One of the beautiful things about strategic and assessment planning is translating challenges into opportunities.
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The aspirations of our members and the challenges of our board have translated into three strategic focus areas and objectives. As you read this post, the board and I want to know - where do you see yourself?
As the SAAL board and membership have embarked upon the strategic planning journey, led by Dr. Renée Delgado Riley, we have centered the ideas and aspirations of our membership alongside our need to create a sustainable organization.
Like many of you, I am a big Brené Brown fan so I’m going to lean into vulnerability here and share something that terrifies me, with you. SAAL has had a tough few years. We are not thriving. Our existing organizational structure is no longer sustainable. The gift of strategic planning is turning our strengths and challenges into the focus of our future. To this end, I am excited to share with you our three focus areas in the new SAAL Strategic Plan: community of practice, organizational viability, and advancement & research. So, I’ll ask again, where do you see yourself?
Strategic Foci & Objectives
Community of Practice: foster the space to share and create new knowledge around Student Affairs assessment and encourage SAAL’s membership; providing guidance to help members navigate the many resources and ways to get involved and foster networking/relationship building.
- Enhance SAAL members’ experiences.
- Engage members with clarity.
Organizational Viability: ability to generate enough resources to meet payments, commitments, and the ability to grow, while maintaining SAAL’s core functions.
- Align organizational structure with community needs.
- Develop infrastructure for resource management.
- Nurture volunteer leadership capabilities.
- Invest in organizational capacity.
- Cultivate sponsorship relationships.
Student Affairs Assessment Advancement & Research: provide structure to support conversations, practices, etc. to advance the profession of assessment leaders and provide opportunities to research and evaluate SAAL’s practices.
- Advance Student Affairs assessment culture.
- Foster collaborative partnerships and research opportunities.
The next stage of our planning includes identifying current and new activities to achieve our objectives and champions to advance each of the identified activities. After multiple listening sessions and discussions, we believe we have honored your feedback and aspirations for our organization in this renewed purpose.
Ask me two questions or share one comment below. I can’t wait to answer. We are looking for passionate individuals to continue the implementation of the strategic work done so far. If this purpose-driven work aligns with your values, tell us more here.