10/09/03—Boston College Law School announced today that the draft of the School’s Strategic Plan, in development for the past two years, has passed in a recent faculty vote. The faculty showed strong support for the Report’s main principles: to solidify the school’s mission, improve faculty scholarship, focus and improve the Law School’s programs in several main areas, and provide housing and more financial support for students. The Plan will now move to the next stage of development, which will consider priorities and funding for new initiatives.

“I am pleased that the efforts of so many of our faculty, staff, alumni, and students have been crowned with success,” said BC Law Dean John H. Garvey. “This plan will be a useful guide to us over the next decade.”

The faculty vote of confidence for the new strategic plan is a key step in the development of the Law School’s vision for its future. The strategic planning process has been evolving since the fall of 2001, when Dean Garvey convened a Strategic Planning Committee to guide the Law School in thinking creatively about the opportunities and challenges facing Boston College Law School. Since then, there has been an unprecedented level of support and feedback from all areas of the community. Open community meetings have been held as “brainstorming” sessions. The key to the process in the early going, Professor Judith McMorrow (chair of the planning committee) says, was not to confine anyone’s imagination in any way, but rather to encourage “out of the box” thinking.

“We wanted to hear every idea, large and small,” McMorrow says. “It was very important that we heard from as many people as possible, both to get a handle on our current perceptions of ourselves, where we want to go over the next few years, and what would make us a stronger, more focused institution.”

McMorrow and the planning committee sent out alumni surveys through BC Law Magazine, and held numerous smaller meetings with faculty, administrators, and students as the Report was being developed. Working groups were formed to study more specific ideas, themes and initiatives.

The process identified a number of key strengths of BC Law according to various groups, including the School’s Jesuit and Catholic heritage and commitment to service, strong faculty and student body, a collegial atmosphere, areas of curricular excellence, and excellent physical facilities, among others. It also identified a number of key challenges that the School must face moving forward, including enriching the scholarship, teaching and service of faculty, improving a commitment to public interest, improving financial support for students, and increased connections with alumni. As a result of these findings, and the many brainstorming sessions and working groups that came out of the early process, the Strategic Plan makes a number of recommendations on strategy, and also proposes specific projects that would strengthen the School’s position moving forward.

“We have accomplished a great deal so far,” McMorrow says. “We’re excited about what came out of this. But this report is only the beginning. There’s much more to do.”

To read the Strategic Plan in PDF format, click here.