Introducing “On Purpose: Our Strategic Framework”

A post from John Sell, faculty strategic planning liaison & Ellen Falduto, chief information and planning officer

Our summer planning assignment was to take our entire planning work product of the last year and compile our strategic plan framework.  We are now introducing the Framework to you.  While it may not reflect the traditional structure of a strategic planning document as Wooster has known in the past, its content should be very familiar to all of us.

On Purpose: Our Strategic Framework is the first edition of our agile, living-plan document.  Its purpose is to guide College decision making and resource allocation in the near term.  We anticipate it will be periodically revisited and revised to reflect the progress we make towards our objectives and the changes in our strategic context, but we are now past the discovery and idea stages.  The Framework outlines our common work to achieve our vision for Wooster and the current task is to answer the question, “What specifically are we going to do this year?”

At its October meeting, the Board will discuss the Framework and consider its approval.  Between now and then, we will discuss the Framework in our governance committees, in our respective departments, and in meetings of faculty, staff, and students respectively with a view toward implementation. Our immediate priorities are outlined in the Annual Strategic Priorities memo that Grant has already sent to you, but the question of what this means for the work of specific committees and individual faculty and staff remains to be answered.

These conversations will be organized as follows:  Several faculty committees will hold committee discussions in preparation for the Big 5 retreat (September 27) and the October faculty meeting.  The Faculty as a whole will discuss it at the October 4 faculty meeting (more information about the October faculty meeting will follow).  Members of Cabinet will facilitate conversations in their respective areas.  Ellen and John will facilitate discussions in upcoming meetings of the Staff Committee, Campus Council, and Student Government.  There will be at least one open discussion session for staff and one for students and we will also seek comments from the members of the Alumni Board.

We ask that you review our Strategic Framework which can be found on this blog and encourage you to engage in one or more discussion sessions.

Our thanks for your involvement in our on-going strategic planning effort.

John & Ellen