Academic Planning

Academic planning is at the heart of any campus planning effort. Academic planning occurs anytime a decision about what academic programs, degrees, or research the institution will support through resource allocation. That means that provosts are academic planners when considering starting a new school or college on campus.

Department chairs are academic planners who guide the introduction of new curricula or program concentrations. Other planners on a campus rely on the information and plans that they receive from academic planners to know what buildings to upgrade, what student services are necessary, what books and journals to acquire, and what technology to support. 

Related SCUP Resources

The resources listed here are merely a sampling and the topic is so broad that there can be no comprehensive list. Use the "Search scup.org" function in the upper right-hand corner of each of SCUP's web pages to search the society's website for more.

The three-step program presented in the SCUP Planning Institute is a great way for academic planners to understand the integrated nature of planning on college campuses. The steps are offered several times a year in various locations, and SCUP can bring its planning institute onto your campus for cost-effective group training in integrated planning.

SCUP has a Lyris-based email discussion list that is pertinent to this topic, [scup-academicplanning]. It is open to all.

Only SCUP members can access SCUP's online database of college and university plans.

The 2009 SCUP Portfolio, Make Way for Millennials: How Students Are Shaping Learning in Higher Education, includes 13 peer-reviewed articles and 3 book reviews from two themed issues of Planning for Higher Education. This portfolio is of special interest to planners interested in the intersection between student services, academic programming, and learning space design. Other pertinent SCUP Portfolios include The Faculty and Assessment & Quality.

Among other SCUP books, Academic Design and Doing Academic Planning: Effective Tools for Decision Making are most pertinent.

Several related SCUP webcasts are archived and available for purchase on CD, including: Assessment and Accountability: Reasonable Approaches for Higher Education; Why Student Engagement Matters: Using NSSE Results for Assessment and Accountability; Integrating Higher Education Planning and Assessment: A Practical Guide; and Building Student Success in the Community College

Featured Other Resources

A number of non-news media publications cover areas related to academic planning. They include Change magazine; Liberal Education; Peer Review; and the Review of Higher Education.

Related Organizations

There are too many related organizations to list. Those listed here are ones where we frequently find interesting resources and those with which SCUP shares collaborative interests.

AAC&U: The Association of American Colleges and Universities is "a voice and a force for liberal education in the 21st century."

AIR: the Association for Institutional Research has the mission "to support quality data and decisions for higher education." 

ASHE: The Association for the Study of Higher Education "promotes collaboration among its members and others engaged in the study of higher education through research, conferences, and publications

The Campus Compact is dedicated to promoting community service, civic engagement, and service-learning in higher education.

EDUCAUSE, and its EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative have probably the most extensive set of related resources, focusing mostly but not solely on IT, and on many aspects directly pertinent to teaching and learning.

The Lumina Foundation for Education "strives to help people achieve their potential by expanding access to and success in education beyond high school."

PKAL: Project Kaleidoscope has a long-term interest in and many useful resources about undergraduate STEM areas, especially learning spaces and faculty leadership.

Sustainability—Three organizations do work in the area of teaching, learning, and sustainability, are AASHE, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education; DANS, the Disciplinary Areas Network for Sustainability; and the Campus Ecology Project of the National Wildlife Federation.

TLT Group, the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group "helps college and university educators take advantage of changing technology so they can improve teaching and learning."

Search Higher Education Media

Enter your terms in the box above to search several higher education news media publications, trade magazines, and websites, including: American School & University, The Chronicle of Higher Education, College Planning & Managament, Inside Higher Ed, Today's Campus, and University Business.