Harmonizing Strategic and Academic Planning in Higher Education

Should we complete our institutional strategic plan first and then move to an academic plan or complete the academic plan and then move on to the strategic plan?” is a question I often get when I lead workshops or give presentations about integrated planning. My answer usually starts with, “it depends.” My response is not an attempt to be coy or avoid the question. It truly does depend on a number of factors, such as an institution’s planning history, the present needs of the institution, or pressure from external bodies or mandates on the institution. For example, does the institution need more clarity regarding its mission, vision, and core purpose prior to launching a structured strategic planning process? Or perhaps an institution has struggled to frame an institutional strategic plan because its academic purpose remains fragmented and has never been clearly defined?

These factors are a part of your institutional context—an institution’s distinct set of challenges, conditions, and history that shape planning and strategy. Institutional context includes your institution’s culture, processes, decision-making structures, and planning history. A planning process that considers institutional context often empowers itself with a hidden engine, speeding forward change and transformation. For example, an institution that values integrity will find ways to amplify the manner in which the institution demonstrates integrity as it creates learning opportunities for students, engages in the search for knowledge, and works toward being a leader in solving society’s most difficult challenges. A planning process that does not consider institutional context runs the risk of lacking focus and often encounters resistance from internal or external stakeholders, thereby slowing institutional transformation. If you want your plan to succeed, your planning processes whether it’s the strategic plan or academic plan, must understand and leverage your institutional context. This is why there is no single answer to “which comes first: the academic plan or the institutional strategic plan?” Each institution needs to decide that sequence for itself.

Making this decision also requires some foundational planning knowledge. So, let’s look at the role and purpose of planning— in particular, academic planning, its relationship to strategic planning, and how to approach it in an integrated way.

Planning Glossary—Define Your Terms

A good place to start any discussion of the dynamics of institutional planning is by defining your terms. The discipline of institutional planning begins with a commitment to integrated planning. Integrated planning is the industry standard. It is not enough for institutions to develop a strategic plan, academic plan, or campus master plan. While important, these and other institutional plans need to be integrated, namely, that institutional planning activities are aligned with resource allocation decisions that are informed by institutional assessment and performance data. Integrated planning is the customary organizational practice in higher education. So much so that all of the national accreditation bodies in the United States, such as the Higher Learning Commission, use the language of integrated planning in their accreditation standards or criteria. Integrated planning establishes the framework for institutional planning that situates the work of strategic planning, academic planning, and other forms of planning, such as, campus master planning or scenario planning, that comprise the institutional planning portfolio. It is important to recognize that integrated planning drives all other planning processes.

Below are the definitions used by the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) to clarify the boundaries between integrated planning and the other key planning processes at colleges and universities:

• Integrated planning. A sustainable approach to planning that builds relationships, aligns the organization, and emphasizes preparedness for change. Integrated planning is both an overarching model of alignment—the connective tissue amongst disparate institutional planning efforts—and a process of planning within each of the institution’s component planning efforts.
• Strategic plan. A product of the strategic planning process that documents and communicates decisions made during the planning process.
• Strategic planning. A deliberate, disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an institution is, what it does, and why it does it.
• Academic plan. A product of the academic planning process that documents and communicates decisions made during the planning process.
• Academic planning. Planning that outlines an institution’s overall academic goals and how those goals will be met. It can include academic program planning, academic structure, organizational framework, institution-wide outcomes or competencies, and division or department goals and how they align to the overall academic plan. Academic planning is also known as educational master planning or academic master planning.
• Academic program planning. A subset of academic planning, academic program planning measures, analyzes, and prioritizes academic programs to help institutions achieve strategic balance.

What Is Academic Planning?

As you can see, strategic planning and academic planning are variations of the discipline of integrated planning. Each of these planning methodologies has a role to play in building an institution’s approach to supporting student success and institutional flourishing. While there are different opinions on whether institutions should do strategic planning first and then academic planning or whether they should start with academic planning and build the strategic plan from there, there is considerable overlap between why these plans need to be created, how you create these plans, and what relationship the plans have to one another in setting the agenda for student success and institutional thriving. How you sequence these two plans depends on your institutional context, in particular how your essential campus stakeholders view institutional planning. If you start with the academic plan first, be sure that it is a highly participatory process that includes environmental scanning, a situational analysis, competitor analysis, institutional capacity, capability, and differentiation.

