Strategic Compass

Looking Back

At the onset of Academic Year 2023-2024, President Bill Kelly, acting in accordance with the University Handbook, appointed initial members of a Strategic Planning Steering Committee. As the process unfolded, he subsequently added to the committee several AP faculty members and four instructional faculty members (who were recommended by the Faculty Senate). As of 6 August 2024, there are 26 members on the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee “defines and conducts the strategic planning process for the University and makes recommendations to the president regarding all aspects of a proposed University strategic plan” (University Handbook, 2023-2024 Edition, p. 225).

Beginning in September 2023, the Steering Committee launched a major outreach effort and obtained insights from literally hundreds of stakeholders. That effort lasted throughout the fall semester. President Kelly conducted a campus-wide town hall on 23 October 2023, which was attended by more than 100 faculty, staff, and some students. On 6 November 2023, President Kelly in conjunction with the SGA held a town hall for students, which was also well attended. During Fall 2023, there were eight (8) Stakeholder Synthesis Teams who held multiple town hall meetings for faculty and staff, along with small group and individual interviews. Further, a website survey was announced many times via email to our community and resulted in 227 persons offering their insights in writing. This extensive "crowdsourcing" effort resulted in a formal External Scan and then Internal Scan.

Using that scan data, the Steering Committee met on 15 December 2023 to conduct the SWOT analysis. The committee then broke into three groups to separately identify Strategic Issues/Priorities resulting from the SWOT analysis. Those three groups reported to the full committee on Friday, 19 January 2024 and a consensus set of four Strategic Issues/Priorities was achieved. These four Strategic Priorities each contained a narrative to faithfully but concisely convey the desired future for CNU as expressed by our broader community. These four Strategic Priorities were reviewed by President Kelly and then announced by him via email to the CNU community on 11 March 2024 and placed on the University’s website. On Wednesday 27 March 2024, EAB presented a two-hour session on the state of the higher education sector, Reckoning with Relevance, in Peebles Theater. This event was very well attended by faculty, staff, and students, and its explicit purpose was to help keep our teams focused on the external realities as the goals and objectives were crafted.

Each Strategic Priority was then assigned to a Priority Team comprising members of the Steering Committee. The team was charged with initially crafting several (3-5) draft goals that reflected the narrative in the priority. In total, 16 goals resulted across the four Strategic Priorities. A work group was assembled for each goal, and the work group chair was asked to invite additional members from our community. As such, the membership of these 16 Goal Groups extended well beyond the Steering Committee. In total, more than 100 people worked on those 16 goals in late spring and through the summer months. This included 38 instructional faculty, 9 students, and 10 alums, and the remainder were staff members.

The 16 Goal Groups were charged with refining their goal statement and recommending possible objectives needed to measure progress toward the goal. The Goal Groups recommend their work to their respective Priority Team, which in turn will synthesize or coordinate the work of its several Goal Groups. The Steering Committee met on 3 May 2024 to review the progress and plan its fall work.

The four Priority Team chairs met with President Kelly to provide an update on the summer’s work during the first week in September.

President Kelly provided an overview of the four Priorities and corresponding draft Goals during the 9-10 September 2024 Board of Visitors Meeting.

Looking Ahead

The Steering Committee will meet on 13 September 2024 for a work session on draft goals and objectives.

Then, to keep our community informed as faculty and students begin fall semester, to answer questions, and to receive any comments for consideration, the four Priority Teams each will hold one information session to present their draft goals and their top objectives under each goal. These will occur in the Torggler Presentation Hall from 1215 to 115 p.m. as follows:

• Tuesday, September 24: Priority IV - Foundation to Thrive
• Thursday, September 26: Priority I - Power and Promise
• Tuesday, October 1: Priority II - Connect with Community
• Thursday, October 3: Priority III - Inclusion and Belonging

An email invitation will be sent to students, faculty, and staff.

Following these sessions, the Priority Teams will finalize their recommendations to the Steering Committee, which will meet on 11 October and 25 October 2024 to finalize a draft Strategic Compass and present it to President Kelly for review.

President Kelly will confer with the Board of Visitors in early November regarding the draft plan. The Steering Committee will review comments from the Board at a meeting on 22 November 2024 and issue its final recommended plan to President Kelly for review. President Kelly will offer a final version to the Board in February 2025.

A communication plan will ensure that our broader community is informed of the details of the Strategic Compass. Once the Strategic Compass is finalized, detailed implementation plans will be developed in Spring 2025, along with corresponding financial plans.

Of course, unforeseen events could require us to adjust these dates.

