Making voices heard, Feb. 28 strategic planning session


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CMU students walk outside the Bovee University Center on Feb. 28. 

Staff, faculty and students gathered on Feb. 28 in the Bovee University auditorium to discuss and provide feedback on the upcoming strategic plan that will work as a roadmap to guide the university over the course of the next five to eight years. 

The previous strategic plan, Advancing Excellence, expired in December of 2022. As a result, Central’s Strategic Planning team is working to develop a new plan. The team hopes to present the drafted version during the summer or early fall of 2023, according to the Strategic Planning Team's page on Central Michigan University's website.  

The meeting on Feb. 28 gave attendees the opportunity to provide input into components they believe should be considered when drafting the new strategic plan. 

Some components that are being considered in the upcoming academic strategic plan are competitor offerings, audience needs and institutional capabilities. Enrollment fluctuations over the past 10 to 15 years have also been a large cause for concern at CMU. 

The meeting was led by Strategic Planning Member Kirsten Weber and Director of Student Services in the College of Business Administration Karen Arthur

“We want to make sure we hear everybody’s voice and we want to make sure that we’re … being polite in doing so,” Weber said. 

Many of those in attendance at the meeting expressed frustrations at the lack of morale felt across all employee groups on campus over the past few years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. They believe that there are many employees on campus who lack enthusiasm and felt that this could potentially affect students on campus if not addressed. 

"Morale is low among all employee groups on campus, when morale is low that is gonna feed to our students," a faculty member said.

As a solution, some audience members suggested increasing communications between administrators and employees to improve those relationships. They also said that re-evaluating and increasing employee and student pay scales could help to raise motivation. 

Many CMU employees in attendance expressed they felt less valued due to their inadequate wages. They also fear that many students will instead opt to work outside of the campus community at a job that pays better if CMU does not adjust the pay rates of students. They believe that evaluating the pay scales of all CMU employees will help to boost morale on campus. 

"There are employees who don't feel heard, who don't feel recognized, who have different frustrations," Arthur said. 

The lack of communication and connections throughout campus had been touched on multiple times throughout the meeting with audience members asking for more opportunities for employees and faculty to provide their input on decisions before changes are made. 

"Instead of going through and deciding to implement something without taking in consideration the people who are utilizing it, the students, the custodians, you know, get their input before making changes," one of the employees in attendance said.

They also wished that the university would provide more opportunities for students to interact and connect with employers and to engage with them on a more personal level as well as give them more opportunities to engage with the community through community service. 

"We need to think about different ways those students can get engaged again,” Arthur said. “And we're, I think, seeing coming out of the experience that we've had with the pandemic, a lot of things were on pause for a while, so how does that regrowth and rebirth of those ideas and opportunities start to really hit our students a little more?" 

According to the strategic planning team, differentiating CMU from other schools has been one of the top priorities in drafting the new strategic plan. Some of those in the audience believed that CMU should really emphasize the smaller, more connected community that Central Michigan offers. The smaller class sizes give students the opportunity to build closer connections with other students and their professors. 

Many thought that the university should also be more clear towards students about amenities offered on campus and to make more conscious steps and efforts in communicating its support towards students and how they can connect easier with the CMU community. 

Weber reiterated some of the concerns voiced by those in the attendance. 

”We already have these really great things here, we need to be able to tell these stories about these really great things," Weber said. "If we had a university effort to make sure that we aren't leaving those students out, that would be quite beneficial." 

Audience members also suggested offering more attractive amenities to students such as more scholarships, offering shuttles around breaks for traditional and international students as an alternative way to get home and offering daycare for non-traditional students other than the Child Development and Learning Lab

The strategic planning team is still open to suggestions from the CMU community so if you would like to provide your own feedback into what CMU should consider in its strategic planning process, click here. The form will remain open until March 17. 

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