August Progress Report
The draft of the concept papers served as the basis for the Visioning Conference held August 11 from 9:00-4:00 in the Commons Auditorium. Participants at the Academic Vision Conference included faculty, staff, students, administration, alumni and other internal and external stakeholders. Please see the following roster for a list of all attendees.
Co-chaired by Mike Huggins and Stacie Whinnery, and facilitated by Laura Koppes-Bryan, the Vision Conference had three primary agenda items for the day. The first activity had all participants divided into eight random groups to read through one draft concept paper per group. After reading through the paper, each group identified the points that resonated with them as they read the papers. It was a chance to summarize the information presented by that strategic theme. The second part of this exercise regrouped participants so that there was at least one representative for each strategic theme (a minimum of 8 per table). In these new groups, participants shared the summary information about the concept paper they read with the previous group. In essence, each group member taught the rest of the group about their theme. In the end, the group was to synthesize the information and identify 4-6 key ideas that were common across all strategic themes. These themes were presented during a large group discussion. SAVE Committee members served as facilitators for all small group activities.
The second activity, a stakeholder review, took place during a working lunch. Participants were seated in 1 of 8 different groups based on stakeholder identification. This included faculty, staff, chairs/directors, administration, centers and institutes, alumni, students, and external stakeholders. During this time, the participants discussed the following questions:
The groups identified the top 5 themes/ideas from the group and presented them in a large group discussion.
The final activity of the conference was to create a preferred future. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 12 groups. The first step was for each participant to individually answer each of the following questions:
Participants used these questions as a guide, however they were welcome to identify other ideas. Then, in the small group, participants shared their ideas for a preferred future and together identified the common themes, producing 12 illustrations of a preferred future. Two of each of the small groups were then combined to make 6 groups larger groups. Together, the larger groups identified the themes that they believed created their preferred future. This action resulted in 6 preferred future scenarios. These themes were then presented during a larger group discussion.
A lot of rich information was generated from the Vision Conference. A SAVE subcommittee will sort through the input gathered at the Vision Conference and create a draft academic vision statement. Next steps include finalizing the Vision Statement and developing strategic goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). Goals and KPIs will be written at a Goals Conference scheduled for September 16.