Planning

Our planning projects often include components of review, assessment, and evaluation; some also include professional development activities or senior executive consultation.

K&A assists with the following types of planning projects:

• Integrated institutional efforts to improve the quality and quantity of student learning — change for learning; often includes organizational questions (such as the relationship of Academic and Student Affairs), embraces educational and faculty strategy, and focuses attention on assessment of learning.
  
• Institutional, divisional, and departmental strategy, including both new strategic plans and reassessments of progress on and the continued relevance of existing plans. We recommend a balanced process of strategic planning that engages the community in a broadly inclusive manner and is guided by the vision and aspirations of leadership. These projects generally require data gathering in a variety of formats (such as interviews, surveys, “idea walls,” forums, and comparative institutional research) from a large number of sources. Most strategic planning projects include the development of detailed implementation and, if necessary, change management plans.
• Restructuring and/or reallocation of resources, often responding to fiscal or other pressures.
• Academic and educational strategy, including comprehensive review and renewal of academic programs, revision of general education, and strengthening of the undergraduate experience.
• Faculty development and governance, including review and revision of faculty policies, appointments, expectations, and criteria for reappointment, promotion, and tenure; these projects often include review and revision of faculty handbooks.
• Retention strategy: guidance and direction through short- and long-term goals and objectives including implementation and change management plans, informed by review of institutional, community, cultural, and student factors that may influence persistence and retention.