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Beginning in 2012, Ontario required all higher education institutions to propose strategies for their academic visions, missions, and objectives, generating a unique, comprehensive and comparable document set. Using organizational theory and content analysis of universities’ submissions, the study identifies divergent administrative and academic strategies, including experiential learning and town-gown connections, and concludes with policy implications for institutional diversity and system planning.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/differentiated-visions-how-ontario-universities-see-and-represent-their-futures/596939/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/differentiated-visions-how-ontario-universities-see-and-represent-their-futures/596939.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Danger Angel","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-01","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What strategic planning framework does the paper focus on in Ontario higher education?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The paper focuses on Ontario’s Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) sector planning framework and the planning process initiated in 2012.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How were the universities’ proposals used in the analysis?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The study uses organizational theory concepts and content analysis to examine the twenty proposed SMAs, with attention to both administrative and academic subsystems.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What additional sub-themes does the paper analyze besides general SMA strategies?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It analyzes proposals for experiential learning and town-gown connections, showing that institutions present different visions on these themes.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},596939,1792171293,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},962090769052,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_9964176cb1d06d4a9deccf72a44ae3dc","Differentiated Visions: How Ontario Universities See and Represent Their Futures  \nMichael Buzzelli1 & Emmanuel Songsore2 1Western University, 2Wilfrid Laurier University  \nAbstract  \nThis paper is concerned with long term strategic planning in higher education and focuses on Ontario’s strategic mandate agreement (SMA) sector planning framework. In 2012, the province initiated its new SMA planning process by requiring all higher education institutions to propose their own strategies for their academic visions, missions, and objectives. The proposals submitted by Ontario’s universities furnish the empirical content of this paper: a historically unique, comprehensive and comparable set of documents capturing institutions’ self-understanding and plans for their respective futures. Using concepts from organizational theory, content analysis of universities’ SMA proposals reveals divergent strategies, both in terms of institutional administrative responsiveness to the SMA process as well as the academic (i.e., education and scholarship) content of the submissions. In addition, two further sub-themes are analysed: proposals for experiential learning and so-called town-gown connections. Both themes also reveal very different visions amongst institutions. In general, the proposals appear to be independent of institution type and community size/location. Setting the stage for future research, the paper concludes with policy discussion of: (i) the possibilities for institutional diversity in the context of policy discourseson institutional differentiation; (ii) implications for system planning given the structure and process of Ontario’s ongoing SMA framework.  \nKeywords: Higher education, institutions and systems, strategic planning  \nIntroduction  \nIn 2012, Ontario initiated its new Strategic Mandate Agreement system planning framework by requiring all higher education institutions (HEIs, including both colleges and universities) to articulate their own strategic plans. The proposals generated by the HEIs created a historically unique, comprehensive, and comparable set of documents for a large set of institutions at a single capture point. As such, the proposals constitute the empirical focus of this paper, analysed specifically for insights into institutional and system planning and policy. The SMA process holds lessons for jurisdictions considering whether and how to centralise institutional and system direction. This is particularly true where universities have tended to be only loosely governed by key external stakeholders that have limited experience guiding systems via centralised mandates and associated budget controls. In addition, universities themselves are learning how to satisfy externally imposed planning parameters, including how to elicit internal adaptations to meet commitments. Here too, the SMA exercise furnishes empirical content for conceptual and policy insights.  \nThe following section is an overview of recent Ontario higher education policy focused on the SMA framework and process. Organizational theory (OT) is used to frame the analysis of the twenty proposed SMAs submitted by universities. Content analysis is the principal method used to analyse the proposals as described in the methodology section. The results focus on OT concepts pertaining to the two principal organizations subsystems ofthe university: the administrative and academic subsystems, or cores, of the university as an organization. Sub-themes are also examined, specifically universities’ proposals for experiential learning (EL) and town-gown (TG) connections. The overarching interpretation emerging from the documents is one of ‘different and diversified’ proposals: self-proposed mandates that are distinct and richly textured on the academic front, including EL and TG. The paper concludes with discussion of policy implications and directions for further research on HEI institutional strategy and centralised system planning.  \nContext and Theoretic","cbCaio97Gqb7v6sW","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaio97Gqb7v6sW","pdf",469181,13,"English","# Abstract\n# Introduction\n# Context and Theoretical Frame\n## Recent Policy Discourses in Ontario","[{\"question\":\"What strategic planning framework does the paper focus on in Ontario higher education?\",\"answer\":\"The paper focuses on Ontario’s Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) sector planning framework and the planning process initiated in 2012.\"},{\"question\":\"How were the universities’ proposals used in the analysis?\",\"answer\":\"The study uses organizational theory concepts and content analysis to examine the twenty proposed SMAs, with attention to both administrative and academic subsystems.\"},{\"question\":\"What additional sub-themes does the paper analyze besides general SMA strategies?\",\"answer\":\"It analyzes proposals for experiential learning and town-gown connections, showing that institutions present different visions on these themes.\"}]","Differentiated Visions: How Ontario Universities See and Represent Their Futures | PDF",1792084046,33]