SCUP
Learning Resources

Environmental Scanning

Webinar Recordings

5 Questions About the Future of Higher Education

 Join Jim Downey, vice president of planning and institutional effectiveness at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and Nick Santilli, SCUP’s senior director of learning, as they use SCUP’s Fall 2020 Trends for Higher Education report to explore “What If?” questions in a practical format that will allow your team to pinpoint areas for institutional advancement.
Blog Post

5 Ways to Use Environmental Scanning

 The practice of environmental scanning is often a first step in the strategic planning process. Typically, planning teams engage in an exhaustive analysis of the internal and external forces acting on the institution to set the planning context. But should scanning the internal and external environment be limited to the early phases of strategic planning?
Planning for Higher Education Journal

A Practical Guide to Environmental Scanning: Approaches, Sources, and Selected Techniques
Planning for Higher Education Journal

A Primer on Environmental Scanning in Higher Education
Tool

An Integrated Approach to Scenario Planning

 No one can predict the future. That doesn’t mean it needs to be a total surprise. This toolkit will walk you step-by-step through scenario planning with instructions, examples, and worksheets that you can use to start scenario planning at your institution immediately.
Trends for Higher Education

Are You Prepared for Tomorrow’s Students? | Spring 2016
Webinar Recordings

Coffee Chat: Tracking the External Environment

 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.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Collaborating, ‘Speed Dating,’ Celebrating, and More

 University colleagues share techniques and tools they find effective in their strategic planning process—and in fostering participation and intentional conversations.
Webinar Recordings

Destination 2030
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Developing Scenarios: Linking Environmental Scanning and Strategic Planning

 In this article, we discuss a method for developing and writing scenarios for a college or university. We begin by reviewing the general literature on scenarios; we then detail a scenario development project at Arizona State University. This project, conducted in 1988–89, was Arizona State University's first institution-wide, futures-based planning and scenario development effort.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Enriching Planning Through Industry Analysis

 The authors perform an ‘industry analysis’ for higher education, using the five forces model of M.E. Porter.
Example Plans

Environmental Scan Series

 A series of thorough, heavily sourced environmental scanning reports developed by the institution’s institutional effectiveness department to support its strategic planning process.
Trends for Higher Education

Evolution of Higher Education | Spring 2017
Trends for Higher Education

Evolution of Higher Education | Spring 2018

 This edition focuses broadly on change in higher education.
Blog Post

Get a Week’s Worth of Strategic Planning Done in One Day

 In one eight-hour day, six teams came together to perform scanning, analysis, and prioritization activities, all toward one goal: setting “positive, but not delusional” strategic directions that would be the basis of the college’s strategic plan.
Trends for Higher Education

Implications From the External Environment | Fall 2017
Trends for Higher Education

Implications From the Internal Environment | Spring 2019

 This edition focuses primarily on forces of change from inside academe that may drive further evolution in colleges and universities.
Trends for Higher Education

Implications of the External Environment | Fall 2018

 We look through an array of lenses outside the world of higher education to gain some perspective on issues and opportunities that appear to be on the horizon—or at our doors.
Webinar Recordings

Insights from SCUP’s Fall 2022 Trends for Higher Education Report

 Join your community as Nick Santilli and Salvador Aceves share in a conversation that will highlight some of the trends and how you can use the report to help your strategic planning, scenario planning, and contingency planning activities.
Webinar Recordings

Insights from SCUP’s Spring 2022 Trends in Higher Education Report

 Join Jim Downey, former vice president for planning and institutional effectiveness at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and senior strategy consultant, and Nick Santilli, former provost at John Carroll University and SCUP’s senior director of learning strategy, as they use SCUP’s Fall 2021 Trends for Higher Education report to explore “What If?” questions in a practical format that will allow your team to pinpoint areas for institutional advancement.
Webinar Recordings

Insights from SCUP’s Spring 2023 Trends in Higher Education Report

 Join Nick Santilli and Randy Simon for a conversation that will highlight the SCUP Spring Trends Report.
Conference Recordings

Keynote | Katherine Newman

 As the chief academic officer of the University of Massachusetts system and as a labor market sociologist, Katherine Newman will provide valuable insight on how global changes are affecting the academic, research, and public service mission of higher education.
Trends for Higher Education

Looking at the External Environment | Fall 2015
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Modifying the Strategic Planning Engine

