Higher education, like so many other sectors in American society, is experiencing considerable pressure for change and adaptation. Such pressures direct institutions and their governing boards to be more vigilant and plan strategically for their future. While some see the benefits of strategic thinking in education, others believe that strategic plans simply represent wishful thinking and languish on shelves because they cannot be implemented. But the challenges before us require a system that will allow for flexibility and a rapid response, from the administration and boards alike.
As highlighted in the 2014 report of AGB’s National Commission on College and University Board Governance, institutions and their boards need to focus more on strategic thinking in order to meet growing challenges in a more dynamic fashion. The rise of online education, the development of international campuses, and the ever-present pressure to increase efficiency and control costs, among other things, have all become important issues.
Wofford College, with 1,650 students, was aware of these challenges in the summer of 2012 when it began to consider the need for a new strategic plan. Although the college had been in existence for nearly 160 years, the board of trustees and the administration both felt it was necessary to have a guiding plan for the century ahead. There was a degree of urgency in the process; the previous fully developed strategic plan was adopted in 1987 and was successful in transforming the college in important ways. However, only 12 members of the current faculty (10 percent) were on campus when the board adopted that plan. Thus, there was a broad consensus that it was time to reconsider how Wofford would continue to deliver an exceptional student educational experience. At the same time, the board of trustees began the process of searching for a new president. This confluence of events provided an opportunity to reimagine Wofford College for the coming decades.
Developing a Vision
The strategic planning process was in its early stages when one of us, Nayef Samhat, arrived as president at Wofford. Campus leaders and the board had developed a preliminary approach to planning and hired a consulting agency to facilitate the process. For the new president, the challenge was how best to leverage this moment to realize several objectives beyond simply the creation of a planning document. In effect, the challenge was not only one of guiding or leading a planning process, but also one of learning from and investing the community in that process and its outcome. The process had to be seen as credible, inclusive, and transparent. And given that this was one of the first significant acts of the new president, the organization of the process would set expectations for the fledgling administration.
Any strategic exercise should challenge the status quo and push constituents to imagine the organization in creative and innovative ways. Like many institutions, Wofford is bound by deeply felt tradition and history. Yet it also had a history of adaptation to a changing world. In 1964, Wofford was the first private educational institution in South Carolina to desegregate; it became coeducational and began admitting women in 1975; and it has developed a reputation for developing innovative and dynamic curricular and co-curricular programs. This creative tension between old and new would be a point of conversation with students, alumni, faculty, board members, and staff throughout the process. Respecting stakeholders’ sentiments, while encouraging the community to reconsider its collective future, is an essential but challenging task. It was important to place our effort in the context and the realities of higher education in the 21st century and in a Wofford tradition of creative innovation.
Reimagining the Planning Process
Realizing these goals meant a reorganization of the preliminary structure of the campus planning process. We eliminated steering and executive committees in order to ensure a flatter organization that would strengthen the sense of participation and connect input and outcomes through fewer layers of oversight. The first step taken in fall 2013 was to organize listening groups, identify conveners of these groups, and schedule opportunities for widespread participation. The campus community, alumni and parent leaders, and board members were invited to planning discussions focusing on a set of specific questions:
- What are the signature features of the Wofford experience?
- Of these defining features, which ones would benefit from enhanced investment? Which ones are most promising?
- What new assets would help us realize our highest aspirations?
- If we were re-creating Wofford College, what investments would we rethink? What would we leave out?
From these conversations, it became apparent that Wofford is and will continue to be committed to providing a residential undergraduate liberal-arts education, with signature programs featuring study abroad, our interim (January semester), the integration of liberal arts and career preparation, and outstanding academic experiences. There was widespread agreement on the need to increase our investment in the arts, focus on enhancing diversity, and more effectively tell our story to external audiences. More specifically, a set of general themes was identified that would form the focus of the “visioning” process: a 21st-century learning agenda, developing future leaders, strengthening campus and community, and expanding Wofford’s scope.
A small number of working groups were created and charged with generating ideas and strategies that, first of all, are creative, innovative, and serve to distinguish Wofford among residential liberal-arts institutions in the nation, and second, contribute to a model for what it means to be a small residential liberal-arts college in the 21st century. Each working group had 12 members, with representatives from the faculty, staff, and invited members of the board of trustees. Two co-chairs of each group were elected by their peers from the faculty and staff members belonging to the group. Each group developed its own operating rules, but was required to consult widely across all Wofford constituencies.
Communication was essential to the entire process, as it strengthened transparency and the investment of community stakeholders. We routinely updated all constituencies on our progress, sharing ideas and inviting input. In addition to board representation on the working groups, which was essential for trustee input along the way, the board was updated at its regular meetings and in monthly email communications, with invitations to provide feedback. Most of the comments were thoughtful and supportive, but there were some that expressed reservations about changing the Wofford College they knew and loved. We left it to the working groups to evaluate and incorporate this input as they felt necessary, but we were sensitive to those reservations and emphasized the fact that thinking about Wofford for the coming decades was entirely consistent with its history of adaption.
