Questions related to the Status or Quality of SPSU and its students

Questions related to the Status or Quality of SPSU and its students

What attributes/characteristics will elevate our status?
What do we want to be known for in 5-10 years? (In other words, how can we leverage our academic plan into high visibility?)
Who do we aspire to be? RPI, Virginia Tech? Do we want to compare ourselves to in-state schools, schools in the southeast, Polytechnic Universities overseas?
What category of university do we want to be within USG in 15 years? (Research, Research-intensive, Regional, or State?)
What are (should be) the differences between SPSU and "typical" 4 year schools in the system?
What signature areas do we want to target and focus in the next 5, 10, 15 years?
Should we aim for any flagship programs? Should this necessarily be a high enrollment program? A unique one? Some other criterion?]
Should we modify our mission (e.g., in light of possible objections to proposing a doctoral program for non-traditional students)? Perhaps in light of the societal needs? Other factors?
How will we safeguard our high academic standards, national reputation and quality instruction as we grow?
How will we continue to attract high quality faculty as we grow?
What should the academic structure be (to support growth and to position us externally)?
What makes SPSU so special relative to the other USG schools?
How do we build pride in our institution?
What are our competitive advantages?
What else do we want to be (I'd say "in addition" but we might decide "instead").
In what ways can SPSU promote (both academically and culturally) the fusion of "techne" and "logos"?

Questions related to Size and Growth

How big should we be/how big do we want to be?
What is the optimized size (enrollment, # of degrees offered, faculty, staff) of our University?
What will be the enrollment of SPSU in 2012 (five years)?
How large do we want to grow and stay true to our mission?
What will be the size of the graduate program relative to the undergraduate program? i.e., as undergraduate enrollment increases, will graduate programs grow at the same rate, faster, or slower?
How to Strengthen and mature the existing undergraduate Programs while adding Graduate Programs not too common and having a marketable potential in the future?
Should SPSU be capped to 10,000 students...to maintain quality and rigor?
To what extent will we increase class sizes to accommodate growth?
Should the University set a limit to the Faculty/Student ratio?
How large of an institution does SPSU want to be in the future?
How will we attract more students from outside the Atlanta area?
How big do we want to be and why? I realize there are economies of scale, etc., arguing in favor of growth, but I'm also reminded of the "growth for growth's sake is the philosophy of a cancer cell" quotation. There are real hazards in growing too big—or too fast.
What role should SPSU have in addressing the state's enrollment needs (namely, the increasing number of rising freshmen)?
How large do we want to grow (student population and number of programs)?

Questions related to our current nature:

What are the current strengths of our program base?
How broad should our program base be to support our status/size goals?
How do we increase interdisciplinary studies among the colleges?
Is there an opportunity to share common resources among disciplines and colleges?
What will be our organizational structure?
What programs does it make sense for SPSU to offer online?
What themes could we adopt that would provide rallying points around which multiple programs might associate themselves? This could help break down the silos on campus and give us some external identity. For example, Green Engineering might be a sexy topic around which multiple programs could associate themselves. We could slant some of our core courses towards Green themes.
What types of tasks will graduate assistants be engaged in? Teaching? Research? Odd jobs??
What will the typical instructor profile be like in 5 years? Demographics? PhD/MS? From what school? Research oriented? Real world experience? Professional credentials (PE)?
How do we ensure we are offering graduate level education in our graduate programs?
How do we move to a fact basis with data-driven decision making?
What are the fundamental characteristics of the kind of education we want to provide?
Do we want to remain a "teaching" institution, what does that mean, and how do we do it?
What is an appropriate level of scholarship for faculty at a polytechnic university with a teaching mission?
As we develop as a university, how do we insure that our strong "applied focus" remains an asset rather than a liability?
How will SPSU strike a balance between the university's "archival" function (preserver of knowledge/disciplines) and a forward-looking mission?
How intentional are we going to continue to be about serving evening/part-time/nontraditional students?
Do we see any need for academic reorganization on the horizon?
What kinds of labs are we likely to need in the foreseeable future?
What impact will the continuing rise of India and China have on what our students need to know?
Will we continue to have the same fairly high percentage of classes taught by adjuncts in 2012?
When will the university administration start taking charge of things (the university calendar, for example) that materially affect our university-wide goals (increasing enrollment of quality students, for example) and require the faculty to work within boundaries defined other than by the faculty itself?
What is the role of graduate programs at SPSU?
What is the plan for distance learning?
How central will instructional technology be in promoting learning effectiveness?

Questions related to Adding New Programs

What are the gaps in our program base?
Should we increase our dedication to graduate programs, or do we want to stay focused on undergraduate programs?
What is the projected percentage of graduate programs at SPSU?
What degrees will SPSU offer in 2012?
Will the "liberalization" of the SPSU curriculum extend to adding programs (majors or minors) that have no (or minimal) STEM content?
Will SPSU have an Education program?
How many new degree programs will we add (can we afford to add) over the next 5 (and 10) years
Will growth come mostly from increased enrollment in existing programs, from new academic programs, or both?
In 2011 what will the SPSU curriculum look like? In what ways will it be more comprehensive? How will this show up in the variety of degrees offered and within the degrees themselves?
What is the market for new programs? (Target market, competition, growth projections, etc.)
What are the cost implications to establish and operate new programs?
How synergistic is the new program with existing programs at SPSU?
What is the best case scenario for the success (growth) of the new program?
What is the worst case scenario for failure to initiate the program? (Lost capital, damaged reputation and credibility, etc.)
What would a comprehensive university look like? What is the most important piece of "comprehensive" to add in the next 1, 5 and ten years?
Does it matter how we achieve growth? Do we want our growth to consist of more of what we have or something different? Increase retention?

