During his inauguration on December 3, 2004 Roger Brown announced a new vision for Berklee's future:

"Berklee will be the world's leading institute of contemporary music. Attracting diverse and talented students passionate about careers in music, we will offer a relevant and distinctive curriculum in music and liberal arts. We will engage an unparalleled faculty of inspiring educators and cutting-edge industry professionals, provide state-of-the-art facilities for learning and living, and produce tomorrow's leaders of the global music community.

"What this vision means in more specific terms will be determined as we build a strategic plan over the next six months, but let me share my sense of what this vision will imply for us:

• We will create new facilities.
  
  
• Berklee will not grow in enrollment for the next several years until our facilities and infrastructure catch up with our recent growth.
  
  
• We will increase scholarship support for deserving students.
  
  
• With record demand, more scholarship opportunities and limited spaces for new students, Berklee will become more selective. But we will not be selective in the traditional "grades, SATs, and essays" fashion—we are creating our own "Berklee model" of selectivity, looking for students with strong musical aptitude, high motivation, and with a level of preparation sufficient to succeed at Berklee.
  
  
• We will communicate better internally and foster more cross-departmental activity.
  
  
• We will place more emphasis on understanding the culture and history of the contemporary music we make.
  
  
• We will conduct a comprehensive curriculum review to insure that the Berklee educational experience is as effective as it can possibly be given the needs of our students and the realities of the world they will enter.
  
  
• And we will work hard to build a community in which every member's voice counts."

As a college, we are now challenged with turning this vision into reality by determining the most important initiatives on which to focus our time, energy, and resources; on the things that will have the greatest positive impact on current and future Berklee students.

Vision Principles

Accompanying the Vision Statement is a set of principles designed to guide the development of strategy. These four principles provide us a starting point. For strategy:

1. The student experience is rich and multi-dimensional and gives students the skills and competencies they need to succeed in careers in music and in life.
   
   
2. The scale of the college is determined by our ability to attract students who can benefit from the Berklee experience, and our capacity to support them with quality facilities and infrastructure.
   
   
3. The innovative ideas on which the college was founded are applied to the new circumstances of the 21st century.
   
   
4. The college is an inspirational place to learn, teach, and work.

Planning Process

This spring semester, the president will lead a process to create a strategy for the year's 2005-2008 to lay the foundation for achieving our vision for Berklee 2015.

The grand idea in the vision is the quality of the student experience: embracing access and outcomes, scale and facilities, curriculum, and faculty, in a welcoming and collaborative community. Vision is the shared conception of what we want Berklee to be in 2015. Now we need to create the blueprint for how we will realize this vision to build the foundation for Berklee 2015.

President's Council Role

The President's Council, the leading advisory group at the college, will work with the President to create a strategic plan to achieve the vision.

With the assistance of the facilitating committee, the council will seek advice, comment, and participation from the community, lead strategic reviews in their areas, and work collaboratively as college leaders to identify priority initiatives for the future.

In January, the council recommended an organizational structure to guide strategic development, and outlined a plan defining the council's central role, facilitation, and a representative committee.

Organizational Structure for strategic planning

Facilitating Committee

Roger Brown appointed Karen Zorn and Tom Riley, with the assistance of Carl Beatty, to facilitate the planning process. Their role was to:

• Facilitate a process, led by the council, for identifying strategic initiatives
  
  
• Work with the College Coordinating Committee to engage community voices throughout the process
  
  
• Work with the council, community, and president to draft a strategic plan for board review in June 2005
  
  
• Build consensus around the strategy,
  
  
• Recommend an ongoing process for strategy development.

Cross-College Coordinating Committee

A representative group of chairs, directors, faculty, and staff, along with student representatives, will assist with coordinating the process. Membership will include representatives of the COC, COAD, Personnel Committee, divisions, staff and faculty at-large, and alumni. The role of this committee is to:

• Work with the facilitators to coordinate community engagement in the process,
  
  
• Assure that all constituencies have their voices heard in the process, and stay informed along the way,
  
  
• Assist in developing town meeting agendas, surveys, and other forms of community outreach.

Timeline

• By June, develop with community participation a strategy for 2005-2008 for board discussion
  
  
• Refine the strategy over the summer and publish final version in August
  
  
• Commence 2005-2008 plan in September 2005