August 22, 2007
Letter from Provost Tiefenthaler
Dear Reynolda Campus Faculty and Staff Members,
This summer Planning Council members reviewed each and every strategic plan received from all the academic and administrative departments. It is evident that much research and good discussion have gone into this part of the strategic planning process. Nancy Suttenfield and I are grateful for the conscientious way in which members of the campus community have approached this important work. We want to provide you with a summary of how we expect to continue developing the strategic plan.
At the Council's meeting earlier this month, we began to identify those themes consistently repeated across many strategic plans and we discussed in particular those ideas that most strongly supported the five strategic priorities. The Council also agreed that there are many good ideas that departments can, and should, implement on their own. As I meet with individual groups this fall, I will provide feedback on moving ahead with these latter initiatives.
As the Planning Council continues to discuss and refine the ideas supporting the strategic framework, we will develop a matrix delineating strategies, objectives, implementation timelines, and accountability requirements for each of the five priorities. Nancy and I will develop a financial plan as the matrix emerges. We anticipate that within six to eight weeks, we will have a very rough draft of Wake Forest's new strategic plan to share with faculty and staff. It is likely that, based on internal community responses, we will then develop a second iteration. We hope to have the plan in its final form early in 2008.
As we identify priorities that will require funding, we will ask departments to look to their own budgets to provide some of the necessary resources. Deciding what a department should scale back on to support a new priority represents one of the most challenging — but essential — steps in successful planning. Do know that we plan to use this year's budget process for allocating strategic funds. Since no good plan is static, we expect annual reports to include a discussion of plan implementation as part of each unit's accountability.
During the course of the fall semester, we will send you updates from the Planning Council. We also encourage you to read the strategic plan web site and Window on Wake Forest for news about planning.
Sincerely,
Jill Tiefenthaler
Provost
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