Strategic Plan Department of Educational Leadership Studies - Case Study Example

Strategic Plan Department of Educational Leadership Studies and Research University of Karen Student name: Institution name: Assignment number: Tutor: Date of submission: This report contains a strategic plan of a hypothetical institution of higher learning called Karen University. The plan is for the department of educational leadership studies and research. The department is focusing on being a national and global leader in offering studies with skills and expertise in educational leadership and research. The department appreciates the complexities research and leadership studies globally. This report also contains a repository commentary on the learning outcomes of the researcher during the process of making the strategic plan. 2013-2014 Strategic Plan for the Faculty of social sciences Department of Educational Leadership Studies and research University of Karen Faculty of social science Vision Statement The University of Karen was established nearly two decades ago. The institution has been striving to achieve excellence in leadership studies at the faculty of social science. University of Karen, students, and staff have been extending boundaries of knowledge and unearthing some of the world’s most challenging issues. The university will be celebrating 20 years of achievement in education especially leadership studies and research. Mission The mission of the University of Karen is to re-emphasize on furthering knowledge of teaching and learning processes at all levels, providing skills and knowledge to equip learners to be able to come up with reflective practitioners who will apply knowledge and leadership in their careers. The University of Karen is in full support of ensuring that it delivers quality teaching, research, and service with diversification to staff, and students. Core Values Under faculty of social science the university has six departments; Educational Leadership Studies and research, Curriculum and Instruction, Educational and Counseling Psychology, Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, Kinesiology and Health Promotion, Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling which are utilized to ensure that students are well prepared for their professional careers in education. The university also through this faculty has partnered with other education agencies in providing education services. To ensure that students are prepared to meet the future challenges in the technological world, the faculty has ensured that there are breadth, depth and relevant programs. This strategic plan of leadership studies identifies four thematic areas that involves the community and other partners in the 21st century. These areas are; teaching, research, and service that promote and contribute to improving the quality of education and educational leadership nationally and internationally. By classifying strategic clusters in main thematic areas ensures that each theme adds value to the department and the entire institution with regard to educational leadership. The added values also ensure that a best approach and breakthrough is established with helps in addressing issues of local, national, and global importance. The strategic plan is developed to ensure that there is collaboration across different faculties, schools and centers in the institution with an aim of stringing research and educational leadership skills. Department of Educational Leadership Studies and research Mission Statement The mission of the Department of Educational Leadership Studies and research in the University of Karen is to take on teaching, service, and research with the aim of advocating and play a role in improving the quality of education and educational leadership in the nation, and the world. To ensure that the department achieves its strategic objectives there are themes that guides the plan. Explore our place globally We believe that through proper education in leadership studies and research are in a position to explore fundamental human issues with regard global leadership in education. To be able to achieve this the department believes that the most effective educational leader is a practitioner-scholar, and it pledges to provide academic experiences that expand our students' knowledge, understanding and expertise as both practitioners and scholars in the field of school administration and educational leadership. Humanity and environment Environmental change is greatly attributed to human activities and there has an accelerated drastically in the last decade. As an institution taking leadership in ensuring that humanity and environment is well protected is our priority. To be able to achieve these research about origins and diversity of humanity, society and cultures are carried out. The departmetn holds that the faculty and students should be able to pursue their scholarly endeavors secure in the knowledge that their academic freedom is inviolate. Moreover, the department consign to the active defense of that freedom should it be threatened. Education leadership studies currently face many challenges that need to be addressed. The strategic plan acknowledges the complexities of the challenges since there are no direct answers to them. However, the department is aimed at providing education which is a multiplicity of perspectives, models and values with experiences in order to provide a more complete understanding and effective response to these challenges. We pledge to uphold