SRA Update: What to Expect in Phase IV

Message below is from Jonathan Anderson, provost, and Mary Voves, vice president of business and finance, and was sent to EWU faculty and staff on May 22.

Dear campus colleagues,

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we’ve worked through the SRA process to date. As we enter Phase IV — data gathering and assessment — our goal has always been to ensure the process is done right and provide the necessary support and time to present the best possible template and materials for the campus community. We want to thank all you who have engaged with the SRA process — those who’ve attended the town halls, provided feedback, submitted questions, and those who are serving on the Facilitation Team and task forces.

For the last several weeks, the task forces have taken great care to review the template feedback provided by campus and use it to refine the template questions, as well as develop thorough instructions, resources and training sessions. Additionally, multiple meetings have taken place between the facilitation team and the task forces to ensure the university-provided data sets are accurate and best suited to assist programs and departments with completing the templates.

Templates and Instructions:

The university services template and academic program template will be published today, May 22, on the SRA website. A new “Templates” tab will be displayed to allow for simple navigation and ensure support materials are easy to find.

Instructions have been prepared by each task force to assist individuals in completing the templates. Also included on the page is a glossary of terms specific to each template, as well as a copy of the guiding elements developed collaboratively by the two task forces. This is meant to be a collaborative process, so a working document of each template will be available for download to assist with this.  Individual emails will also be sent to deans, chairs, VPs and AVPs providing additional guidance on best practices for collaborating with their teams to complete, review and submit their assigned templates.

While the templates will be published simultaneously, the availability of the data sets and training sessions will come at different times between the university services and academic programs. In consideration for the staggered roll-out of information, the task forces have agreed upon three due dates for university services, academic quarter programs, and academic semester programs.

• University Services: Providing four weeks for completion after everyone has received templates, data sets, and training sessions — June 27 (the facilitation team has prioritized providing data sets to academic programs first)
• Academic Quarter Programs: Providing four weeks from the release of the templates — June 20
• Academic Semester Programs: Providing four weeks from receipt of templates upon return to campus in the fall — September (exact date to be determined)

Please remember that any service or program that does not submit a completed template may be automatically placed in the fifth quintile.

Resources & Trainings

Both task forces have scheduled multiple training sessions to assist individuals with completing the templates.

• The University Services Task Force is offering virtual training sessions on May 24 from 10-11 a.m and May 30 from 9-10 a.m. for template reviewers and/or their designee(s). The links will be provided to template reviewers in a separate email. Following the sessions, the training video and recordings of both Q&A sessions will be available on the SRA website.
• The Academic Programs Task Force will hold multiple virtual drop-in sessions to answer questions and provide guidance. The first drop-in session will occur on May 24 from 1-2 p.m. Zoom links and additional details will be available on the SRA website. The task force will hold, as of now, seven additional virtual drop-in sessions — on May 26, followed by three occurring during the week of May 29, and three occurring during the week of June 5. These sessions will be recorded and made available for viewing on the SRA website. Additional sessions will be available for semester programs in August and September.

Again, thank you for your time and effort to make this process a success. If you have any questions, please email the SRA team at sra@ewu.edu.

In gratitude,

Jonathan Anderson, Provost & Mary Voves, VP of Business and Finance
Co-Champions, Strategic Resource Allocation