University Strategic Plan: Mission, Values & Best Practices
This paper critically examines a Catholic, Vincentian university's "Grounded in Mission" strategic plan for 2024. It evaluates the plan's content and format against established best practices for academic strategic planning, assesses alignment with the institution's stated mission and values, and analyzes how the plan addresses community and family engagement. The paper also explores the plan's role in shaping budget priorities and financial decision-making. While the plan demonstrates strong alignment with Catholic and Vincentian values and incorporates clearly defined strategic priorities, the analysis identifies a notable gap: the absence of mechanisms for engaging the broader geographical community and external stakeholders in the planning process.
- Introduction: Overview of institution's mission and paper scope
- Overview of the Grounded in Mission Strategic Plan: Six strategic priorities of the 2024 plan
- Content and Format: Evaluating plan structure against academic benchmarks
- Alignment with Stated Mission and Values: How the plan reflects Catholic and Vincentian values
- Community and Family Engagement: Gap in external stakeholder and community inclusion
- Alignment to Best Practice and Financial Decision-Making: Best practice compliance and budget implications
- Conclusion: Synthesis of plan strengths and identified gaps
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper applies a clear evaluative framework — content, mission alignment, community engagement, and best practice — to systematically critique a real institutional document, giving the analysis structure and coherence.
- It balances strengths and weaknesses honestly: while crediting the plan's alignment with institutional values, it identifies a concrete gap (lack of external community engagement) and explains why that gap matters.
- Source citations from both institutional documents and academic literature on strategic planning (Smith, Goldman & Salem, Luxton) lend authority to the evaluative criteria used.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied document analysis — taking a primary institutional source (the strategic plan itself) and evaluating it against external academic criteria. This technique requires the writer to first describe the document faithfully and then shift to critical evaluation using scholarly benchmarks, a skill central to policy and education administration writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief introduction to the institution and its strategic planning context, followed by a descriptive overview of the six strategic priorities in the Grounded in Mission plan. The critique is then organized into four focused subsections: content and format, mission and values alignment, community and family engagement, and best practice alignment. A final subsection addresses the plan's financial implications before the conclusion synthesizes the key findings.
Introduction
The university examined in this paper 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. By providing this education, the 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. These plans are used not only to transform the educational environment but also to enhance the quality of academic programs and offerings. Through this process, the institution ensures that its strategic plans create an educational setting that helps students thrive in their personal and professional lives. This paper critically examines one of the institution's recent strategic plans in terms of its stakeholder engagement, content, and format.
Overview of the Grounded in Mission Strategic Plan
Strategic planning is an important part of this university's operations, as it directly influences its educational programs and activities. As noted by Esteban (2019), the institution has used strategic plans in recent years to transform its educational environment and better prepare students for their personal and professional lives. In essence, strategic plans help to shape the institution's present. When developing strategic plans, the university examines where it has come from and charts the way forward while remaining committed to its core values.
The institution 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 the university to provide a unique educational experience to students. It reflects the institution's commitment to invest in areas of academic excellence and to create opportunities for students to develop the competencies and skills required for success in a multicultural society. Grounded in Mission comprises six strategic priorities and goals that guide the institution's evolution as a mission-driven organization committed to continuous improvement.
The first strategic priority is to strengthen the university's commitment to its Catholic, Vincentian, and urban mission. Under this goal, the institution seeks to support teaching rooted in Catholic and Vincentian identity and assumes responsibility for advancing that mission. The second strategic priority is to establish an engaging, welcoming, inclusive, and diverse campus environment. In this regard, the university seeks to create an inclusive learning environment for all students, foster a respectful and inclusive workplace for all staff, and increase diversity among part-time and full-time faculty (Esteban, 2019).
The third strategic priority is to succeed in preparing all students for global citizenship and success. 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 its commitment to experiential learning. The remaining strategic priorities include increasing access to high-quality, affordable education, improving academic excellence, and adopting bold approaches to ensure continued financial strength for future generations.
Content and Format
Grounded in Mission is a comprehensive strategic plan that outlines the university's vision for the short-term future through 2024. The plan incorporates six strategic priorities and goals that shape current operations. 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 tracking progress toward accomplishing the mission. In terms of content, the strategic plan specifies what the institution seeks to achieve by 2024: promoting the success of a diverse community of learners and becoming unrivaled among urban universities in the United States. 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 specified in the plan as strategic priorities. The six strategic priorities not only support the institution's vision but are also appropriate at the departmental level. They are easy to follow and understandable — a critical component of a good strategic plan for an academic unit. Each strategic objective has supportive goals that in turn specify actions or activities to be undertaken by the respective departments. By outlining a vision for the desired future, the plan makes clear what the institution will focus on within the next five years. The vision not only drives the planning process but also defines the institution's key focus areas going forward.
Smith (2011) contends that a strategic plan should be broken down into separate sections including the mission statement, the vision statement, goals, objectives, and ideas for implementation. These sections define a strategic plan template for an academic institution. The university'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 followed by its strategic priorities, with goals and implementation ideas specified within each of the six priorities. While the plan is organized into relevant sections, it does not include a mission statement. The absence of a mission statement at the beginning of the document means the plan does not explicitly describe the purpose of the institution or the reason for its existence.
Conclusion
The strategic planning process is an important part of achieving organizational and institutional goals and objectives. Strategic plans help determine what an organization will focus on within a specific period of time and in alignment with its overall mission. As demonstrated in this analysis, strategic planning shapes an institution's focus, key priorities, and resource allocation. The university's strategic plan for 2024 is well aligned with its mission and values and includes the relevant sections expected of an academic institution's strategic plan. However, the plan does not specify measures for community and family engagement, which are critical components of a comprehensive and effective strategic plan.
References
Esteban, D. (2019). Grounded in Mission: The Plan for 2024. Retrieved from the university's Office of the President website.
Goldman, C. A., & Salem, H. (2015). Getting the most out of university strategic planning. RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE100/PE157/RAND_PE157.pdf
Kono, P. M., & Barnes, B. (2010). The role of finance in the strategic-planning and decision-making process. Graziadio Business Review, 13(1).
Luxton, A. (2005). Strategic planning in higher education. Andrews University.
Smith, S. (2011). Strategic planning in an academic context. Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.24908/pceea.v0i0.3588
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