October 2016

In the Luther College Priorities 2016-2018, we committed to completing a comprehensive strategic planning process by 2018. The planning process will begin this month and conclude in February 2018.

A strategic planning committee will be formed to oversee and guide the planning process for the Luther College community.  The committee will be assisted in its work by Dr. Terry Sparkes, Dean for Institutional Planning and Mission, and by staff from Keeling & Associates, a firm with expertise and experience in higher education planning. Keeling & Associates will assist the committee with services in the data collection and analysis that will inform the planning process. These services will include interviews, small and large group meetings, surveys, and forums.

The Strategic Planning Committee will include representation of faculty, staff, students, and the Board of Regents. The committee, led by two co-chairs, will convene regularly from October 2016 through Summer 2017. The committee’s charge is to:

• Guide, monitor, and advance the strategic planning process.
• Provide advice and counsel regarding methods, formats, and procedures for data collection, as well as contextual factors that might influence the process or the findings.
• Review, deliberate on, and respond to findings from all methods of data collection, including narratives from meetings and interviews and survey results.
• Oversee additional data gathering with college constituents, as needed.
• Collaborate with Dean Sparkes and staff from Keeling & Associates to develop and revise drafts of planning themes.
• Maintain regular and open communication with the college community, and the president and her cabinet, regarding the strategic planning process and important findings and conclusions emerging from that process.
• Participate with the president and her cabinet, and others as designated by the college, in a strategic planning retreat in late May or early June 2017 to articulate the emerging consensus about the college’s overarching strategy, priorities, goals, and objectives for the first draft of the strategic plan.
• Continue work in summer 2017 to refine goals and objectives that emerge from the retreat.
• Work with the president, her cabinet, and staff from Keeling & Associates to review and refine the draft of the strategic plan to be presented to the Board in October 2017.

Throughout the process, members of the committee will serve as liaisons to their constituent groups and colleagues in the college community, communicating regularly about opportunities to participate in the planning process and sharing the emerging findings, themes, and outcomes.

The committee will have 16 members:  4 faculty, 3 students, 3 staff, 2-3 regents, and Dean Kevin Kraus, Vice President Eric Runestad, and Dean Sparkes. Three faculty members will be elected by the faculty and one appointed by the president in consultation with the Faculty Organization Committee.  Staff members will be appointed by the president from nominations received from the staff. Students will be selected in consultation with the Student Senate.

We will look to committee members to have a deep commitment and dedication to the college and its values; the respect of their peers; an ability to work collaboratively with campus colleagues and external constituencies; and a willingness to serve as an ambassador for the strategic planning process, encouraging engagement from members of the college community and responding to questions about the process, findings, and outcomes.

The committee will meet approximately 12 times, beginning this month through fall 2017. The committee will take part in a two-day strategic planning retreat in late May or early June 2017.