Learning Resources

Webinar Recordings

Published
July 15, 2020

Coffee Chat: Tracking the External Environment

The SCUP Spring Trends Report

By: Nick Santilli, Senior Director for Learning Strategy, SCUP | James Downey, Vice President for Planning & Institutional Effectiveness, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Join Nick Santilli and Jim Downey for a conversation that will highlight the SCUP Spring Trends and SCUP Trends for Canada reports. Scanning the external environment is a key factor in keeping your institution nimble and change-ready—two facets necessary for effective institutional planning. These documents are essential tools for strategic planning, scenario planning, and contingency planning.

Abstract: Join Nick Santilli and Jim Downey for a conversation that will highlight the SCUP Spring Trends and SCUP Trends for Canada reports. Scanning the external environment is a key factor in keeping your institution nimble and change-ready—two facets necessary for effective institutional planning. These documents provide overviews of the important external forces that impact institutional operations. They are also essential tools for strategic planning, scenario planning, and contingency planning.

Planning Types: Continuity Planning, Campus Planning, Academic Planning, Information Technology Planning, Student Affairs Planning, Strategic Planning, Resource Planning
Tags: COVID-19, Environmental Scanning, Scenario Planning, Trends External to Higher Ed

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Voices from the Field: Episode #19

Maintaining Community and Connection Through COVID-19

By: Suzanne Wilson Summers, Special Assistant to the Provost, Austin Community College, and ACE Fellow 2019–2020

Suzanne Wilson Summers explains how Valencia College, a large urban community college system and her ACE Fellowship host school, harnessed the power of personal outreach to ensure students regained a sense of agency and connection while providing engagement for employees.

Abstract: One of the most difficult things to maintain when there’s a quick move online is the feeling of connection and community staff and students feel when they’re together on campus. Suzanne Wilson Summers explains how Valencia College, a large urban community college system and her ACE Fellowship host school, harnessed the power of personal outreach to ensure students regained a sense of agency and connection while providing engagement for employees.

Institutions Mentioned: Valencia College
Planning Types: Continuity Planning
Tags: American Council on Education (ACE), Community College, COVID-19, Online Learning, Response Planning

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Trends: Canada 2020

This special issue of Trends focuses on the forces and events affecting Canadian higher education. Our guest editors contributed observations, trends, and insights based on their work within Canadian colleges and universities.

Abstract: We’ve organized Trends using STEEP: Social, Technology, Economic, Environmental, and Political. Each trend includes a brief trend summary, a footnoted source, and discussion questions to help you analyze and act on the trend.

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Promoting Engagement in Strategic Planning

Southeast Community College Used FAST Goals to Capture Stakeholder Interest

By: Paul Illich and Shawna Herwick

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.

From Volume 48 Number 3 | April–June 2020

Abstract: Southeast Community College (SCC) transformed its departmental planning by embedding a cultural goal within its strategic plan. The goal focused on creating a positive, reflective, inclusive, and transparent institutional climate—through the implementation of departmental FAST goals. That goal type refers to those that are frequently discussed, ambitious, specifically measured, and transparent, which represents an alternative to the commonly used SMART goal-setting approach. This article describes how a change of climate at SCC set the stage for the conversion to FAST goals—and improved engagement in and ownership of strategic and departmental planning.

Institutions Mentioned: Southeast Community College
Planning Types: Strategic Planning
Tags: Community College, Organizational Culture, Planning Processes

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Fostering Innovation on Ohio’s Co-Located Campuses Through Collaborative Planning

By: Jeremy W. Webster, PhD, Ohio University-Zanesville

This is a SCUP Fellow Research Project Final Report for the 2018–2019 program. This research project investigates whether co-located institutions, specifically, and competing institutions of higher education, more generally, could use the concept of “collaborative planning” to achieve mutual success.

Abstract: This research project investigates whether co-located institutions, specifically, and competing institutions of higher education, more generally, could use the concept of “collaborative planning” to achieve mutual success. Collaborative planning is a conceptual framework from urban planning that emphasizes “partnership,stakeholder involvement, collaboration, and consensus-oriented decision-making” as core principles of planning (Vandenbussche, Edelenbos, and Eshuis 2017). It is an effective tool for transcending competition, negotiating disagreements, and achieving increased institutional collaboration and innovation.

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Conference Presentations

Published
March 8, 2020

2020 North Atlantic Regional Conference | March 2020

Two Community Colleges With Differing but Similar Survival Paths

By: Robert Hicks, Senior Project Manager, Stantec | James Mabry, President, Middlesex Community College | Anthony Benoit, President, Benjamin Franklin Institute

This session will explore how two community colleges are making both similar and different strategic choices in order to thrive during a very uncertain period in higher education.

Abstract: In this period of declining enrollment, decreasing resources, increasing competition, changing demands, and changing technologies, colleges must be both entrepreneurial and careful in their strategic planning. This session will explore how two community colleges are making both similar and different strategic choices in order to thrive during a very uncertain period in higher education. We will explore how planning processes have produced divergent strategies for navigating the very uncertain waters facing all of higher education, particularly in this region.