Some key concepts to understand about academic planning:

• Academic planning is the act of organizing and outlining the priorities of the academic enterprise, based upon areas of strength and areas for growth.
• The academic plan specifies how the institution will focus its effort and resources and includes both the support of existing programs and services as well as the adjustment or creation of programs and services.
• The academic plan must be informed by the institutional strategic plan and the higher education marketplace, including the students and communities served, faculty and staff, and resources and strengths of the institution.
• It is important to note that it is not possible to do all things well all of the time, and thus the establishment of priorities or goals is critical to institutional success.
• Academic planning serves the entire organization, and in the grand scheme of planning is an institution-level document that provides clarity of how the institutional strategic plan applies in an academic context; it is a critical link between the organizational plan and the operational planning that will occur at the division or departmental levels. However, an academic plan can be created as a top-down endeavor or by amassing plans from the academic units and consolidating them into a unified plan.
• The academic plan can include academic program planning (APP), academic structure, organizational framework, institution-wide outcomes or competencies, and division or department goals and how they align to the overall academic plan.
• Academic planning often makes explicit links to planning in student services, enrollment, career services, libraries, and Faculty roles related to teaching, advising, scholarship, and engagement, may be articulated in academic plans but the policy and procedures relative to these faculty functions are typically included in promotion and tenure documents, but not in academic plans.
• How you sequence these two plans depends on your institutional context (in particular, your faculty’s view of strategic planning). If you start with the academic plan first, be sure that it is a highly participatory process that includes external scanning, internal scanning, competitor analysis, organizational capacity, and differentiation.

Regardless of the approach (top-down or bottom-up), academic planning is focused on the academic enterprise:

• Assembling a planning team or committee to guide the process;
• Seeking broad stakeholder input;
• Articulating academic philosophy and how this will be applied at the institution;
• Scanning the external environment to determine larger trends that will affect the institution’s research and teaching activities;
• Determining goals and write strategies to reach those goals;
• Writing action plans;
• Implementing, measuring, and modifying the plan, and;
• Reviewing data about academic program performance.

Similarities and Differences between the Institutional Strategic Plan and the Academic Plan

Sometimes there’s confusion about how an academic plan differs from an institution’s strategic plan, which is understandable. There is considerable overlap between these two plans—why they’re created, how they’re created, and how they interact to set an agenda for student success and institutional thriving.

So, let’s start by taking a closer look at the similarities and differences between academic plans and strategic plans.

Similarities

A good academic plan is similar to a good institutional strategic plan in a number of ways. They both:

• Commit to a collaborative process that engages a wide range of stakeholders;
• Align the organization up, down, and sideways;
• Flow from institutional mission, vision, culture, context, and core values;
• Are informed by data and supported by internal and external environmental scanning;
• Recognize institutional capabilities and capacities;
• Build on institutional culture and collaborative governance procedures;
• Emphasize preparedness for change; and
• Focus on student success and institutional thriving.

Both an academic plan and a strategic plan need to beware of certain (common) pitfalls as well:

• Constituents who ignore internal and external environmental analysis and use the planning process to try to validate their current interests;
• The academic community planning to continue the present course of research, teaching, and service because that’s what they’re comfortable doing.
• Focused on just maintaining the status quo (unless that’s what your plan requires)
• Making decisions without considering your organizational capacity or your institution’s distinctive capabilities

Differences

While the institutional strategic plan focuses on imagining the aspirational future for the whole institution, the academic plan fulfills a different function. Specifically, the academic plan:

• Establishes a basic framework for the academic enterprise, and defines structures, relationships and terms;
• Articulates academic philosophies and their relationship with curriculum, learners, scholarship, research, and public service;
• Defines the academic enterprise, including organizational structures, such as management and governance, academic cycles, calendars, and major events; and
• Establishes the curricular architecture (in other words, how a curriculum is designed).

How the Academic Plan Aligns with the Strategic Plan (and Other Plans)

The academic plan needs to align with the strategic plan. How that happens depends on how you sequence your planning processes.

If you create an academic plan after your strategic plan…
…then the academic plan translates the institutional strategic plan into academic language and concepts.

If you create an academic plan before your strategic plan…
…then the academic plan translates academic realities into broad institutional contexts providing the foundation for the institutional strategic plan.

The academic plan also provides specific academic contexts for the institution at large to align their plans, processes, and initiatives. It informs strategic enrollment management, resource allocations, IT investments, the design of learning spaces, etc.

The Particulars of the Academic Planning Process

So far, we’ve talked about the academic plan rather broadly. Let’s go a little deeper into some of the key particulars.

Academic Mission, Vision, and Values

At the institutional level, the institution’s mission, vision, and values impact the strategic plan. Defining mission, values, vision, and core purpose for the academic enterprise—in other words, focused on the teaching, learning, and research activities in your institution—can provide similar benefits to your academic plan. They clarify what the academic enterprise strives to accomplish overall, providing guidance for the strategies and decisions in your academic plan.

