With Auburn University about to complete its five-year plan for the first half of this decade, faculty and administrators at AU are preparing a strategic plan to guide the university through the remainder of the decade while setting a pattern for planning in the future.

This spring, an ad hoc steering group coordinated by Bill Sauser, a member of the AU faculty since 1977, solicited input from university faculty, staff and other constituents through public forums and a web site in an attempt to identify the major challenges facing the university over the remainder of the decade and beyond.

Sauser is a professor and associate dean for outreach in the College of Business and the Ginn College of Engineering.
With assistance from the Group Solutions consulting firm, the steering committee will assemble the material and present a final draft of questions for consideration to interim President Ed Richardson in July.

Richardson said he will take a proposed plan to the Board of Trustees in November. After the board adopts a plan, the administration will work with faculty and staff to develop operational strategies to achieve the goals.

While the first phase has concentrated on identifying questions and issues that could affect the university’s progress over the next five years, phase two will focus on answering the strategic questions and setting goals. That process will include more specific forums and web surveys in August and analysis by the strategy team in September.

Early in fall semester, Richardson will seek feedback on the strategy team’s draft and further narrow the list to a set of overarching goals. Richardson is scheduled to present six to eight overarching goals to the Board of Trustees in November, but Sauser has said the final number could vary, depending on the results of the final draft and feedback from the university community during the planning process.

With the current five-year plan expiring on Oct. 1, vice presidents, deans and other AU budget planners will use the resulting goals next spring and summer in developing operating budgets for 2006-07. The goals will also guide AU in setting priorities and planning of budgets for the remainder of the decade.

Procedures established during the current planning cycle will be modified as necessary and followed as the university develops an ongoing process for long-term planning beyond the next five years.

In recent presentations, Sauser told the University Senate and the AU Board of Trustees that the new process is intended to provide a comprehensive and broad-based means of defining the university’s direction with a limited set of high-priority, long-term goals. Those goals, he said, should guide policy decisions and legislative strategy; focus decisions about resource allocation; serve as the basis for unit operational goals, plans and benchmarks of progress; and guide selection of future leaders.