School of Education Strategic Plan

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Strategic Plan

School of Education - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Strategic Planning Committee, May 2001

Introduction

Established in 1848 as one of the four original areas of study comprising the University of Wisconsin, education programs at Madison have developed along with the state itself. As in the past, the School of Education requires continual planning and renewal to maintain its reputation for excellence and to address the ever-changing needs of its many constituencies. The School's 2001 strategic planning process solicited input from all internal members of the School of Education community and several of its external constituencies. The issues identified as important to address at this time were remarkably similar across constituent groups. The recommendations contained in this plan, when implemented, will help the School to continue to fulfill its important roles in education, the arts, and human services.

Meeting Public Needs and Perpetuating Core Values. In 1912, President of the University of Wisconsin Charles Van Hise envisioned making the "beneficent influence of the University available to every home in the State." Since then the University and its components, including the School of Education, have enhanced the quality of life not only in Wisconsin, but also in countless homes and communities across the nation and the world. The School adds research, teaching, and service in education, the arts, and human services to the University's intellectual, social, economic, environmental, and cultural contributions. The School's efforts to meet the needs of individual students and whole communities is rooted in the University's tradition of "fearless sifting and winnowing" of ideas in an unending search for truth. Because this commitment has prevailed for many decades, the School shares with the rest of the University a proud and important history of creative invention and productive knowledge sharing.

A public institution must reassess its capacity to fulfill its mission and rethink the direction of its development whenever it has attained its goals and/or environmental conditions change in ways that affect its continuing operation. Both circumstances apply to the School of Education. It has, for the most part, completed goals set in its 1995 plan, and the public has added substantially to what it expects the School to accomplish. Accordingly, the time has come for academic departments and administrative support units, as well as individual faculty, staff, and students, to think again about how they can help to strengthen the School's capacity to contribute to the communities it serves. The 2001 strategic plan can help by developing a framework for explaining collectively perceived needs and directions for the development of individual departments, support units (e.g., unit level strategic planning), and the entire School. It also provides a framework for interdisciplinary and cross-functional groups working together to decide what needs to be done, by whom, when, and how success can be measured through School-wide planning. In addition, the plan can serve as a means of communicating the needs of the School and demonstrating the extent to which it is aligned with the aims of the campus strategic plan and has the resources and capacity to help advance that plan. A visible School-wide strategic plan can function as a self-correcting mechanism in that it can be continually compared with existing needs and realities and amended as necessary.

Over the past several months, the School, through its strategic planning process, has solicited the views of faculty, staff, students, alumni, and external constituents about the School's core purposes (mission statement), its basic aims (vision elements), and desirable directions for future development (goals and strategies). From these sources of input, the School of Education Strategic Planning Committee has also constructed an umbrella of widely agreed upon strategic goals that can help academic departments and administrative support units achieve their own missions and advance their own visions. It can also provide them with important channels for communicating and exchanging information and viewpoints with others about issues affecting the School. In addition, the plan can provide starting points for collaboration among academic departments and administrative support units in developing School-wide action plans, such as the proposed Easy Access Masters Degree for Practicing Teachers and the Electronic Portfolio-based Assessment programs.

Overview of this Document. The following report presents the results of the current round of strategic planning. It begins with an overview of strengths and opportunities as well as the current challenges facing the School. Next, the proposed strategic plan is presented, beginning with the mission statement and vision elements, which serve as the guidance system of the plan. The plan also includes the strategic goals that form an umbrella for future action, along with a synthesis of strategies for attaining the objectives that were suggested by the academic departments, administrative support units, and standing committees throughout the planning process. The rationale and evolution of the process follows, what was learned along the way, influenced the substance of the plan. The report concludes by outlining ways for academic departments and administrative support units to develop and implement follow-up strategic plans and action plans.

Strengths and Opportunities

A Tradition of Excellence. The University of Wisconsin - Madison is widely known for its School of Education, nearly all of whose departments are consistently ranked among the very best in the nation. Few institutions can match the depth and breadth of its programs and the accomplishments of its faculty, staff, and students. These hallmarks of quality are due, in part, to a campus culture that has long expected and welcomed collaboration across disciplines in all matters pertaining to research, teaching, and service.

