Our interpretation of the major issues and concerns that resulted in this recommendation:

According to recommendation #1, we need to develop a five-year enrollment and financial plan that reflects the University’s larger strategic plan and assures adequate support for ISU’s range of program plans. The first steps in this process should be to review the strategic plan for clarity and coherence and to revise the University’s mission statement to ensure consistency between the two documents, as the pair will serve as our institutional blueprint for all subsequent planning processes and resultant documents. Once we have identified the relevant aspects of the strategic plan and mission statement that should be reflected in our institutional assessment plan, we can begin drafting the objectives and outcomes of the financial and enrollment plans.

To further articulate these plans beyond the draft stage, we will need the data structures in place that will allow us to gather the data specified in items 2 and 3 above. Once this segment of the process is in place, we can identify and institute the linkages needed between the institutional level plans and the program plans at the college level. It is likely that this linkage can be shared/developed with the Dean’s Council (meeting as the Assessment Coordinating Council?) acting as a consultancy/advisory body to the Vice President of Finance and the Dean of Enrollment Planning.

Much of the work centered in Recommendation 1 will revolve around concretely articulating already-existing processes that NWCCU saw as more or less transparent. Openly articulated linkages with college-level planning and budgeting processes—through the above mentioned financial and enrollment plans—should serve to meet the needs stated in this recommendation.

How this recommendation links to other recommendations?

Recommendation #1 is closely linked to three recommendations — recommendation 5, assessment; recommendation 2, Institutional Research, and recommendation 3, integrated database management systems. Recommendation 1 is also directly or indirectly linked in varying degrees to five other recommendations — recommendation 4, state workload adjustment policy; recommendation 6, SBOE planning and assessment; recommendation 7, university organizational/management structure and oversight, recommendation 9, Continuing Education, and recommendation 10, Continuing Education.

The extensive comments in the NWCCU Comprehensive Report referring to Recommendation 1 and related standards speaks to the larger institutional nature of the concerns and the connections to the eight other recommendations listed here. Furthermore, the linkage Recommendation 1 shares with Recommendation 5 is enormous in its implications — taken together, the issues articulated in recommendations 1 and 5 touch on every other recommendation in the report — all of the other recommendations in the comprehensive report are dependent to greater or lesser degrees on or grow from the issues detailed in recommendations 1 and 5.

What has already been done to address this Recommendation:

What activities are currently underway?

What needs to be done to meet this recommendation?