Question #10 -Is there any additional feedback related to the DRAFT Plan that you would like to provide?
Individual Responses -
- I have attended a community college for 2 years before coming here. As a student right now. I commute from PA. One thing that might deter future students would be the part of 422 that is completely run down east side area. Its the first thing you see right before the school. If that was fixed up it may attract more commuters from that direction. I know with other campuses You know when your actual on campus. With the new dorms people want to feel safe as they are moving on to campus. I guess a bigger ysu present around stretches out where if you go past a certain point you feel as if you entered campus. This could be done be overhead walkway bridges with YSU logos colors so when you drive thru them you feel as if you on campus. These also fix another problem trying to dodge traffic when going to class and back and forth to the dorms. A better student success center . Also I'm a engineering major and one thing that has been a major problem is no 1 on 1 tutoring for math. YSU cant be the #1 stem school without good math students and a lot of them need that including myself. Its great to see all the donations and new buildings, but what about the day to day travel of the student. Why don't someone on this planning committee try parking in the far lot and try to navigate from class to class for a busy schedule and see how it could be improved. My 9 and 10 classes are so far about 10 minutes is not enough to get there. There are some problems in the electrical program it self. Students are just thrown stuff and a lot of confusion is happening for some of the students. I had similar classes at a community college with the same info and it was done in a much better fashion. Wheres the High tech stuff. Nano fabrication, AI, Robotics. If we want better students we have to have the same kind of facilities as the other universities. I'm very proud to be a student here and I just want to make the school better.
- One thing that we should keep forefront as we operationalize the Strategic Plan is our migration towards a "university" based culture - thus moving away from siloed departmental/college based culture.
- Communication about the Strategic Plan seems to be spotty. Information should be simplified and the big picture needs to included on all correspondence. The timeline with deliverables attached to it is an essential part of the communication. Rather than using Venn Diagrams with no explanation of intersecting circles and slidedecks that show items with relationships that are not explained and are at best very challenging to follow, it would be good to present information in a more concise and clear manner. The website for the Strategic Plan shows word bubbles for results of the questions posed to the university as a whole instead of simple descriptive tallies. It would be helpful to describe how the work of SPOT was influenced by the feedback/input generated by these questions to the university. Lastly, it would be good to know the role moving forward of the Board, administrators, faculty, students, and staff in relation to the completion of the Strategic Plan.
- I think it would be beneficial to have guest speakers come to classrooms to talk specifically about what they are looking for as an employer. I feel there is a gap between what we are taught employees look for and what they actually are looking for.
I also think the opportunity to be more involved with mentorship program would be a great thing to include. I loved being a part of Mentoring Aspiring Professionals. It was unfortunate we couldn't meet in person as often as we wanted but I still feel I made a valuable connection through the program. - I share these comments with great respect and appreciate the MANY, MANY hours of work that MANY people have been put into this document. And the comments being shared are done with all sincerity and hope that they are helpful to us and our future.
The draft document is not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting the outcome product to provide a vision (and detail) of the university's business strategy. A document that would guide university decisions, and relatedly, investments to build capabilities that would differentiate us in the marketplace. In fact, this differentiation and direction needs to be determined for the university can carry out many of the lower level objectives (e.g., "Develop an integrated and comprehensive market and brand communication strategy to distinguish the value of the YSU degree"); however, differentiation is not simply marketing and communicating. Recall the former Tulane President (Scott Cowen) who was invited to campus to speak on strategy who stated something along the lines of "if you know how your institution is different from others, and you cannot explain it in a sentence or two, you do not have a strategy. You need to be very clear with that." I do not see that directive differentiation in this document. There is nothing in this document that defines how YSU will be different than other universities. And honestly, we might not be able to do that (and that is ok). However, this strategy should be able to provide a vision for how we will be different, and what we will do different, from what we are, and have been, doing.
This document is not business strategy. Rather, it seems like an expanded version of the mission statement, or at best, perhaps a set of loose guidelines of operational objectives. In many (too many) ways this document is quite similar in nature to the prior four cornerstones. That document was not a business strategy either, but rather umbrellas of things we did. The four-cornerstone approach has led us to not collectively moving in a direction and did not encourage changing actions/decisions, or recognizing changes needed to be made. This is in part the reason we ended up with the challenging position we continue to find ourselves. This broad umbrella approach allowed for faculty, departments, and colleges to essentially do what they wanted to do as everything would fall under one of the cornerstones, and it did not force people to question if those were the things that needed to be done to be successful going forward. Given the broadness of some of the categories in the current draft document (as was the case in the 4 cornerstones) I am not sure how actions will change, how very limited investment decisions will be guided, and outcomes are going to be different than the past. Further, there is nothing that we do now that I do not think would fit under one of the draft goals. Given this, there is no direction for change. There is no vision that a faculty member or department could thoughtfully question how their actions and decisions are aligned. And with all of the talk of program efficiencies, there is nothing in particularly in this document that reflects this directive, or how those alignments should be determined.
There are several issues with the goals. First, the goals are not clearly aligned with the foundational principles (e.g., I am not sure what goals support the principle of "academic distinction and discovery of knowledge"-. Further, the stated goals are not goals, they are objectives (at best). And this is not simple semantics. To be actionable goals, they need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and be time bound. The majority of goals are not measurable and none of them are not time bound. How long strategic is this plan for? Do all of the goals have the same time frames?
Many of the items labeled strategies are actually tactics. And some of them do not seem to be aligned with the higher-level goal. For example, the goal "GOAL: We will be recognized as a community-engaged campus by the Carnegie Foundation around the following areas of focus: education; health; prosperity and equity; and arts and culture" however, none of the strategies mention relate the specific areas that follow the colon in the statement. In particular, "arts and culture" seem quite out of place. These words suggest these areas are a primary strategic focus for the university?
Most surprisingly, I see no goals (objectives) that focus on the marketplace changes and challenges we face, in particular the largest challenge facing the university - stabilization, or even growth, of market share (and related revenue not just headcount). There has been a lot of talk on the importance of "online," the university even signed a long-term, very costly contract with a firm to market this initiative; yet, online is not specifically mentioned as part of the university's strategy. This is a significant disconnect between the draft strategy and strategic decisions that have been made. Further, I see no goals or strategies about how education might be delivered more flexibly; yet, there is much talk on campus that recognizes this change in the market.
In short, the document nicely summarizes things a university should be doing from an operations perspective, and arguably we have been doing. However, it is not different enough from the past, or other institutions, to seemingly provide of vision of what the university will be and how the will be successful in an ever changing, competitive, and shrinking market. We all know tough decisions are going to have to be made, and the strategy should chart the direction to guide those decisions.
As a relevant example to many of the points noted (e.g., need focus and direction), here is a snippet from Akron’s upcoming 3-year strategic plan.
1) Expand on-line offerings through a uniquely branded comprehensive Akron Virtual Campus.
2) Direct available resources to high demand degree areas related to business, engineering, technology, and health professions.
3) Develop increased flexibility with more pathways for student success.
4) Capitalize on potential opportunities to generate income through external partnerships with regional businesses.