The university has decided to help us all see the future through its vision - Vision Ohio.
So what is Vision Ohio?
Is it part of Provost Kathy Krendl's strategy to diversify the residence halls with more multicultural students? Is it the university's idea of how to deal with the issues confronting the community? Is it a combination of other words that don't actually mean anything but the university continues to use to avoid having problems - what the administration refers to as issues?
Thanks to the strategic planning of the university, anyone can look up Vision Ohio on the Ohio University Web site: Vision Ohio is a strategic plan for Ohio University's future
according to www.ohiou.edu/outlook/vision. You know, as opposed to a plan for the past without a strategy.
The street signs now adorning campus give us another idea of what Vision Ohio is. The university has strategic plans for groups of students that include minorities - excuse me, multicultural students - surrounding one white student and strategic plans for everyone to learn how to sculpt a pot.
I am glad the university was - strategically - able to come up with the money for those signs in time for Dads' Weekend. That way, all of the out-of-town visitors can see what their hard-earned income is spent on when they write those checks to the university every quarter. Such strategery!
I guess the parents are the people to whom the university wants to advertise, anyway. After all, why does the administration want to tell me what it has strategically planned for the future? Maybe in hopes that I will give money to the university after I move away from OU into the real world, and that money will be used for things like the new Vision Ohio signs, strategically placed on Union Street.
Where did the money for the signs come from, anyway? Did it come out of President Roderick McDavis' strategic $41,250 bonus?
I guess I'm still confused about what Vision Ohio is supposed to be. The first convocation for Vision Ohio was strategically planned at 10 a.m. Tuesday, and I missed the event because I was in class. It was a nice thought for the university to strategically show the ceremony via streaming video on our TVs, but that doesn't help the people who actually attend class at the university. The convocation probably should have been on a Friday, when no one goes to class anyway - oops, OU is strategically planning for more Friday classes too.
Vision Ohio was somewhat well advertised, even if the time slot was not well planned. The university strategically placed ads on Facebook, so while we students were typing notes in class, we were able to see: Pres. McDAVIS has a PLAN And it affects YOU and your future at OHIO UNIVERSITY Vision Ohio + You = ???
I actually read The Post on Wednesday to find out what I missed at the convocation, but the strategic plan only confused me more.
According to the article about the convocation, McDavis and Krendl said Vision Ohio is a road map and living document to steer the future direction of the university so it does not remain a paper sitting on a shelf gathering dust and will eventually become an old familiar friend.
So I think that means it's a map I can use when I'm driving west on Union Street looking at Vision Ohio signs on the street lamps. And thanks to the map, which I haven't let get dusty, I know that I am supposed to turn right onto Court Street. It's just like an old familiar friend to keep me from driving the wrong way down a one-way street!
McDavis also said he wants the new OU to elevate the university's status nationwide, according to the article. He must have forgotten who was named the No. 2 party school in the country by The Princeton Review.
Unfortunately, the Facebook advertisements were not enough to strategically get students to stop their normally planned activities to attend the convocation. According to the reporter who attended the convocation, only about a dozen students voluntarily went to see the Vision. That's less than half a percent of the Athens campus.
But this is just the beginning of the strategic plan for the university - failure to generate interest won't stop the administration yet because it is has a vision for a new OU. Vision Ohio is about improving and reaching the university's goals.
In the strategic words of President McDavis: It is now up to us to reach the highest star.
- Cheryl Sadler is a senior journalism major. Send her an e-mail at cs334202@ohiou.edu. 17
Archives
Cheryl Sadler
