There is a brief video embedded, below.

Our round table focused on academic planning at baccalaureate and comprehensive institutions.  Our group included representatives from both public and private institutions from the USA and Canada.  We had a nice balance of new and experienced planners.  We opened our conversation with introductions and a short description of what each participant hoped to learn at our discussion.

Several themes emerged in our discussion: change management, working with planning committees, growing report and survey fatigue on our campuses, and fostering a culture of integrated planning on campus.  In moments, it became clear that we all faced similar challenges in our work.  

Some common examples included what might be called "leading from the middle."  All of us find ourselves working with senior leaders as well as individuals within the faculty and staff.  Our location in the middle of the institution requires a particular set of skills, notably interpersonal and problem solving strategies that allow us to be successful in garnering support for integrated planning, assessment and budget management.  We found similar challenges in fostering a climate of collaboration for our tasks mostly due to the misunderstood nature of integrated planning on our campuses.  We generally agreed that while planning may be valued on campus, that value was difficult to translate into action due to campus culture or an uneven commitment to implementation of planning processes or procedures.

Our conversation concluded with a discussion of how SCUP may support the work of planners, focusing mostly on the value of the planning institute as a professional development opportunity for planners and others on campus involved in the planning function.

There was considerable interest in the newly developed on-campus offering of the planning institute and participants wondered if SCUP might consider developing modules delivered in a webinar format.

Nicholas R. Santilli, Ph.D.
Associate Academic Vice President for Planning, Assessment, and Institutional Effectiveness
Associate Professor of Psychology
John Carroll University

P.S. from Terry Calhoun: Below is a brief YouTube video I took walking through the SCUP Planning Institute Step I, which was offered at SCUP–45 as a preconference workshop. You may never have seen as active a workshop session before!