Academic Mission 

The academic mission answers key questions about why your academic enterprise exists.

• Who do you serve?
• What area or community do you serve? Do you focus regionally or globally?
• What is the purpose of your teaching, learning, and research? What do these exist to do?

The answers to these questions should be informed by findings from your internal and external scan. If not, you run the risk of investing in activities that no longer have relevance.

Academic Vision 

The academic vision articulates what the academic enterprise intends to accomplish by describing what the environment will look like if it achieves its mission.

• If your academic enterprise achieves its full potential, what will your environment look like?
• How will your students be impacted? What needs will be met? How will their lives be improved?
• How will your area or community be impacted?

The academic vision is critical to the academic plan. It sets an overall destination that inform the goals and strategies in the plan.

Academic Values

The academic values describe how you will approach achieving your academic mission. It articulates the principles, beliefs, and philosophies that guide actions and decisions.

• What do we believe about learning?
• What do we believe about teaching?
• What do we believe about scholarship, research, and community impact?
• How do these beliefs inform our approach to learning, teaching, and scholarship?

Critical Questions in Academic Planning

The academic mission, academic vision, and academic values capture the big-picture, philosophical ideas about teaching, learning, and research at your institution. Once you have those articulated, your academic plan is ready to answer more pragmatic questions about the academic enterprise.

Student Questions: 

• Who are the students we serve? (If multiple groups, identify them.)
• Do we intend to serve these same groups, or is change anticipated or desired? If change is anticipated or desired, how so?
• How do these students (current or future) wish to be served and need to be served?
• This may include characteristics of time and place, modality, academic program/focus, and co-curricular experiences, such as internships and study abroad.
• What should students get out of their experience?

Institution Questions: 

• How are we currently offering academic coursework (time, place, modality)? Does it match the needs and wants of the students we serve and/or hope to serve?
• To what extent is enrollment in courses matching institutional expectations?
• In terms of academic programs, what are our areas of greatest strength?
• In what areas are we positioned to offer an academic program experience that is better than our competitor institutions? (Either by offering it currently, or having the capacity to offer it in the future?)
• In what areas are we positioned to offer a cocurricular experience that is better than our competitor institutions?
• In what areas are we positioned to offer support services that are better than our competitor institutions?

Based on responses to all questions, are we currently prepared to serve the students we identified? What areas are lacking?

• Academic program/focus options
• Academic course offerings (time, place, modality)
• Co-curricular experiences
• Support services, equipment and special facilities, and technology

Assessment Questions:

• Has the institution clearly defined the outcomes students should be achieving in the general education curriculum (if applicable), as well as the major?
• Are we able to provide sufficient evidence that students are achieving the outcomes intended by the general education curriculum, as well as those of their academic program(s)?

Institutional Context

With a baseline knowledge of planning— in particular, academic planning—you’re ready to consider how your institutional context might impact the sequencing of your strategic plan and your academic plan.

Institutional context can be fairly vast and complex. We won’t be able to go into enough detail here for you to truly leverage it (for that, you might need to try SCUP’s Readiness for Planning survey in Planning Institute– Foundations). So, instead, we’ll highlight some key questions that can help you determine if you need to start with an academic plan or a strategic plan.

Key Questions

• What do our faculty think of planning? What has their experience been thus far? Faculty are critical stakeholders for both academic and strategic planning. If most of your faculty think planning is an empty exercise, it might be worthwhile to start with an academic planning process led by faculty to build buy in and legitimacy to planning overall.
• What is our most critical need right now? Do you have multiple underperforming academic programs? A large achievement gap? Or maybe your institution is facing big budget cuts? If your needs are more centralized to the academic enterprise, you may want to start with an academic If they are more diffuse across the institution, you may want to start with a strategic plan.

In the end…

There is no right answer to the question about whether an institutional strategic plan or an academic plan should be done first. The choice is more a matter of institutional needs at a moment of time that allows the institution to meet the needs of the internal environment with the shifting sands of the external environment in the higher education sector. However, higher education institutions can reach the endpoint of robust institutional strategic and academic plans by sequencing these planning processes or engaging the work simultaneously. Ultimately, it is a matter of institutional capacity, capability, and bandwidth for the work. It’s important to remember than an academic plan should be part of an institution’s priority as well as a strategic plan.

Nicholas R. Santilli, PhD, is the senior director for learning strategy at the Society for College and University Planning and a professor emeritus of psychology at John Carroll University. The content for this article has been based, in part, on materials from the SCUP Planning Institutes: https://www. scup.org/planning-institute/.