Excellence in Research. The School of Education is famous for state-of-the-art research, pursued by faculty members working alone or through formal and informal relationships with scholars at this and other universities. Important resources, beyond libraries and technical support, include several nationally and internationally important research centers housed in the School of Education. The Wisconsin Center for Educational Research (WCER) is one of the oldest, largest, and most productive centers of its kind in the world, currently housing more than 50 research projects focusing on topics ranging from educational reform to important theories of teaching and learning. The School also houses the Center for Education and Work (CEW), which for more than 30 years, has supported training for educators, with special emphasis on increasing graduation rates, employment opportunities, and involvement in postsecondary education. A recent addition is the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Post-Secondary Education (WISCAPE), which promises to become a major source of ideas and actions affecting the future of public higher education.

Outstanding Teaching and Learning. The School's culture is also strongly reflected in its commitment to teaching and learning. Recent surveys reveal that graduates of its programs are in great demand, because students in teacher education and other areas of specialization are well prepared to accomplish what is expected of them. For example, students seeking to teach in secondary schools must complete a major (e.g., English, mathematics, etc.) of at least 34 credits (about 11 courses) in the subject they plan to teach. Cross-disciplinary collaboration is manifested in requirements that substantial numbers of courses be taken outside of the School of Education. The education major is designed and taught by School of Education faculty in partnership with Letters and Science faculty. Consequently, the "subject-area-majors" design, currently advanced as an important national reform in teacher education, already has a record of success in Wisconsin.

In addition to major coursework, secondary education students must complete two full semesters of supervised student teaching, twice the state requirement. When students graduate, they have already been in the classroom for at least 740 hours. Consequentially, the School's graduates are in high demand. In fact, in 1998-9 more than nine of ten graduates in teacher education obtained teaching jobs, which is quite remarkable given the large number of factors that routinely cause many students to depart from their initial career paths. Similarly high percentages of individuals earning advanced degrees in a wide variety of educational specializations, human services fields, and the arts are equally well prepared and actively recruited by schools, colleges, and other enterprises.

Collaboration and Partnership. Excellence in research and teaching in the School of Education is accompanied by a strong sense of commitment among faculty and staff to collaboration among schools and colleges, community groups, and public policy makers. This is accomplished in numerous ways, such as adapting research to practice, preparing future leaders, encouraging innovation, and providing professional development. Whether faculty members are assisting with curriculum development in a local school district, working with professional organizations to share new research and practice, advising public policy makers on important issues, or building bridges to communities across the world. Partnerships such as these enrich communities, increase public confidence in education, and thus enable the School to obtain the resources to meet public needs. The School's ability to provide outstanding teaching and learning is also greatly enhanced by the activities of its service units. For example, the Cooperative Children's Book Center is an internationally renowned resource center on the study of children's literature and intellectual freedom. Educational Placement and Career Services has led the nation in developing Internet based access to recruitment and placement resources for K-12 educators. The Center for Instructional Materials and Computing has been cited as "a model for the state and the nation," and has developed information resources used by teacher education resource centers in many of the nation's colleges and universities.

Current Challenges

Competition for Faculty. There is a need to continuously renew the School's capacity to retain its niche as a leading center for research and research-based teaching. Hence the need to retain or hire highly qualified replacements for retiring faculty members and academic staff is crucial. Until now our efforts to retain faculty members with offers from other universities and replace faculty members who retire with high-quality junior faculty have been very successful. However, replacing retiring faculty members with senior faculty from other universities has been and is likely to remain difficult. Added to this is the ongoing challenge of being able to provide state-of-the-art resources, working conditions, equipment, and facilities that are attractive to high-quality candidates.

New Emphasis on Learning Outcomes. A fundamental shift has recently occurred in federal and state accountability criteria that require the School, along with all other public and private schools and colleges to certify levels of knowledge, skills, and proficiencies possessed by their graduates (required by Title II of the federal Higher Education Act and in PI 34, state rules governing higher education) and to expand degree and non-degree instructional services to practicing educators. In addition, private accrediting agencies have developed new outcomes oriented assessment criteria that reflect expectations similar to those of the state and federal governments. Educational practitioners are particularly anxious for the School to help them respond appropriately to these and other changed societal expectations.

Access to the School's Knowledge Resources. Closely related to the new emphasis on learning outcomes, educational practitioners and other constituents of the School are urgently requesting easier access to its research and teaching related knowledge resources that, in various ways, help to increase learning. In other words, our constituents look to the School to assume a leadership role in making sense of new developments in society that impact education, the arts, and human services. Sharing that knowledge, which is essentially an extension of our research efforts, is seen as vital to the success of our graduates and the many communities we serve.

