With the spring semester now underway, I write to provide some update on our strategic planning initiative, 2020: FIT at 75, Bringing the Future into Focus. As you know, we launched this process in the fall in order to explore key questions of institutional identity and frame a vision of the FIT of tomorrow. Many of you are active participants in this project and know, in particular, how labor-intensive it is. I am pleased to report that we are on schedule and continue to make very good progress.

Last semester, with the assistance of our facilitators from The Learning Alliance (TLA), we identified many of the projects’ building blocks: committees, timetables, critical data. A steering committee met frequently and tentative goals for the college were developed based on in-depth interviews by TLA of representative FIT community members. Eighty members of the community attended four roundtable discussions---pivotal events in the process---to explore, challenge and redefine the goals. The roundtable discussions yielded a document, produced by TLA, which identified the central themes and goals around which there was consensus.

One of the dominant ---and most exciting---themes that emerged from the data is the exceptional amount of freedom we have at FIT to shape our future. This college is so much in demand by prospective students that---unlike almost every other college and university in the country---we can literally choose who we want to teach and what we want to teach. This is surely a key factor that will inform the development of our strategic goals and initiatives.

The goals themselves include the establishment of a more student-centered culture, the strengthening of both our two and four year programs so that each meets the needs of future students, the identification of those students we wish to admit, and the development of FIT into a creative hub---a nexus of new ideas for industry and education as well as for new professionals to fill those ranks.

Earlier this week, I charged the nine cross-college planning committees whose members will develop the initiatives, tasks and metrics to support the goal. These committees, which will meet for eight weeks and be guided by a TLA facilitator, are populated with a mix of representatives from throughout the college.

In addition to the planning committees, we have also created an industry scanning team which will facilitate focus groups with industry leaders from the markets we serve to learn more about their vision . (I have listed the names of the committees, their chairs and co-chairs at the end of this memo.)

We also are fortunate to have here at FIT a unique group of individuals whose experience and expertise cuts across the work of all of the committees. These people have agreed to be available to all of the committees on an as-needed basis. They are: Georgianna Appignani , director, international programs; Jeanne Golly, director, internship center; Elizabeth Grubic, admissions; Desiree Koslin, director, CET; Connie Passarella, director, career services; Diane Phillips, academic affairs; N.J. Wolfe, director, library.

In March, we will conduct student focus groups and expect to invite 40 students to participate in these discussions.

The work in the weeks ahead promises to be arduous, but given the strong sense of purpose and commitment already demonstrated by everyone involved, I am confident it will be accomplished. The initiatives that the planning committees recommend will be reviewed by the steering committee and then presented to a set of concluding roundtables in May for further refinement and review. In fact, I found the fall roundtable discussions to be so thought-provoking and productive that I plan to invite an additional 40 individuals to join us in May, bringing the total number of roundtable participants up to 120.

I have said from the outset that the strategic plan will only work if it has the community stamp. We are making every effort to keep everyone as informed and as involved as is possible. We have a dedicated strategic planning website (www3.fitnyc.edu/strategic planning) which gets updated regularly and contains key documents, data, lists of committees, and relevant links. I hope you will visit it often. Indeed, you will soon be able to submit your own questions to the website through a link we are developing. I will also hold a town meeting so that I can hear from you directly as we move forward with this process. As soon as it is scheduled, we will send out notices and, indeed, continue to communicate via e-mail, voice mail, meetings and memos and in as many other ways as we can so that everyone can stay involved.

The steering committee will work with TLA over the summer on the final document, and I will look forward to presenting the strategic plan when we come together in August for our Fall 2005 convocation.