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By Sharron Hannon
UGA’s strategic-planning process, under way for nearly a year, now enters a new phase. With strategic plans from the schools and colleges and other campus units in or nearing the final-draft stage, the Institutional Strategic Planning Advisory Group is moving on to the framing of the institutional strategic plan.
“It’s time to move on,” says Vice President for Strategic Planning Don Eastman. “The advisory group has spent nine months listening and learning from deans and others about UGA’s key challenges and opportunities, and it’s time now to begin to make choices and decisions about institutional priorities.”
The group spent a full day at Flinchum’s Phoenix on Jan. 13 to begin the task. Guided by Wes Wynens and Steve Dempsey, from UGA’s Fanning Institute for Leadership and Community Development, the group examined nearly 100 strategic initiatives proposed in the unit plans to attempt to categorize and prioritize them within overarching themes related to the university’s core missions of teaching, research and service.
Dividing into three smaller groups, the Strategic Planning Group considered initiatives that would enhance research as well as those that would enhance the undergraduate experience, and sought to define a plan that would complement both objectives.
The group focusing on research discussed the need to develop a focused research agenda, increase emphasis on graduate programs, determine ways to find more resources, involve undergraduates in research, spread technology across the curriculum, and encourage a “community of inquiry” and an entrepreneurial approach to new research initiatives.
The group focusing on the quality of the undergraduate experience--which included Bob Boehmer, who chairs UGA’s alternative self-study with the same theme--talked about the curriculum, the physical environment (from residence halls to classroom and meeting space) and how to define the ideal student body. They also addressed desired interactions between students and faculty in and out of the classroom, and the need for strong staff support, particularly in advising and student-service areas such as financial aid.
A third group focused on how to encourage a global perspective and move the university increasingly in the direction of service not only to the state of Georgia but to the world. They discussed significantly increasing student and faculty opportunities for an international experience; making international education a central component in hiring, promotion and tenure decisions; attracting international conferences to campus; creating more international residential centers; building an endowment for international education; offering international and language-themed residence hall experiences; and building on existing programs with an international focus--from the Dean Rusk Center to marine studies.
“I think the daylong retreat provided an opportunity for an important dialogue as we thought about all the unit plans that have been brought forward,” says Ernestine Copas, who chairs the University Council Strategic Planning Committee and also serves on the Institutional Strategic Planning Advisory Group. “It gave us a chance to reflect on initiatives important to the institution and issues that need to be thought about in depth.”
Copas says she has appreciated Eastman’s efforts to work with the University Council planning committee. “Don usually attends all of our committee meetings and [music professor] Bill Davis and I serve on both groups,” Copas notes, “so that’s provided links between the two. I think Don has done a great job of starting some wide-ranging and candid conversations--and that’s a healthy process for this university.”
The institutional planning group will continue weekly meetings with the goal of having a draft institutional plan to President Michael F. Adams in May. Plans are also being developed for a facilitated session with Staff Council members and other selected staff to address workplace issues that will position UGA as an “employer of choice.”
A similar session was held last semester with representatives from the Student Government Association and other student groups. From that meeting, the students developed a list of recommended strategic priorities, which they submitted for consideration by the institutional planning group.
Strategic Planning Advisory Group
Clyde Anglin, Staff Council representative
Bob Boehmer, director, SACS Accreditation Study
Tim Burgess, associate vice president for finance and administration
David Clements, Institutional Research and Planning
Ernestine Copas, University Council representative
Kathryn Costello, senior vice president for external affairs
Betty Jean Craige, faculty representative
Jack Crowley, dean, Environmental Design
William Davis, faculty representative
Tom Dyer, acting vice president for instruction
Don Eastman, vice president for strategic planning
Karen Holbrook, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost
A. Felton Jenkins Jr., UGA Foundation Trustees representative
Tricia Page, Student Government representative
Scott Shamp, University Council representative
Danny Sniff, University Architects
Claire Swann, National Alumni Association representative
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