Strategic Governance 85
University Resources Committee will make recommendations on the full range
of financial and budgetary issues facing the university. There is no central SPC or
its equivalent (Savage 2003).
A number of questions present themselves in this case as well. How and when do
the deliberations of the faculty committee on academic program priorities become
integrated with other strategic goals and priorities of the university? The faculty voice
on academic programs and priorities is central but must ultimately be connected to
the institution’s larger strategic needs and its financial capabilities. It would ring
louder were it heard continuously around the central table of integrative strategic
decision making within an SPC, rather than in separate advisory committees.
An Effective Steering Core for Strategy
The challenge for each college and university is to forge local pathways and
mechanisms that create effective informal and formal linkages across various
domains of strategic decision making. Lacking a systematic way to integrate an
institution’s strategic possibilities with its ongoing academic decisions, the process
can easily become splintered, duplicative, and frustrating, as we have seen at
Flagship. It works in fits and starts, sometimes wasting time and energy on aca-
demic projects and plans that may lead nowhere because they are not related to
broader educational issues and other priorities and resources.
All these studies and cases reveal that the establishment of an effective vehicle
for strategic governance and leadership has become an inescapable and pressing
issue for colleges and universities. The time has long since come to renew and
reconfigure the mechanisms of collaborative decision making to deal coherently
with strategic change. Although governance is the live rail of campus politics,
educational leaders who do not have the will or wisdom to build sturdy vehicles
for strategy may never safely reach their destinations.
GUIDELINES FOR CREATING A STRATEGY COUNCIL
We can use the Flagship experience and findings from the literature and case
studies to offer guidelines for the creation of a strategy council. The analysis and
recommendations take the form of a hypothetical report issued from a blue-ribbon
commission appointed by the governing board on the president’s recommenda-
tion. The report systematically reflects the problems and issues in strategic gov-
ernance that have to be addressed in creating an SPC. It directly reflects my own
work in several institutions and the literature on the topic.
Report of the Flagship Commission
Powers and Responsibilities
A Strategic Planning Council should be duly constituted and empowered by
the governing board on the president’s recommendation to develop and monitor