“Armed with the right data, the shared governors of the college or university are well equipped to do the deep thinking required to be financially strategic but also institutionally strategic. Strategic planning, especially in good economic times, has often led to “laundry list” plans of aspirational goals that are not especially strategic.

Worse, many plans included “big hairy audacious goals” (so-called BHAGs), inspired by the corporate work of Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, which might have been strategic but were not especially achievable. A strategic plan, at its core, should be strategic-minded and achievable. There is no shame in making that achievement a stretch, but it should be an honest stretch.

The mission and the strategic plan are the two most useful instruments in shared governance because they can be used to efficiently guide decision-making. That is why it is so crucial for institutions to regularly examine and agree upon both.”

– Brian C. Mitchell and W. Joseph King, How to Run a College, 29–30

A few weeks ago, the Board of Trustees approved Pratt’s new strategic plan. This milestone provides an opportunity to step back and examine strategic planning itself as a practice in higher education. What makes one strategic plan successful and another “a waste of time” (see Lee Gardner)?

How do faculty and administrators experience the strategic planning process differently (see Brent Graves and Fritz Erickson)? And, perhaps most importantly, does strategic planning strengthen or weaken shared governance (according to Brian Mitchell, it should strengthen shared governance)?

Strategic planning has become nearly universal in American higher education, and yet its value remains contested. As one recent survey of faculty and administrators (Graves and Erickson) found, perceptions of strategic planning vary dramatically depending on where one sits in the institutional hierarchy. These perceptions matter because they shape how (and whether) people engage with the process.

Strategic Planning in Higher Education

“A specter is haunting higher education: the specter of decline and bankruptcy.”

George Keller began his book, Academic Strategy: The Management Revolution in Higher Education, with these words in 1983. Citing experts, he predicted that, over the following 12 years, up to 30% of colleges and universities in the United States would either close or be absorbed by other institutions.

In response to this perceived threat, Keller introduced the idea of strategic planning (already familiar in military and corporate contexts) to the academy.

A Short History

Mark Heckler provides a brief history of strategic planning in higher education, tracing the practice from its source in corporate America, through Keller’s adaptation for higher education, and through the rough waters of the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, where strategic plans were often ineffective, top-down productions with little input or buy-in from faculty and staff.

The past two decades, according to Heckler, represent a turning point, in which strategic planning has become a more inclusive, collaborative, democratic, and deliberative process, even as the effectiveness of these plans often remains inconsistent.

A Contested Legacy

With roughly forty years of hindsight, Keller’s legacy remains contested.

Daniel Grassian cites Keller’s work approvingly, noting how Elon University used strategic planning to become a major player among colleges and universities in teaching and research, as traced in another of Keller’s books, Transforming a College: The Story of a Little-Known College’s Strategic Climb to National Distinction(123–124). There is a particular value in long-range planning and a sober approach to the reality that institutions of higher education need to be responsive to market forces.

Larry Gerber, on the other hand, cites strategic planning as a major force behind the erosion of shared governance as well as academic “retrenchment” (i.e., “the closing of programs and the termination of faculty appointments,” 122). Gerber writes, “In [Keller’s] view, academic matters such as curricular planning could no longer be considered in isolation from their economic impact.

Keller criticized the ineffectiveness of senates and the increasing tendency of faculty members to focus on their own individual interests rather than the collective well-being of the institutions in which they worked” (123).

According to this view, there is an anti-democratic and anti-academic kernel to strategic planning as it has been adapted from the corporate world that necessarily transfers decision-making authority from the broader community to the more narrow, central administration.

If Elon University in the 1980s is Grassian and Keller’s example of how strategic planning works, Wesleyan University in the 1980s is Gerber’s example of how strategic planning does not work, at least not in concert with the principles of shared governance. And these concerns continue today, as evidenced by Adam Rzepka’s recent Academe blog post about “strategic” academic restructuring at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

The Need for Strategic Planning

It is important to be mindful of these histories. At the same time, it is undeniable that strategy and planning are imperative for surviving, much less successfully navigating, an increasingly complex and rapidly changing higher education ecosystem.

This necessity is reflected in the fact that our accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education requires regular strategic planning (see Standard VI: Planning, Resources, and Institutional Improvement).

This is not unique to Middle States; as Dean Smith writes, “The associations that accredit public and private schools, colleges, and universities… require universities to have strategic plans and to adhere to them” (74).

Rethinking Strategic Planning

Peter Eckel prompts us to rethink what strategic planning might look like in a way that remains responsive to the external forces that make such planning necessary while also remaining true to our unique identity as a school of art, design, and architecture with incredible strengths in information science and the liberal arts.

Looking ahead, how might we approach strategic planning in a way that bucks the conventional, embraces uncertainty, and emphasizes questions over fixed answers? How can we harness our institutional capacity for creativity and innovation in strategic planning from the start?

Senate Plenary on December 2, 2025: (in person with lunch)

Academic Strategizing

We need to amplify faculty voices and practices in developing the strategic direction of an Academic Plan that does not yet exist, especially in its focus on teaching and learning. The first opportunity to do this will be at the Senate Plenary on December 2.

The Strategic Plan provides success metrics for the implementation of the academic portion of the Strategic Plan. We now have an opportunity to move beyond metrics to develop targeted questions about our academic direction in this time of political and fiscal uncertainty in higher education.

As Eckel asks, “Given the volatility and ambiguity of the environment, might an approach that asks questions, tests hypotheses and encourages experimentation be more helpful than one that dictates direction based on short-term predictions?”

We have an opportunity at the Senate Plenary to raise such questions and frame hypotheses as part of academic strategizing. We have an opportunity to open up, rather than shut down, our options. Please come prepared with questions related to your academic context at Pratt as well as Pratt’s overarching academic context.

Research on Strategic Planning in Higher Education

Peter D. Eckel – The Trouble with Strategy (2023)

Lee Gardner – The Truth About Strategic Plans: What Makes One a Success and Another a Waste of Time? (2021)

Larry G. Gerber – The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance: Professionalization and the Modern American University (2014)
Chapter 5: Corporatization and the Challenges to Shared Governance, 1975–Present (pgs. 118–129)

Daniel Grassian – An Insider’s Guide to University Administration (2020)
Chapter 4: Vision, Strategic Planning, Branding, and Image

Brent M. Graves and Fritz J. Erickson – Strategic Planning in Higher Education: Perceptions of Faculty and Administrators at Public Institutions (2024)

Mark Heckler – The Evolution of Strategic Planning in Higher Education (2025)

Brian C. Mitchell – The Search for a Cash Cow and Other Strategic Planning Flaws (2019)

Brian C. Mitchell and W. Joseph King – How to Run a College: A Practical Guide for Trustees, Faculty, Administrators, and Policymakers (2018)
Chapter 2: Finance

MSCHE – Standard VI: Planning, Resources, and Institutional Improvement (2023)

Adam Rzepka – The Eternal Synergy of the Spotless Mind (2025)

Dean O. Smith – How University Budgets Work (2019)
Chapter 4: Strategic Plans

Continuing the Conversation in the Spring

Building on the questions, concerns, and suggestions that emerge from the December Senate Plenary, we will develop a path forward for our shared governance deliberations and policies in the Spring. At the beginning of the semester, we would like to focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Pratt and on Pratt’s values.

We plan to invite Vernese Edghill-Walden (Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) to our first Spring Senate meeting on February 17. Following this discussion, we plan to bring in the voices of Pratt’s academic administrators, such as deans and chairs, to help us better understand what implementation of the new Strategic Plan looks like on the ground and how it connects to Pratt’s values.