Strategic Planning

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CURRENT

The Libraries conducted a new phase of strategic planning on October 3 and 4, 2019. All library faculty and staff had the opportunity to participate, through a pre-planning survey where they were asked to share their thoughts to help inform the face-to-face discussions, as well as through several focused workshops related to the planning retreat. Survey results (provided in the attached documents below) from library staff and from College leaders provided context to inform the planning sessions. Ralph Parilla led the two-day retreat. The mission arrived at during the 2016 retreat was kept the same but the strategic goals were reviewed and modified to reflect our changing and changed environment. Library staff and faculty had an opportunity to review the new strategic goals and action items at an all-staff meeting on December 16, 2019 and the Libraries Leadership Team reviewed the results of that discussion at their January 8, 2020 meeting and decided on a course of action for implementation.

The Mission and Strategic Goals of the FAU Libraries have been articulated as follows:

Mission

As leaders at Florida Atlantic University, we connect people to knowledge and global communities of learning across time and space. Reimagining services and spaces, we enable users to explore, collaborate, educate, and create in their journey toward academic excellence and lifelong learning.

Strategic Goals

1. Champion student success through alignment with the University’s research and instructional mission.

2. Collaborate with university and community partners to foster technological innovation in service to the University’s mission

3. Reimagine the physical and virtual spaces and services of the libraries to provide a welcoming, safe and effective place for people to explore, study, create, and collaborate

4. Develop and strengthen a culture of assessment to provide for continuous improvement

5. Cultivate a broad base of alumni and community engagement and support to promote excellence and innovation

6. Deliver excellent customer service by fostering an appreciative environment that engenders a skilled, inclusive, and innovative staff

7. Enhance the libraries’ leadership role in promoting diversity and inclusion for the Libraries’ patrons and staff

PAST

On November 17-18, 2016, all faculty and staff of the FAU Libraries participated in different sessions of a strategic planning retreat. The facilitator for the retreat was Ralph Parilla of Parilla Associates. At the end of the two days, the Libraries had a mission statement, nine strategic goals, and a core set of tactical goals. The Libraries' faculty and staff have internalized the goals and new mission and have made significant progress on each goal. As a strategic plan is not stagnant, the goals and progress toward meeting them are reviewed periodically. Supporting documents and reports of our efforts will be posted here.

On January 11, 2017, the Libraries Leadership Team established working groups to flesh out each of the Strategic Goals. One or more members of the Libraries Leadership Team served as the champions/leaders for each Working Group which were charged to do the following:

    • Review the Report prepared by Ralph Parilla following the Strategic Planning Retreat (available on the Google site at: https://sites.google.com/a/faulibs.com/committees/working-groups/strategic-planning under the file name STRATEGIC PLANNING REPORT_REV.DOCX

    • Flesh out the Strategic Goal assigned to your Working Group by adding 5-10 specific deliverables including quantifying the goals wherever possible, adding timelines and due dates, and assigning responsibility for goal accomplishment.

    • Develop 1-2 paragraphs providing the rationale for the selection of the Strategic Goal

    • Review the wording of the Strategic Goal and recommend changes only when needed to improve clarity

On May 10, 2017, the Libraries Leadership Team reviewed the submissions of each working group. The consensus was to use one of the Working Group submissions as a template for the others. The Working Group leaders were asked to rewrite their submissions following the template and resubmit them by June 19. The new submissions (shown in the StrategicPlan_Goals_Revised.docx below) were reviewed by the LLT on June 21, 2017.

The Libraries Leadership Team met on March 21, 2018 for its annual review of the plan and the Libraries' progress on the goals. At that time, the LLT reviewed the detailed tactical goals that had been developed by the Working Groups, recognized that many had already been fully accomplished, acknowledged the duplication of tactical goals across the various strategic goals, and decided that the value of the tactical goals was to provide the Libraries a mechanism for ongoing review of progress until a new strategic planning process was implemented. There was a strong consensus that the original planning process had been about cultural change and the LLT members believed that the cultural change had been internalized widely across the Libraries.

At the April 26, 2018 meeting of all Libraries' faculty and staff, the strategic plan was reviewed and the ongoing commitment to the mission and goals was stressed.