MSU Provost forms new planning committee

by Carol Schmidt
MSU-Bozeman News Service

01/24/2002 Bozeman--Montana State University Provost David Dooley said MSU's two historic planning committees have been dissolved and replaced with one new committee charged with university strategic planning.

Dooley announced the creation of the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC), an 11-member committee that will be chaired by Bruce Morton, MSU's Dean of Libraries.

The new committee is authorized to link its efforts to plan for the university with the work of the University Planning, Budget and Analysis Committee (UPBAC), formed a year ago.

The new planning committee will replace the former Strategic Planning and Budget Committee (SPBC) and the Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC). Both of those committees have been dissolved. The SPBC was a university-wide planning committee formed by the late Mike Malone in 1998. The LRPC was first formed in 1990 under the direction of former President Bill Tietz.

President Geoffrey Gamble said he is thrilled with the prospect of a committee that will work closely with UPBAC's efforts.

"When I came here, part of what I asked for is that this university provides productive and active links between its planning and budgeting processes," Gamble said, adding that the formation of UPBAC last spring for budgeting processes was the first step. "And now, this is UPBAC's response to those linkages I requested."

Gamble said it is his observation that so often universities do rigorous planning and those efforts end up on the shelf.

"My plan is that these folks (UPBAC and SPC) will come together and will really be helping the university in charting its course. I'm pretty excited about that."

Dooley said that UPBAC opted to create a new committee, rather than use one of the previous planning committees, because the committee believed that there was need for a single committee whose primary objective was to work closely with UPBAC and to develop linkages between priorities, strategic objectives, long-range goals and the budget.

"The work completed by the LRPC and the SPBC has laid the groundwork that the SPC will build on as it develops a strategic plan for MSU," Dooley said in a statement released to the entire university. "I would like to thank all the faculty, staff and students who have participated in the university planning process in recent years through service on the LRPC and the SPBC."

In addition to Morton, the committee will include several MSU professors, including: Bill Brown, business; John Carlsten, physics; Kay Chafey, nursing; Jon Wraith, land resources/environmental science and Greg Johnson, department head in entomology. Other members are: Mark Sheehan, executive director and chief information officer for ITC; Mary Noll, interim director of general studies, Jaynee Groseth, director of alumni relation. Betsy Centa, administrative assistant in psychology and Michelle McLendon, a student representing ASMSU, round out the group.

Send questions or comments to Carol Schmidt: cschmidt@montana.edu. Or you can send letters to Carol Schmidt, MSU Communications Services, 416 Culbertson Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717.

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