Minutes from August 30, 2017

I.  Welcome and announcements 

A.  Introductions and welcome of new members. 

II.  Approval of 5/3/17 and 5/24/17 minutes – approved.

III.  FY19 Priority Objectives Recommendation Update (Handout – FY18 &FY19 Priorities)

The FY19 priority objectives defined by the Planning Council in May were endorsed by the president and leadership team this summer.  Chris reminded the Council that priorities are set a full year in advance in order to give units adequate time to plan and perhaps allocate resources to support the priorities. Chris reviewed the FY18 and FY19 priorities for the Council and stated that they will be reviewed at the next University Council (UC) and UC members encouraged to disseminate them to their constituents.

IV.  Work plan for the coming year

A.  New Strategic Plan

We would like to have a new university strategic plan defined and adopted before the current plan expires. Pre-planning for the next iteration of the plan began last spring with Chris and a couple of others meeting with most of the academic department heads. It was also determined in Planning Council that essentially everyone (internal and external constituents) needs to have the opportunity to engage in the development of the next plan in some way.

This summer, an RFP was put out and Springboard International (http://springboardintl.com/what-we-do/strategic-planning/) won the consulting contract to assist us in the process. We are hoping/expecting to have a draft of the next strategic plan by spring 2018 with final approval given in the fall of 2018. One of our goals is to make sure the strategic plan and accreditation are appropriately aligned.

A Strategic Planning Committee (currently the working name for that group) with limited membership (eight, plus Chris and Ian) has been defined to do the “heavy lifting”. It is anticipated that Planning Council’s role will be to carefully review the plan as it develops. There was a question asked regarding the role of students in the process and the response was that there is ASMSU representation on the Strategic Planning Committee, and students will be invited to give feedback along the way.  Discussion ensued about whether the next plan will start from scratch or revise the existing plan, whether specific topics like summer school and online education might be included, and timing of the next plan’s expiration.  The process will help determine the answers to those questions, after careful review of the current plan.

Chris will send out the draft timeline and audience list developed last spring by Planning Council. SBI’s timeline may differ somewhat and will evolve, but with the same end dates.

B.  Current Strategic Plan Assessment and Prioritization

Chris provided the Council with a copy and overview of the most recent goal review of the Integration goal which presented at the most recent University Council meeting.  Assessment of the current plan will continue this year as a Planning Council task.

V.  Charge from President Cruzado

President Cruzado thanked the Council for their disciplined focus on the Strategic Plan and assured the group that administration pays attention to the priorities that they develop and recommend each year. She is looking for the Council’s assistance this year in developing the next strategic plan, with external guidance to help us make it a one year process this time, and asked if there is anything the Council needs from her.  She indicated the next plan should be informed by lessons from the current plan.

The President also provided direction on the need to grow our graduate enrollment and graduate support as well as our research impact, not just expenditures, and emphasized that our current strategic plan goal of integration has set us apart from other institutions.  

The President took questions. A council member asked that we consider the community and housing impact that expanding the graduate program would have, and make sure we were adequately communicating and coordinating with the city on those kinds of issues.

VI.  Accreditation

Tami Eitle reminded the Council of the approaching Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) accreditation visit and provided a seven year accreditation self-study and visit handout (attached). She thanked the Council for its help in reviewing and drafting the self-study, reviewed the various materials that she thinks the Council should be aware of, and encouraged the committee to visit the accreditation link on the provost’s Office website (http://www.montana.edu/accreditation/index.html) where the full seven year self-study report (http://www.montana.edu/accreditation/documents/accdocs/MSU%20Accreditation%20Report%202017.pdf) and other relevant documentation is available. She specifically asked the council members to carefully review Standard 3 of the report.

Tami asked the Council about the idea of establishing an “institutional effectiveness group” to more broadly assess progress on mission fulfillment so that our definition of mission fulfillment is not so rigidly tied to and possibly constrained by our progress on strategic plan metrics. Discussion about a need for culture shift in order to take accreditation and assessment more seriously throughout the institution and whether there needs to be another committee to engage in this work, or whether the Planning Council, or some other currently existing group can be leveraged to fulfill the accreditation review role.

VII.  Other business - none

Next meeting: September 27, 2017, 1-3 pm

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