The President provides the vision and leadership that symbolizes the institution, and as chair of the Executive Planning Council, coordinates strategic planning, informs the campus community of strategic plans, seeks the advice of the Strategic Planning Council and the Faculty Senate, and serves as chief advocate for Georgia Southern's strategic plan in the external environment. Georgia Southern University's basic policy is that planning is an integral part of each administrator's job. Each vice president, dean, director, and department chair is responsible for the development, documentation, implementation and measurement of the plans necessary to achieve the mission and objectives of their area of responsibility. Each administrator is responsible for planning the work activities of the unit and for making certain that all affected employees understand and are committed to those plans. Communication of plans must also extend to all those departments that are impacted by the plans or must provide support for their implementation.
Documentation is an essential element of plan preparation.
The Office of Planning and Analysis incorporates the traditional duties of institutional research and reporting in its structure. The office collaborates with other agencies on campus to produce both information and analysis at various levels of aggregation and points of focus. The office includes a research function that is used in identifying and establishing institutional direction, policy, objectives, and procedures. The OPA provides to executives and managers information that is used in the annual planning-budgeting process. The office supports the administrative and research needs of the institution's planning bodies, providing services such as record-keeping, longitudinal and comparative studies, environmental scanning, and development of decision models.