Strategic Planning Update

Dear Friends,

We are pleased to provide you with a progress report on Smith’s strategic planning activities to date.

Thank you to all of you who have participated in this important process thus far. More than 300 Smith students, staff, faculty members, and alums have provided their input through interviews, focus groups, and messages. This includes members of the House Presidents’ Association, the Student Government Association Cabinet, the Dean’s Advisory Council, the Inclusion Council, Staff Council, senior staff, Faculty Council, academic chairs, the Committee on Mission and Priorities, the Alumnae Association Board of Directors, the president’s team, and the board of trustees. This level of thoughtful participation reflects our collective commitment to shaping Smith’s future together. Drawing upon your wide-ranging ideas has been critical as we begin to develop specific goals for the coming decade.

In our first three meetings as a Strategic Planning Steering Committee, we considered community input and reviewed both internal data on Smith and external data on peer schools and trends in higher education. In doing so, several broad themes emerged:

• Academic exploration and discovery supported by faculty scholarship and creativity;
• Leadership development through integrated curriculum and cocurriculum experiences to prepare students for fulfilling careers; and
• Well-being, belonging, community, and a culture of resilience.

A throughline across all of these themes has been the need for Smith to continue to pursue institutional sustainability in terms of our time, finances, and impact on the environment.

The Strategic Planning Steering Committee is now in the process of forming working groups to address key questions that have emerged from these themes. Each group, led by two cochairs, will include faculty, staff, students, and alums and will engage in highly focused meetings to be held from January through March. Additionally, Wellspring Consulting will work with relevant staff, department leaders, and campus governing bodies to tackle additional questions related to each of these themes.

Closely aligned with our strategic plan is the Campus Use Plan (CUP) process, which will also kick off in January. The CUP will guide how our strategic goals are reflected in our buildings and landscape and will shape key capital investments over the next decade. The development of the CUP will be supported by the firm Sasaki, and the process will proceed in close collaboration with the campus community and Wellspring. A separate steering committee consisting of students, staff, faculty, and trustees will help guide the CUP process, and ample opportunities for Smith community feedback will be provided. More information will follow in the coming weeks.

Finally, we want to ask for your help as we gather data during this next strategic planning phase. In the second full week of January, please watch for an email from the Strategic Planning Steering Committee asking you to complete a short survey about opportunities for the college. We are very grateful in advance for your participation; your input will help inform the working groups, and ultimately our strategic goals.

Sincerely,

President Sarah Willie-LeBreton on behalf of
the Strategic Planning Steering Committee