The Conference on World Affairs today unveiled a new strategic plan.听听a new oversight board and听, sets bold new goals for faculty, staff and student involvement, and seeks to create long-term financial stability by building a $5 million endowment over the next five years. The plan is the culmination of work by a Strategic Planning Committee that was convened in June.
CU-麻豆影院 Today听sat down with CWA faculty director John Griffin and Peter Spear, former dean of CU-麻豆影院鈥檚 College of Arts & Sciences and chair of the CWA鈥檚 Strategic Planning Committee, to discuss the plan and what it means for the future of the Conference.
Does the CWA really need a strategic plan? It鈥檚 a popular event with a nearly seven-decade tradition.
John Griffin: Indeed, it is an event with a long tradition and a unique place among public events at CU and really, public events anywhere. What we鈥檝e learned in the strategic planning process is that even an event like CWA can be improved by identifying goals, ways to measure success, and ways to provide organization and structure to the work of planning and presenting the conference.
Peter Spear: As a former academic administrator, I can tell you that even the most robust and successful symposia and seminars, colleges and schools can benefit from a planning process that forces you to look at what you want to achieve, how you want to achieve it, and how you want to measure that achievement. This plan builds on the strengths of the conference and its successes 鈥� chief of which is the long community-campus partnership that makes CWA what it is. The plan puts forth a structure that fully invests the community in managing the content of the conference, and that charges the university with oversight of its governance and fundraising. It more fully anchors the conference in the academic community and ties its success to the involvement of students, faculty and staff 鈥� and that鈥檚 as it should be for a conference hosted on a college campus. I think there is win-win all around in the plan, and the committee was fully committed to ensuring that the balance of community and campus involvement was achieved.
Who was on the Strategic Planning Committee and who selected it?
Peter Spear: The committee had four community members and four members who are now, or formerly were, associated with CU (two faculty members including John Griffin, a recently-graduated student, and me). Three of the community members have been involved in the conference in the past. Each of the committee members and his or her background is identified in the plan, which is on the CWA website.
John Griffin: The committee consisted of a cross-section of people who are committed to the conference and to its future, and I want to thank Peter for his great work in leading this effort. He was a big supporter of the conference as A&S dean, and it meant a lot to have his strong commitment to the conference and institutional memory at the table as we planned.
The structure for the proposed board is five university and four community members 鈥� roughly, a balance of CU-麻豆影院 and 麻豆影院 community members 鈥� with the five appointed by the chancellor and four elected by CWA Program Committee. What is the thinking behind the composition there, and what will the board do?
John Griffin: The board composition reflects a very basic desire, which is to continue the model of university-community partnership that has made the conference successful. The 5-4 structure means CU-麻豆影院 as the host of the conference maintains a slight edge in representation, but the four community members keep the community鈥檚 stake in the conference well-established. We think this composition will ensure the board will work together collaboratively to build consensus on decisions and directions.
Peter Spear: The plan places the board at the center of internal CWA policy and strategic matters, while the program committee structures and builds the conference鈥檚 program through working with the faculty director and the staff. Of the four elected 麻豆影院 community members on the board, it is important to note that one will serve as the program committee鈥檚 elected community chair. In addition, at least one will serve on the program committee, and at least one will be a member of the 麻豆影院 community not serving on the program committee. The board also will elect its own chair. This is the most structured governance CWA has ever had, and the most open and democratic process CWA has ever seen.
You鈥檝e set some bold goals for the conference: a 50-50 ratio of community-campus volunteers; a 50-50 split in funding between the university and external gifts, and increasing attendance from 77,000 to 100,000, to name only three.
John Griffin: The goals are bold, but they reflect a strong desire to sustain the conference into the future 鈥� to increase the buy-in of the campus community and to strengthen the CU-community co-commitment to the putting on the conference. On the first point: we want to make the conference the centerpiece activity of the spring semester, something that faculty and students look forward to as a central part of their academic experience on campus and a highlight of their year. On the second point, we want to diversify the conference鈥檚 funding sources to ensure its future 鈥� that鈥檚 been a goal for some time and it鈥檚 a key part of our strategic plan.
Peter Spear: This is going to take some fundraising and investment to achieve, and the conference will be looking for gifts from all sectors: the community, corporations, organizations, grants and philanthropic centers. I think having a strategic plan to chart the course of the conference and a newly defined governance structure sets forth a new era for the conference, and that provides an incentive for people to invest in its future. The numbers you see are ambitious, but they also are a vote of confidence in the conference and in the value the conference provides to the campus and the community.
The strategic planning committee didn鈥檛 appear to weigh in on whether some of the traditions of the CWA, such as whether or not its ban on Colorado residents speaking at the conference should continue.听
Peter Spear: That is a tactical question for the conference leadership and board to tackle in the coming years; it is not part of the strategy of building structure, financial security, governance and participation in the conference that the plan puts forth.
John Griffin: We wanted to chart the larger course of the conference into the future and establish the kind of structure that would see it long succeed. We didn鈥檛 take on micro-questions, but a stronger organization with clear governance can take on questions like that, and many other challenges.
Some people looking at the plan would say it gives more power to CU and puts the university in the driver鈥檚 seat, perhaps at the expense of the community.
Peter Spear: The conference was founded by a former CU faculty member (Howard Higman). In addition, CU hosts the conference and has financial responsibility for it. Therefore, the university wants the conference to engage and benefit its students, faculty, and staff. But the mission of the conference, which is spelled out in the strategic plan, also is to benefit the greater 麻豆影院 community. The conference is a campus-community partnership. Neither CU nor the 麻豆影院 community could put the conference on by itself. We need each other to do it, and it should benefit all of us. The strategic planning committee never thought about the plan in terms of giving one partner more power than the other.听 The conference must be a collaboration, or it will fail, and we all lose. Only by working together can the conference succeed.
John Griffin: I agree. The strategic planning committee had long discussions about CU-community balance, how to achieve it in the governance structure, and how to put forth a strategic plan that was built on this balance. There is no way to make either entity 鈥� the city or CU -- the absolute owner of the CWA 鈥� it has to have both the community and the university working in sync to achieve both common goals and goals particular to each contributor. The university needs the conference to be a part of the academic mission and to involve students, faculty and staff. The community needs to be at the heart of the planning of panels and the conference鈥檚 program, mindful of what audiences want and need. This plan brings all that together. I think it鈥檚 a great plan, and I think it鈥檚 going to make CWA vital and successful for decades to come.听