About This Website
This website offers the New College community regular updates about activities and developments in the Academic Master Planning process, a way to provide comments, suggestions or other input to the Committee, and a forum for College-wide discussion of issues related to the academic master plan.
The Committee’s Approach
The Academic Master Plan Committee recognizes that for an academic master plan to be effective, it must enjoy the support of faculty, students, and administration. The Committee has therefore chosen to view its task as facilitating the development of a plan that reflects to the greatest degree possible the common values of New College, and that is the product not just of its own thought and work but, again to the greatest degree possible, also that of the College community as a whole.
The Committee has adopted a process that emphases the following characteristics:
- Transparency
- On-going discussion and consultation with the New College community
- Multiple iterations - repeated discussion and refinement of approaches, strategies, and eventually drafts
- Consensus-seeking
Working Definition of Consensus
The Committee has committed to strive for consensus whenever possible. It has adopted the following working definition of consensus.
Consensus is a process, an attitude and an outcome. Consensus processes have the potential of producing better quality, more informed and better supported outcomes.
As a process, consensus is a problem solving approach in which all members:
- Jointly share, clarify and distinguish their concerns;
- Inform each other about substantive issues;
- Jointly develop alternatives to address concerns; and then
- Seek to adopt recommendations everyone can embrace or at least live with.
In a consensus process, members should be able to honestly say:
- I believe that other members understand my point of view;
- I believe I understand other members' points of view;
- The outcome adequately addressed at least what I think are the most important needs or issues;
- Whether or not I prefer this outcome, I support it because it was arrived at openly and fairly and because it is the best solution we can achieve at this time.
Consensus as an attitude means that each member commits to work toward agreements that meet their own and other member needs and interests so that all can support the outcome.
In a consensus outcome, the level of enthusiasm for an agreement may not be the same among all members on any issue, but on balance all should be able to live and support with the overall package. Levels of consensus on an outcome can include a mix of:
- Participants who strongly support the solution
- Participants who can "live with" the solution
- Some participants who do not agree with the solution but agree not to oppose it.
The Committee will use a version of the following scale to test the degree of consensus in the New College community on emerging ideas, strategies and components of the plan.
4. Wholeheartedly support. This is what I would do.
3. Support. May not be what I would do.
2. Minor reservations. I think I will eventually be able to support this, but I need to see clarifications or refinements first.
1. Major reservations. I cannot support this without major changes.
Please note that this scale is not a mechanism for making final decisions. Final decisions on the plan will be made using established New College decision-making procedures.
Timeline
This timeline outlines the major activities in the master planning process. It will be updated periodically to reflect new developments.
June - August: Articulating values and issues
- Initial meeting of the Committee of the Whole (COW) on June 27 provides input and direction to the Academic Master Plan Committee.
- Committee meets June 27, July 16 & 17, August 16 & 17, and August 23 to develop a draft Values and Issues Discussion Paper, using COW input, that offers possible articulations of New College values, initial descriptions of issues to be addressed, and a first-cut identification of alternative strategies.
- Draft Values and Issues Discussion Paper posted to website August 31.
September: Consensus-testing and refining of Values and Issues document
- Faculty, students, staff and others offer input and comment on Values and Issues via web-survey.
- September 12 College-wide meeting held to discuss key questions related to Values and Issues Discussion Paper.
- Committee refines Values and Issues Discussion Paper using web-based input and discussion at College-wide meeting..
October: Development of possible goals, subgoals and strategies
- Committee develops possible goals, subgoals and strategies for discussion. In some cases, these materials include alternative (sometimes mutually exclusive) approaches to issues.
November: Discussion and consensus-testing of possible goals, subgoals and strategies
- Faculty, students, staff and others review and suggest refinements to the possible goals, subgoals and strategies at discussion meetings on November 2nd, 9th, 12th and 13th.
- Committee uses input from discussion meetings to refine possible goals, subgoals and strategies.
- Possible goals, subgoals, and strategies posted to the web-site and distributed for consensus-testing in late November. For some topics, this material includes mutually exclusive alternatives.
December: Preparation of first draft
- Faculty, students, staff and others review the results of consensus-testing, and suggest further refinements at a meeting or meetings on December 6th or 7th.
- Committee prepares first draft of plan based on consensus-testing and discussion input.
- First draft of the plan posted to the website and distributed for consensus-testing.
- Committee develops second draft of the plan based on consensus-testing results, and distributes for consensus-testing.
December -- January: Refinement of draft and adoption- Committee develops final draft of the plan based on consensus-testing results and possibly additional meeting input.
- Final draft of the plan to the Board of Trustees for adoption.