When planning is needed between site visits, then it s done in a similar fashion, but not driven by the agency s requirements. In our case, the Faculty Senate was first asked to set up a Faculty Commission to develop such a plan. This was then used by our accrediting team to develop their plan. The various changes at the university recently held up the planning process and our accreditation document became more of a philosophy than an implementable planning document. We now have appointed a Presidential Commission, which will flesh out the actual planning document.
Formulation is difficult and doesn t always take place as planned.
In fact, this is often the case. We had appointed two Task Forces to study the environmental issues affecting growth in two of our graduate schools. One team developed a definitive plan that stated strengths and weaknesses, and laid out an exact plan for putting the school on track for today s market needs. The second team developed a reasonable philosophy for improving the school, but provided no implementable planning document. An implementation plan must be well formulated and flexible, allowing procedures for many kinds of unplanned but needed changes.