Extensive Academic Plan in the works
At the October 8 meeting of Concordia's Senate, Provost David Graham announced a university-wide project to develop an Academic Plan to achieve the priorities defined by Concordia’s strategic framework.
Shortly after the announcement, Graham emailed faculty members, outlining the planning project to date and offering information on how to collaborate in the plan’s creation.
Graham’s aim is to present to the university’s decision-making bodies a clear direction and action plan that, as described in his message, “weaves together the several threads of our academic work to provide the narrative arc that will give meaning and shared direction to what we do.”
The academic plan will focus on faculty, students, and academic programs. The goal is to reinforce the commitments articulated in the university’s strategic framework to high-quality academic work, an outstanding student experience, and strong community engagement. The plan will also recommend strategies for ensuring sound academic administration.
This should provide the blueprint to lead us to our goal of becoming a top-tier comprehensive university. Brad Tucker, Director of the Institutional Planning Office, continues to work with the academic leadership to refine a series of benchmarks and metrics intended to help us gauge our progress, vis-à-vis our earlier performance and in comparison to other institutions, toward that goal. These metrics are currently being discussed and refined at the departmental level.
An Academic Plan working group, chaired by Tucker, will carefully consider planning work undertaken over the past couple of years in several areas, such as faculty hiring, enrolment, and evaluation of new and existing academic programs. It will also incorporate input from the larger academic community, beginning with comments on the recent working group reports on students’ fundamental academic competencies and on teaching assessments. These working groups were led by Vice- Provost Teaching and Learning Ollivier Dyens during the 2009-10 academic year.
A final working draft of the plan should be delivered to a Steering Committee chaired by Graham in January 2011. Graham states there will be multiple avenues available for providing feedback, including online commenting, an Open to Question forum, Faculty Council meetings, and Senate discussions. Subsequent drafts will reflect the results of these discussions, and a final plan will be brought to the Board, ideally by May of 2011.
For more information about the process, and how to participate in it, listen to Provost David Graham and Academic Plan working group chair Brad Tucker: