In an email to the student body, Provost Steve Goldstein announced the next steps in the already long-running Strategic Plan. The university released a “preliminary framework” four weeks ago, which went through multiple rounds of committee discussions involving the entire campus.

The next steps for the plan involve taking it to the trustees, whose meeting last week was canceled due to the hurricane. The administration rescheduled the meeting for Nov. 27 but, for fear of further impeding the progress of discussion, moved forward with personal phone calls and meetings with trustees separately.

Goldstein wrote that once trustees have given their input, the administration will write an initial draft, which once again must go to committee and “will offer further opportunities for comment and discussion within the community.”

During the campus-wide committee process, many felt that the plan was too general for the plan to move forward smoothly. According to Goldstein, this new draft will narrow the language and “provide the greater specificity that many have been eager to see.”

The deans and faculty from the Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC) are going to draft the initial document in separate pieces.

“In this initial draft, each of the strategic directions in the framework will be rendered into specific objectives, along with concrete actions to realize them,” Goldstein said, addressing yet another concern of the faculty and student body.

The SPSC will have to wait until the board meeting later this month to report on the work that has been accomplished and receive cohesive feedback. Afterward, they will begin to write the initial draft.

After the initial draft is composed, it will, again, go into discussion. “The draft will then be discussed by the SPSC, and once approved, it will be submitted to the University Advisory Council and other standing bodies within the community for comments,” said Goldstein.

The document must be written by the beginning of December, when it is submitted to the faculty at their meeting on Dec. 6, and then to the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees on Dec. 12 for what Goldstein calls “further discussion.”

Once discussed, Goldstein says the Strategic Plan will begin to come to a close. A final draft will be returned, “to be proposed to the Board of Trustees at its meeting on Jan. 22 and 23. The Board will then vote on the plan. Once we have an approved plan, a new process begins: implementing the plan.”