Effective Practices
Design and follow an inclusive process for developing or revising a departmental strategic plan
- See the section on How to Create and Use Foundational Documents for details.
- Share these institutional and departmental documents with faculty and staff.
- Discuss your institution’s documents with faculty and staff, focusing on the extent to which your department’s current activities are aligned with them.
- Use, update, and/or expand upon data from your most recent program review (e.g., enrollments, persistence, diversity, career paths) for insights about where initiatives are needed.
- Review activities undertaken under prior department strategic plan(s), what progress was made, how success was celebrated, and what remains to be accomplished.
- Ensure that your process for developing a strategic plan aligns with institutional goals and procedures and that it engages your entire department.
- Allow sufficient time, ideally at least six months, for the process of developing a strategic plan, from inception to final approval. Include time for in-depth discussions, e.g., at a departmental retreat.
- Emphasize to all department members that the strategic plan will be the key document guiding decisions and investments, and follow through on a regular basis by tying actions and activities to elements of the plan.
- Discuss with department members how a plan recognizes and celebrates them by identifying how their contributions align with the institution’s mission, strategic directions, and , with respect to, e.g., recruiting; retention; supporting equity, diversity, and inclusion; teaching excellence; grants and scholarship; students realizing professional objectives.
- Discuss underlying advantages of and assessments necessary for creating a plan. See the section on How to Select and Use Various Assessment Methods in Your Program for details.
- Provide faculty and staff with a realistic assessment of resources and resource allocation strategies. This can help illuminate the benefits of planning and the risks of moving forward without the clear direction a strategic plan can provide. For example, describe how student credit hours and student-to-faculty ratios are used by your dean to allocate funds or faculty lines, or the criteria used by the provost or president to eliminate majors or programs.
- Consider allocating a small amount of funds from your departmental budget to implement components of the plan as an incentive for your department to emphasize the importance of the process.
- Consider using small-group discussions, including individuals with a broad range of roles and perspectives (e.g., pre-tenure faculty, tenured faculty, non-tenure-track , other staff, students, members of , departmental advisory council members, and alumni), to brainstorm directions, specific actions, and long-term goals. Ensure that the process includes reflection on the most recent program review. Include discussions about how to support equity, diversity and inclusion. See the sections on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Departmental Culture and Climate for details.
- Use the results of the small-group discussions to synthesize a document that can evolve, through broader discussions such as department-wide meetings, into a strategic plan.
- Consider bringing into initial discussions an outside facilitator who is respected by a majority of department members and who can help create a neutral environment in which to discuss challenging issues, question assumptions, and move difficult conversations toward resolution.
- Consider how inviting a member of your administration to a department meeting might improve the process by, e.g., ensuring your administration is engaged early in the process, proactively demonstrating strategic action, and enabling a discussion with your department how the administration uses data and departmental strategic initiatives to make resource allocations.
- Consider how inviting people from outside your department (e.g., chairs or members of other departments, directors of research centers, leaders who support student success and wellbeing, admissions officials, athletics leaders) can help you identify and use campus resources and synergies with the broader campus.
- Consider naming the plan and the planning process to help faculty and staff members see the relevance of this activity. Possible names include “Departmental Prioritization” or “Directions, Plans, and Outcomes”.
- Establish a committee with broad representation (of, e.g., pre-tenure faculty, tenured faculty, non-tenure-track , other staff, students, members of , departmental advisory council members, and alumni) that reflects the diversity of the program you would like to have and the different perspectives needed to undertake the review and create or revise the plan. Be mindful of power dynamics and personality issues.
- Identify a leader for this effort who is committed to conducting an inclusive and broadly representative process.
- Agree on a formal process for development, review, and final approval of the plan.
- Provide the team with a charge that includes a reporting structure, member responsibilities, a timeline with milestones, and an outline of the review and approval processes within the committee and department.
- Have the committee identify how decisions will be documented and how members will be regularly updated.
- Share this information with all departmental stakeholders prior to proceeding with development.
- Engage or convene the committee to consider feedback for developing or revising the strategic plan. Ensure this feedback includes input from an ’ report (when associated with a program review; see the section on How to Undertake an Undergraduate Program Review), review of the previous strategic plan, synthesis of small-group and departmental discussions, and input from other constituencies, e.g., your administration, other department chairs, and your institutional assessment coordinator.
- Use discussions (e.g., with faculty, staff, students, administrators, chairs of departments your program serves, alumni) to gather ideas for goals and initiatives. You may find a or useful for guiding conversations.
- Consider whether to develop (1) at the same time as you develop your , to ensure the development of realistic and attainable goals, or (2) after developing a set of consensus priorities, to avoid getting bogged down in details while setting priorities.
