University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Campus Strategic Planning Document
Mark A. Mone, PhD
March 7, 2013
Developing UWM’s Strategic Plan: The Approach
Developing UWM’s 2013-2020 Strategic Plan is among the most central and vital tasks to be completed in the next year. Facing significant internal and external challenges and opportunities, we must establish firmly and clearly our direction, develop priorities and assert action, seize those opportunities and address the challenges. The plan that we create will become the strategic blueprint for future success, one that will enable UWM’s vision to become realized.
Central elements in our strategic planning include the campus’ academic planning (e.g., enrollment management, research growth, and curriculum plans) and new budget model, both of which are currently underway. We convened the Core Strategic Planning team in November, 2012 and are in the process of establishing other teams. We will complete the plan by December 2013, as described below and on the following pages.
In our approach, there are four phases of development including a dozen action areas. These actions are being refined through collaborative discussion with a Core Planning Team to include, among other items, projected timelines, processes, metrics, responsibilities, survey and interview forms, and evaluations of progress.
Strategic Planning Requirements and Deliverables
Our primary objective is to develop a plan for 2013-2020 that helps the University to realize the following UWM vision:
We will be a top-tier research university that is the best place to learn and work for students, faculty and staff, and a leading driver for sustainable prosperity. We will accomplish this through a commitment to excellence, powerful ideas, community and global engagement, and collaborative partnerships.
In a collaborative, inclusive fashion, our comprehensive strategic plan will include:
· Identification of the University’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (drawing from campus units’ academic and strategic planning, budget model planning, Enterprise Risk Management work and other areas).
· An environmental scan describing challenges UWM faces today and in the future.
· The integration of current significant UWM initiatives and activities.
· A long-range establishment of priorities, clear and attainable measurable goals, and timelines that support our vision and mission—consistent with our values.
Chancellor Mike Lovell identified the need for strategic planning and charged the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Johannes Britz, with overseeing strategic planning. From a campus-wide RFP call, Professor Mark Mone was selected to facilitate the strategic planning process.
Phase I: Planning and Involving the Campus Community
1. Forming the UWM Core Strategic Planning Team, one that is highly functioning, representative of our internal and external constituents, and developed in a way that engenders confidence and buy-in. A core team of sixteen people (see Appendix 1 for members and general role) has representation from governance groups, including faculty, academic and classified staff, administration, students, and alumni, and works with external stakeholders including neighbors, advisory council members, community participants (e.g., healthcare, business, not-for-profit, labor, legal, local elected officials), regents, legislators, and others. This team will benefit from including people who have experience in strategic planning and are familiar with planning processes at academic institutions. Our Core team is diverse in both the traditional, demographic sense of diversity as well as diverse thinking and alternative approaches. The core team will be supplemented with campus participants organized and begun first by specific functional team assignments (e.g., communication, inclusion, website management, background work on data, trends and benchmarking) and then begin to address other thematic work group roles (see Appendix 2). Administrative staff will support our work.
2. Developing an overall set of objectives, clear statement of deliverables, communication plan, and draft timeframe. Drawing from the original RFP for UWM’s strategic plan, this document is our internal working plan, guiding our actions. We have established a clear division of labor for the different duties and tasks in the action plan (e.g., involving numerous members of the Core planning team, operational teams, and staff support with specific roles and responsibilities). Because separate groups are working on campus budgeting models, academic plans, or other UWM initiatives, we will incorporate their findings—not try to replicate them—as we proceed. In our charter and timeframe, we delineate the sequence of activities that establish and define the roles of the Core Strategic Planning and Operational (Functional and Thematic Teams).
3. To supplement the campus’ established vision and mission statements, the development of UWM’s Guiding Values is currently underway. The Chancellor’s cabinet and representatives from campus governance developed draft Guiding Values in August, 2012. The Chancellor subsequently shared these values with governance groups in separate meetings, and with the campus in his September 20, 2012, Plenary address. The UWM Guiding Values were formally approved by the Faculty and Academic Staff Senates and Classified Staff Advisory Council, with the last endorsement achieved in February, 2013 (see Appendix 3). The Guiding Values are incorporated into our plan to guide priorities and decision making.
