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Blog Post

6 Integrated Planning Strategies and Tips We Learned at SCUP 2023

 Every year at SCUP’s annual conference, over 1,000 of higher education’s leaders and innovators gather to share how they are advancing integrated planning at their college or university. Out of the wealth of tools, strategies, and tips shared at SCUP 2023, which took place earlier this month in Cleveland, here are six that stood out.
Conference Presentations

Align Processes and Foster Collaboration to Streamline Planning Engagement

 The newly consolidated Augusta University implemented an annual planning and resource alignment process to streamline procedures and integrate strategic efforts across the institution.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Around the Water Cooler, Minus the Water Cooler

 More than 100 Muskegon Community College employees attend weekly, all-college meetings. These are essential touchpoints for communication, learning, and planning.
Conference Recordings

Best Practices for Instructional Continuity During Short-Term Disruptions

 This session will showcase best practices for instructional continuity for most short-term disruptions.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Beyond the Headlines

 Might a tuition reset be right for your institution? This article is a behind-the-scenes look at the yearlong process of a tuition reset at Rosemont College.
Example Plans

Brand Strategic Platform

 A thorough documentation of the institution’s branding strategy, including the purpose of the strategy, audiences and personas, value statements, and more.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

College Affordability and Institutional Pricing Policies

 Institutions would do well to make their complex pricing policies more clear to students and families to help them understand how a higher education is more affordable than most people believe.
Example Plans

Continuity Planning Website
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Coordinating Complexity

 The authors replaced a costly, time-intensive model with a SharePoint-based system to transform sprawling processes into responsive systems for growth.
Example Plans

Creating Our Collective Impact

 A robust communication tool for the university’s 2016 strategic plan, that links to the plan document, progress reports, community champions, and more.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Dealing With the Press
Conference Presentations

Does Roll-Out Matter?
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Engaged Institutions, Responsiveness, and Town-Gown Relationships

 Campus planners cannot discern the future requirements of their host communities if they do not know what those stakeholders want and need from their local institutions of higher learning.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Fighting Fire With Fire

 Might academia co-opt the concepts and language of the corporate world, repurposing them to meet the actual (and traditional) ends of our higher education institutions?
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Flexing Beyond the Pandemic

 The IT division at Minnesota State University, Mankato— working as part of a campus-wide collaborative effort—quickly and successfully installed new tech in more than 100 classrooms within months of COVID-19 first appearing. Outcomes of the large-scale project are seen as a key attractor for incoming students, regardless of where they are learning.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Fully Engaged

 The most effective master plans are those that reflect the myriad voices of the institution. Engagement should be informative, inclusive, meaningful, and fun—and should be the product of an integrated process.
Webinar Recordings

Higher Education Business Models Under Stress, Part 2

 Join a panel discussion moderated by Rick Seltzer, senior editor of Higher Ed Dive, with guest panelists Melody Rose, author of AGB’s new book Higher Education Business Models Under Stress, and Lynn Priddy and James Lyons Sr., higher education leaders with experience closing financially distressed colleges and universities.
Tool

Integrated Planning Glossary

 Do you call it a “goal,” “objective,” or “priority”? The terms used to describe planning vary from campus to campus. That’s why it’s critical that your college or university creates a shared language around planning that everybody understands. Start here.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Is a Capital Project on Your Plate?

 Here are eight steps proven to help planners navigate the complexities and avoid the pitfalls that are too often part of the process when planning and funding capital projects.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Keeping the Focus Month by Month

 By strategically aligning monthly communications with its institutional goals, Muskegon Community College increased its connection with students, employees, and the community while reinforcing a shared sense of ownership.
Conference Recordings

Keynote | University of Pittsburgh

 Come learn how the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) fostered a sense of community and belonging, created volunteer experiences, and motivated students to comply with health and safety rules during a public health crisis.
Conference Recordings

Keynote: Beyond Innovation

 William Lindner has led transformational initiatives at every level of government and education with this consistent message: “Tear the Page Out.” This session will demonstrate an approach to attacking big challenges by empowering audacious creativity inside tradition-bound institutions.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Launching Successful Planning Efforts
Blog Post

Listen Up Leaders

 To gain additional insight into strategies for establishing trust between stakeholders and their leaders, we turned to Sonia Alvarez-Robinson, associate vice president for strategy and organizational effectiveness, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Planning for Instructional Continuity

 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

Planning the Online Pivot

 A regional public university intentionally designed and enacted academic planning to support enrollment stability during the transition to a fully online graduate program.
Example Plans

Public Dashboards

 This is a directory to the institution’s publicly accessible Tableau dashboards.
Blog Post

Putting Yourself in Their Shoes

 To gain insight into strategies for fostering empathy in the work environment, we turned to SCUP Planning Institute Faculty Member Robert (Rob) Delprino, a professor of psychology at State University of New York Buffalo State College.
Example Plans

Realizing “Envision TRU”

 This green paper (a preliminary report of proposals published to stimulate discussion) introduces the primary concepts and advantages of integrated planning, designating it as the approach that will frame the institution’s upcoming strategic planning process.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Strategic Alignment for Degree Completion

 By coordinating cross-functional teams, employing real-time data, and strengthening communication systems, a university bolstered student retention and completion without requiring new funding or staff.
Example Plans

Sustainability Website
Conference Presentations

The Challenge of Vulnerability

 This interactive presentation challenges participants to lean in towards one area of fear in their life, whether that’s practicing a strategy at home or stepping onto the stage to share their message with the world.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Understanding Higher Education Costs

 Colleges and universities must be more proactive in describing to a wider public their of fiscal and human resources because, among other reasons, a careful analysis reveals counterintuitive results that support a finding that higher education has been fiscally responsible.
Webinar Recordings

Voices from the Field: Episode #8

 Colorado State University Provost and Executive Vice President Rick Miranda shares what his team learned during their COVID-19 response: upgrading their teams’ ability to communicate regularly was what kept things moving forward, allowing critical everyday elements to proceed without interruption.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

What Is Your Crisis ‘What If’?

 The Medical College of Wisconsin planned strategically, engaged executive leadership, and operationalized an Administrative Response Team to navigate critical incidents impacting the university.