Increasingly Diverse Society. Another important concern inside the School, across the University, and in schools and communities across Wisconsin, is the slow growth in the enrollment and graduation of students from underrepresented groups. For example, minority undergraduate enrollment in the School has plateaued in the past six years, despite many efforts to increase enrollment. Also, the School has had difficulty attracting students, faculty, and academic staff from underrepresented ethnic groups, which limits the range of important perspectives on issues and inhibits the School's ability to prepare students to contribute to an increasingly diverse society.

Technology and Professional Development. The School is increasingly challenged to equip faculty, staff, and students to take full advantage of recent technological developments affecting teaching, research, and service. The rapid rate of technological improvements and growing competition from other universities, pressure the School to eliminate barriers to increased use of technologies in ways that make it possible for the School to better serve its multiple constituents. Without increased use of technology, it will be difficult to meet the state's mandate (PI 34), for the School to become more involved in the professional development of teachers across Wisconsin by the year 2004. A related challenge is increasing the School's capacity to develop distance-delivered instruction in order to compete with peer institutions. Moreover, advancements in information technology have, at a global level, created new challenges to be more connected to institutions and professionals around the world.

The 2001 Strategic Plan

Ideally, a strategic plan is a living set of ideas that are responsive to the mission, justified needs, and changes affecting the organization and its constituents. It remains useful until either the objectives are achieved or the School's environment becomes so altered that it is necessary to construct a new plan. The School of Education Strategic Plan helps to focus attention on activities that are central to its mission and meaningful to its constituents. It creates a context for reviewing existing activities and facilitates continuous organizational awareness and learning. It also helps faculty and staff understand the School's capabilities and where adjustments need to be made. It is a guide for the organization, and a source of valuable information for its leadership because it demonstrates, at any given point in time, how close the organization is to achieving its goals.

Developing a School Mission and Vision. The size and complexity of the School required that the Strategic Planning Committee be large enough to represent its broad range of endeavors. Together, the members of the committee gained a shared understanding of the School's overall mission and vision of the future and its general direction in the next several years. Finding the words to express "who we are, whom we serve, and where we are headed" was challenging but also rewarding, as the members gained a sense of how the specific roles in the School are linked and affect each other. The Plan also stimulated thinking about the School's role in the greater context of the University and its relationship to its many constituents locally, across the state, nationally, and internationally.

The mission and vision that emerged (see Figure 1 below) became the lens through which the Committee looked to shape the strategic goals that would guide the School through its current and future activities.

Figure 1

MISSION STATEMENT
Contribute to local, state, national, and international communities by demonstrating and fostering excellence in research and practice in education, the arts, and human services

VISION ELEMENTS
The School of Education will be widely recognized for advancing the Wisconsin Idea through opportunities for social and cultural enrichment by:

Conducting individual and collaborative cutting-edge research and creative activity that enables and advances innovative and effective instructional programs, professional practices, and public policy
Delivering state-of-the-art instructional programs designed for our constituencies, including educational and human services practitioners, researchers, and artists
Creating a welcoming and supportive organizational culture that enables students, faculty, and staff from diverse backgrounds to contribute effectively to local, state, national, and international communities
Providing a supportive administrative and policy structure and physical environment for research, teaching, and practice-related programs and initiatives
Serving as a forum for public discourse and debate over issues affecting life-long learning in education, the arts, human services.

Strategic Goals and Strategies. The goals and strategies in this report resulted from task focused interaction among members of the Strategic Planning Committee, faculty, staff, an students from throughout the School of Education and the campus, alumni, practitioners and representatives of important constituent groups, including legislative and executive branches of government. Through repeated interviews, hearings and surveys, the Committee found broad consensus among internal as well as external groups about the School's basic purposes and future direction of development. The Strategic Plan provides an umbrella for understanding, expressing, and advancing the mission and vision of the School and its individual units. Its strategic goals present a framework for advancing School-wide and unit-level strategies and activities developed largely by the units themselves because of their close proximity to the School's key constituencies. In this respect, the plan offers an overview of interrelationships among the School's various activities.

