Academic Planning Workshop

Academic Planning Workshop Overview

When it comes to an institution’s academic enterprise, decisions and actions often seem unaligned to the institution’s strategic priorities (let alone its fiscal realities). In such a decentralized environment, how can you help your college, university, or academic department move from ad-hoc initiatives to thoughtful, coordinated planning that supports the institution’s vision of the future?

With SCUP’s integrated academic planning.

Integrated academic planning helps you make strategic decisions regarding teaching, learning, engagement, and research. It ensures those decisions inform enrollment, IT, facilities, student life, and other key functions.

And the best part? Integrated academic planning can be adapted to a wide range of institutional realities and contexts. For some colleges and universities, that might mean embarking on a formal planning process towards an academic plan (or educational master plan). For institutions that are just starting on their planning journey, it might mean taking a more strategic approach to decisions and initiatives.

This workshop will give you the knowledge and tools you need to determine how you can adopt integrated academic planning methods at your institution. After an in-depth examination of integrated academic planning, we’ll focus on a “plan to plan” framework to discuss how you can navigate the complexities of culture, governance structure, politics, and resistance. After that, we’ll share methods, tools, and tips for making decisions informed by data and your institution’s external realities.

Whether you’re ready for a full-blown academic plan or would just like to adopt a more thoughtful process for academic program planning, this workshop will help you move your academic enterprise toward strategic and aligned decisions and actions.

What This Workshop Will Cover

• What academic planning is and how it can help your institution.
• The components of an integrated academic plan.
• An overview of a comprehensive academic planning model and how to choose the right one for your institution.
• How to work with your college or university’s governance structure, politics, and policies—not against them.
• Aligning academic planning and decisions with other planning activities in your institution.
• Empowering stakeholders, leveraging culture, and dealing with resistance (including skeptical faculty).
• Environmental scanning (both internal and external) for the academic enterprise.
• Using data and information to inform academic planning and program decisions.

Key Integrated Planning Competencies

• PLANNING – Planning Knowledge
• ANALYSIS – Analyze
• ANALYSIS – Apply
• PLANNING – Write a Plan
• MANAGEMENT – Advocate for Your Unit

Learning Outcomes

1. 1. Make the case for integrated academic planning—describe what it is, how it happens, and how it can benefit the institution.
   2. Determine how to align your academic planning with your institution’s governance structure, policies, operations, and other planning processes.
   3. Analyze stakeholders and your institution’s culture, and discuss how to engage stakeholders in planning while dealing with politics and resistance.
   4. Use data and information, both external (market demand, competitor analysis) and internal (student learning outcome assessment, academic program review) to inform academic planning and program decisions.

Who Is This Workshop For?

• For higher education professionals tasked with either leading and/or playing an important role in the development of an academic plan (or a community college educational master plan) or seeking to better align the academic enterprise with institutional goals and strategies. This workshop is the perfect complement to the SCUP Planning Institute, providing a deeper dive into elements of academic planning.
• Provosts & Associate Provosts, Vice Presidents of Academic Affairs, Deans & Associate Deans, Department Chairs, Faculty, Academic Support Unit Leaders, Institutional Effectiveness Officers, Director of Enrollment Management, Director of Student Affairs

Schedule: 11/4/25 and 11/5/25 from 11am-5pm | Lunch 1:00–2:00 PM (ET).

Facilitators

Diane S. Stephens

Associate Vice President for Academic Resources and Planning EmeritusCalifornia State University

James Downey

Senior Strategy Consultant

Program

Registration

Please contact registration@scup.org to make any changes to your order. Thank you!

Deadlines

**Cancellations must be made in writing and may be submitted by email to your registration team registration@scup.org by 10/24/2025. Refunds are subject to a processing fee – 10% of the total purchase. No-shows are not eligible for a refund, and funds committed by purchase order must be paid in full by the first day of the event. Refunds will be issued within 30 days of received written notification.