DePaul's Strategic Planning Process

DePaul University Strategic Plan

DePaul University is a higher education institution whose transformative educational programs are based on Catholic and Vincentian values. The institution is committed to providing unequaled education that ensures the success of a diverse community of learners (DePaul University, 2019). By providing unequaled education, DePaul University seeks to transform individuals and communities. To achieve its vision and mission, the institution develops strategic plans that focus on different aspects of its operations. DePaul University utilizes strategic plans to not only transform its educational environment but to enhance the quality of its academic programs and offerings. Through this, the institution ensures that its strategic plans create an educational setting that helps students to thrive in their personal and professional lives. This paper critically examines one of the recent strategic plans for DePaul University in terms of its engagement of stakeholders, content, and format.

DePaul University’s Grounded in Mission Strategic Plan

Strategic planning is an important part of the operations of DePaul University as it influences its educational programs and activities. As noted by Esteban (2019), DePaul University has used strategic plans in recent years to transform its educational environment and enhance the education of students to thrive in their personal and professional lives. In essence, strategic plans help to shape the institution’s present. When developing its strategic plans, DePaul University examines where it has come from and charts the way forward while remaining committed to its values.

DePaul University recently developed the Grounded in Mission Plan for 2024, which focuses on its collective effort to promote the success of a diverse community of learners. The plan recognizes that the institution is operating in a changing world and challenges DePaul to provide a unique educational experience to students. The plan reflects DePaul’s commitment to invest in areas of academic excellence and creating opportunities for students to develop competencies and skills required for success in a multicultural society. Grounded in Mission comprises six strategic priorities and goals that guide DePaul’s evolution as a mission-driven institution committed to continuous improvements.

The first strategic priority in this plan is to strengthen DePaul’s commitment to Catholic, Vincentian, and urban mission. Under this strategic goal, DePaul seeks to support teaching based on Catholic, Vincentian identity and assumes responsibility for advancing its mission. The second strategic priority is to establish an engaging, welcoming, inclusive, and diverse campus environment. In this regard, DePaul seeks to establish an inclusive and engaging learning environment for all students, create a respectful and inclusive workplace for all staff, and increase the diversity in its part-time and full-time faculty (Esteban, 2019). DePaul University also seeks to succeed in preparing all students for global citizenship and success. In this regard, the institution will focus on preparing students to be critical thinkers and lifelong learners, enhance first-year academic success, improve student career readiness and outcomes, and expand commitment to experiential learning. The other strategic priorities include increasing access to a set of high-quality affordable education and improving academic excellence. Additionally, the plan seeks to ensure DePaul adopts bold approaches to ensure its continued financial strengths for future generations.

Critique of DePaul University’s Strategic Plan

DePaul’s Grounded in Mission Strategic Plan outlines its vision for the future in relation to its vision and mission. The plan is based on a comprehensive assessment of the institution’s recent past, changing circumstances in its surrounding world, and probable future outlook. The six strategic priorities included in the plan reflect what the institution would like to achieve by 2024. However, a review of the plan is essential to identify how it aligns with its mission and values, best practice, and community and family engagement.

Content and Format

Grounded in Mission is a comprehensive strategic plan that outlines DePaul’s vision for the short-term future i.e. 2024. The plan incorporates six strategic priorities and goals, which shapes current operations. This strategic plan was developed to specify what the institution would focus on within the next five years. According to Smith (2011), the purpose of a strategic plan in academic units is to specify the vision of the institution and provide measurable objectives on the progress toward accomplishing the mission. In terms of content, DePaul’s strategic plan specifies the vision of the institution or what it seeks to achieve by 2024. As shown in the plan, DePaul University seeks to promote the success of a community of diverse learners and become unrivaled among urban universities in the United States (DePaul University, 2019). The institution seeks to accomplish this through academic programs that integrate ideas with action and theory with practice.

