Unit Plan Procedures and Resources

Procedures

Each administrative and academic support unit is assessed annually. All assessment reports for each administrative unit are documented in standardized unit plan assessment templates. Assessment reports are completed by each supervisor and reviewed by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness according to the following process: 

1. At the end of the summer, supervisors determine 3-4 goals for their department.
   1. Goals should be crafted with Hampden-Sydney College’s mission and strategic goals in mind.
   2. Additionally, if H-SC leadership set goals for your department, you should use the unit plan to record your progress toward achieving those goals.
2. Throughout the fall and fpring, departments work toward achieving goals and collect data related to the department’s goals.
3. At the end of the spring semester, supervisors record the results and analyze the effectiveness of the steps taken in the Unit Plan Assessment Reports.
4. The first Monday in August, supervisors submit the completed reports along with next year’s goals to the Office of Institutional Effectiveness (OIE).
5. OIE reviews the completed reports and the new goals and sends departments feedback on both by the end of August. 
6. Departments make changes by the end of the second week in September and notify OIE once the report is corrected. 

Repeat steps 1-6 the following year. 

Setting Appropriate Goals and Measures 

Unit Plan Assessment is used to evaluate the effectiveness of administrative and academic support units or departments. Units create goals that align with the College’s mission and goals, focusing their time and resources on tasks that are most important. The following tips will help units establish good and appropriate goals for administrative and academic support units.

Setting Goals 

• Administrative and academic support units should have 3-4 goals that they work toward and update throughout the year.
• Goals should align with the College’s mission and strategic plan. 
• Goals should be broad enough to identify the unit’s priorities yet specific enough to be measurable.
• Goals can be quantitative or qualitative in nature but should contain objectives or steps to be completed that are measurable.
• Goals should be related to tasks that a unit has control over.
  • For example, Facilities should not have a goal related to graduation rates. 

Measuring Achievement 

Goals are broad statements about what a department or unit hopes to achieve. Methods are the specific steps that will be taken to achieve a goal. In Hampden-Sydney's Unit Plan Template, the Measure Achievement section is used to describe specific strategies or steps (methods) a unit plans to take that lead to achievement of the goal. Tracking completion of the planned strategies and steps is one way to measure progress toward the goal.  

The examples in the table below show how units measure the planned strategies to track progress toward their goal. The bolded text indicates where the unit is measuring goal achievement.