Procedural Notes

Not every idea that has been discussed and not all possible objectives will be included in the final Strategic Compass. That is not strategic! Indeed, our University-level work is intended to be strategic (rather than all encompassing), clear, and concise in guiding CNU forward in the next several years. Once the university-level plan, our Strategic Compass, is published, we are not finished, but only beginning. There will be plenty of innovation, adaptation, decisions, and effort required over the next several years as we identify and undertake tactics, tasks, and strategies to achieve the objectives and goals.

Goals should be expressed in the form of one or two brief, powerful, easily understood sentences free of jargon. Similarly, objectives are straightforward expressions of the milestones to achieve the goal. Discussions of potential tactics or tasks under each objective have been helpful as a means of clarifying some of the objectives. However, tactics will not be part of the published Strategic Compass. Tactics are more technical, will require evaluation and fiscal impact by the persons assigned to achieve the objectives, and are subject to change over three to five years. To be clear, the objectives will be assigned to the appropriate persons/offices/departments on campus for achievement. As such, a record of the possible tactics that were discussed by the Goal Groups will be important information for the persons/offices/departments assigned to achieve the particular objective.

Dear Fellow Captains,

Earlier this week, President Kelly notified our campus community in the CNUpdate that the four Compass strategic priorities have been published and he provided the link.

This email is to provide additional information.

This past September, we launched our strategic planning process to create the Strategic Compass. A major outreach effort was then conducted in the fall to obtain insights from literally hundreds of stakeholders. This was done through multiple town hall meetings for students, faculty, and staff, a website survey, and directed surveys and interviews by stakeholder synthesis teams.

This extensive effort resulted in a formal scan of our external and internal environments. The Compass Steering Committee used that treasure trove of scan data to conduct a SWOT analysis and identify the four strategic priorities that will guide our efforts.

Please take a look at those four strategic priorities at this link: https://cnu.edu/strategic-compass/.

Our immediate next step is for the Compass Steering Committee to form four teams, one for each strategic priority. That is being done now. The job of each team is to define the goals, measurable objectives, and operational strategies/tactics to fulfill their strategic priority.

Importantly, these teams will include and bring in other members of our community to contribute their best thinking on how to address or execute each strategic priority.

It is important to be inclusive and methodical to ensure we get the Compass right. Being inclusive and methodical takes time. As such, in agreement with President Kelly, we are extending the timeline to produce the draft strategic plan to October 2024. The original deadline was envisioned as June, but some elements took longer than expected, and we knew adjustments would need to be made, and that is happening. The new timeline helps us ensure that our faculty and students have adequate time to participate after the summer break prior to the final version being written. Summer break will provide an opportunity to conduct research on initial ideas that are offered.

Finally, please know that the work ahead is important because we must consider not only what should be done to ensure that we truly thrive, but in tandem what might no longer be done in the same way. That is the essence of strategic thinking: How to align and use our resources to propel CNU. The University must adopt smart strategies to be successful in meeting the challenges and seizing the opportunities presented by the new environment that higher education is facing.

Thank you!

Bob Colvin
Chair of the Compass Steering Committee

Dear Christopher Newport Community,

President Kelly launched an important initiative to develop our Strategic Compass which will help determine our vision, direction, and strategic goals. Everyone is invited to have a voice in how the Compass guides our future. Every idea and perspective matters! Here is how you can contribute:

1. Visit the CNU Strategic Compass website and click on the button to “Take Survey” and contribute your thoughts. The direct link to that tab is here: https://cnu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eg1v8pHhNJfGMwm. You may contribute anonymously or leave your name. Either way, please take that very brief survey!
2. Another way to contribute is to attend the Strategic Plan Town Hall Listening Session on Monday, October 23, from 4 -5:30 p.m. in the Torggler Presentation Hall. President Kelly will be present to receive comments with a focus on two open-ended questions: (1) How is our university doing? and (2) What are your hopes for CNU? Each speaker is asked to limit comments to two minutes so that more people can speak. There will be boxes with index cards for anyone who would rather offer their thoughts in hard copy. We are working with the Student Government Association so they can host a similar listening session on Monday, November 6 at 7:30 p.m. More details will follow!
3. Special research teams called Stakeholder Synthesis Teams have been created and they will help connect with the people in our community, such as students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and local leaders. These teams are busy gathering insights in various ways from a sample of their assigned stakeholders and will report their findings to the Steering Committee. You may hear from a member of those teams, so please respond!

You can keep up with the process by checking the Strategic Compass website at https://my.cnu.edu/strategic-compass/. There is a timeline of the entire Compass process on the website. You also can see who is on the Stakeholder Synthesis Teams and who is on the Steering Committee, and you are welcome to reach out to them. A sincere thank you is due to each of those members! Thanks also to Willy Donaldson, Amie Dale, Jim Hanchett, and Claire Rooney for their substantial work supporting this effort. It is an exciting time to be involved with CNU as we help write the next chapter of this special and amazing university. If you have questions about the Strategic Compass planning process, you are warmly invited to contact me!

