STRATEGIC PLANNING COMMITTEE

May 20, 2005

Minutes

 

 

Present:  C. Bailey, C. Denard, M. Godbout, D. Hutchinson, F. Lacomb,

N. Pellegrino, L. Purdy, W. Roberts, A. Rollo, S. Sloan, A. Staples, S. Talbot, Meredith VanDuyne, and P. Wahlen (speaker phone)

 

The meeting began at 8:35 am.

 

·        Carolyn announced that this would be the last meeting

·        The meeting would follow the following format:

 

1.      Review changes to “foundations” from last meeting

2.      Review vision and mission statements, and go over rewritten introduction

3.      Review timeline document

4.      Work on feedback form

 

Major Discussion

 

Carolyn reviewed the corrections made to the document at the last meeting.  Additional corrections are noted.

 

FOUNDATIONS

            Pg. 7    ACADEMIC PROGRAM, D., 2. “Off Campus” should be hyphenated.

           

Pg. 11  FACULTY, D., 3.  “student Honor Code” should be changed to “Wells College Honor Code”.  It should also be changed wherever it appears in the document.

           

Pg. 11 FACULTY, E.  rewritten – “Encourage recruitment practices and a campus climate that continues the strong presence of women on the college faculty”.   ** The group struggled with this goal trying to put forth the ideas of wanting an appropriate faculty ratio of female to male, maintaining the strong presence of females on the faculty, and not wanting to send the “wrong “ message of discriminatory hiring practices.  Ideas of not wanting to allow the percentage of female faculty to drop below 50% were generally endorsed, but it was felt that putting such quotas into the plan could lead to future difficulties.  Explicit recruitment strategies and ideas to create a climate, which encourages women to stay on at Wells (such as daycare, tenure tract strategies, etc.), could be appropriately covered in the action plan under this section.

 

            Pg. 12  STAFF, C., 2. “student Honor Code” changed “to Wells College Honor Code” as previously mentioned.

           

            Pg. 16  COMMUNITY, A., “strength” to “strengthen”

           

Pg. 16  COMMUNITY, A., 2. Insert “that” between “ensure” and “the Community”…

           

Pg. 19  HISTORY, A., 2. Change the word “Create” to “Support”

           

Pg. 22  PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT, C., 1. & 2. Switch the order to keep chronological sequencing

 

Pg. 22  PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT, C., 3. Change “date of Spring” to “date for Spring”

 

Pg. 22  PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT, D., 3. Insert comma after “library personnel”

 

COLLEGE MISSION STATEMENT & VISION STATEMENT …

 

            Pg. 5.  Remove the word “and” in fifth line following “academic”.  On same line, insert a comma after the word “resources”.

 

***the question came up about the revision dates located at the bottom of the pages.  They are only there for the writing process.  They will not appear on the final documents.  The suggestion was made to include the word “draft” on each page of the document as it is being submitted for review and comments.

 

INTRODUCTION – Wells College 2010: Foundations for the Future

 

            1st line               Change “solidify and enhance” to “address”

 

            5th line              Eliminate the phrase “that expand the College’s programmatic reach into new areas of expertise”

            Line 14 Change “move” to “position”, and “into” to “for”

.

Carolyn explained that she rewrote this introduction to reflect changes in the nature of the document that developed as the plan was being written.  With the few minor changes listed above, Carolyn was applauded by all for the exquisite wording of this section and for her efforts in the whole of the project.

 

TIMELINE FOR….

A date is to be inserted for presentation of the Plan to the alumnae.

 

STRATEGIC PLAN FEEDBACK FORM

Carolyn submitted a rough draft of a form just as a starting place from which to begin.  A first question in developing the form might be “For what purpose are the results of the feedback to be used?”  It was felt that questions should be open-ended and solicit comments rather than a yes/no response.  They may concern viability of success of the Plan, how well the plan takes into account what is of importance to the reviewers, and the inclusiveness of the Plan.  Since the alumnae as a group had not been formally included in making suggestions while the Plan was being written, it is felt that a separate introduction and feedback form be written in a way that gives them the opportunity to comment and make suggestions at this time. 

 

The final draft to the general community population will go out via email today or Monday, along with the feedback form.  Carolyn will write an introduction that will explain that this is a draft and does not include more specific action items and benchmarks. Return of the feedback forms will need to be returned by June 15th either by US mail, campus mail, or email.  The introduction to the presentation of the draft will also explain that the Alumnae will receive a copy of the Plan draft under separate cover.

 

Acknowledgement was made that the task of writing this plan has sometimes been difficult and the words not easy to formulate, but all should feel a great sense of accomplishment and reward for a task well done.  Special tribute was paid again to Carolyn for all of her work and efforts.

 

 

The meeting adjourned about 10:20.

 

Respectfully submitted:  Andrea LaBaron