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Over
the next 18 months, Smith will be actively engaged in creating a strategic plan
to focus our efforts over the next decade. Building upon our core mission of providing
an engaging and excellent liberal arts education to women, the plan will reflect
the distinctive characteristics and advantages of the college. We begin our efforts
from a position of strength, with a talented and engaged student body, an excellent
faculty, distinguished for their teaching and research, dedicated staff, and extraordinary
facilities. Our new plan will build on the momentum of the last strategic plan
and its related fund-raising campaign, whose initiatives have propelled the college
forward in recent years: the Brown Fine Arts Center, the Campus Center, the Kahn
Institute for the Liberal Arts, the Poetry Center, the Center for Women and Financial
Independence, Praxis, and, of course, the Picker Engineering Program.
Why plan now? Faculty have been engaged in a careful
review of the curriculum for the past year, giving particular attention to the capacities
that we want all of our students to develop in their time here. I believe that complementing
these discussions with equally reflective reviews of other areas of student experience
and campus operations will produce a set of strong initiatives. The admission picture
for Smith and for other liberal arts colleges has become increasingly competitive
in recent years, as students broaden their choices. Responding to this trend requires
institutional reflection, focus and reinvestment. The budget flexibility created
by recent financial planning efforts provides the foundation on which to undertake
a meaningful planning process. In addition, we will be able to integrate findings
from the Common Ground project into our deliberations. Finally, we have the opportunity
to integrate the college’s 10-year re-accreditation, scheduled for 2007, with
this process.
 The
aim of our planning efforts is to identify the goals and priorities most critical
for the college over the next decade. I expect to complete the planning process by
the end of spring 2007. This spring, we will begin a review of Smith’s current
strengths and challenges. This process will include opportunities for faculty, staff,
students and alumnae to identify and comment on important issues facing the college.
By spring’s end, my hope is that we can articulate six to eight critical issues.
Over the subsequent academic year, we will work to develop, analyze and prioritize
specific initiatives for making progress in each of these critical areas -- an action
plan for achieving our strategic vision. These initiatives will, in turn, shape our
fund raising goals.
I have already begun a set of conversations with alumnae
entitled “Shaping the Future of Smith.” In small gatherings, most often
at alumnae homes, I ask two questions: What in your view are the distinctive strengths
of Smith that shape the college’s opportunities in the future? And, what are
the capacities you feel we should develop in all of our students in their time here?
These conversations have been vigorous and invigorating. Alumnae have spoken about
the importance of critical thinking, of public speaking, of quantitative reasoning,
of science and science literacy, of developing leadership, of the strength of the
arts at Smith, of study abroad and international education. Over the course of the
spring semester, I extended this conversation to the campus. Faculty, staff and students
participated in forums to identify and discuss the priorities that they feel are
most critical for the college at this time.
The Committee on Mission and Priorities will serve as
the steering committee for the strategic planning process. While my preference is
to use the college’s various standing committees to develop and review strategies
to respond to the critical issues emerging from this process, I may also appoint
special ad-hoc working groups to explore issues in greater detail, as needed. I look
forward to your participation.
Sincerely,
Carol T. Christ |
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Essential
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About
the Planning Process
Planning
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Update:
September
2006
Update:
September
2006
Update:
May 2006
Update:
December
2005
NEASC
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