Based on personal experience of a non-university executive, suggestions are offered for management planning within the university. They include the premise that planning is essentially concerned with controlling and influencing the direction of change and that frustration often derives from difficulty in obtaining or influencing the direction of…

This literature review considers definitions of strategic planning as well as historical and operational aspects of its use at community colleges. First, a number of definitions of strategic planning are presented, indicating that, compared to long-range planning, strategic planning is more action-oriented and more concerned with issues, the…

In 1975, Delta College began a project to prepare a set of institutional goals and a mission statement for consideration and adoption by the college Senate and Board of Trustees, and to identify those goals that should take priority over the following five years. All areas of the college were represented on the goal development committee, and to…

Interest in the Planning, Programming, Budgeting System (PPBS) has waned over the last five years for several reasons. Early rhetoric about PPBS obscured its true character and promised more than it could deliver. Initially, few had the competencies needed to implement it. It is often wrongly believed to be solely a budgeting system. Finally,…

The merger of the Tennessee State University's institutional research office and the planning, management, and evaluation offices is described. The roles of the institutional research office before the merger were the collection and dissemination of institutional data, storing of data collected from other sources, and conducting special studies.…