- Consider using to formulate your , prioritizing initiatives that can be accomplished within the next year and identifying others that require extensive planning, time to implement, or additional or reallocated resources.
- Draft a limited set of (e.g., increase the number of majors, establish an undergraduate research requirement, explore student interest in a new concentration in applied or engineering physics, add an ethics education component to the curriculum, improve departmental climate) that are synergistic with the institution’s mission, strategic directions, and . Ensure that your objectives are flexible enough to remain relevant in a changing institutional landscape.
- Draft a small number of realistic (e.g., identify and modify courses that hinder student progression in the major, survey faculty and local businesses for potential research experiences and internships on and off campus, survey current and prospective students about their interest in new concentrations within the major) that address identified .
- Establish a few milestones and for each of your , e.g., improving retention numbers in the introductory calculus-based sequence by 3% over five years, double the number of majors in five years.
- Initiate conversations with your administration to identify resources necessary for advancing each and formulate plans and timelines for obtaining those resources.
- Write the plan using plain language that department members can easily recall, to help focus priorities and actions.
- See the supplement on Structure of a Strategic Plan for details.
- Ensure that the process for developing the plan is transparent and periodically engages the entire department as the plan is being developed, so that key elements of the final plan will already be familiar to department members.
- Discuss with department members how the plan recognizes and celebrates them and your department.
- Provide an assessment of resources and resource allocation strategies that might be impacted by the plan.
- Sponsor discussions of the and with groups including department members (e.g., faculty, staff, students), your administration, chairs of departments affected by potential actions, and department alumni.
- When there are significant disagreements between department members, engage your dean or an outside facilitator for advice on how to work toward a plan that aligns with and supports the departmental and institutional mission, vision, and values.
- Address divergent responses through an inclusive process. (See the section on How to Be an Effective Chair for guidance on how to communicate effectively.)
- Provide ample opportunity for departmental discussion and review before finalizing the plan.
Adopt, use, and maintain the plan
- Finalize the plan following your formal approval process.
- Share copies with relevant administrative officials (e.g., dean, provost, chairs of departments that your program serves, assessment coordinator, fundraising staff) to demonstrate your department’s commitment to cyclic improvement, alignment with institutional mission, and willingness to think creatively about the future, and to provide a reference point for future discussions about resources.
- Share the final document with other interested stakeholders, e.g., staff, students, graduates, departmental advisory council, (when appropriate), prospective faculty and staff members. When sharing, acknowledge everyone who contributed and provided input.
- Place highlights on the website and in promotional materials, departmental flyers, and annual reports.
- Invite department members to engage with particular .
- Identify responsible individuals or groups as appropriate for each , distributing the workload among members of your department and ensuring it is set at an appropriate level.
- Explain to disengaged faculty members how they can contribute to . (For more strategies, see the section on How to Be an Effective Chair for guidance on how to address challenging situations.)
- Identify partners and stakeholders relevant to each and formulate plans for engaging them.
- Include student voices in discussions of plan implementation and progress toward plan objectives.
- Refer to your department’s plan on a regular basis and in meetings or other settings when faced with challenging decisions, e.g., setting priorities, allocating funding, assigning spaces.
- Ask department members to supplement their individual annual reports (e.g., faculty and staff activity reports) with their contributions toward achieving .
- Use the strategic plan to help justify and recruit future faculty members (including ) by identifying their roles in advancing .
- Align new initiatives (e.g., center proposals, degree tracks, courses) or significant changes to policies or programs with the strategic plan.
- When or milestones are achieved or when actions are completed, report them to the faculty and administration along with associated evidence of outcomes, and refer to the plan.
- Send an email acknowledging accomplishments of individuals or groups to administration officials, copying faculty members as a way to honor their contributions to achieving departmental goals and supporting institutional goals.
- Report individual contributions and collective progress toward achieving in departmental documents and announcements, e.g., annual department reports, reports to alumni and donors, marketing materials, social media.
- Consider creating a synopsis of critical directions identified in the strategic plan for externally-facing documents, e.g., the departmental website, communications with donors, and newsletters.
- Develop and adhere to a schedule for data collection, analysis, progress assessments, and reflection on the continued relevance of and , informing faculty and staff if the schedule needs to be revised.
- Discuss annually with faculty, staff, and students the plan, its alignment with your institution’s strategic plan, and what has been accomplished.
- Consult with chairs of departments that depend on or collaborate with your program to understand impacts of your plan and recommended actions.
- Revise when needed, following discussions.
- Align future creation and revision of the plan with required program reviews, as the plan provides a foundation and context for a review and minimizes duplication of effort. See the section on How to Undertake an Undergraduate Program Review for details.
