Present: Clint Gould, Steve Simons, Bob Garofola, Connie Love, Don Bowers, Fran DiRosa

The meeting began with a discussion that highlighted the major differences between the College's current approach to planning and what the1993 Self Study revealed about the College's approach to planning 10 years ago.

The members agreed that the planning process appears to have reversed itself in regard to focus. In 1993 there were a limited number of critical issues. Problems were identified and focused upon, thus, providing a definitive direction. In many ways, we can conclude that the College had a reactive approach to planning. Currently, planning has moved away from addressing problems, and instead addresses broad strategic principles. Although, this paradigmatic shift positions the College to be more proactive in its approach to planning, there appears to be a lack of focus and direction in terms of assessable outcomes and core values. This lack of focus appears to be evident in the documents read thus far.

The committee agreed that one of our tasks is to examine and deconstruct the planning documents in order to discern if there are consistent and coherent patterns and priorities driving the planning process.

The documents that members need to review prior to the next meeting are the Facilities Master Plan and the Technology Plan.

The members were ask to look at the Charge and develop specific questions that they would like to have included in the Institutional Advancement Survey that will be going out in mid-November to various constituencies in the College. At the next meeting the committee will review the questions and submit those that are agreed upon to Sharon and Kathy.

The Committee also discussed the necessity for creating an action plan that sets a time frame for when our meetings will be occurring with specific members of the College to whom we wish to address our questions. This will be discussed further at our next meeting.

The next meeting will be Wednesday, November 13th from 2:30 pm to 4:30 p.m. in the ESS Conference Room, W1-1.