Trustees must ask where the institution is headed and how clear and attainable its goals are. In this regard, public and independent trustees share a similar responsibility, just as they do for their diligent oversight of institutional funds, whether the funds are generated by tax dollars, tuition, or private giving. Effective strategic planning must be connected fully to budgets, operational plans, academic projections, and other institutional plans so all elements are viewed as a single, cohesive blueprint. Such a planning process creates more than a document. Additionally, every person on campus should know how his or her work fits into a comprehensive plan, and of course, all plans, regardless of their focus, must support the institution's mission.
Good planning is a process of organizational learning.
As with all enterprises and industries, higher education has its share of naysayers who refute or downplay threats to its existence. Only by recognizing that such challenges exist and undoubtedly will multiply can higher education respond intelligently. Equally important, higher education leaders must be as quick to view intensifying competition, underused faculty and facilities, and burgeoning technology as opportunities for reaching new categories of learners and untapped markets, developing new services, and perhaps, identifying emerging disciplines. Higher education leaders and administrators must recapture and redefine the national debate on the value of higher education not only for the trickle-down benefit to their individual institutions but for the collective benefit of all colleges and universities. Given the inescapable economic pressures that squeeze most institutions, trustees and business officers are obliged to scrutinize all financial processes and practices and ensure that they are integrated with institutional mission, academic priorities, and policies.