and respect such multiplicities. We as the department believe that having a wider understanding and appreciation of diversity of inherent in the human community. The department therefore, acknowledges the diversity in race, ethnic and cultural background, gender, religious and physical ability of each member in the department, faculty and the entire institution. The department further believes that learning is an individual endeavor influenced by factors such as experience an individual holds and expertise of each learner. Having a better and enabling environment for such groups is very important to the department hence we pledge to provide it. Languages, culture, values are aspects of how human beings express themselves or interact with each other which basically define human beings. The department will provide a conducive environment to ensure that there is an understanding of how human engage their humanity in great social, cultural and technological change through cognitive faculties, art and values. Intellectual activity enhances both professional expertise and understanding of self and as a department we take pride in development of these areas which contributes to the professional experiences of the students. Strategic objectives and enabling actions The following strategic educational leadership and research objectives and enabling actions address the realities of sponsoring excellence within the existing environment, as well as providing a guideline for educational leadership and research plan of the department of educational leadership studies and research. The objectives will be under goals where goals will be the leading global variables to be achieved by the department. Below is the outline of the goals that this strategic plan wants to achieve. Goal I Reach for National and global Prominence in leadership Goal II Attract and Graduate Outstanding Students Goal III Attract, Develop, and Retain a Distinguished Faculty Goal IV Discover, Share and Apply New Knowledge Goal I. Reach for National and global Prominence in leadership Objective 2 Increase the prominence of faculty scholarship nationaly and internally. Strategies, programmatic initiatives, 1. The department will engage in research and publish their findings in books and leading peer-refereed research journals. This will enable the department to communicate its strengths and successes. 2. Through the Faculty will increase presentations of research at leading research conferences in the respective disciplines/fields of study for the Department. This will enable the department to contribute to the economic, social and cultural development globally. 3. The head of department will meet annually with faculty to establish a research plan. This will ensure that the department meets current and global challenges in educational leadership through research. Metrics used to measure success 1. The department will be able to measure its success by ensuring that it increases the annual number of scholarly products, including publications in leading refereed research journals, journals oriented toward practitioners, books, and other outlets for dissemination per faculty member beginning in 2013-14 through 2015-16. 2. Increase the number of conferences attended nationally and internationally with refereed faculty CEO through 2015-16. Goal II Attract and Graduate Outstanding Students Objective 2 Admit and enroll an increasingly higher caliber of student. Strategies, programmatic initiatives, or action 1. To ensure that the department gets outstanding students, each program will review its admissions criteria and the entrance qualifications of the students it admits and enrolls. Where appropriate, admissions standards will be raised and/or recruitment strategies will be developed. 2. Another enabling action will be to sponsor, retain the best talents in the department of education leadership studies and research. Targets or indicators used to measure success 1. The admission criteria will be raised based on the performance of the previous admissions on test scores and grades during 2013-14 through 2015-16 intakes. 2. The department will retain first class students in different courses so as to retain best brains in the world. Objective 3 Engage students in rigorous educational programs and provide an environment conducive to success. Strategies, programmatic initiatives, or action 1. Develop new integrated governance models for research across the university and with all partners. 2. Encourage bold and innovative inquiry 3. The department will develop learning outcomes which it will use to measure success of the students who graduate from its program. 4. Each section of the department will develop a plan to improve its overall graduation rate with special focus on cultural and social diversity. 5. Since the department values humanity, there will be a more focus on diversity. This will be a achieved by having each program to review its curriculum to ensure that it deals adequately with issues of diversity, with the aim of assuring success for all of its students. Metrics used to measure success 1. By 2014-15 accreditation requirements should be achieved by the department through assessment of learning outcomes required to meet accreditation requirements. 2. Beginning in 2013-14 through 2015-16, each program, based on its analysis of learning outcomes for 2009 graduates, will develop a plan for improving learning outcomes of its current students. 