4. Developing an approach that identifies specific goals, based on current and projected strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, environmental dimensions and trends, unique UW-Milwaukee elements, organizational structure, and governance issues that support our mission, vision and values in the following areas: Top-Tier Research University, Sustainable Prosperity, Academic Planning, Successful Students: Recruitment, Retention, & Remediation, Access, Diversity & Inclusion, Financially Sustained University, Technology (Digitization and other elements), Physical Aspects, Internationalization, BP2W, and Community Engagement.
Phase II: Collecting Data & Engaging Stakeholders
5. As we examine relevant strategic issues during initial discussions, we will engage stakeholders to seek their input in our website, focus groups or interviews to get their views on critical issues—this helps inform the questions, rather than having the format or questions change as the interviews, focus groups, and surveys are underway.
6. As the data collection tools are established, we will design an inclusive, comprehensive approach to engage all stakeholders in the process. The planning team would ensure representation of all constituents and communication of our planning process and timeline with them. Through a comprehensive survey, interview, and focus group design, perhaps including social media, there would be extensive involvement of hundreds if not thousands of individuals and, through this process, buy-in created for the resulting strategic planning outcomes.
7. We will then commence with data collection: surveys, interviews, and focus groups with faculty, staff, students, administration, alumni, community groups, UWS (including regents and legislators), and other relevant stakeholders. Campus technology and, in particular, University Relations (IT) staff would be drawn from.
Phase III: Background, Best Practices, and Crafting and Communicating the Plan
8. Integrating knowledge from trends in higher education and other academic institutions via benchmarking and best practices—again examining peer and especially aspirant universities—to consider directions, actions, and objectives that will contribute to a highly effective strategic plan.
9. Drawing from the data collected though a highly involved and consultative process, careful analyses and evaluation will be performed. The data collected will allow for both quantitative and qualitative analyses, identifying in particular themes and patterns as we craft our initial plan. Sample elements of the plan could include:
A. Identifying major realistic, achievable goals that can be reached during the 2013-2020 timeframe (e.g., enrollment targets, continuing and new strategic objectives, research funding, academic curricula, collaborative undertakings, etc.)
B. Explaining how we can coordinate existing activities and major initiatives (see Appendix 4 for a listing and Appendix 5 for how they map with the Thematic Teams)
C. Developing prioritized plans in UWM’s resource constrained environment
D. Establishing a roadmap that outlines and integrates our mission, vision, values, strategic direction and goals, and available resources—while recognizing our structure, governance, and administration.
10. Presentations of the draft strategic plan for feedback and consultation with various constituent groups, making revisions as necessary. Such presentation(s) and listening sessions will be part of a larger communication and engagement plan with all relevant stakeholder groups.
Phase IV: Refining and Finalizing the Plan
11. Presenting the next and close-to-final plan to stakeholders to incorporate final feedback as we prepare all of the elements and perform final evaluation of internal and external factors (recognizing that several months—will have elapsed between the planning stage and completed plan stage).
12. The final deliverable will be a complete plan, per the descriptions above (e.g., # 9 and #11), that contains strategic directions, prioritized action areas, ownership responsibilities, rollout timeframes, and metrics for evaluating progress, including measurable goals and objectives. The strategic plan will be only as effective as the execution of that plan, so at least equal emphasis in our plan must be placed on the how as to the what of the strategy.
Guiding Principles and Characteristics
1. Our approach is collaborative, inclusive, and engaging, drawing from UWM experience and expertise in strategic planning—and implementation.
2. While the Core Strategic Planning Team will have approximately sixteen people and the Operational Teams will have a larger number of participants, our process will involve hundreds of people through surveys, interviews, focus groups and other forms of technology-aided data collection to inform our planning.
3. In addition to receiving input from all stakeholders as we develop our strategic plan, we will also serve as educators—sharing iteratively the progress that we make, reflecting on the feedback, and identifying the necessary and possible transformations that UWM can make to prepare for the future. Our website will serve an important purpose in both sharing information and containing mechanisms for receiving input as we develop the plan (please see Appendix 6 for website screenshot).
4. We will incorporate stakeholder analysis, SWOT, strategy canvas (road mapping tool), elements from Hamel, Porter, and other leading strategists, and draw from relevant expertise, research, teaching and consulting knowledge and work in higher ed.
5. The approach is highly structured and yet, through the processes described, it is flexible and highly customized, tailored to UWM’s unique needs, opportunities, and complexities.
