Strategic Planning

The College of William and Mary is presently engaged in a year-long strategic planning exercise.  On a scale of one (root canal) to ten (you just won a free round-trip to Cancun), this probably feels about like a 1.3 +/- 0.25.

Strategic plans are exercises that universities (and lots of other organizations) go though periodically as a means of both clarifying their institutional priorities and engaging their constituencies in thinking about the future.  They can be mind-bogglingly complex and time-consuming and the resulting plans can read like the insert that comes with your prescription meds.  Too often the aftermath for participants is as much planning fatigue and disillusionment as enlightenment and affirmation.

So, why should anyone care that we are planning?

Reason #1: the validity of our planning is only as robust as the involvement of our students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and friends in the process.

Reason #2: we need everyone’s best ideas as to our strengths, our challenges, our opportunities.  What should we change; what should we NEVER change?

Reason #3: if we do this right and put in place a process that has the confidence of our community, a process that is open, transparent, and consultative, we can make sure that the College we all love will continue to thrive and prosper.

So, give us a few minutes.  Go to www.wm.edu/strategicplanning and learn what you can about the process and the timetable.

And, don’t forget to write.  There are links for sending your comments to us and we have posted the names of the Planning Steering Committee members so and you can communicate with anyone of us with your ideas and concerns.

Plan On!