Goals and Strategies

The strategic goals have their foundation in the traditional breakdown of higher education's core purposes, namely research, teaching, and service. The Committee added support because of its vital role in sustaining the three basic purposes. The strategic goals and strategies are listed below in bold print. Also included are examples of actions that might advance the goals and strategies. These reflect ideas suggested by one or more units of the School and are meant to serve as examples of possible future initiatives (see bullet points below).

GOAL 1: CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH

Conduct high-quality interdisciplinary research and engage in creative activity that contribute to effective practice and public policy at local, state, national, and international levels

Strategy 1.1 Recruit and retain high-quality faculty and staff

Selectively enable departments to hire faculty and staff at appropriate levels and encourage cluster hire proposals
Expand the School's role in coordinating and funding recruitment and retention efforts (for example, research and employ key elements of attractive recruitment and retention packages, and share best practices in recruiting)

Strategy 1.2 Foster interdisciplinary and cross-functional collaboration in research

Recognize and reward the creation and dissemination of high quality research that supports improvements in teaching and learning
Develop faculty seminars and/or study groups that promote research and teaching related discussion across disciplines (for example, provide release time for faculty to develop and engage in such efforts)

Strategy 1.3 Recruit and retain promising graduate students

Enable academic departments to match long-term support offers from competing universities for promising graduate students
Create a database of graduate students' research-related interests and skills to aid selection of graduate assistants and to facilitate collaboration

GOAL 2: STATE-OF-THE-ART TEACHING AND LEARNING

Develop research-informed instructional programs that respond to changing learning needs at local, state, national, and international levels

Strategy 2.1 Develop accessible and innovative instructional programs that contribute to learning by critically examining relationships between theory and practice

Recognize and reward faculty for developing state-of-the-art curricula, courses, and workshops that effectively equip professional educators, artists, and human development specialists to think about and approach their work in creative and productive ways
Support innovation in instruction by increasing the flexibility in School and University rules affecting course loads and faculty remuneration
Improve instructional services for traditional and non-traditional students by exploring opportunities for interdisciplinary and/or cohort-based instruction
Continue supporting innovative undergraduate programs, and explore the potentials of in-service and pre-service masters programs

Strategy 2.2 Prepare students to live and work in increasingly diverse communities

Create diversity-responsive learning opportunities for students, faculty, and staff
Actively recruit promising students from underrepresented groups by developing admissions criteria that embody more effective ways of identifying potential for success
Serve as a model, a national leader and a resource for diversity-responsive education at all levels of schooling promoting the development of a plural society

Strategy 2.3 Develop a global electronically mediated teaching and learning communication system with which to enhance teaching, learning, and practice

Increase the effective use of technology by providing release-time, technical support, training, and other incentives for faculty and staff
Continuously improve access to technology for students, course instructors and departments (e.g., websites, CD-ROMS, PowerPoint, internet access, equipment/support for classrooms, effective distance education)

Strategy 2.4 Recruit and retain promising undergraduate students

Collaborate with on and off-campus efforts to attract and enable promising students to pursue higher education, including students from underrepresented groups
Increase range of student participation in support programs aimed at increasing academic success modeled on successful programs such as TRIO

GOAL 3: EXPANDED ACCESS TO SERVICES

Expand access to the School's knowledge and services at local, state, national, and international levels

Strategy 3.1 Increase capacity to develop teaching and learning partnerships

Encourage formation of knowledge-sharing partnerships facilitating two-way communication between academics and practitioners
Explore ways to strengthen ties with constituent communities and form new relationships with non-traditional communities

Strategy 3.2 Increase capacity to support degree and non-degree continuing education

Support Education Outreach in delivery of credit and non-credit instruction
Increase communication/collaboration among academic departments, centers/institutes, and administrative support functions in support of degree and non-degree instructional programs

Strategy 3.3 Communicate the School's "story" to relevant constituents using new and creative modes of delivery

Continuously assess current and future audiences and develop multiple communication methods to reach them (for example, virtual tour, streamed media, distance ed, and web communications)
Commission a history of the School highlighting its important contributions to society
Develop and distribute a brief description of the School's programs and resources to provide to the School's multiple constituents

GOAL 4: EFFECTIVE INFRASTRUCTURE AND SUPPORT

Increase capacity to support improvements in research, teaching, and outreach at local, state, national, and international levels

Strategy 4.1 Coordinate human and material resources for supporting research, teaching, and outreach