Our goal is to provide UWM with the strategic blueprint and support for future success. We look forward to helping craft the strategic plan that collaboratively and decisively creates a stronger campus, one that enhances our vision to make UWM a top-tier research university that is the best place to learn and work for students, faculty and staff and a leading driver for sustainable prosperity.
APPENDIX 1
UWM Core Strategic Planning Team
This group will serve as the coordinating team with oversight responsibility for the work done by the operational teams, described on the following pages. Members are drawn from campus governance and leadership groups and community participants, primarily, including:
Swarnjit Arora, Academic Planning & Budget Committee (Chair)
Academic Staff: Jean Salzer, ASC Chair
John Boyland, Academic Planning & Curriculum Committee (Chair)
Michele Bria, President & CEO, Journey House (community member)
Michael Brondino: Graduate Faculty Council (Chair)
Richard Cox, Executive Director, Neighborhood House of Milwaukee and alumna
Jackie Fredrick, CEO & President, BloodCenter of Wisconsin and UWM alumna
Helaine Hickson, Academic Staff at large
Michael LaLiberte, Vice Chancellor, Student Affairs
Michelle Rios, Faculty at Large
Mark Schwartz, University Committee (Chair)
Stan Stojkovic, Academic Deans Council
LeRoy Stoner, Physical Environment Committee (Chair)
Julia Taylor, Greater Milwaukee Committee
Student representative: Mark Jensen
Stan Yasaitis, Classified Staff Advisory Council (Chair)
APPENDIX 2
Strategic Planning Operational Teams
Functional Teams, with chairs and co-chairs, these teams will take the reports and products of the thematic teams, described below, and fashion them into the strategic plan
Communication Team: Provide updates and assure that the strategic planning team is highly communicative with its processes and development (monthly updates in Chancellor’s and UWM’s reports, website, etc.).
Stakeholder Engagement Team: To ensure that we convene town halls, focus groups, surveys and promote other ways to proactively include the voices of all relevant constituents: faculty, staff, students, administration, and external constituents.
Data Gathering & Benchmarking Team: Assist with SWOT, inclusion of relevant data, trends and information relevant to higher ed, comparisons with peer and aspirant schools.
Writing & Synthesizing Team: Working with concurrent campus initiatives and thematic teams (below), drawing from all relevant information, to identify themes and craft the drafts of the Strategic Plan.
Administrative & Technical Support Team: Scheduling, internal communications, minutes, capturing relevant data and assisting with all aspects of the teams’ work.
Thematic Teams: With chairs, co-chairs, and members representing leadership in these areas, the following teams will be charged with integrating campus initiatives (see Appendix 5) into the following thematic areas. They will be expected to collaborate across these themes to develop integrative, coordinated goals and objectives.
Top-tier Research University (including interdisciplinary efforts)
Sustainable Prosperity
Academic Planning
Successful Students: Recruitment, Retention, and Remediation
Access, Diversity and Inclusion
Financially Sustained University
APPENDIX 2, Cont’d
Strategic Planning Operational Teams
Technology (Digitization and other elements)
Physical Aspects: Green campus, Master Plan, etc.
Internationalization
BP2W (Human Capital): Faculty and Staff Attraction, Development and Retention
Community Engagement
APPENDIX 3
UWM Guiding Values*
We value:
· Innovation, leadership, and collaboration that fosters learning through education, scholarship and research, and public service.
· Opportunities for open inquiry to support the positive transformation of individuals (students, faculty, and staff), institutions, and communities.
· A caring, compassionate, and collegial community characterized by mutual respect and safety
· Diversity in all of its definitions, including who we are, how we think, and what we do.
· Ethical behavior, based on integrity, accountability, and responsibility in all practices as a learning organization.
· Transparent and inclusive decision making.
· Stewardship of resources that promote sustainability, prosperity, and equity for all in the local and global community.
· Pride in our institution, our unique qualities and our vital role.
*Approved by Faculty Senate, Academic Staff Senate, and Classified Staff Advisory Council
APPENDIX 4
Existing UWM Initiatives & Activities to Incorporate into Strategic Plan
Campus Budget Model Academic Planning
Master Plan Best Place to Work (BP2W)
Best Place to Learn (BP2L) Space Planning