Vision Integrated [Planning.Sup.[SM]]: From Vision to Facilities Master Plan; a Comprehensive Approach

VIP is a process that higher education administrators can use to map out their strategic, marketing, and learning environment opportunities and goals within the context of the institution's vision. IN TODAY'S ACADEMIC LANDSCAPE, higher education administrators are under increasing pressure to keep their institutions competitive and on the cutting edge despite diminishing budgets and rising costs. Vision Integrated Planning (VIP) can give your college or university the tools it needs to not only survive but thrive in these increasingly competitive times. Bruce Manger, a leader in higher education planning and design and a campus planning specialist for Hord Coplan Macht, Inc., in Baltimore, illustrates using this case study: 2004, my consultant team and I developed a holistic Vision Integrated Plan for Anne Arundel Community College (AACC), located near Annapolis, Maryland (figure 1.) After studying the college's market, enrollment, programs, and facilities, our team identified programs with untapped growth potential and projected a potential enrollment increase of 31 percent over 10 years. This was higher than the 16 percent growth that was the college's working baseline assumption at the beginning of the study. While not all colleges have this same potential, many do, and a Vision Integrated Plan can provide the key to unlocking the door to that potential growth. Even if you have a current strategic plan to help guide your course, you may not be doing all that you can to achieve a competitive edge. That is where VIP can help. In short, it's a process that higher education administrators can use to map out their strategic, marketing, and learning environment opportunities and goals within the context of the institution's vision. While it incorporates some of the same components as traditional strategic plans and campus master plans, VIP goes a step further by performing an in-depth analysis of the markets the college serves, its demographics, and its academic programs in order to provide a more complete picture of the institution (figure 2.) Matthew McManness, then vice president for learning resources management at AACC, explains the real-world significance of VIP: college realized that any plan would not be comprehensive if we did not include academic plan and environmental scan components. The previous master plan strictly looked at enrollment projections and did not address market penetration, new programs, etc. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Manger elaborates, university creating a serious campus master plan today should consider that many of its core assumptions about the way it does business may not work in the future. Integrating a study of the institution's market and demographic base as well as its academic programs with the master plan will provide a credible foundation for its direction and a comprehensive tool to help fulfill the mission of the institution. It could even suggest reexamining some aspects of the mission, vision, and strategic plan. [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] In the case of AACC, enrollment projections were exceeded, in part due to growth during the recession. The master plan anticipated and accommodated this growth based on demographic research, a job market review, the potential for new programs, and a possible expansion. The plan recommended expanding the college's presence on the main campus and at off-campus centers, increasing its building stock by as much as 300,000 square feet from the then current total of 750,000 square feet to allow for flexibility in location and application as growth and demand would suggest. A FIVE-STEP PROCESS Assembling the team is the first element in developing a Vision Integrated Plan. The consultant team should complement the in-house resources available to the college. The VIP team includes a core consultant team made up of a market and demographics expert, an academic planner, and learning environment, enrollment, and space needs specialists; engineering and planning specialists to handle the facility assessment and campus planning; and individuals from other key disciplines to address special campus needs. …