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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
For Bismarck State College, focusing on the future is critically important as we navigate through turbulent times in higher education, and in our state and nation. Several years ago we embraced a future-oriented accreditation process (AQIP). We are committed to innovation and quality improvement which, by their nature, keep the campus focused on the future. We are always looking ahead - to the Beyond!
To be prepared to meet the challenges of what lies beyond today, we need to envision where we want to be and decide how to get there. I am asking the BSC community to engage in a collaborative strategic planning process that will result in a five-year strategic plan to provide a bright future for the college and for our students.
Our planning efforts are being led by a task force of talented individuals from many areas across campus. The process will use open forums, surveys, email, and a planning website to communicate the work of the task force and to provide opportunities for comment and participation. Campus meetings will be held with employees, students, and other stakeholders.
As we go through this process, it's important that we move forward within the framework of the campus we've developed over the past few years. First and foremost, our strategic plan ought to be innovative. We should not be planning to conduct the business of higher education the way we've always done it. In our quivers we have new technologies and new models of funding and delivering education. How are we going to incorporate those into our new strategic plan?
As well, we have to develop into our new plan a significant degree of flexibility. Things are changing so rapidly that to develop a static plan would be wasting our time and effort. We must have within our plan a mechanism to respond to emergent trends and, yes, even black swans. The last job any one of us wants is rearranging the furniture on the Titanic! Our new strategic plan must give us the capacity to hitch our institutional wagon to a passing and ascending Pegasus.
Finally, the reason we have a flat campus with empowered employees is because we believe in the value of every individual. Everyone has something to contribute to this process. We are less if individuals choose not to participate. Just as John Donne told us that "no man is an island," no employee is an island entire of him or herself. He or she is an important part of this campus regardless of station. We will only have the best outcome in this process when all of us participate.
Larry C. Skogen, Ph.D.
President
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