Learning Resources

Planning for Higher Education Journal

Breaking Barriers

A Collaborative Approach to Problem-Solving Created a Culture of Campus Innovation

The University of West Georgia, toward dismantling silo thinking and promoting a sense of ownership within the workplace, formed a cross-divisional group: The Barriers Team. It was part of an initiative to recognize and encourage employee engagement, develop operational efficiencies and effectiveness, and eliminate obstructions to staff success.

Planning for Higher Education Journal

Book Review: Transforming Higher Education in Asia and Africa

Strategic Planning and Policy

The book describes the author’s work over the past thirty years advising governments and universities in eight countries, providing case studies that focus on the challenges, failures, and successes in planning for change at twelve universities. The author explores themes, policies, and strategies that emerged, and provides widely applicable lessons for bringing about change, especially in using strategic planning as the vehicle for it.

Planning for Higher Education Journal

Planning for Instructional Continuity

Develop a Communication and Implementation Strategy Before a Short-Term Class Disruption Happens

Classes can be cancelled because of inclement weather, faculty being unavailable, IT or power outages, pandemic-related closures, and other occurrences. The result of any of these circumstances can be a loss of instruction. St. Joseph’s University developed and applied a best practices guide to ensure the continuation of instruction in the advent of many short-term disruptions.

Planning for Higher Education Journal

Untangling the History and Procedures of Strategic Planning

We Review a Century of Literature for Answers

Almost since the time when the concept of strategic planning first appeared in the literature of higher education, its value has been questioned. Do strategic plans help institutions achieve excellence, or are they more likely to gather dust on a shelf? Perspectives are presented through a review of nearly 100 years of the history and theoretical basis for strategic plans.

Planning for Higher Education Journal

Promoting Engagement in Strategic Planning

Southeast Community College Used FAST Goals to Capture Stakeholder Interest

Creating a positive, reflective, inclusive, and transparent institutional climate facilitated improved engagement in and ownership of strategic and departmental planning. The process of using FAST goals (frequently discussed, ambitious, specifically measured, and transparent) produced constructive outcomes.

Planning for Higher Education Journal

Book Review: Strategic Mergers in Higher Education

Planning for Higher Education Journal

Is Higher Education Ready for Its Learners?

Impact Student Success Using the Three-Box Solution

With sweeping shifts in recruitment and retention of students throughout higher education, Northern Kentucky University committed to a pivot. Its new student framework emphasizes student support and academic delivery driven by strategic decisions and data rather than by impulsivity. Their Success by Design framework encouraged innovations that focused the university on meeting learners where they were.

Planning for Higher Education Journal

Totally Virtual

Northcentral University’s School of Business Succeeded in Integrated Strategic Planning in an All-Distance Environment

In the context of a fully online institution, how do you collaborate to strategically plan? You leverage online tools and techniques to keep widely distributed and separated-by-a-distance team members engaged in the process.