Once the working groups completed their assignments, their reports were shared electronically and a series of forums was held on and off campus for all of Wofford’s constituencies in order to solicit feedback. The reports and the associated feedback became the basis of our planning document. A summary of the reports was organized into five sections: academic excellence, leadership, the recruitment of superior students, community governance, and facilities. There was also a “Making It Happen” section that called for a marketing strategy, capital campaign, and campus master plan. Each element of the reports also included a reference to the area of the institution responsible for executing that portion of the vision.
It was at this point that we changed our vocabulary, describing our work not as developing a traditional strategic “plan” but rather a “vision.” While most strategic plans develop the vision and implementation in tandem, we decided to proceed separately in order to create immediate interest in the vision itself. The general recommendations, flowing from the working groups, would be shared with the college community to generate feedback and support. The vision delineated would serve several purposes. First, it would reflect the collective imagination of the Wofford community in a coherent and well-presented document. Second, we felt that a vision document would allow us to advance with greater efficiency our enrollment and development plans since those plans did not necessarily require the concrete particulars of the broader, detailed strategic implementation plan. Third, the document presented for internal and external audiences the essential vision of the future that would inspire enthusiasm and support. A plan certainly was necessary, but the process and details required significantly more time than we felt we had to maintain momentum. There was also a need to celebrate the short-term success of the working groups and to have their efforts recognized by the community.
From Vision to Implementation
By the time of the 2014 fall board of trustees meeting, the draft of the vision had been vetted by the campus, we had made progress toward an enrollment and facilities plan, and we were preparing to unveil the elements of our new marketing program. The board itself had vetted the initial draft at a summer retreat and then reviewed the final draft again prior to the fall meeting. In effect, the strategic vision provided the necessary foundation to advance the institution broadly. It was a statement of Wofford’s future that was readily accessible to all of our audiences and constituencies; it provided a guide for new campus initiatives; and, importantly, it would help us plan our forthcoming capital campaign. The various elements and their connections to each other and to various campus offices were represented in our “Vision: At-a-Glance” document, available on our website.
Although the vision-development phase was carried out in collaboration with the consulting firm, the decision was made by the president to develop the implementation and action phases of the vision statement internally. One initial limitation was the lack of significant experience with strategic planning on campus. While this might be seen by some as a constraint, it allowed for flexibility and exploration of various strategies. It also allowed for the development of an approach that would be congruent with the values of the institution and further garner trust and support from the community. One of us, John Lefebvre, professor of psychology, accepted the charge to lead this next phase and began researching detailed planning processes and consulting with similar institutions.
The result of this research was a series of principles to frame the implementation and action plans. First, the goal was to include as many individuals as possible in the development of the implementation strategies in order to generate broad-based support for the plan. However, we decided to invite a new team of people who were not directly involved in the working groups, on the premise that they would bring a fresh perspective to the task, and that they would not have a vested interest in any particular recommendation. Second, although there would need to be some structured organization, we wanted to develop a network of individuals on campus with specific abilities to engage in the process. Third, there was an emphasis placed on completion of tasks and accountability. We felt it necessary to be focused on implementation in this phase of the process, rather than developing new ideas to be added to the vision document. Finally, we wanted to create new opportunities for campus leadership. This approach enabled the college to develop a cadre of faculty and staff members who might serve in future leadership positions across the institution.
A small network called the VIA team (vision, implementation, action) was formed that included eight members drawn from the faculty, staff, administration, and board of trustees. This group forms the steering committee that oversees and coordinates all aspects of the implementation and action. John Lefebvre serves as the coordinator, reports directly to President Samhat, and is responsible for organizing the structure of the team as well as communications with the administration and the community. Each member of the network was selected to assist with a key aspect of implementation and action: a member from the office of information management (assessment), the business office (budget), institutional development (grant writing and donor relations), as well as a member of the board of trustees and a member of the academic administration to serve as liaisons with these groups. Two faculty members were also selected after careful consultation with the provost. The strength of this approach is that it creates not only lines of communication to different constituencies, it also capitalizes on areas of shared governance. Thus, it is vitally important for board representation to provide conduits of information back to the board, but also to represent the board in the organization, efforts, and goals of the team.
The major goal for the VIA team is to shepherd the translation of the recommendations of the vision document into implementation strategies and ultimately into action plans. One approach would have been to focus on the primary recommendations highlighted in the vision document. However, there were a number of strategies embedded in the narrative of the vision and so it was decided to unpack the vision statement by listing the individual strategies found within each of its recommendations. More than 80 separate strategies were found in this process. In addition, there were cross-cutting themes among these strategies.
In the end, the team recognized eight broad themes: collaboration, core values and institutional culture, diversity, engagement, global context, living and learning, mentoring, and sustainability.