Bob Colvin
Vice President for Strategic Initiatives
compass@cnu.edu or (757) 594-7972

Colleagues,

The Compass Town Hall Listening Session with President Kelly is Monday, 23 October, at 4 p.m. in the Torggler Presentation Hall. Please attend if you can!

Thanks to your good work, we remain on track with our Strategic Compass development. As shown on the attached list of steps, we are on Step 5. Our Synthesis Teams provide their findings and assumptions from the external scan next Friday, October 27.

Then, the Steering Committee meets on November 3 to finalize the external scan and develop key success factors! (Step 6).

You may find it helpful to look at the attached list of steps, particularly those between now and December 15.

Thank you for helping make this process successful! See you Monday.

Bob

CNU’s Strategic Compass Steps in the Three-Phase Process

2023-2025

PHASE 1 – External and Internal Scan, KSFs, and Critical Issues -- Fall 2023

1. Establish the Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC) - 28 July 2023
2. SPSC to finalize the workplan (13 Sep) and create Stakeholder Synthesis Teams (SSTs)(20 Sep)
3. Communication Plan - Announce the process and structure.
   • Create the Strategic Compass website and publicize it.
   • Share the process from the outset, and then provide regular updates to stakeholders
   • Create the Google shared drive with resources for teams.
4. Define Values What are the non-negotiable values we will pursue and advance?
   • See the values in comments from President Kelly’s inauguration address, and oath of office.
5. External Scan from 26 Sep through Oct 27 by Stakeholder Synthesis Teams (SSTs). Also review publications and external trend data. Identify findings and assumptions. Transmit their written report on Step 5 to the SPSC by Fri Oct 27
6. SPSC meets Nov 3 and finalizes external findings and assumptions, and then identifies Key Success Factors (KSFs). Communicate those KSFs to the Teams
7. Internal Scan Oct 27- Nov 27 by Stakeholder Synthesis Teams (SSTs)– What are we good at doing and where should we invest our limited resources in doing better?
8. SSTs articulate findings and assumptions from the internal scan. SSTs transmit their written report on the internal scan to the SPSC Mon Nov 27
9. SPSC meets Dec 1 to review Internal Scan’s findings and assumptions. Begin discussion of Critical Issues and Priorities.
10. SPSC meets again on Dec 15 to finalize Critical Issues and Priorities. This is the first cut at Cardinal and Ordinal Compass points.

Phase 1 is to be completed by the end of Fall 2023 Semester

PHASE 2 – Mission, Vision, and writing the Strategic Plan – Spring 2024

1. SPSC to review the Mission (if change is needed) – Why does CNU exist? What would NOT occur if CNU closed? What are our legal requirements?
2. SPSC to review the Vision. Living into our values in the environment, who will we BE in the future? Where are we headed? If we could craft the University of our best hopes, have the impact that is most important, and is sustainable in our external environment, then what would this look like in 5 years?
3. Draft Mission and Vision are circulated to sample stakeholders for feedback.
4. Major Objectives---Finalizing Cardinal and Ordinal Compass points – In pursuing our Vision, what must be our major accomplishments in the next 5 years?
5. Communicate objectives with sample stakeholders. Feedback? Adjust?
6. Strategies – How will we achieve the major objectives?
7. Measurable goals defined and the dashboard is created.
   • People, time, and budget are allocated.
   • IR and Assessment heavily involved.
8. The Draft Strategic Plan is presented to President Kelly – By March 2024
9. President briefs BoV and the final plan is published and broadly distributed.

Phase 2 is to be completed by the end of Spring 2024 Semester.

PHASE 3 – Implementation of the Strategic Compass – Beginning July 1, 2024 

1. These goals are implemented by the University’s faculty and staff.
2. Review the dashboard quarterly. Adjust course as needed. Communicate our results regularly.

Dear Christopher Newport Community:

The Strategic Compass planning process is on track with our published timeline!

With your help, information has been collected about how the world outside CNU affects what we do. Nearly 200 people have shared their insights through the Compass website survey form. There have been wonderful in-person listening sessions and discussions with faculty, staff, and students. The Stakeholder Teams have been busy researching the external environment.

We are now looking more internally, at what we do best and where we can improve. Your ideas will help there, too, and more listening sessions are currently being held. Plus, you can still contribute ideas by using the survey found here.

The Strategic Compass Steering Committee will meet again on December 1st and 15th, to review and study all of the information that has been collected. More updates will follow.

Thank you for making CNU a place anchored in excellence, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Dr. Bob Colvin
Vice President for Strategic Initiatives