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When I look at the contrast between private institutions and publics around strategic
planning, the biggest differences tend to be that in those states where you have systems,
we have public systems, much of the planning is done at the system level and kind of filters
out to the institutions. So that puts a kind of a -- well, it tempers the planning process
and kind of the planning culture on the campus. There still got to be an academic planning
process to ensure that programs are being reviewed on a regular basis, new programs
are forthcoming on a regular basis. But I find it a little more challenging in the public
sector on an institutional level to talk about strategic planning in the same way as I do
on a private campus. Another major difference is that public institutions need to take into
consideration the needs of the region, the needs of the state, and kind of the higher
education mandates of the state as they do their planning. There's a way in which private
institutions are much freer to look at the environment and their own strengths and weaknesses
and opportunities and create a plan that really speaks to those. In the public sector even
as the support for the public institutions has gone down, there is still the responsibility
to consider the needs and kind of the imperatives of the state and the region when you're doing
planning. So, those are the big differences. Otherwise, the planning process and a kind
of planful approach to higher education ought to be in place in the public sector just like
it is in the private sector.
When I think about who's been most successful in planning at the earlier points, I'd have
to say that public institutions or public higher education has been kind of more strategic
and more planful for a longer period of time because the resources have fluctuated so irregularly
across time that in order to get some consistency in how you offer higher education, they've
had to be intentional, be purposeful. And it's one of the reasons that systems came
into existence. It was an attempt to be planful about the use of resources really at the -- to
use strategic finance as a major force for higher education rather than kind of a limiting
obstacle to higher education. So, in terms of thinking strategically about kind of the
structures, it's probably been in existence longer and probably, oh, had more impact on
the public sector. But I'd say in the last again that 20 to 20 year period, strategic
planning in its kind of more sophisticated contemporary sense has flourished on the private
side. And from small institution all the way through the largest of the private institutions,
there is a certain freedom in those institutions that goes hand in hand with really effective
strategic planning. And I think the institutions have a sense of being more in control of their
destiny through planning than public institutions do. So, there was a kind of change in the
climate about 10 years ago. And as public funds diminished in support of public institutions
but the control systems, the legislature and the state control systems, still stayed in
place, private institutions had a lot more flexibility to use planning in an effective
way.