Strategic Plan Process: Who’s in Charge?
by Sean Clerget ‘09
The Phoenix has continually covered the process of the strategic plan and will continue to do so. As you may remember from previous issues, President White decided to develop a bottom-up strategy for this plan. In his chapel talk last spring he outlined four main topics. A committee was created for each of these four items: 1) Learning and teaching about the men of Wabash, 2) Learning and teaching about Wabash as a liberal arts college for men, 3) Learning and teaching about the full implications of Wabash as a residential community, 4) Learning and teaching about the role of Wabash and Wabash men in the larger world. The committees consist of members of the faculty and staff and are led by the Deans.
After meeting several times over the course of the semester to address the broad topics outlined by President White, the committees produced strategic planning drafts. The results are disheartening. The Board of Trustees will examine these drafts, and President White will eventually combine them into one coherent strategic plan document. That document will go back to the Board of Trustees to be discussed, edited, and approved.
There are several problems with this process. First, it puts the foundation of the plan in the hands of the faculty. President White created a student advisory committee, which he uses to listen to the opinions of students; however he does not attend the meetings of the four planning committees. Instead, Jim Amidon, director of public relations, serves as his representative on each committee. It would have been wise to add one or two Wabash men to each committee to assure their true involvement in the process.
In explaining my overall disappointment with committees’ work, committee number two provides some specific evidence. “Learning and Teaching about Wabash as a Liberal Arts College for Men,” led by Dean Phillips, is made up of mostly of faculty members, and the committee focused mainly on improving faculty quality of life and topics of diversity while barely mentioning all-male education. While the topic had to do with learning and teaching, the focus was on faculty and teaching. It seems clear, especially in committee number two’s report, that student opinions did not play much of a role.
As a whole, the strategic planning drafts are extremely vague, consisting of simple, broad value statements with which most people can easily agree. For example, one point reads “Wabash will promote new opportunities for faculty/student engagement fitting for a 21st century world.” Such a blanket statement reduces the probability of conflicts about what opportunities should be promoted, but it fails to actually say anything substantive. During the Academic Policy Committee meeting on January 14th, some faculty members raised questions regarding the vagueness of the proposal. Professor Phil Mikesell said that people are not really going to disagree with the broad principles. He went on to say that it is tough to go ahead and approve them without knowing more about what will specifically be implemented. In other words, the committees just created broad, easily accepted statements, and then sought approval for them. No one is going to disagree that we should learn how to function in a 21st century world, but agreeing to that principle serves no purpose without talking about how we are going to do it.
On Friday January 25th, students had their first chance to actually participate in the process. Juniors and sophomores were invited to have dinner with the Board of Trustees to discuss the strategic plan. Let us hope that the Board heard the concerns of the students and will implement the necessary changes to this plan, particularly in the areas of all-male education and diversity.
The Future of All-Male Education at Wabash
Wabash College will “lead in developing a national understanding of the values of single-sex education for men.” This statement sounds like an excellent idea that many of our readers, students, alumni, and even a few members of the faculty could get behind. Unfortunately, that statement is not part of the 2008 strategic plan; it is from the 2004 strategic plan, and nothing serious was ever enacted regarding this goal. But, with a relatively new administration that has been outspoken in its support of all-male education, and a new strategic plan, surely we will see a renewal of this proposal and will also see a great deal of action on the issue right? Again, unfortunately at this point it seems unlikely. The current draft proposed by a committee led by Dean Phillips has only one point on the issue of all-male education. Strangely, the statement about all male education comes under the section of the committee draft entitled “Teaching and learning that deals forthrightly with diversity in all its manifestations.” It reads “Wabash will develop curricular and co-curricular opportunities for critical exploration of the nature of a college for men.” Why would this point be listed under a section about diversity? Also, does this change in language display simply a wording change or is it a step back for this college’s belief in all-male education?
I asked Dean Phillips that second question. He responded by saying “I don’t think that is implied at all, I think the question is that central question to the identity of the institution becomes first and foremost the thing that the college has to figure out before it can go out and lead the nation in a discussion about this. I mean we haven’t yet figured out all the better ways to have that discussion here amongst ourselves.” Does this mean that in 2004 we understood how to talk about all-male education and now in 2008 we need to figure it all out again?
Dean Phillips and I will have to disagree on this one. It is weak language that will lead to absolutely nothing being done. Even though nothing was accomplished in the previous strategic plan, at least the statement was clear and strong. Now we have gone from developing an “understanding of the values of single-sex education,” to merely “exploring its nature.” This vague language is open to many interpretations and I am certain that many of us can guess what direction some faculty members might take their exploration of this subject. While the statement does not seem menacing at first, it opens the door to all sorts of interpretations on an issue which requires the utmost clarity from the college.