3. Graduation rate for each program in the department will be assessed based the graduation rate of 2010-11 and improve, if appropriate, its graduation rate the following years. Goal III Attract, Develop, and Retain a Distinguished department Objective 4 Strengthen support to department and staff Strategies, programmatic initiatives, or action 1. The department will support new faculty and staff by providing orientation about programs and projects to ensure that they fit into the program and help achieve the best. Metrics used to measure success 1. When the department hires new faculty of staff, the head of department will organize an orientation meeting about degree and certification programs, an overview of funded projects in the department, and a summary of departmental resources and procedures. 2. It will be mandatory for staff members to participate in the development activities that support research and management of research. Goal IV Discover, Share and Apply New Knowledge Objective 5 Increase extramural research funding. Strategies, programmatic initiatives, or action 1. Research funds will be sought by the department from the sponsors to ensure that the researchers provide new knowledge in the field of educational leadership studies. Targets or indicators used to measure success 1. The number of funded research and projects will be increased in 20013-14 and 2015-16 academic years compared to previous years. Objective 6: Attract and enroll highly qualified doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars. Strategies, programmatic initiatives, or action 1. The department will develop recruitment strategies to enroll doctoral students of the highest caliber. Metrics used to measure success 1. The department will set up an appropriate section to deal with enrollment targets for the next three years. 2. The department for doctoral program will come up with a plan support full-time students. The department will offer teaching opportunities of undergraduate to doctorial students. Strategic plan framework The model for strategic plan in higher education has seven blueprint used in establishing planning priorities, guiding the process and bringing plans to better outcome. Strategic plan in higher education emphasizes on effective leadership, communication, and assessment. There are seven phases in the framework as illustrated in the figure below. Mission, vision and values- this is a reference point since it is the organization’s guiding principles especially in allocation of resources. Collaborators and Beneficiaries- the strategy must identify the stakeholders of, with more focus on thier expectations for the development and implementation of the plan. Environmental scan- the plan must examine cultural issues, social and resource concerns that may hinder the structuring and implementation of the plan. Goals- these are the achievable, tangible and measurable terms of an organization. It is an important process and must be adhered to in the process of drafting the plan. Plan creation- the plan should be created in a manner that it is simple to understand and implement. Outcomes and achievements- this is another phase in the strategic plan where the progress should be monitored. Mechanisms of evaluating outcomes should be reasonable and achievable. Retrospective commentary This repostory commentary evaluates how the reseacher came up with the strategic plan. It was required to analyse the activities done in coming up with the plan, the researcher was further to state the extra activities done in develping the research paper. Therefore, the process of coming up with the strategic report for department of educational leadership studies and research at Karen Univeristy is outlined. The following are some of the new things the researcher learnt while coming up with the stratig plan. Thompson and Strickland (2003) defines strategy making as a five managerial tasks. They state the tasks as; formining the vision which is an indicator of the direction in which the organization is eading. The vision specifies what kind business the company will be engaged in. In my work I established the vision Educational leadership studies and research department of Karen Universtiy to clearly indicating the long term direction. The second task in strategy making involves settting goals. The strategic plan of Karen university clearly sets objectives unders each goal. The objectives were established to convert the vision of the organization into activities that bring outcome. Crafting of the strategy to achieve goals that the deaprtment desired is another task in strategy making (Thompson and Strickland 2003, p. 6). Thompson and Strickland (2003, the strategy designed for Karen university was meant to achieve the desired goals by the department of educational leadership studies and research. To be able to come up with a strategy that will ensure achieving the goals the researcher had to split them into goals where each goal has action plan and objectives. The strategy too had responsibilities where the department clearly defines tasks for the staff. The fourth task is to implement and execute the chosen strategy in an effective and efficient and effective manner. The fifth task is to evaluate the performance and trigger corrective adjustments with regard to vision, objectives, strategy and goals based on the real experience in the implementation of the plan. It is possible that the can be alterations in the strategy based on the changing environment, new ideas and opportunities. The strategy defined gave a clear method of evaluating the strategic