Support and encourage student, faculty and staff participation in continuously updated professional development initiatives to remain competitive (for example, create a Professional Development Unit)
Create an information system to support School-wide and unit level decision making and analysis
Develop partnership support functions similar to those provided by the UW-Madison Center for Biology Education to encourage faculty participation in outreach activities

Strategy 4.2 Increase awareness of funding needs and possibilities for on- and off-campus programs

Develop and explore new and existing efforts to secure funding for School programs by supporting grant writing, strengthening links with the UW Foundation, and by continually nurturing new and existing relationships with constituent communities
Develop strategies to support and communicate new funding needs to UW Madison, the UW System, and government leaders

Strategy 4.3 Maintain state-of-the-art facilities and equipment for supporting research, teaching, and outreach

Enable departments and units to secure appropriate laboratory, studio, clinical, research, and office space (Art building, RPSE/Counseling Psychology facilities)
Continuously update technological support to facilitate communication and collaboration affecting all activities

Responding to Critical Issues

The new strategic plan addresses the following five challenges facing the School of Education described earlier. The following matrix (Figure 2) illustrates to what extent the plan actually addresses the issues by comparing each strategy with the issues. These correlations indicate that the plan is comprehensive in addressing the issues facing the School of Education and further indicate that each strategy addresses more than one issue. Thus, the implementation of the plan will cut across multiple areas, which strengthens the School's ability to achieve its mission and advance its vision.

Figure 2
Description of the Current Strategic Planning Process

Initiating the Process. In January 2000 Charles Read, Dean of the School of Education, observed that most of the goals of the School's 1995 strategic plan had been achieved and that conditions and issues had emerged that made it necessary to formulate a new strategic plan that could serve as a guidance system and umbrella for developing School programs and activities. Jacob Stampen, Professor of Educational Administration, was designated Associate Dean for Strategic Planning and given the assignment of guiding the development of the new strategic plan.

Situational Analysis. From January through May 2000, Stampen explored needs and issues affecting the School by conducting interviews and reviewing the School's existing plans, including the plans of its component academic departments and administrative units. With the extensive voluntary assistance of Char Tortorice (Associate Director of Testing and Evaluation), additional faculty and staff were interviewed and focus groups conducted. Also, Steve Head (Interim Director of Educational Placement and Career Services) assisted by developing electronic surveys based on data obtained from the interviews and focus groups.

Results of the interviews and focus groups were used to create a survey that was distributed electronically to all faculty, academic staff, classified staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students. This was a first attempt in the School to collect survey data electronically. Surveys were completed and returned by 55 faculty members, 72 academic staff, 28 classified staff, 165 undergraduate students, and 110 graduate students. In September and October a printed version of the survey was submitted to all members in attendance at the Fall 2000 School of Education Board of Visitors meeting and to thirty CESA 2 school district administrators and directors of instruction attending the annual conference on education outreach. The 18 superintendents and 14 members of the Board of Visitors who attended the respective meetings also completed surveys. Highlights of the combined results (Figure 3) categorize the 10 out of 28 most frequently supported responses according to campus wide priorities emanating from the UW-Madison's Strategic Plan for 2001.

Figure 3

Figure 3 suggests that there is a high degree of agreement about what the School should seek to accomplish across all the areas highlighted in the campus plan. Although the development of the strategic plans of the campus and the School are entirely separate efforts, it is important that they reinforce each other over time. High priority items in the School's survey do, in fact, fit comfortably within the campus-wide categories defined in the report Targeting Tomorrow and are therefore useful for demonstrating the close match between campus priorities and those of important internal and external constituencies of the School of Education. All of the top ten items averaged scores higher than two, in nearly every group's response category, on a scale where the highest possible score is 1 and the lowest is 5.

Attracting high quality faculty to replace faculty who retire and helping to improve learning by disseminating research findings to educational practitioners are seen as important to promoting research as well as teaching and service. Preparing professional educators to help students achieve, responding to the needs of educators for continuing education, and improving learning among students in low-income urban and rural settings would clearly advance learning. Respondents assigned high priority to nurturing human resources by preparing students to work in an increasingly diverse society and improving job-related knowledge, skills, and proficiencies. Maintaining educational programs responsive to ever-changing professional expectations within the state will advance the Wisconsin Idea's concept of service. Finally, the School can help accelerate global awareness and shared endeavors aimed at improving education by continuing to be recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in educational training.

