February 20, 2008

OWU Begins Work With Art & Science Group

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but seeing with new eyes.”
– Marcel Proust 

Many members of the Ohio Wesleyan community met in small focus groups on campus this past week with strategy consultants David Strauss and Susan May. The overarching goal of these sessions? To assist the University’s President-elect Rock Jones, in his efforts to complete strategic planning efforts which began at OWU more than three years ago.

Strauss is a principal and May a managing associate with the Baltimore-based Art & Science Group, a strategy consulting firm focused on serving colleges and universities, as well as some foundations and non-profit organizations.

During their two-day visit, Strauss and May engaged OWU professors, staff members, and students in conversation about OWU’s essence, inviting discussion about such thought-provoking questions as:

• How would you describe the essence of Ohio Wesleyan? What do you do best?
• What campus programs, initiatives, or experiences constitute the substance behind the previous branding and communication initiatives?
• What are the most meaningful and potentially powerful ideas that emerged during the three-year strategic planning process?
• What other concepts or initiatives might hold the potential to differentiate OWU from other small liberal arts colleges, many of whom make similar claims in their appeals to prospective students?

“I believe this exercise is critically important as we work together to complete the strategic plan and prioritize the capital campaign. The study will help us insure that we devote our time, energy, and resources to those initiatives with the greatest potential to advance Ohio Wesleyan University as an institution of choice and as one of the nation’s premier liberal arts institutions,” says Jones. He has watched the results of the work of Art & Science at several other institutions and recommended that Strauss make a presentation to members of OWU’s Board of Trustees at the January meeting.

“We also want to hear from the campus community about compelling stories, themes, and OWU’s core identity and essence,” says Jean Bussell ’69, trustee, and member of the University Review ad hoc Committee.  Board members within three committees voted to engage Strauss and his Art & Science colleagues, (with the help of an anonymous donor) and their work with OWU began with campus visits, and the simultaneous formation of a steering committee comprised of trustees, faculty, and staff members.

The work of Art & Science will, as Jones explains, build on the work of both the campus strategic planning process and campus marketing advisory committee, as well as the results of previous more communications-oriented studies. As OWU’s new President moves the campus forward in a productive strategic planning process, the Art & Science initiative will provide external feedback from the prospective student market on the initiatives under consideration at OWU. The Art & Science study will provide predictive data on how applications, enrollment, and net revenue could be impacted by such initiatives, so that the University then can make informed decisions about its strategic priorities.

“There is a tremendous amount of good information about Ohio Wesleyan within the existing institutional agenda, and many people worked hard and thoughtfully on this project,” says Jones. “This work can be strengthened by taking it to the next level as we arrive at a compelling institutional vision and plans to differentiate OWU from other colleges and universities.” As Art & Science steering committee member and botany-microbiology professor Chris Wolverton summarizes, “we are trying to tie together the loose pieces [of the institutional agenda] that have accumulated over the past three years. Rock wants to take advantage of that work and complete it, and the Art & Science consultants are helping us to place the necessary definition and focus.” Faculty colleague and English professor Joe Musser, member of both OWU’s marketing advisory committee and Art & Science steering committee, concurs, and stresses the importance of authenticity in how we present ourselves to prospective students.

“My feeling is that the Art & Science Group will not try to impose a program on Ohio Wesleyan, but rather, will help us see various ways we present, or might consider presenting information to our audience.”

From the vantage point of OWU’s Interim President and Provost David Robbins, it is helpful for the University to take a look at how we position ourselves within the marketplace in terms of our strategic plan. As work with the Art & Science Group progresses, Robbins is optimistic about addressing such challenges as OWU’s completion of a strategic plan and utilizing that plan in tandem with a strategic institutional vision, to further build an alumni support base needed for future capital campaign efforts and success.

“Now three years old, our institutional agenda and planning efforts have yielded several benefits including our marketing, university relations, and student satisfaction initiatives,” says Robbins. “The research will be a learning experience for the entire OWU community and help bring the strategic planning process to a fruitful conclusion.”

Although Jones begins his new presidential post on July 1, he schedules periodic campus visits, and is at the core of these research efforts, along with Robbins. Those efforts, beginning with last week’s focus groups, also will encompass interviews with prospective students at the inquiry stage, about their decisions whether or not to apply to OWU and other schools, as well as interviews with admitted applicants, about their decisions whether or not to enroll at OWU and other schools. Administered blind, the surveys will enable us to discover how some of the features, initiatives, and approaches that OWU holds most dear might impact applicant and matriculation rates if they were universally known, explains Jones.

“We then can assess if we are being true to our mission, as well as how we might differentiate Ohio Wesleyan from our competitors.”  And through open meeting on campus, community members will have the opportunity to hear presentations of the research results and implications. Further recommendations, as Jones notes, will grow out of what participants would have heard during the first week of focus group sessions.

“I am happy for everyone to understand how important this research is to me as I begin my work at Ohio Wesleyan,” says Jones. Sharing his excitement is OWU’s board chair Kathe Rhinesmith ’64.

– Pam Besel