ACRL Board Manual 2021-2022

ACRL Strategic Planning and Orientation Session (SPOS)

In recent years, the Board holds a Strategic Planning and Orientation Session (SPOS). SPOS has been held for two and a half days in the fall (typically Wednesday afternoon through Friday).

The general purpose of SPOS is:

• to continue orientation for newly elected Board members (Wednesday morning);
• to provide an opportunity for the Board to discuss overall association goals, plans, and strategies for the next fiscal year; and to review progress in advancing the strategic plan (sometimes including the chairs/vice-chairs of the four goal-area committees and other relevant leaders in this meeting);
• to consider "mega-issues" that the association and Board should be addressing/monitoring;
• to provide an opportunity for informal communication among Board members in order to produce more effective and productive decisions; and
• to build a sense of community among Board members.

2021-2022 SPOS

SPOS is currently budgeted in FY22 as a one-day, add-on event for an existing in-person meeting (i.e., ALA LibLearnX in San Antonio or ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC). The staff and presidents will continue to monitor travel and health guidelines and restrictions, ACRL's budget performance, and the preferences of invitees. The Board will be kept apprised of meeting details and plans.

2020-2021 Priority Setting

SPOS 2020 was planned for one day in advance of the ACRL2021 Conference in Seattle as a cost containment measure. With the switch to an all-virtual conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Board instead held two Priority Setting discussions in June 2021 to identify short-term priorities for ACRL for the next one to two years. The need for priority setting was brought about by significant changes in higher education, academic libraries, and ALA that necessitated identifying and drafting short-term priorities.

2019-2020 SPOS

SPOS 2019 was held in Chicago, IL, from October 23-25, 2019. The Board will be joined by the chairs of the ACRL EDI Committee and the chairs of the four goal-area committees (New Roles & Changing Landscapes, Research and Scholarly Environment, Student Learning and Information Literacy, and Value of Academic Libraries) for one and half days of SPOS. The full Board will meet on its own for the full day on Friday. Agenda topics include SCOE, ACRL finances, and EDI. The full SPOS agenda and packet will be posted on ALA Connect. 

2018-2019  SPOS

The 2018 SPOS meeting focused on a discussion equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) with the Board, goal-area chairs, and Diversity Committee leadership. The Board and goal-area chairs held a discussion on reviewing the ACRL Plan for Excellence. The 2018 SPOS meeting was held October 10-12, 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio, site of the ACRL 2019 Conference. The full agenda and document packet can be found on ALA Connect.