 Using the Strategic Planning Engine model resulted in a more objective, replicable, scalable, flexible, and transparent planning process with useful and relevant results.
Blog Post

Preparing for the Post-Pandemic World

 Well, that didn’t go as planned. Let’s face it, 2020 was one of the most volatile years in world history. We now find ourselves digging out from the impact of the global pandemic and thinking, “What next?” To be honest, volatility is not new to higher education. In fact, a measure of volatility is commonplace in the higher education environment. Just over a year ago, the sector was obsessively focused on the enrollment cliff, the higher education business model, and free speech. We’ve added to this list a worldwide pandemic, calls for social and racial justice, cancel culture, and waves of natural disasters.
Conference Recordings

President’s Panel

 In this session, three college and university presidents from the United States, Canada, and Europe will reflect on how we can transform and reimagine higher education for the future.
Example Plans

Strategic Enterprise Plan
Blog Post

Strategies for Engaging Faculty in Change

 In difficult times, planning and the successful implementation of that planning requires the buy-in and support of a range of stakeholders—particularly the faculty. We interviewed Sandra Patterson-Randles, chancellor emerita and professor of English at Indiana University Southeast, to discuss how to best engage faculty in planning initiatives.
Conference Recordings

The Future Campus

 A panel of three institutions and a learning technologist will offer their diverse perspectives on these issues and how they're influencing the physical and virtual campus environment: an unprecedented pandemic; rapidly-accelerating climate change; a mobile technology-enabled society; and critical issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion
Trends for Higher Education

The Future of Learning | Fall 2016
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Inside and Outside Higher Education | Fall 2019

 How is the world changing outside of higher education, and how is higher education responding to change? This report focuses on trends both inside and outside higher education.
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Inside Higher Education | Spring 2020

 The pace of change keeps speeding up. This issue focuses on forces and changes directly impacting higher education, now and in the future.
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Inside Higher Education | Spring 2021

 Within the world of higher education, what are some of today’s key trends—and what are some implications for institutions of higher learning? While the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn much of our focus for a year now, we continue to keep our eyes on other trends and forces. This issue broadly explores trends inside higher education.
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Inside Higher Education | Spring 2022

 Within the world of higher education, what are some of today’s key trends—and what are some implications for institutions of higher learning?
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Inside Higher Education | Spring 2023

 Within the world of higher education, what are some of today’s key trends—and what are some implications for institutions of higher learning?
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Inside Higher Education | Spring 2024

 What are key movements and trends within higher education? From addressing pandemic learning loss to grappling with generative AI in the classroom, learn the forces and changes directly impacting higher education, now and in the future.
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Outside Higher Education | Fall 2020

 How is the world outside your institution changing? While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact every aspect of our lives, other trends and forces are worth watching. This issue broadly explores trends outside higher education.
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Outside Higher Education | Fall 2021

 From the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic to the impacts of climate change, colleges and universities continue to face an environment that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous—VUCA. Learn the key trends and movements that might become our “new normal.” This issue broadly explores trends outside of higher education.
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Outside Higher Education | Fall 2022

 This edition focuses primarily on forces outside academe that may drive change in colleges and universities.
Trends for Higher Education

Trends Outside Higher Education | Fall 2023

 Outside the world of higher education, what are some of today’s key trends—and what are some implications for institutions of higher learning?
Webinar Recordings

Trends that Impact Higher Education Planning

 Join Jim Downey, former vice president for planning and institutional effectiveness at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and senior strategy consultant, and Nick Santilli, former provost at John Carroll University and SCUP’s senior director of learning strategy, as they use SCUP’s Fall 2021 Trends for Higher Education report to explore “What If?” questions in a practical format that will allow your team to pinpoint areas for institutional advancement.
Trends for Higher Education

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.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

University Strategic Planning and the Foresight/Futures Approach

 Dublin City University has taken the lead in Ireland in terms of its emphasis on strategic planning. Its 2005–2008 strategic plan, Leadership Through Foresight, was part of an ambitious foresight exercise that was aimed at informing subsequent strategic cycles. This article reports on this process in the context of the wider literature examining the value of foresight/futures thinking as applied to universities.
Planning for Higher Education Journal

Using Scenarios and Simulations to Plan Colleges

 Higher education institutions can benefit from constructing and using multiple future scenarios and simulations during strategic planning. One method of scenario planning to create visions of potential futures is presented, with a case study from the College of the Desert.