The Graduate Student Senate has prepared this Strategic Planning document to reflexively guide its growth as an assemblage of graduate students at Case Western Reserve University. The impetus for this process was a recent University-wide review and Strategic Planning process begun in 2002.

A Strategic Plan is more than a document, being both created from and for action. This document makes tangible recommendations to the Graduate Student Senate (GSS), and through GSS to Case as a whole. This Strategic Plan has required critical research and thought. Various Graduate Student Senators and students-at-large have participated in this process through a number of ad-hoc committees. The flow of participants in this process of review and planning is as varied as the student body the Graduate Student Senate represents.

The first section provides a summary background of GSS. Framed as an ecological model, this section gives an overview of the status quo at local, regional and national levels. We go on to develop a mission and vision statement for the GSS. This is supplemented by a thorough Resource Analysis that assesses both tangible and ephemeral tools available to the GSS. Being aware of the resources that GSS can access, we propose a series of concrete goals and strategies for the next one, three, and five-year periods. In an effort to ensure that this process remains dialogical throughout these time periods, a performance assessment is presented to measure the outcomes at each of these points in time. Throughout this Strategic Planning document, we strive to be broad enough to account for necessary flexibility, yet sufficiently detailed to ensure representation, accountability, and successful evolution.