The Strategic Planning Committee and the Process. At its May 2000 meeting, the Administrative Council approved using a contemporary approach to strategic planning with an emphasis on inclusiveness by soliciting the views of faculty, staff, students, alumni representatives, policy makers, community representatives, and practitioner clients of the School. In June, members of the Strategic Planning Committee drawn from the faculty, academic staff, classified staff, and graduate and undergraduate students from throughout the School were identified and invited to serve. The members include:

Leonard Abbeduto - Ed. Psych.
Kathleen M. Boebel - External Relations
Christa Bruhn - Committee Staff
Jo Ann Carr - CIMC
Hardin L. K. Coleman - Counseling Psych.
Jim A. Escalante - Art
Sumita Furlong - Graduate Student
Cheryl D. Hanley-Maxwell - RPSP
James S. Head - EPCS
Michael T. Kane - Kinesiology
John M. Kean - Emeritus Assoc. Dean
Pennie Maclean - Assoc. Dean Budget
Margaret R. Meyer - WCER
Linda H. Newman - Educ. Academic Services
Daniel N. Pekarsky - Ed. Policy Studies
Claire A. Shaffer - Dean's Office
Pamela Jean Simon - Undergraduate Student
Jacob O. Stampen - Educ. Admin. (Chair)
Michael J. Streibel - Curriculum & Instruction
Charlene E. Tortorice - Testing & Evaluation

Defining Purpose. The Committee first convened on August 31 for a daylong meeting, facilitated by Kathleen Paris and Ann Zanzig of the University's Office of Quality Improvement, devoted to thinking about the core purposes of the School and its desired future development. The results included a draft mission statement, identifying core institutional pursuits, and a list of desired future conditions that outlined key elements of the School's vision. The process of searching for the threads that hold the School together and contribute to its achievements helped to facilitate the formation of a common mission and vision and helped to generate a shared understanding of how to work toward that end.

Identifying Constituent Groups. Identifying the School's constituencies was a vital part of this process, since the plan ultimately outlines how the School will address their needs. The Committee identified both internal and external constituents. The following constituent tree in Figure 4 broadly identifies the range of the School's constituent groups.

Figure 4 Constituent Tree - School of Education

Identifying Core Issues and Priorities. The Committee, with ongoing assistance from Kathleen Paris, a senior planning consultant the UW Madison's Office of Quality Improvement, met at two-week intervals after August 31 to identify the parameters of the project, to formulate and reformulate the vision and mission statements, and to identify strategic goals. In the beginning, meetings were mainly devoted to hearing testimony from experts on issues that emerged from the earlier interviews, focus groups, and surveys as important to the future of the School. Speakers included legislative leaders and representatives of the Governor, the Department of Public Instruction, the UW System, and the UW-Madison. The information gathered during this period helped the Committee identify the five previously described core issues facing the School: (a) Competition for Faculty, (b) Improving Learning Outcomes, (c) Access to SOE Knowledge and Services, (d) Increasing Diversity in Society, and (e) Technology and Professional Development.

Formulating Goals and Strategies. Throughout the planning process Stampen and Graduate Assistant Christa Bruhn continuously solicited the views of internal and external constituent groups on important issues and opportunities facing the School. By focusing on the core processes of the School, a framework for the strategic goals emerged that would enable the School to fulfill its traditional research, teaching, and service functions in ways that respond to contemporary needs. After further deliberation, the Committee added a support component to the framework when it became increasingly clear that the School's ability to respond to current challenges depended on developing its support structure.

The resulting draft strategic goals and related strategies were distributed in four planning tables, one each for Research, Teaching, Service, and Support, along with the mission and vision to all departments, administrative support functions, and standing committees throughout the School. Their feedback was then used to revise the objectives and strategies. All the academic departments, and nearly every administrative support function and standing committee, responded to the survey. The results were then synthesized and used to revise the strategic goals and strategies.

