Creating and Situating an Integrative Strategy Process 57
effectively to the driving forces of change and be in alignment with them. That
basic assumption clashed rudely with the way colleges and universities had always
thought about themselves as intellectual preserves committed to academic ideals
for their own sake.
The Critique of Strategic Planning
Over the next two decades, triggered by the expectations of accreditors, state
officials, governing boards, and foundations, strategic planning moved into a
central place in the management processes of many campuses. As it took hold,
collegiate strategic planning created an enormous diversity of positive and nega-
tive appraisals of its worth. Some campus leaders extolled its virtues and traced
their institutions’ viability back to “the plan.” Others saw it as a massive waste
of time that by nature produces nothing more than wish lists. R. Williams’s vivid
metaphor captures this sentiment: strategic planning “lies still and vapid like a
tired old fox terrier on the couch. An occasional bark but no bite” (quoted in
Dooris, Kelley, and Trainer 2004, 8). Frequently, too, strategic planning was and
is still perceived as threatening established patterns of governance by taking away
control away from the faculty or the administration (Rowley, Lujan, and Dolence
1997; Wilson 2006).
The diverse ways in which strategic planning is done more than match these
clashing perceptions of its usefulness. Most practitioners of the art have learned
that the famous SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis is
a de rigeur step in the process. The creation of some sort of statement of mission
and vision, as well as a set of variously defined goals, appears to have become
nearly universal (cf. Schmidtlein and Milton 1988–1989). As to process, strategic
planning typically seeks to satisfy collegial norms by involving a cross-section
of the academic community in its work. Beyond these formal common features,
however, no orthodox version of strategic planning exists in higher education.
The enormous variations in the way institutions do environmental scans, if they
do them at all; set goals, if they really are goals; develop narratives, if they write
them down; create financial models, if they use a model; or incorporate a vision, if
they have one, touch upon many issues related to strategy in higher education.
Dooris, Kelley, and Trainer (2004) nimbly trace many of these characteristics
and recent trends in strategic planning and management and conclude that its
value depends on how skillfully it is practiced. They emphasize recent attempts to
feature more flexible and creative models of planning as well as those that focus
sharply on the implementation of plans. Keller (1997) also analyzes recent trends
and underlines the importance of communication, while Peterson (1997) differ-
entiates what he calls “contextual” or more proactive planning from other forms of
strategy. Birnbaum (2001) chronicles and sharply criticizes various approaches
to strategic planning in Management Fads in Higher Education, though he creates
something of a straw man by identifying strategic planning with all forms of
strategy. Rowley, Lujan, and Dolence (1997) also trace the many political pitfalls