Officials have published a detailed timeline for the University’s strategic planning process following a decision to push back the final vote on the plan.
The new timeline includes planned updates from the four strategic planning committees at three Faculty Senate meetings and a Board of Trustees meeting, interim reports from the four committees and the coordinating board task force by Jan. 24 and final committee recommendations by May 1, according to the strategic plan website. The move comes weeks after officials delayed the final approval of the plan from May to the board’s retreat in June.
“I want to thank the faculty, staff, students and trustees who are serving on strategic planning committees for their thoughtful leadership and our entire community for their engagement in this consequential discussion about the future of the University,” University President Thomas LeBlanc said in a release. “I look forward to the committees’ interim reports in January and the opportunity to continue engaging with faculty, students, staff and alumni throughout the spring.”
LeBlanc created four pillars – faculty, research and graduate and undergraduate education – with corresponding committees to guide the strategic planning process. The committees have held several public forums attended by hundreds of faculty, staff and students to gather feedback.
Officials also released updates from each of the committees, which include summaries of the groups’ accomplishments, outreach efforts, challenges, areas of focus and next steps.
The undergraduate committee split into four sub-groups – focused on “leveraging GW’s location,” academic advising and student success, academic innovation and “#Only@GW STEM” – to complete its work, according to its update statement.
All four committees have raised concerns about the timeline of the strategic planning process, according to the group’s statements. Graduate education committee members list “too little time (and too few pages)” as an issue facing their ability “to do justice to the task,” the committee’s update document states.
“The committees are hard at work gathering and synthesizing information and feedback from across the University on an ambitious timeline,” Christine Barth, the chair of the Strategic Planning Task Force, said in the release. “With guidance and insight from members of the university community, the committees are honing in on key areas of opportunity.”
