CAS Strategic Planning

The Committee met to discuss the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of the College. The Committee took into consideration the Charrette generated Objectives and Action Items to meet a Goal. The information gleaned from the Charrette assisted in identifying a list of issues (current state) that we could use as a starting point as we do more work listening this Fall. Observations during the SWOC meeting included:

• Does the issue rise to the strategic/institutional level or is it an operational issue? If it is an operational issue, but symptomatic of a larger problem, the issue should be redefined.
• In many cases, there is strong correlation between strengths and opportunities or threats and weaknesses. A discussion of these related issues often helps committee members develop an understanding of possible solutions.
• The discussion should focus on quantifiable definitions where possible.

Pertinent elements:

• Identify gaps between current conditions and vision (where we want to go).
• Issues that occur in more than one gap are linked to other issues (something to work on).
• Align the details of the SWOC and the vision to identify the gaps.

Documents used/generated for/from the meeting:

• Final Draft of SWOC - Initial results from the meeting
• Final Draft of the 2023 CAS Strategic Planning Charrette Report 

The Committee met to review the GAP Analysis document 

• Final Draft of GAP Analysis - synthesis of SWOC results

1. Strategic Planning Website development (Pi) (10 min)
   • Thoughts for inclusion on website
2. Fall Strategic Planning Departmental Meetings and Logistics (20 min)
   • Goal
   • Structure
     
     • What will we want to gather and how?
   • Assignments for meetings
3. Draft Strategic Plan Template Review (30 min)
   
   • This was developed based on the Charrette and our Gap Analysis.  Attempting to keep it minimized.
   • Reviewed the draft (Objectives/Themes; Action Items; Key Performance Indicatord (KPIs)). Additional edits have been made at this point with Clay’s input. This document and our plan moving forward this Fall will be part of the Fall CAS College wide meeting on Aug. 10 3-5.
   • Discussed the process for moving forward in the Fall. Committee will meet one more time prior to the August 10th college wide meeting.
   • We will plan which of our committee members will meet with which departments. Need to discuss what information we need the departmental strategic plan liaisons (2 per department?) to gather prior to our committee member/liaison meetings. 
   • Agreed that Laura will send out a draft template to be discussed at our next meeting. This draft will be provided to the departmental liaisons to assist them in gathering feedback that we are looking for regarding their programs.

Both meetings on July 10th and August 2nd were devoted to working on the draft template to be provided to the college and departments for discussion. 

Agenda for 8/7/23 meeting:

1. Final thoughts on the Strategic Planning Draft.  Strategic Planning Draft Template as of 8/7/23 
   • Discuss Fall Planning timeline in draft. OK?
2. Discuss format for Fall meetings with departments, assign departments, everyone on the committee should plan on meeting with a min. two departments.
3. Review content of the attached document which was developed and reviewed by the Dean and A. Deans. Our thinking behind this document is outlined below:
   We now have a set of Strategic Initiatives, Objectives (more specific than Initiatives), and Action items (more specific than objectives) in the strategic plan. Let’s find out where the needs are (besides salary which might be addressed at least in some capacity by the time this document is finalized). What are the wants/needs of the faculty and staff in the departments in terms of stuff, staff, programs, and students? Let’s ask them. This document is designed to establish things that we can do in the first year of the strategic plan and then asks the departments to be creative is thinking about how that need actually allows the department to grow in ways that align with the strategic initiatives. The idea would be to accomplish these tasks and use them as the Key Performance Indicators demonstrating that we are making progress on our strategic plan. We would be gathering this feedback from the chairs at their leadership team retreat, and gathering thoughts from the departments through our Fall meetings with them. We could also offer a formstack of this document on the strategic planning website that would be open during the same time of the semester for anyone who for one reason or another cannot meet with their departmental liaison to offer feedback. Open for further discussion.
4. Discuss what we want to say about the strategic plan at the college meeting. One slide or two?

1. Any feedback from College Meeting about Dream Big? Any Dept. discussions? - No submissions. Only one department discussed and provided feedback to Laura.
2. Updates to pace of strategic planning. - This is due to the University plan due Jan 2024 to the BOG. Will have an impact on our overall planning and timeline will shift to finalized plan being presented by end of Spring 2024.
   Meeting update: We found a few items in the strategic plan draft that needed updating. We modified Objective 3 under Community Engagement and Sandra identified a cut and paste error to CAS Family Objective 3 which should have been listed as “Organize events across disciplines for faculty and staff”. Those updates have been made and the 9/13 version is posted on the Strategic Planning Website. We also discussed adding an item under Community Engagement - Objective 3 “Outreach into communities” but did not finalize the language for this it currently stands in the draft as “Extend CAS reach into new communities”. We played around with lots of explorer language. 
3. Discuss format for Fall meetings with departments, assign departments, everyone on the committee should plan on meeting with a min. two departments. - Assignments for members to visit with CAS departments to get feedback on Draft Plan and Dream Big.
   

   We spent some time assigning committee members to meet with departments. Dr. Frost will send an email to the chairs letting them know which committee member is assigned to their department and ask them to have at least one meeting to discuss the Dream Big document and identify who would be meeting with the committee member (liaison(s) or a group) by December to collect feedback from that department. There is already a preliminary set of notes from Integrated Studies based on conversations that Travis/Eric Otto had with the department at the beginning of the semester (not final).
   Here are the assignments we determined yesterday:

   Biological Sciences – Derek Buzasi, Chris Endrinal

   Bower School of Music and the Arts – Laura Frost, New Travis person

   Chem & Physics – Joanna Salapska-Gelleri, New Travis person

   Comm. & Philosophy – Laura Frost, Vonetta Hardy

   Integrated Studies – Sandra Pavelka, Chris Endrinal

   Justice Studies – Laura Frost, Michael VonCannon

   Lang. & Lit. – Vonetta Hardy, Sandra Pavelka

   Mathematics – Pi Rice, Joanna Salapska-Gelleri

   Pol. Sci. & Pub. Admin. – Derek Busazi, Pi Rice

   Psychology – Chris Endrinal, Michael VonCannon

4. Next Meeting. We decided that as a committee we would not meet again until early Dec. once all the departments have been visited. Plan on a meeting the last week of classes or during the week of finals (Somewhere between Dec. 4 and 14). A doodle poll will be sent later. By this time a working draft of the University Strategic Plan should be developed and we can align some of the departmental ideas gathered with the University Strategic Plan.

1. Assign committee members and plan to schedule the rest of the Dream Big meetings during the month of January. Add Centers (RoCK and Whitaker Center). 

2. Distribute draft alignment of CAS Strategic Plan with FGCU Journey to Excellence (JtE) approved by Board of Trustees.

3. Reviewed and discussed to finalize for Dean to present to the President and present at the January 2024 College Meeting. 

4. Date for Strategic Planning Charrette is set for morning of April 5. Discussed appointing two CGT members and a sub-committee of the CAS Strategic Planning Committee to plan for this event.

Workshop on Dream Big Meetings

1. The committee met and identified items from the Departmental Dream Big Meetings with liaisons and assigned the salient items to areas of the Strategic Plan. The strategic plan will be revised to include the four Areas of Strategic Initiative (Academic Excellence, Student Success, Community Engagement, and CAS Family), Objectives, and Strategic Action Plans. This will be shared with the chairs, Dean's office and a review of the revised document is planned for 3/12/ 24.

2. Members of the Charrette planning committee were identified as Laura Frost (Dean's office, SP committee), Sandra Pavelka (SP committee, CGT), Nate Pipitone (CGT) and Miles Hentrup (CGT).

Finalize Strategic Plan for Charrette April 5.