Planning & Institutional Research

The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff has committed itself to institutionalizing a set of procedures which translates the institutional vision and mission into definitive goals and related objectives, develops policies and operational procedures to achieve stated goals and objectives, and monitors and assesses achievement against intended documented outcomes.

The established set of procedures produces primary information for decision-making at different levels of responsibility, while permitting top-level administrators additional time to focus attention on the basic policy questions related to long and short-range planning objectives and to modify existing policies, procedures, and objectives accordingly.

The Planning Model utilizes the Vision Statement and the Mission Statement as the basis for a cyclical planning process. In the operational planning process, both statements are augmented by data from evaluations of current activities (strengths/weaknesses), trends analysis, external environmental factors, assumptions and other institution research.

From this data, the planning unit produces goals and objectives, which are assigned priorities and translated into an operational plan, including the allocation of the resources within budgetary constraints.
The program implementation process entails the application of resources according to the operational plan and the responsibility for effectively managing resources in order to attain program goals and objectives.
The evaluation process gathers implementation data and compares actual performance with planned performance. Evaluation includes an assessment of goal/objective attainment and resource utilization. The results of the evaluation phase are the utilized as input to the next planning cycle. This is very important.