SPIG Minutes for Thursday, November 20th, 2003

1-1:55 PM

Attendants: Dr. Lanny Foss, Mrs. Susan Fredine, David Lanoue, and Todd Stanislav

Todd talked briefly about the factors that led to the creation of the Strategic Planning and Implementation Group. One factor was a realization that his previous planning efforts had focused on the annual goals of the Center; to date, a long-range, comprehensive strategic plan had not been developed. Todd also mentioned that a Grant Writing Corps has been established in the Fall semester. This group included faculty who participate in the Center's Advisory Group and who have a particular interest in helping the Center identify funding sources and write grant proposals which would support the work of the Center. At a meeting of this group, it became apparent that a long-range strategic plan was needed to help the group (1) fully understand the work and mission of the Center, and (2) write grant proposals.

The group discussed the process, timeline, and benchmarks of the strategic planning process. There was discussion about:

reviewing the Center's mission statement, both as it is written today and has it has been written in the past
conducting a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis

The group then discussed who should participate in this group, with particular attention to a "critical mass" and the kinds of expertise and experience to do the job of strategic planning. The group agreed:

a representative of the administration was needed. Todd will ask Dr. Barron to participate.
one or more faculty members from the University Faculty Development Committee should participate. Todd will invite members of the Committee to join.
students, despite their obvious experience in the Xavier classroom and interactions with faculty, would not be included at this time.
there should be faculty who represent the College of Pharmacy and the College of Arts and Sciences.
it would be important to have someone from outside Xavier involved, either on the committee itself or at least as a consultant or reviewer. Todd mentioned two persons locally--one from UNO and one from Loyola--who may be helpful in this regard. After brief discussion, it was agreed that Todd should contact the person at UNO.
Dr. Foss inquired about holding open meetings, at which anyone from the University is welcomed to attend.

Finally, there was brief discussion about reviewing the Center's mission statement--both as it is written currently and any possible past versions of the statement. This will be the focus of the next meeting. Todd will prepare and distribute a document with past and present mission statements.

-- Minutes respectfully submitted by Michelle Falgoust,
Administrative Assistant in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching