Dr. Peter Heath, Chancellor of American University of Sharjah held a Strategic Planning Retreat at the new building of the School of Business and Management on Sunday, October 16. The 6-hour retreat was attended by the Provost, vice chancellors, deans and representatives of AUS faculty, students and all departments.

The retreat started with a recapping of the AUS strategic planning so far, including the strategic directions and goals in the levels of academics, building the campus community, building mutual beneficial external relationships and institutional effectiveness.

Chancellor Heath reviewed the history of AUS strategic planning, its current status and the actions taken in implementing all these levels of strategic directions and goals. He discussed with the participants the SWOT Analysis of the Fall 2008, and the strategic initiatives undertaken from the SWOT, their weaknesses opportunities and actions.

Dr. Cindy Dutschke, Director of the Office of the Institutional Effectiveness and Planning, gave the audience an insight on how to make the end-result of goals observable and measurable. She used the 2008 goals as an example. She also shared with them her updates of the strategic plan.

Dr. Imran Ahmed Zualkernan, Associate Professor of Computer Engineering moderated a survey session to measure the audience reaction to 12 obstacles to successful strategy execution, as applied to AUS case.