. How do we sort out perception and actuality? Bob Southard agreed to gather up information from Career Services, Institutional Research, and Alumni and Development regarding the work experiences of recent alumni. (For example, we are doing two alumni surveys this year - one with the Higher Education Data Source, or HEDS, and another with Peterson's and Penn. And we do a relatively good job of gathering alumni information on a departmental/program by program basis.)

Sara and Monteze have assigned each committee member a few aspects of Earlham's performance featured in the grid (e.g., academic challenge, advising, athletics…). Committee members should compile relevant survey and focus group data from various sources and forward it to Sara. We'd like to circulate the completed grid more broadly on campus after break.

We approved minutes of the February 27 and March 6 meetings.

Next Meeting

Next meeting will be Wed., March 27 from 3:00 till 6:00 p.m. in Teague Library.