Every school has a theological mission that is appropriate to its own context. Mission is where planning begins.

Preamble to Standard 2: Theological schools are communities of faith and learning guided by institutional visions that inform thoughtful planning grounded in ongoing evaluation. Planning is a mission-guided and broad-based process that focuses on strategic priorities in light of current realities, resulting in a plan that is appropriately resourced, actively implemented, regularly reviewed, and periodically updated.

Mission serves as a compass for a school's decisions, establishing a school's "true north" and direction. This "true north" embodies the deepest values of a theological institution and what it believes about its purpose in its context. Embedded or related entities align their purpose, mission, and strategic priorities with those of the host institution. Regardless of the structure, the work is essential for all Commission members. Having a clear and shared sense of the direction a school's compass is pointing is foundational for planning.

Standard 2.1: Planning is a mission-guided process that seeks appropriate ways to better achieve the school's purpose(s) amidst changing circumstances. It is a broad-based process that engages appropriate constituencies to develop a plan that is widely owned.

Exercise: Explore what you know about your school's mission with the following questions:

1. What do you know about the mission and purpose of your school (original and current)?

Was it formed to educate persons of a particular ecclesial tradition or group? What historical or cultural events might your school have been responding to at the time of its founding? What is different about the circumstances surrounding the formation of the original purpose and those that currently exist? How have your school's mission and purpose changed? How have they remained constant? If embedded, how is the mission related to the larger institutional mission? A school's mission statement is a kind of strategy history; it shows direction; it can change over time but it should always define direction and provide clarity.

2. How does your school's mission guide its planning processes and help it respond to change?

Reacting to change is as important as planning and successful strategy regularly requires reacting as circumstances change.

Clever strategy tries to plan deliberate actions to shape the future, but also tries to stay close to local events and to react to them. In this way, strategy is transformed into a learning process that becomes - at its best - smarter through experimentation" (The Strategy Book (TSB), Max McKeown, 8).

How did your school respond to change during the pandemic? Which of those changes has the school adopted on an ongoing basis? How is your school responding to current challenges facing higher education, e.g., enrollment cliff, changes in the religious landscape, waning confidence in higher education?

3. In what ways is planning at your school a broad-based process? How does the school regularly seek feedback from various constituencies about its effectiveness?

What is something that your school has changed or adapted in response to feedback? What persons and groups were involved in the most recent strategic planning process? How is the school's planning coordinated with those with whom the school is connected, e.g., denomination or ecclesial community, university in which it is embedded, alumni and other stakeholders? How do others learn of the direction the school is going and what it intends to accomplish?

"Your strategy process will be more effective if it includes more people and if it thinks more rigorously about different scenarios in the future. Strategy is not a solo sport" (TSB, McKeown, 38).

The strategic planning function must regularly seek feedback from stakeholders about its scope of work and its effectiveness and be willing to flex, change, and adapt in scope and function" (Higher Education Strategy and Planning (HESP), Tony Strike, ed, 45).

Exercise: Reflect on what planning looks like at your school in relation to the following prompts a school might use to tell its "planning" story.