Mapping out the Process. Assistance in mapping the planning process was volunteered by a team of graduate students led by Christa Bruhn from Professor Mark Finster's (School of Business) course on Strategic Breakthrough Management. The resulting flowcharts identify the interrelationships among steps in the strategic planning phase and project follow-up operational planning steps. These steps are represented in the following flowcharts; the first (Figure 5) illustrates the strategic planning process, while the second (Figure 6) describes the operational planning process. The segments in the organization that are relevant to the process are listed across the top. Each box within the flowchart represents an action item. The placement of the box indicates which segment is involved with a particular action. Single-headed arrows represent the sequencing of actions and double-headed arrows represent the flow of information between two or more segments. The baseballs or 'catchballs' indicate two-way sharing of information.

Figure 5

Strategic Planning. The process began in the upper left corner of Figure 5, when the Dean appointed an Associate Dean of Strategic Planning, who then, with assistance from others, conducted a situational analysis (e.g., interviews, and focus groups) that resulted in a survey administered to faculty, staff, students, and external constituents. Issues and priorities of departments were also identified through interviews with department chairs. At this point, the Dean appointed the members of the Strategic Planning Committee, which proceeded to develop the mission and vision of the School and identify strategic issues. The Associate Dean, with continuous assistance from members of the Strategic Planning Committee, then drafted the strategic goals and modified them based on feedback from across the School and external constituents. Once there was agreement on the strategic goals, the plan was modified in response to further feedback from faculty and staff before submitting it to the Academic Planning Council for approval.

Figure 6

Implementation. Figure 6 illustrates the implementation phase in the process, which begins when the Academic Planning Council approves the plan. To ensure proper implementation of the plan, the Dean will assign responsibility for individual or multiple strategies to standing committees, ad-hoc committees, task forces, or individuals, as necessary. These individuals will develop action plans for the respective strategies and consult with the Dean, or whomever the Dean designates, on required resources for implementation. The strategies will also serve as a framework for units and departments in developing their own strategic plans. The action plans will include strategies, targets, and measures and be modified based on feedback from the Dean and the Administrative Council. Progress toward these strategies will then be submitted via periodic reports. These reports will facilitate organizational learning throughout the School under the leadership of the Dean and the Administrative Council by continuously assessing progress and new developments and updating action plans as needed.

Identifying Key Areas for Action Planning. Over the course of the planning process, two key improvement areas emerged that could enhance future planning efforts for the School: benchmarking and organizational alignment. Benchmarking can help identify best practices and develop strategies for achieving them in ways that save time and resources during implementation. If the School wishes to undertake a new initiative, it is much more practical to build, wherever possible, on what is already being done. For example, because the School is seeking to increase diversity, it will be important to look for successful programs in other parts of this University, or other universities, and study these programs to see whether it is feasible to implement similar programs in the School.

Alignment of the organization's planning efforts will be essential to successful implementation of the plan's strategic goals. In general, there are three different kinds of alignment: vertical, horizontal, and across time. Effective vertical alignment ensures that the strategies and measures identified by the planning committee concur with those identified by committees and departments. Horizontal alignment ensures that actions taken to achieve one objective do not conflict, impede, or have a negative impact on other departments' activities or their efforts to achieve unit-level strategic goals. Alignment across time ensures that the organization's current activities build on previous efforts and are consistent with the School's mission, vision and strategic goals. In other words, the planning process is not occurring in a vacuum, but is directly linked to past, present, and future activities to ensure both continuity and feasibility. Proper alignment depends heavily on open communication channels within the organization so that all units are aware of others' activities and initiatives.

Conclusion

The planning process outlined above illustrates that a strategic plan does more than simply identify new directions for the School of Education. The process serves as a tool for organizational learning in that departments, administrative support units, centers, and other functions within the School become engaged in building awareness and understanding of their own activities and those of other units. The units of the School do share a common mission and vision, even though the range of departments and units is unusually wide. The variety of activities that the School is currently pursuing, and new ones being planned, are representative of that shared mission and vision.

The major thrust of this plan reflects the need for the School to find creative approaches to increasing access of our constituents to our highly esteemed knowledge and services by increasing collaboration and partnerships within the School, the university, and with our constituents at local, state-wide, national, and international levels. By focusing on these aspects of the plan, our research agendas will be stronger and more far-reaching, our teaching will benefit a greater number of students and professionals, and our service to communities will be more valued. Our range of constituents will grow and be more reflective of the society in which we live. And we will be in a position to face new challenges with greater coordination and more effective use of technology. This plan builds on the great tradition contained within the Wisconsin Idea, and it will help to carry us into the future as a leader in education, the arts, and human services.

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