This vision is supported by strategic objectives that are specified in the plan as strategic priorities. As previously indicated, DePaul’s strategic plan for 2024 incorporates six strategic priorities that serve as its objectives for the desired vision. These six strategic priorities not only support its vision but are also suitable for each department level. They are easy to follow and understandable, which is a critical component of a good strategic plan for an academic unit. Each of the strategic objectives has supportive goals that in turn specify actions or activities to be undertaken by the respective departments. Therefore, DePaul’s strategic plan has appropriate content of what is expected of a strategic plan for an academic unit. By outlining a vision for the desired future, the plan shows that the institution would focus on within the next 5 years. The vision not only drives the planning process but also defines the institution’s key focus for the next few years.

Smith (2011) contends that a strategic plan is broken down into separate sections including the mission statement, the vision statement, goals, objectives, and ideas for implementation/execution. These sections define a strategic plan template for an academic institution. DePaul’s strategic plan for 2024 is broken down into various sections in line with what it seeks to achieve within the next few years. The plan begins with a vision statement for the institution followed by its strategic objectives/priorities. The goals and ideas for implementation are specified in each of the six strategic priorities. While the plan is broken down into relevant sections, it does not include a mission statement. The lack of a mission statement at the beginning of the document implies that the strategic plan does not describe the purpose of the institution or the reason for its existence.

Alignment with Stated Mission and Values

The strategic plan is aligned to DePaul’s mission and values as stated in the introductory section. As stated in the plan, DePaul seeks to become unrivaled among urban universities in the United States by enhancing the success of its learners through commitment to Catholic, Vincentian, and urban values/mission. The strategic plan was created in a manner that reflects the institution’s Catholic and Vincentian values. These values become the premise with which the institution will achieve its six strategic priorities over the next five years. Moreover, Catholic and Vincentian values define the transformative educational experience that the university offers to all its students. Therefore, DePaul’s Grounded in Mission Plan for 2024 is aligned to the institution’s stated mission and values.

Community and Family Engagement

Luxton (2005) an effective strategic plan for a learning institution clearly identifies the placement of the institution within the local environment. This implies that community and family engagement is an important part of the strategic planning process for an academic unit. In essence, all major constituencies of a learning institution should be engaged or taken into consideration in the strategic planning process. The inclusion of all constituencies in the strategic planning process does not mean that all groups are part of the planning committee. It means that information and ideas of all stakeholders including the local geographical community are collected and taken into consideration when creating strategic plans.

DePaul’s strategic plan for 2024 does not specify any measures for the inclusion of the local geographical community into efforts to accomplish the six strategic priorities. In this regard, the ideas of the local geographical community are seemingly not incorporated into the strategic plan. This implies that the plan only focuses on the institution’s internal stakeholders i.e. faculty, students, and staff. While the institution recognizes that it operates in a wider community, the ideas of the community are not included in the strategic plan. The strategic plan does not include one of its critical stakeholders, which implies it’s ineffective in terms of community and family engagement.

Alignment to Best Practice

Despite failing to include the local geographical community and other relevant external stakeholders, DePaul’s strategic plan is aligned to best practices in strategic planning. The strategic planning process has included the institution’s key internal stakeholders and incorporates appropriate content. The institution has ensured that the vision and key strategic objectives are specified in the plan. In addition, the plan is broken down into different sections that clearly stipulate the targeted goals and implementation ideas. Therefore, this strategic plan reflects best practices in strategic planning for academic units though it lacks measures on how to engage the local geographical community.

Role of the Plan in Shaping Budget Priorities and Guiding Financial Decisions

Goldman & Salem (2015) contends that learning institutions may have difficulties creating strategies that are feasible within their financial resources. However, the strategic planning process involves aligning resources to key strategic priorities that help to accomplish the overall mission. The implementation of a strategic plan requires allocating financial resources and expenditures within the objectives or priorities of the plan. To achieve the six strategic priorities or objectives, DePaul University will allocate budgets and expenditures to the plan. Therefore, the institution’s financial decisions and budget priorities will be shaped by the strategic plan. The strategic plan shapes financial decisions and budget priorities by determining financial goals and metrics created by the institution (Kono & Barnes, 2010). The institution not only determines how to generate financial resources based on the plan but also utilizes the plan as the premise for establishing its financial goals and metrics.