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I am pleased to tell you that the 2006 report
of the Committee on Mission and Priorities is now posted on the college Web site.
The report marks the end of the first stage of our three-stage strategic planning
process. Our goal this semester, you will recall, was to define a set of strategic
planning directions that will serve as the basis of the plan that we will develop
next year. The report describes those directions, articulates questions that we will
seek to answer this coming fall, and lists sample strategies that have emerged in
our campus discussions this spring. The report owes a great deal to those discussions,
and I thank all of you who participated in them. The plan builds on the perceptions,
insights, ambitions and visions that emerged from discussions with faculty, students,
staff and alumnae.
In the fall, we will move into a new stage of the planning
process, in which we will develop initiatives and specific action plans for each
of the planning directions. We will begin the fall with a set of round table discussions
to develop and sharpen ideas centered on each of those directions. We would also
like suggestions of other overarching topics on which a round table discussion would
be pertinent and fruitful for the planning process. Please submit suggestions for
such topics to me by June 16.
In addition to the round tables, we will provide opportunities
for individuals and groups to submit ideas and observations through email and through
postings on the planning Web site. We will also encourage people to collaborate with
others informally to develop initiatives. By October 16, any individuals or groups
wishing to submit a proposal should prepare a two page description. Proposals should
specifically address one or more of the planning directions; they should be integrative
in nature, and, if possible, they should make creative use of existing resources
as well as new funding.
The Committee on Mission and Priorities and, when appropriate,
the Committee on Academic Priorities, will review the proposals in the second half
of the fall semester, creating work groups and subcommittees as needed. These groups
would then carry out their work over the remainder of the fall and the January term,
leading to a first draft of the planning document by early spring. Our goal is to
complete the plan by March of 2007 -- a timetable that coincides nicely with our
re-accreditation review.
I am very excited about this new stage of the process,
in which our creative energies will be most fully engaged, and I look forward to
this opportunity to work with you to shape Smith's future.
Carol T. Christ |
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