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Since last fall, 179 members of the Temple community — 110 faculty members, 64 administrators, three alumni, a student and a trustee — have been immersing themselves in an intensive, collaborative process that will change the course of the university.
Their mission, under the leadership of Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Lisa Staiano-Coico: to create Temple's first academic strategic plan by the summer of 2008.
"The scale and pace of this effort is astonishing; it's equaled only by the energy and dedication of all the Temple people who are participating," Staiano-Coico said. "That's appropriate because we are working together to chart a course for Temple's future."
The final product of the process, Staiano-Coico stresses, will not be a massive, bureaucratic how-to manual.
"When we unveil the academic strategic plan, it will be a list of 10 to 12 bold, achievable initiatives covering every aspect of the university's academic missions, from enrollment to research and from internationalization to serving the community," she said, "and we'll set up ways to measure our success as we move forward."
The academic strategic plan was commissioned last summer by President Ann Weaver Hart, who asked Staiano-Coico to spearhead its creation as soon as the provost arrived on campus.
The president and the provost asked the Faculty Senate to nominate faculty members at all levels — including tenured, tenure-track and non-tenure-track members — from each of Temple's schools and colleges. In September, Staiano-Coico announced the formation of the Academic Planning Steering Committee. Chaired by the provost, the committee includes 10 faculty members, nine deans, nine administrators, a student and a trustee.
Then, in October, the academic strategic planning process formally began with a series of free-wheeling roundtable discussions facilitated by outside consultants led by Robert Zemsky of the University of Pennsylvania's Learning Alliance for Higher Education. Nine work group topics eventually emerged from those meetings, offering the first glimpse of the academic strategic plan's breadth and primary areas of focus.
"Now things really get exciting," Staiano-Coico said. "Each of the nine work groups is working intensely to generate a handful of recommended initiatives by early March. We've charged them with thinking boldly, without boundaries, while at the same time keeping in mind Temple's traditional missions and historic strengths. From the dozens of recommendations they put forward, the Steering Committee will cull a final list of about a dozen initiatives. I can't wait to see what they come up with."
In February, student and staff focus groups will be conducted and an academic strategic plan open house will be held at Main Campus (date and location to be determined).
According to Staiano-Coico, the academic strategic plan eventually will be merged into a three-part master strategic plan for the university. Temple Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Anthony E. Wagner is chairing efforts to develop a financial strategic plan and a plan for Temple's facilities and campuses.
"My office and Tony's office are nearby, so we're in constant communication, running side by side as we develop these plans," Staiano-Coico said. "But it's important for people to understand that the academic plan comes first. The financial strategic plan is being created to enable the academic plan, not vice versa."
The universitywide initiatives that form the final academic strategic plan will emerge from nine work groups. All nine groups must maintain a commitment to four officially designated "threads" as they create their proposals: diversity, technology, ethics and balancing central and decentralized control.
• Group 1: Developing the Academic Community
• Group 2: Strengthening the Infrastructure for Research and Education
• Group 3: Temple as a Destination Campus
• Group 4: Globalizing Temple
• Group 5: Building Temple's Entrepreneurial Culture
• Group 6: Enabling Temple as an Urban-serving University
• Group 7: Defining Temple's Student Profiles for the Future
• Group 8: Strengthening the Environment for Student Success
• Group 9: Enabling the Bureaucracy to Serve the Academic Mission
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