When I spoke to President White, I asked him what he saw as the goal of the “exploration.” He explained that the College hopes to find the best way to articulate the value of all male education. My question is, why not clarify this is the statement? Encouragingly, committee number three’s draft, which dealt with residential life, proposed to “Articulate the values of a college for men.” The difference of a weak statement from a more specific goal, may in this case have to do with the makeup of the committees’ members. Dean Phillips’ committee was made up of mainly faculty members, and committee three, led by Dean Bambrey, was made up of a mix of college faculty, staff, and administrators. As I mentioned before, it will be President White’s decision on what language with which to go forward.
It is my hope that through student and alumni influence that President White and the Board of Trustees will edit the strategic plan so that it will be “more intentional” in dealing with all-male education. I hope that the final language will reflect the views of so many of our Wabash community who are proud of Wabash’s all-male status; a status that adds unique character to American higher education and character that should not be kept to ourselves, but should be promoted and celebrated.
Strategic Plan: The Future of Diversity at Wabash
“Wabash will develop an informed understanding and create a supportive environment for members of our community who represent different genders, sexual orientations, and abilities, and who come from different racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds.”
WOW! I am exhausted just reading that statement from the strategic plan draft. With a whole semester of planning, couldn’t committee number two have come up with a longer list of kinds of people we will create a supportive environment for? I mean, we could list out every political view we can think of and create a supportive environment for that. What about people from different family backgrounds? What about people from different regional backgrounds? Will these people have a supportive environment? I have a suggestion. Instead of trying to identify various types of people by creating a list of things we will support, we could change the statement to read “Wabash will develop an informed understanding and create a supportive environment for everyone.” The proponents of “equality” would do well to promote this kind of language instead of developing lists to cover only certain kinds of people. The draft statement also implies that the current environment is not supportive, an assumption that many see as unfounded.
Diversity is important, there is no denying it. It certainly is true that we all need to understand that there are respect for differences between people is extremely important. However, when language like “create a supportive environment” becomes both official and prevalent, a fine line is tread between raising issues for students to think about and trying to transform their beliefs.
Creating a so-called supportive environment may be applied through mandating diversity. This is happening already at Wabash – very slowly, and very quietly, but it is happening. Whether through diversity training as a requirement during Freshmen Orientation or the hiring of faculty whose sole academic focus is diversity, Wabash has forced the issue of “diversity” upon the students. The College has even begun seeking out prospective students who fit the categories listed in this strategic plan draft (racial, ethnic, cultural, etc.) above the category of individual merit in order to improve our national rankings. The only categories for admission should be whether or not a student is academically qualified, and whether or not they will be good Wabash men.
This past year freshmen were required to attend a mandatory indoctrination – or rather – an informational session entitled “Living and Learning in a Diverse Community” during their orientation. Who do you suppose spoke at this event? Perhaps a group of students and faculty making up different ideas and fitting the different categories we keep mentioning? Wrong. Instead the event was run by the Malcolm X Institute director Dr. Tim Lake with the assistance of Amina McIntyre. One has to wonder what the College means by diversity when only an institute of black studies is instructing students about it. This is a very narrow view of diversity that is not healthy for our college. Also, let it be noted; the new draft states that “Wabash will create an orientation program for new students, faculty, and staff that is intentional in its focus on diversity.” Apparently “Living and Learning in a Diverse Community” was not adequately intentional.
I asked President White about his thoughts on diversity at Wabash, and he raised some interesting questions. He said one of the things we need to think about is “How much diversity?” Or, at what point do we decide we are sufficiently diverse? I would ask the question, do the people who drafted this plan envision a time when we will not have to list out things that we will accept? Do our committee members have numbers in their heads of how many students and faculty members we need in each of these categories for it to be enough? If we want to have a supportive environment for everyone, we should stop identifying people solely by the things listed in this draft and instead treat members of our community fairly despite our differences. Lumping people into categories and using them as statistics is demeaning. These categories do not and should not define what our Wabash community considers important about an individual’s identity.
What Can Be Done?
My sincere hope is that President White will adjust these reports so that they will accurately reflect what so many of us want for the future of the college. I hope he will actively seek out, and listen to the input of students, alumni, and all faculty members. I urge students to contact President White. Please tell him what you want for the future of Wabash. I recommend that alumni contact other alumni and let them know what is going on. I encourage everyone to contact any members of the Board of Trustees they may know. Also, to our alumni readers, we love receiving letters and emails from you. Let us know what you think about this. You can read the drafts at http://www.wabash.edu/facstaff/plan.cfm. The Phoenix will continue to follow the pan’s progress. While it is apparent that Dean Phillips has had a great deal of control over the strategic plan thus far, we hope that President White will show strong leadership create a strong strategic plan. Here are two suggestions for him and for the Trustees from the Wabash Conservative Union:
1) Wabash will promote a better understanding of the values of a college for men.
2) Wabash will continue raising discussions so that students will think critically in order to better understand all peoples of the world.
The WCU will work hard to see that these changes are made, and will continue to hope and pray that the strategic plan will positively affect the future of Wabash College.
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