Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) Core Process: Strategy Forum

An innovative element in the Academic Quality Improvement Program’s accreditation process, the Strategy Forum brings together teams from diverse colleges and universities for three days to generate and test new improvement strategies in a creative, supportive environment. At a Strategy Forum, an institution’s team will benefit from both giving and receiving feedback about the best ways to address challenges shared by its higher education peers. The atmosphere at Strategy Forums is serious, but collegial and collaborative. The institutions that interact all share a commitment to continuous quality improvement and its application to the operations, values, and goals of higher education.

Participating in a Strategy Forum provides an institution with supportive, facilitated peer feedback to stimulate and assist it in conceiving, critically examining, and committing to a key set of Action Projects. Within the larger sequence of activities and services that constitute AQIP, these Action Projects should strengthen an institution’s commitment to continuous quality improvement; educate and motivate its faculty, staff, and administrators in the philosophy and tools of continuous improvement; and enhance systems and processes to make the institution more successful in achieving its goals.

Two Different Strategy Forums Serve Two Distinct Groups

Strategy Forums are intensive, focused experiences. An institutional team will be one of four to six teams at approximately the same stage of AQIP participation in a section. There is a Strategy Forum (consisting of one or more sections) for new AQIP institutions, and a different Strategy Forum (also, perhaps, with multiple sections) for experienced AQIP institutions. Sections will include 30 to 50 people, and the entire Strategy Forum may total as many as 150 participants.

• Strategies for Action is the Strategy Forum designed specifically for institutions new to the Academic Quality Improvement Program. It asks teams to identify two important institutional challenges that their institution has not yet settled on a strategy for addressing, and to come to a Strategy Forum where they will learn how to create specific, measurable Action Projects that respond to serious challenges. Strategies for Action is scheduled for:
  
  
  • February 9 – 11, 2011

• Creating the Climate for Continuous Learning is a distinct Strategy Forum intended specifically for institutions already experienced with AQIP. This Strategy Forum requires an institution to have submitted a Systems Portfolio to AQIP, undergone a Systems Appraisal, and received and analyzed its Systems Appraisal Feedback Report. Creating the Climate for Continuous Learning is scheduled for:
  
  
  • October 13 – 15, 2010
  • November 17 – 19, 2010
  • February 9 – 11, 2011
  • May 18 – 20, 2011

Who Should Attend

An institution’s Strategy Forum team is critical to its success at these events. The Commission has developed Building Your Team Guidelines on who to include on the institutional team. Teams should have seven or eight members. Contact Babatunde Alokolaro if you have questions about composing a team.

Representatives from higher education institutions or other organizations who would like to attend or observe a Strategy Forum should contact Steve Spangehl, 800.621.7440 x 106.

Visit this page for announcements about additional Strategy Forums that may be added to the schedule.