January 7, 2005

President Wilson convened the first SPSC meeting of the Spring 2005 semester
at 3 PM. The Committee approved a report of its December 16, 2004, meeting
and asked Professor Gardner to distribute it to all faculty and staff
members and to have it posted on the Strategic Planning Web site at:
http://www2.iwu.edu/president/Strategic/

The President reported that he had just returned from a Council of
Independent Colleges presidents' seminar at which 200-300 presidents met.
He came away with a sense that IWU's strategic planning process is very much
in line with approaches recommended at the conference. He indicated that
he was ready to send a promised follow-up note to the campus with more
details on the planning process and schedule, including an invitation to two
open forums (January 24 from 8:30 to 9:30 and January 26 from 3:30 to 4:30,
both in the Beckman Auditorium of The Ames Library).

The President then asked SPSC members for advice on how to gather alumni and
Trustee input effectively. Committee members recommended involving the
Alumni Executive Board during its scheduled conference call at the end of
the month and having a special session with the Trustees at their February
7-8 meetings. The SPSC will decide what materials to provide to these two
groups when it meets again on January 21.

The President next turned the Committee's attention to the lengthy set of
compiled comments it had received as a result of its December 2004 request
for input from faculty students, and staff. A couple of members expressed
concern that some respondents seemed to interpret the SPSC's request as mere
recycling of prepackaged materials from other reports and studies rather
than a fresh effort to determine future priorities. The Committee
reaffirmed its commitment to a planning process that is -- and must be
perceived be -- clearly future-directed if it is to be successful. But the
Committee also agreed that some unaddressed issues that surfaced in past
reports will no doubt emerge as needing attention now. Thus, there is
likely to be continued overlap between past concerns and future directions.

Several Committee members noted that three of the possible goal areas
mentioned in the December survey--fostering a student-centered climate of
teaching and learning, sustaining and supporting the faculty and staff, and
effectively managing resources to fulfill our vision--had received
widespread support from all constituents and had generated a number of
specific comments about why these areas are critical to the future success
of the University. In the limited time remaining in the meeting, the
President asked for further thoughts on the first of these three
areas; fostering a student-centered climate of teaching and learning.
Citing both input from faculty, staff, and student respondents to the
December survey and SPSC members' own ideas, the Committee observed that
recent assessment results and comments from the community suggest a need to
engage students more effectively in their intellectual and co-curricular
endeavors. Identifying more specifically what we desire in our graduates
and looking further at where we might now be falling short in achieving
those aims could be fruitful avenues for further conversation across campus
as we investigate potential strategic priorities over the next months.

The Committee agreed to meet again on January 21 to discuss the open forums
scheduled for the week after that and to continue its analysis of comments
already received.

Distributed to all faculty and staff: January 24, 2005