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Display 0103: Introduction (IRP Director & Editor)Introduction Welcome to SSU's new Strategic Planning e-Fact Book. Our first such effort at Savannah State, the e-Fact Book is designed to be ubiquitous on campus as an active, ever expanding web site and is expected to become an integral part of office resources. (Campus community members are encouraged to download and duplicate the most recent copies of displays as needed from the IRP Web Site.)The Strategic Planning e-Fact Book is designed as a candid reference manual for planning in the university. Data is displayed to foster an understanding of trends, comparisons, & benchmarks in order to explicitly to raise planning and priority questions for constituents & stakeholders. Thus, readers are encouraged to abstract information as needed from this reference for public relations purposes. In this edition, we have attempted to place data in patterns meaningful for strategic planning and to present it in an organized way for easy access. Hence, data is displayed in ten-year trends or in contrast to reasonable benchmarks* whenever data sources permit. Further, we display information with figures (tables), pictures (graphs), and in words to appeal to various cognitive styles of diverse readers. Therefore, each separate page (a "display") should be able to stand alone and be treated as a single attribute or phenomena. Yet each display also is integrated within a particular "series" treating a larger general topic (e.g.: "Student Enrollment") for organizational purposes. We hope this effort will make the reference logical, intuitive, and easy to use for decision and policy making. The proof will be in its use. We welcome your comments and suggestions for improvement. Finally, the paper version of the Strategic Planning e-Fact Book is designed in loose-leaf form to allow continuous revision as new data becomes available and analysis proceeds. As new sections are received, they should be inserted in numerical order in the appropriate "series." (Notice: pages include identifying series numbers and a "publication” or “revision” dates.) We expect most displays to be revised annually. Care has been exercised to ensure that data diplayed are accurate, reliable, and valid according to standard research conventions. Yet, a margin of error remains and caution is always advised in assuming precise validity. (See "Data Error Considerations" in Appendix.) Also, many displays depict complex models, constructs, and theories of the university or of education not always intuitively obvious. Thus, readers are encouraged to consult the detailed glossary to enhance understanding the concepts portrayed by the data. We hope you find this work helpful in your planning. Remember: the importance of facts, like history, lies in the future use that can be made of a deeper understanding. Sincerely, Michael G. Crow _____________ * Selecting benchmarks has been approached carefully but selection is inherently an act of judgement depending on the context and issues under consideration. Individuals may benefit from the use of alternative benchmarks in order to gain differing understandings or insights. Ideas about alternative benchmarks that might be useful should be pursued in the process of strategic planning and communicated to the Office of Institutional Research & Planning, where they may be included in future addenda to Strategic Planning e-Fact Book. |