ASPB Plans Strategically for a Long and Illustrious Future

In general, things are going well for ASPB. Domestic and international membership renewal rates are good; registration for Plant Biology 2005 is running ahead of projections; Plant Physiology and The Plant Cell remain very highly ranked and continue to see increased submissions of excellent plant biology manuscripts from around the world; the Education Foundation has just released its second call for proposals; ASPB’s public affairs activities are making vital impacts both nationally and locally; and the Society’s annual operating budgets have been in the black for the past few years.

So why pause for reflection and begin work on a new strategic plan when everything appears to be going swimmingly for the Society? Well, because it makes much better sense to take time to think creatively about the future when we don’t have some fiscal or other crisis staring us in the face. Or, to put it another way, if ASPB began developing a strategic plan only after it became abundantly clear that we needed one, the Society would have much less room in which to maneuver.

With these thoughts in mind, and after obtaining the assent of the Society’s Executive Committee in February, ASPB president Roger Hangarter assembled an ad hoc strategic planning committee consisting of current ASPB leaders, plant scientists who have been members of the Society for various lengths of time, and senior ASPB staff (see sidebar).

Ably assisted by retreat facilitator Merianne Liteman of Liteman-Rosse, Inc., this ad hoc committee repaired to Airlie House in the bucolic Virginia countryside, where we spent a day-and-a-half in early April in conversation, reflection, and planning.

The most potent outcome of that work—a detailed but flexible strategic plan that will be lived and breathed by the Society’s staff and leadership and in which the Society’s membership is heavily invested—is probably at least a year off. But the committee has made an excellent start, and the general thrust of its initial conclusions—to continue to focus attention on those activities that the Society already does superbly, such as journal publishing, public affairs, and meetings—seems to me to bode very well for the next steps in the process.

Those next steps include work by the entire ASPB staff to flesh out the broad outlines established by the strategic planning committee, soliciting the committee’s feedback on our efforts, and presenting a revised plan to the Society’s Executive Committee for discussion—and, hopefully, approval—at its winter meeting in early 2006.

In the meantime, I intend to keep you all informed of our collective progress as ASPB’s strategic plan evolves and, of course, on the shape that the plan ultimately assumes.

’Til next time…

Crispin Taylor
ASPB Executive Director
ctaylor@aspb.org