Strategic Planning and University Accreditation
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) requires that:
- the university have a mission statement and a strategic plan
- we demonstrate that our initiatives and actions are guided by our mission and strategic plan
- when we make university decisions they correspond with the priorities we have laid out in our plan.
Strategic Planning and Program Prioritization
Strategic planning can be thought about as a governance mechanism that encapsulates and coordinates various important initiatives on campus. The strategic planning process and accompanying goals provides the overarching strategic direction for the university. It guides how the university sets new activities and executes on pre-existing activities.
Program prioritization is a compulsory process of the State Board of Education for all Idaho universities. Universities are required to repeat this process at least every five years with regular annual updates to the Board. The Board also explicitly requires universities to “integrate program prioritization into their respective strategic planning, programming (academic and nonacademic) and budgeting processes.” Program prioritization is designed to increase alignment of resources with mission and the strategic plan and priorities of an institution, and help make informed decisions through conducting a careful evaluation of programs and services.
The university has developed and implemented a process to synchronize annual strategic plan and program prioritization reporting with strategic budget requests. This synchronized submission process allows for aligned and integrated thinking about progress being made on the strategic plan, continuous improvement action items, and the funding needed to support them.