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A-State Family:
In one of my first meetings with the faculty and staff after arriving at A-State in 2017, a member of the faculty asked me “Who are we?” Being new to campus, it was a hard question for me to answer, but some variant of that question popped up from time to time afterwards. As an outsider/newcomer, I had interpreted A-State as a school that had embraced the idea of innovation (e.g., Campus Queretaro, a proposed hotel and convention center, NYIT partnership, ABI, new housing partnership projects, a rapidly expanding online program). That spirit of innovation was something that I celebrated in my public forum presentation during my interview. Over the course of the first several months here, however, I came to understand that many of us yearned for a more strategic (and inclusive) approach to change. My sense was that the university community had come to believe that our campus had been adrift for a while.
To remedy this challenge, I began working in Fall 2017 with our leadership team to begin the process of engaging in strategic planning. Such efforts are often met with eye-rolls on a college campus – where folks worry that they are all going to be put through an exercise that results in a report that gets put on a shelf and thereafter ignored. But I was energized by what I perceived to be a real eagerness to engage in strategic planning by both our faculty and our staff. That was very encouraging to me and makes me very optimistic about where we are going as a campus.
The advent of the Huron Study and the HLC campus visit led me to follow the advice of the Faculty Senate to delay the strategic plan until after those concluded in Spring 2018. I had originally planned on running the strategic plan in-house (as I had done at my previous institution). Staffing changes and some reorganization in college leadership led me to believe that hiring a consulting company to help us with our strategic planning was a better solution. We put out a request for proposals in mid-2018, and a campus-wide committee selected The Napa Group as our strategic planning consultants. They have a lot of experience helping institutions like ours think strategically about their short- and long-term future.
After our contract with them was settled earlier this spring, they asked me to create a small steering committee that would lead our strategic planning efforts. In addition to including members of our A-State leadership team, I asked the Staff Senate, Faculty Senate, SGA, Chairs Council, Deans Council, and the Research Office to nominate one person to serve on the steering committee. Because of his research expertise in strategic planning and his extensive institutional knowledge, I have asked Executive Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Len Frey to chair the 16-member committee (in alphabetical order):
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- Dr. Lynita Cooksey, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
- Dr. Maurice Gipson, Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Community Engagement
- Rob Gordon, President of the Staff Senate
- Dr. Russ Hannah, Associate VC for Business and Finance
- Dr. Susan Hanrahan, Representing the Deans Council
- Dr. Loretta McGregor, President of the Faculty Senate
- Dr. Will McLean, Representing the Chairs Council
- Terry Mohajir, Vice Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics
- Dr. Jason Penry, Vice Chancellor for Advancement
- Dr. Tom Risch, Associate Vice Chancellor of Research
- Drew Roberson, Student Government Association Vice President
- Dr. Thilla Sivakumaran, Executive Director of Global Engagement & Outreach
- Dr. Bill Smith, Associate Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications
- Dr. Martha Spack, Dean of Students
- Dr. Bryan Terry, Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management
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After reviewing several documents that describe A-State’s current status, The Napa Group visited campus last week and met with the steering committee in an all-day planning retreat. It was a lot of work by our team, involving advanced reading materials and a commitment by each of them to take a university-centric approach to thinking about the future of A-State. That first day was mostly about our learning about A-State’s position in the national/state higher education context. It was also an opportunity for The Napa Group to better understand the intricacies and modern history of Arkansas State University.
In the coming weeks, we will establish a schedule of stakeholder meetings with the Napa Group to gain the input and involvement of every corner of our university. Our goal is to be very inclusive, so all members of the faculty, staff, student body, alumni groups, and the community will be invited to participate. This is YOUR future, and I earnestly want you to be involved in planning it. You will note that I am not formally part of the steering committee. That is by design. I will participate as much as seems warranted, but I also want to make sure that everyone knows that this effort is a campus-wide planning process – something that is not driven by me but by US.
From here, we begin the lengthy process of setting calendars and opportunities for stakeholder groups to come together and provide input to the strategic plan. Because transparency and communication are vital, we will establish a strategic planning website where reports, documents, timelines, and, ultimately, the plan itself will be shared.
As we move forward, I encourage you to participate as much as possible so that your voice is included in the process. To prepare for the retreat, I had our steering committee members read an insightful book titled "Robot-Proof." You might be interested in reading it yourself because it really explains the future of higher education (including the challenges and opportunities that lie before us as an institution).
This is an exciting time in the history of Arkansas State University. Like all universities, we face a lot of challenges. But we also have incredible assets (there are a lot of places that would love to have a campus in Mexico, a hotel and convention center, an on-campus medical school partnership, a large online program, plentiful on-campus housing, outstanding faculty and academic/research programs, R2 status, wonderful students, impassioned alumni, and a community that appreciates it).
I look forward to working together with you as we build our shared future.
Kelly
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