plan. Each goal and objectives had metrics or methods of evaluating it so as to get desired outcomes. Strategic planning has had heated debate from scholars on how to they should be defined over a period of time. They have however; come to an agreement that strategic planning that requires clear understanding of vision and mission of the company (Harman, 2003). Although strategic planning should not be used as a means of forecasting the future performance of an organization it can be used as an indicator of the capabilities and limitations of the company. An organization can realize its potential and capabilities using strategic plan if there are quality assurance measures and internal methods of assessment of its performance. Strategic plans for higher education are very critical since they have different methods measuring the performance. Good performance of students can be used a measure but it is not a final indicator better execution of strategic plan. The researcher was forced to do more research on metrics that can be used to measure performance of higher education strategic plan. Staff utilization and other departmental resources are some of the indicators of strategic plan. The following are some of the reasons that guided the making of strategic plan (Mintzberg 1994). The department wanted to coordinate activities. To achieve a global position in educational leadership and research studies the department needs to have its activities well coordinated and managed efficiently. Positioning the institution for future is one of the reasons of coming up with the strategic plan. The department took into account the changing environment and wanted to position the department in the global perspectives in terms of leadership studies and research. The goal and objectives of publishing research work in globally known journals was one of the efforts. To make rational decisions the department needed to have a clear plan to fall back to in case of hard decision making. Strategic plan ensures that rational decisions are made. A strategic plan requires the planners to indentify resources, according to Lipsey, resources are categorized into three categories; natural, human resource and capital resources. The strategic plan for Karen University took into consideration the three types of resources, on natural resources; the strategic plan acknowledges the surrounding natural environment and encourages master’s students to come up with research papers on how to conserve the natural resources. The plan further looked at the human resource by ensuring that they provide necessary tools for the human resource to achieve the said objectives. The plan specifically mentions how to treat new staff members by providing support and orientation on the strategic plans. Capital resources are man- made aids with help in production and service delivery. For the department to achieve the global status it established tools that enable students do proper research. Grants and other financial support will be offered to students in doing their projects. There are different strategic approaches in making a strategic plan which includes definition the plan based on the administrative structure of the organization. The nature of activities that are carried out by the organization has greater bearing on the structure of the strategic plan. The environmental climate has an impact on the plan too. Multidivisional designs were used in making the strategic plan. This approach has requires top managers to dedicate their time and mind on strategic issues (Hellriegel, Slocum & Woodman 2001, p. 491). Their main tasks are allocation of resources, assessment of units and having a direct contact with stakeholders. Heads of department are not concerned with the day-to-day operational aspects of the entire institution but they are concerned about learning activities where they are in direct contact with lecturers, other staff and students. They are directly responsible for assignment of course units to lecturers. Multidivisional design in Karen University is appropriate since departments are interconnected with each having distinct roles. There are heads of sections within the department that are mainly concerned with day-to-day operations of their area of study. This design approach is suitable in the integration of expertise and knowledge of specific services. References Grant, Robert M., (2003). "Strategic Planning in a Turbulent Environment: Evidence from the Oil Majors". In: Strategic Management Journal, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 491-517. Goodstein, Leonard, Timothy Nolan and J. William Pfeiffer (1993). Applied Strategic Planning: How to Develop a Plan that Really Works. McGraw-Hill: San Francisco, p. 8. Haley, George T. (2000). "A Strategic Perspective on Overseas Chinese Networks" Decision-Making". In: Strategic Management in the Asia Pacific. Usha C.V. Haley, ed. Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford: pp. 411-422. Hellriegel, Don & John W. Slocum, Jr. & Richard W. Woodman. (2001). "Strategic Choices". In: Organisational Behavior. 9th ed. South-Western College Publishing, Mason, Ohio: 478-501. Mintzberg, Henry, James Brian Quinn, & Sumantra Ghoshal (1999). "The Strategy Concept". In: The Strategy Process. Pearson Education Limited, Essex, England: pp. 3-21. Thompson, Arthur A. & A. J. Strickland (2003). "Competitive and Managerial Resource Fits". In: Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases. 13th ed. McGraw-Hill Irwin, New York: pp. 344-353. Read More