April 11, 2008
Melis
By Colleen MacPherson
One of the three priority areas named in a draft of the University’s second integrated plan has garnered some criticism recently from people concerned about the state of labour relations on campus. In response, one of the document’s authors offers this reminder – “This (plan) isn’t about the past, it’s about the future.”
Pauline Melis, director of institutional planning in the Integrated Planning Office, said the feedback gathered in consultations about the draft held over the past weeks indicate the section of the plan entitled The Ways We Work Together “doesn’t adequately address the concerns of some people on campus. What we are trying to say is that this plan is about faculty, staff and students working well and effectively together. I hope the language we ultimately use conveys this goal.”
Melis has just finished shepherding the draft plan through an extensive series of meetings and discussions as a way of gauging reaction to the document that will guide the University’s activities over the next four years. That process included consultations with individual academic and administrative units, a major town hall open to the entire campus, a special meeting of University Council April 3 and discussion at meetings of University Senate’s Regional Advisory Councils. The widely-distributed plan was also available for online comment on the Integrated Planning website.
As well as identifying working together as an area of high priority in the coming planning cycle, the draft includes two other specific priorities—Teaching, Learning and the Student Experience, and Research Accomplishment and Success. Each of the three sections is accompanied by a number of institutional commitments—15 in all—that describe where the University should direct its efforts. Melis pointed out the number of commitments could change as the final version of the plan takes shape.
Looking at the feedback as a whole, Melis said the main concern seems to be that the draft is not detailed enough. Unlike the first integrated plan, the second does not include specific initiatives, an intentional strategy designed to create a document that reflects a higher level vision of the University, she said.
“We’ve had very positive comments from people who say they can see themselves in the plan but there’s a bit of a fear that what we gained in the first plan we will lose in the second because it’s not specific enough,” she said. “People are worried about how this will translate into initiatives that affect their college or unit within the University.”
Those details will come, she said, as the IPO prepares implementation plans and planning parameters that outline expectations in areas like enrolment, budget, leadership and research performance.
“What I haven’t heard is anything that suggests the plan needs a major overhaul. It appears the core ideas are sound,” so Melis will now work on amending the document’s wording to ensure the overarching messages are clear. The biggest revision will be in explaining initial implementation of the plan, “how the commitments will roll out.”
She expected the revised draft to be posted on the Integrated Planning website by April 10. That document will go to University Council for endorsement April 17 where further wording or emphasis changes could be suggested, she said. The final version is scheduled to go to the Board of Governors for approval May 2.
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