208 Strategic Leadership
are there, as for example, in the voluminous research and publications by
Alexander Astin (1977, 1993), or more recently in the work of George Kuh
and his associates (1991, 2005). The developmental theories of writers such as
Arthur Chickering (1969), Douglas Heath (1968), and William Perry (1970)
have enlightened both past and present generations of theorists and practition-
ers. Pascarella and Terinzini (1991, 2005) have analyzed many studies over
the years of the impact of the college experience on students. Working within the
same Harvard context as William Perry before him, Richard Light offers these
conclusions from his decade-long work in the Harvard Assessment Seminars:
“I assumed that most important and memorable academic learning goes on
inside the classroom, while outside activities provide a useful but modest supple-
ment. The evidence shows that the opposite is true.... When we asked students
to think of a specific, critical incident or moment that had changed them pro-
foundly, four-fifths of them chose a situation or event outside of the classroom”
(2001, 123).
These scholars and many others provide conceptual frameworks and touch-
stones that give rich educational meaning to the encompassing forms of students’
intellectual and personal development. In doing so, they reveal some of the cul-
tural infrastructure and patterns of campus life that accelerate and facilitate a
student’s successful engagement in higher learning. Terms that one often finds
in mission statements or hears on campus, like “personal growth,” “intellectual
maturity,” “responsibility,” “commitment,” “autonomy,” “democratic citizenship,”
“leadership,” and “community,” are made intelligible and actionable as they are
connected to coherent models of human development that interpret education as
the unfolding of fundamental human powers and possibilities. They provide the
integrative perspectives that are needed to make powerful learning an institution-
wide commitment and strategic priority.
Once again, the strategy process becomes a form of leadership. It does so
as it urges connection among the parts of a system, and as it reaches for the
conceptual resources that can do justice to the richness and variety of educa-
tion as a form of human empowerment within an intentional community. As
Ernest Boyer put it when issuing the influential report Campus Life: In Search of
Community, “We believe the six principles [of campus life] highlighted in this
report—purposefulness, openness, justice, discipline, caring, and celebration—can
form the foundation on which a vital community of learning can be built. Now,
more than ever, colleges and universities should be guided by a larger vision”
(1990a).
STRATEGY AND FACILITIES
Under most accreditation standards, institutions are required to have a campus
master plan. A plan that defines the location of future buildings and the use of
campus space would seem to be a classic exercise in long-range planning, not
strategic thinking. After all, the major variables are spaces and physical masses