A state filled with diverse economic and educational needs, a student body of more than 30,000, and thousands of faculty and staff members.

Balancing the concerns of all these groups – and boiling it down into one digestible document – is the goal of the University’s Strategic Planning Committee, which is scheduled to release the initial draft of the document on Feb. 18.

“This is not going to be a 100-page document. It’ll be 10 to 20 pages,” Strategic Planning Committee co-chair and Academic Provost Warwick Arden said of the draft plan. “It’ll be a general document that provides an aspirational statement about where we’re going as a University, and what our goals are going to be for the next five to eight years.”

The weight of the task might slow down production of the first draft, Arden said. If that happens, the draft might not be posted on the Planning Committee’s website by Feb. 18.

“We’re shooting for that [deadline]. It’s a tight timeline, and we might not be right on the money,” Arden said.  “But certainly it’ll be posted by the end of February.”

Once the plan is posted, it will be available for public comment until March 4.

The Planning Committee hopes the brevity of the draft plan encourages comment from all University stakeholders, Arden said.

“It will be something that you can easily read in an hour or two. And it’s something we want campus input on. We will take that input very seriously,” Arden said.

The draft plan will touch on nine key “issues” identified by the Strategic Planning Committee, which assigned each of these nine issues a separate task force. Each task force has already reported its initial findings to the Strategic Planning Committee in the form of “white papers” that are already up on the Planning Committee’s website.

The draft plan will be based on the white papers of all nine task forces, Arden said.

One task force member said that there was harmony, yet little hegemony, in his group.

“Our task force had faculty, staff and administration folks as well. The makeup really cut across the University,” Roby Sawyers, Resource Strategies Task Force co-chair, said. “We certainly had people with different perspectives, different views of the world and differing visions for the University.”

Despite its eclectic makeup, the Resource Strategies Task Force was committed to looking for solutions that were in the best interests of the entire University, said Sawyers, who is also a professor of accounting.

“Our task force had a remarkable consensus as to what N.C. State should do moving forward,” Sawyers said.

While he was pleased with the diversity of the task forces, Sawyers said some more student involvement might have made things even better.

“On the task forces, there weren’t as many students; ours didn’t have any students, for example,” Sawyers said. “However, the [Undergraduate] Student Success group is having the forums to try to increase student participation.”

On Feb. 16 in the Talley Student Center Ballroom, Chancellor Randy Woodson and Student Body President Kelly Hook will host a strategic planning student forum. During the forum, students will be encouraged to comment on the recommendations of the Strategic Plan, particularly those tied to student success. Those interested in attending are encouraged to review the task force white papers on the N.C. State Strategic Planning Committee website.

Increased student participation in the planning process is something Arden is counting on, as he lists “student success” as the top priority for the Strategic Plan.

“There are multiple visions for this plan, but the one that has been at the forefront all the time is student success. It’s the overarching theme,” Arden said.

According to Arden, the Task Force isn’t just looking at GPAs when defining student success.

“It means retention, graduation, academic student success of course,” Arden said of the Strategic Plan’s top goal. “But also, the overall quality of education, and also the inspirational elements of a student’s experience at N.C. State University.”

And while there might not be students on each of the nine task forces, there is one task force dedicated entirely to students.

The goal of the Undergraduate Student Success task force “was to propose three to five recommendations that would enhance the student experience for the future of N.C. State undergraduate students,” Marycobb Randall, Task Force co-chair and senior in business administration,said.

“Our recommendations focused on ideas that might increase retention rates, improve student satisfaction and increase the quality of education and preparedness for the workforce or graduate school,” Randall said.

Of the nine task forces, the USS has the heaviest student flavor. In addition to Randall, Tyrik Hicks, a senior in chemical engineering; William Lamb, a senior in communications and Kris Gower, a junior in international studies,  represent the student body on the USS task force.

This is obviously a huge investment of time and brain power for the University- and at a time when resources must be optimized to deal with the coming budget cuts. But Arden said that the plan should not be viewed as a patch to get through the current economic crisis.

“This strategic planning began last summer, and is a plan for the next five to eight years. It is not a short-term budget plan [and] it’s not a plan to get from this budget year to next budget year,” Arden said.

Further, the current economic climate actually makes this the right time for a strategic plan.

“People might say, ‘Why would you spend time on a strategic plan you might not have money to implement’?, but that is precisely the reason we need a plan moving forward. This is exactly the time to have a plan, to think more critically about how we can work more efficiently and effectively as a university,” Arden said.

Student leaders associated with the Strategic Plan agreed that the timing was right for a comprehensive plan that the whole University can get behind.

“The planning process is certainly costing some time for those heavily involved in the committees and task forces,” said Hook, who is on the Strategic Planning Steering Committee. “The planning process was actually a stroke of luck for our University during this budget situation. Financial resources aren’t used on the process itself, but the process will determine the best way to use financial resources.” 

Randall agreed that having a strategic plan in place can only help N.C. State navigate the expected dire financial straits.

“At times when budget constraints are most pressing, it is important for the University to take into account how it will most effectively and efficiently maintain its core competencies into the future,” Randall said. “Time and resources spent toward this effort today will have amplified positive effects for years to come.”