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  Excerpts from the report to the faculty, administration, trustees and students of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (New York, New York 10012) by a team representing the Middle States Commission on Higher Education Prepared after study of a Follow-up Report and a visit to the campus on April 29 and 30, 2004 Strategic Plan Findings HUC-JIR has begun a strategic planning process that is both comprehensive and evidence-rich. The intent is to develop strategic priorities that are grounded in data about needs, costs, and projected outcomes. Eight sub-committees representing governors, administrators and faculty from across the institution have been gathering data about institutional activities and external opportunities and constraints preparatory to creating sets of priority recommendations in their several content areas. A subsidiary goal of this process is to educate members of the community, particularly the Governors, with accurate information about this far-flung institution. The Chief Administrative Officer has traveled or will travel to each campus to explain the planning process at this early stage of its development. A strategic planning website is in place to keep the community engaged in the process and provide an easy route for input. At key times in the process, especially as priorities are identified, the plan steering committee will convene feedback sessions with critical constituencies. Each priority will be reviewed against the core emphases of the mission, so as to assign a mission-based priority to each one. Insofar as the sub-group priorities will have costs associated with them, this ultimate prioritization should be reflected in an integrated budget process. At the time of our visit, the data-collection phase was on schedule. If the schedule holds, the final strategic plan will be presented to the Board of Governors in late spring of 2005. It is expected that budget planning reflecting the plan’s priorities will ensue immediately. The schedule to accomplish all this is reasonable, but the team was disappointed by the slow start to the process. There are no actual plans to institutionalize this planning process. Senior administrators have ideas as to how this might work, but it has yet to be proposed as part of the governance structure. Likewise, it is not clear how much or to what extent planning and the need to plan are widespread assumptions among members of the HUC-JIR faculty and staff. The team had limited time to probe this feature, but came to believe that not everyone as yet understands what is meant by strategic planning. Planning is going on at the New York campus level as well. A local Strategic Planning Committee, consisting principally of administrators, has been meeting to consider how to meet both local campus needs and at the same time how to create a campus plan that is concordant with the national one being developed. This second aspect of the local plan must of necessity wait until the national effort is complete. In the meantime, the New York group has found opportunistic improvements to recommend—easily met needs that have been identified out of the discussions of the committee. The committee finds considerable value in its ability to have discussions that bridge sectors of the campus, and feels that this exchange has fueled ideas for improvement. No plan is in place to continue this useful discussion after the time, as yet unspecified, that the committee’s work is done. SuggestionsHUC-JIR is encouraged to complete its Strategic Planning Process with all deliberate speed and to engage its community broadly and deeply in that process. The local campuses are encouraged to create their own plans in as speedily a manner as possible. HUC-JIR and each local campus should create the organizational means to assure that planning and plan assessment are ongoing functions, linked organically to the outcomes assessment plan.
The team agrees with the follow-up report concerning the desirability of incorporating the comprehensive financial plan into the strategic plan. Our discussions with HUC-JIR senior administration found consensus that an integral part of the planning process would be the testing of financial feasibility. The development of the financial model of the feasible plan, the resource allocations and timing of activities, would serve as the institution’s financial plan. In this way, major multi-year financial decisions become part of the planning process. The annual budget thus becomes the first year of the strategic plan expressed in dollars and modified to reflect refined estimates of revenues and program expenses. The strategic plan and the related financial plan should be periodically assessed and revised, perhaps on a 24-month cycle. Suggestions The team suggests the HUC-JIR include in its strategic planning process the integration of the related financial plan with the institution’s annual budget-making process. The full value of planned resource allocation will be difficult to realize if major financial decisions continue to be made annually through the budget. Outcomes Assessment Background The development of a comprehensive outcomes assessment plan was one of three areas to be addressed by HUC-JIR in its follow-up report of April 1, 2004. HUC-JIR’s assessment plan is being designed within the context of its
mission and its strategic planning and will regard both student learning and
institutional assessment as integral parts of one another. The development and
implementation of an institution’s assessment plan and demonstration of
student learning outcomes “recognizes the centrality of student learning
to institutional effectiveness and stress that the assessment of outcomes should
be integrated into the institutional planning process” (Student Learning
Assessment 2003). Strategic planning must be informed by an institutional assessment
plan and the evaluation of student learning. Standard 7 of the Characteristics
of Excellence (2002) clearly articulates the synergy between strategic planning
and outcome assessment. Resource allocation for overall institutional effectiveness
and student success should be based on what is discovered about student development
and learning. To assure this, an institution needs to develop and implement
an assessment plan that focuses on the overall effectiveness of the institution
and its constituent programs and functions. Guiding principles for how assessment
is conducted include: (1) assessment focuses on key learning goals, (2) assessment
processes are participatory, (3) time lines are reasonable, (4) sufficient resources
are devoted to meaningful assessment activity, (5) assessment tasks are Findings HUC-JIR has recognized the need for and value of assessment. The President and senior administration is committed to it. A National Student Assessment Committee has created national guidelines for assessing rabbinic school students from both formative and summative assessment perspectives. The goals for the assessment processes to be integrative and holistic are reflected in the guidelines and the core curriculum for the rabbinical program. Evidence that the assessment of outcomes is an ongoing institutional activity is reflected in the institutional program review process and extensive committee structures, notably the Academic Advisory Council. As the assessment processes are implemented by fall 2004, further refinements of the assessment plan need to capture student learning outcome data, analyze it fully and use it to underpin planning. A process by which assessments results are reported and used to improve student learning would guide recommendations for change. Suggestions HUC-JIR has identified the challenges it faces in the development of an ongoing
assessment plan and process. The team suggests: The team affirms the institution’s design to integrate assessment and
planning and urges it to follow through on this important goal.
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