Increase in freshmen? Increase in transfers? Increase in traditional students?

Increase in non-traditional? Graduate vs. undergraduate?

What do WE really mean by "Comprehensive" University
How will we diversify, while remaining primarily "Georgia's Technology University"?
How far into Comprehensive will we be by 2012?

Questions Related to Engineering

Will the Engineering Department have a new building in 2012?
Will ET and E have one dean in 2012?
Will the EET an EE programs have one chair (head) in 2012?
Will SPSU have the full range of Engineering programs?
How will ET and Engineering programs differ?
How will we differentiate between graduate, undergraduate and engineering faculty, if at all?
The University and ET programs need to start developing a protocol or process to help students transition from ET into engineering, or for those who graduated in the recent past (how far?) to enroll in the engineering program.
We have to define the new direction of ET at SPSU in the event that the BS in Engineering, becomes a reality in the near future.
What would be the time line to implement the Engineering concentrations?
What are the curricular modifications to both Engineering and ET?
How could we maintain the competitiveness of the ET programs once we implement Engineering at SPSU?
Will we still be concentrating on teaching the practice of engineering, architecture, construction management, etc?
What will Engineering look like in five years? In ten years?
How will we differentiate Engineering and Engineering Technology?
What does/will Engineering mean at SPSU?
What are the plans for Engineering and for Engineering Technology?

Questions related to Research

If we want to increase our research focus, what areas should we choose?
What will research and scholarship look like in five years?
What will research look like?
What role will research play at SPSU?
In the area of engineering or engineering technology I think that SPSU should work on research of application and not discovery, and focus on small projects until we built enough infrastructure capable of supporting larger projects.
We should revisit the faculty workload, so those who want to follow the line of research of application, or teaching practice can devote time to do that.
What is the role of research at SPSU?
How to expand Research and Exchange Programs to be part of the Global Markets?
What Graduate Programs must be encouraged to offer research-based academic consultancy to local and regional Professional Markets?
What are our research objectives as an institution?
What is the role of research at SPSU?

Questions related to our Students

Will the SPSU graduate be an educated (not just trained) person?
Will the SPSU graduate, in a life faced with almost constant change, be able to switch careers (not just jobs) with facility?
Will the SPSU graduate have international experience?
What strategies does SPSU plan to employ to help retain the students we currently have enrolled?
How does SPSU attract a higher caliber of student?
How can we create a more supportive environment?
What will the typical student profile be like in 5 years? Demographics? Traditional/non-traditional? Engineering/Engr Tech/other major?
Who are our students--and who do we want them to be?

Questions related to the Academic Planning Process

How do we judge and measure a plan to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound)?
What methodology will be used to develop the academic plan?
What criteria will be used to prioritize program proposals?
How will we translate departmental goals & objectives into a university-wide vision?
How will we translate a university-wide vision into departmental goals & objectives?
Is there a chance that the university administration will consider addressing the above two questions one and two through Enterprise Integration Planning?

Questions Related to Budget and Resources

Will we have increased our connections and involvement with industry?
Will we be better funded, either from state sources or from fund-raising?
Can we maintain a relatively low cost education of high quality as we seek to grow?
What will our major outside funding sources be? What types of grants will we pursue?
How do we establish a university-level infrastructure that will support credible sponsored projects and research and attractive cross-discipline programs?
Will the curriculum, salary system, and work load issues allow for integrative teaching?
Can we systematically provide academic departments/faculty with cutting edge technology?
Can we systematically provide campus-wide support to produce the best student advising program within the USG?
How will technology investments be integrated into a cohesive vision where student learning needs and best practices in instruction prevail?
How will SPSU establish itself as a leader in judicious technology integration?

Other Questions

What kind of relationships do we want with private industry?
What will the core curriculum look like?
How do we better serve our local community and state of Georgia?
What has to happen to SPSU's Institutional Research arm to support the Academic Plan?
How do we increase the resources at SPSU for faculty, students and the institution?
How doe we maintain the “US” at SPSU?
How do we increase the communication or provide better communication between all groups and users at SPSU, such as activities, awards, honors, and all the really cool stuff we do around the school.
How to develop a mindset of equal partnership between SPSU and GSU, Georgia Tech and UGA for Academic collaborative exchanges?
Will teaching still be our main mission?
How do we build a campus that students really enjoy spending time on?
How do we attract more female students?
How do we believe we impact the "broader community"?
What will our elevator speech sound like in 5years? 10 years?
How do we ensure that evaluation is honest, trustable and objective? How do we ensure that people who are evaluated highly are rewarded?
How do we make this campus a more fun place to be?
What role do we really serve in the Marietta/Cobb/Atlanta Community, esp. beyond being a degree granting institution?
What are the chances that the new Chancellor will actually encourage and materially support cooperative efforts among units of the University System?