The Transformational Power of Strategic Planning. AIR 2001 Annual Forum Paper.

Strategic planning is vital to the effective management of colleges and universities. It is also integral to institutional change. This case study demonstrates the critical connection between strategic planning and institutional transformation by tracing the strategic planning process for a public baccalaureate institution over a 5-year period. The paper highlights numerous changes resulting from the plan and explains these outcomes using the four frames that L. Bolman and T. Deal (1991) associate with organizational transformation: structural, human resources, political, and symbolic. By focusing on the seven major goals that comprise the strategic plan, a campus culture emerged in which the customers, the students, receive the highest priority. The strategic plan laid the foundation for the dramatic transformation that has occurred, and is still occurring, by establishing a clearly articulated vision and much-needed direction for the college. (Author/SLD)