The VIA team decided that small leadership teams would be charged with developing recommendations based on each of the eight broad themes noted above. Each VIA team member took responsibility for one of the broad themes, worked to create a document that would form the charge for each leadership team, and joined members of the Woffordfaculty and staff to create eight “charge teams.” Each charge team was assigned to develop recommendations that included as many specific strategies as possible within one of the broad themes. The result is a much smaller number of recommendations focused on broader changes to the college. Selection of charge team members followed the pattern delineated for the selection of the VIA team. Ultimately, the eight teams were populated by 28 faculty and staff leaders. It is important to note that these individuals were responsible for the development of the recommendations for how the vision statement could be implemented. However, they were not to be the only voices in the process; rather, they were members of a campus network and were encouraged to solicit as much feedback and information from the college community as possible. Because they were to be leaders, each of the team members was trained by a member of our staff on leadership and the responsibilities that come with these positions.
The ultimate goal for each charge team was the creation of a series of “opportunities for implementation,” or “OFIs” for short, that would be combined and shared with the community. Because of the nature of the process involved in the VIA plan, the OFIs would be very general in nature. Emphasis was placed on developing recommendations that would be focused on system-level or institutional-level changes and not on specific programmatic changes. Thus, the ultimate goal of an OFI is to suggest ways to change the principles that guide decisions and actions of the institution. The OFIs can also be described as strategic experiments. They are meant to be innovative and dynamic, and modified as needed, in order to better approximate the needs of the college over time. Thus, the OFIs are intentionally flexible so that they can be modified if they are not achieving specific goals or can be changed in order to meet the changing requirements of the college community. Some of the OFIs are more general, such as calling for the revision of the mission statement to more accurately reflect the current realities of the college. Other OFIs are more specific, such as one that calls for the development and support of living-learning communities. Each OFI contains a statement of purpose that explains the goal of the recommendation, general strategies that might be used in implementation, the resources needed (both new and existing, as well as the associated costs), assessment measures, and the specific strategies this OFI is meant to address.
From Implementation to Action
At present, the VIA plan has not yet reached the point of action. However, the plan calls for the OFIs to become the operational blueprint for the actions taken to implement the vision. Last August the charge teams submitted 33 OFIs that were then combined into a single implementation document. The VIA team decided to reintegrate the OFIs from the eight themes used in the development of the charge teams back into the five general recommendations found in the vision document. Two OFIs were presented at the beginning of the implementation document. These recommendations dealt with a re-examination of the mission statement of the college and the development of a statement of core values. The VIA team believed that these were too fundamental to the culture of the college to be included in one of the general recommendations. In addition to a summary of the recommendations, the implementation document also contains a summary of the financial resources called for in the recommendations. These are based on new programming initiatives, new capital investments, and new personnel positions.
The final step in the VIA plan will be to move from implementation to action. The timeframe for the implementation will be over the next 10 years. The board will continue to be informed of progress on a regular basis at its meetings and through email updates. Furthermore, the board will continue to be involved through the active participation of a board member on the VIA team.
Traditionally at this stage in the process, a statement is created in which each strategy is ranked in terms of its priority. It is then assigned to a particular group or individual responsible for taking action and monitoring progress. The VIA plan suggests a different approach that continues the emphasis on flexibility and participation of the community. In terms of action, the VIA plan proposes that at the start of each year, President Samhat, in consultation with senior staff members, should set out a series of “Presidential Emphases” drawn from the OFIs. These emphases will be assigned to the VIA team and serve as the focus for that year.
During the year, the VIA team, working in collaboration with the constituencies most affected by the OFI, would work to either continue to develop strategies, create actionable plans, or monitor progress on recommendations that have been executed. Also, given the need for assessment, the team will become responsible for collecting data on progress and disseminating the results in regular communications to the Wofford community through a website and the office of marketing and communications.
Conclusion
As we move forward, the changes needed in higher education are urgent and complex. An effective framework is required for governing boards and campus communities to become more focused on strategic thinking. In this sense, strategic plans should not be considered a product but rather part of a long-term dynamic process. Strategic plans can be seen as opportunities to develop systems and processes to capitalize on the inherent strengths of the institution.
For governing boards interested in developing a similar process, there are important points that we would like to highlight based on our experiences. First, strategic planning is not the same in an educational context when compared with a corporate context. It is often more experimental and may appear to create greater risk. In order to be successful, it is important for the board to provide guidance and support to the process, but not to control it. The board should initiate and fully endorse the efforts and encourage broad-based support from all aspects of the community. This support will foster a sense of urgency for the process and ownership from the community, which ultimately must implement the plan.
Second, it is key to develop a team responsible for leading the process and not to leave it to a single individual. This allows for formal and informal networks in the organization to participate and support the process. Thus, the team needs to include board representatives who are actively engaged in the process. Third, the board needs to provide and support opportunities to recognize and reward progress in the implementation of the plan. Recognition of milestones, from the board level down, demonstrates the commitment of the board to the process and to those involved in the implementation. Finally, the board must work with the administration to help find ways to increase flexibility in order to allow the plan to mature and change over time.
We believe that we have developed such a system, which has created an exciting vision for the future, provides a means of implementing this vision in an efficient manner, and allows for flexibility in actions over time. The emphasis on open communication and broad-based support will not only lead to the successful implementation of the plan, but also will enable long-term, dynamic planning in the near future.
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