Planning requires a lot of input, so successful leaders need to be open and receptive to all of it, even when it’s not overt.
By James A. Baumann
Everyone loves it when a plan comes together. For that to happen, though, it is going to take a lot of, well, planning. But what exactly is planning, and what is it that elevates separate tasks like meetings, memos, and to-do lists into a full-fledged integrated process that is more likely to generate the best results?
These are the types of questions that Loren Rullman has tackled throughout most of his professional career. Rullman currently consults with campuses as a principal and director of the higher education department for Workshop Architects. Before that, he was vice provost for student affairs at Grand Valley State University and also the associate vice president for student life at the University of Michigan for 10 years. He is also active with the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP), so he knows his way around a campus, including the challenges and opportunities that exist around every corner.
Just as ACUHO-I has developed competencies for campus housing professionals, SCUP has done the same for integrated planning. The ACUHO-I competencies for developing strategy and policies – the type of planning for which more senior housing professionals are often responsible – include qualities such as understanding campus politics, recognizing organizational values and priorities, having collaboration skills, or identifying trends, but the SCUP competencies dig even deeper.
There are nine areas in the SCUP competencies model: planning, institutional acumen, personal effectiveness, interpersonal effectiveness, focus, analysis, agility and change, management, and champion planning. Each of these, in turn, includes varying numbers of competencies that likely will sound familiar but may not always be easy for laypeople to define. While some are more straightforward (integrity, time management, analysis, and managing staff), others can seem more amorphous (adapting to change, being innovative, fostering relationships, and advocacy). By identifying specific skills, staff can work to improve them in a purposeful manner, rather than leaving them to chance or hoping they pick them up on the job.
The Talking Stick brought Rullman together with five housing professionals to discuss how, in their roles as leaders and managers, these planning competencies manifest. Joining in the conversation are Kate Baier, executive director of residential life at New York University; Mary Elliott, executive director of residence life and auxiliary services at Colorado School of Mines; Steve Harrison, vice president for auxiliary enterprises and chief sustainability officer at Coastal Carolina University; Nyerere Tryman, executive director of university housing at Auburn University; and Don Yackley, assistant vice president for student affairs at the University of Houston.
Part two of this conversation will be published in the January 2026 Talking Stick. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
I gathered this group because you all work in similar positions, yet you also have some variance in responsibilities or come from different types of institutions. As we have this conversation, I want to learn more about those nuances and the ways they affect your planning, strategy, and leadership processes and experiences. And with Loren here, he can provide a baseline for these different aspects. So let’s start with defining what integrated planning means.
Loren Rullman: Well, it means a lot of different things depending on the campus, but universally it is a framework, not a formula. I think many campuses have fairly well-defined methodologies for planning, and those methodologies are not wrong. It's just that integrated planning is a framework for inviting lots of stakeholders into the conversation and considering all the things that might be relevant to a well-considered plan over time.
This framework has two important elements. First, it's highly inclusive, which makes it highly complicated, even when you have a simplified methodology. Second, it includes the competencies you mentioned earlier, such as the ability to adapt to changing environments, having the capability for project management and leading meetings, knowing how to develop stakeholder engagement, and understanding the institutional context for politics and decision making. At the end of the day, though, it's a framework for inclusion and consideration of all the other plans and things that might be relevant at the institution.
One of the things that jumped out to me when reviewing those SCUP planning competencies was that within each one of them are the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that a person needs.
Rullman: In this, knowledge is information, skills are behaviors, and dispositions are attitudes.
It also jumped out to me that SCUP notes that some of these are obvious and some are inconspicuous. That stuck with me because I think when it comes to planning and leadership, there's a little bit of an “I'll know it when I see it” attitude or an assumption (more likely a misassumption) that being good at it is a matter of “Either you have it or you don't.”
Rullman: Maybe the knowledge is inconspicuous, even if it is obvious when publicly shared.
I'll throw it out to the rest of the group. How do planning competencies break down between things that are allegedly obvious or inconspicuous?
Kate Baier: I like the positioning of those words in terms of skills, behaviors, and attitudes because we can all learn more about how we manage. I don't think it is “You either have it, or you don't.” I think it's “You either have it, or you can fake it.” For example, I'm not an affect-forward person, but I recognize who I work with, and so I will take time to be in an affect-forward place if that's what is needed from the group.
Some of the inconspicuous things are what you do quietly in the background, like dropping into the office to have a conversation or steering the conversation to get to an outcome that's needed for the organization. Sometimes the inconspicuous thing is helping someone come to a good idea that they can share and own, which is different than getting in front of a group and saying, “Here's a great idea that I had.”
Mary Elliott: What keeps coming to my head is reading the room. That’s the ability to see beyond whatever meeting it is or whatever situation it is to some relationship and whatever means the best for everybody or is the best outcome for your institution.
Don Yackley: I’m trying to wrap my head around the conversation a little bit still. As Kate said, it’s not being manipulative, but there is a strategy there: an intentionality around being inclusive and displaying a disposition or an attitude that is going to help people understand that you're on their side. In planning, if you're working with a different group on campus, you are engaging in conversations that highlight the shared goals and showing support both for their goals and your own. Really, we're talking about relationship building in this process. Some of what I'm struggling with in the discussion and the question is that it often feels to me more of an art form than science.
And I love Mary's “read the room” comment because it's not only that: It's “read the university.” That’s the dynamics, the people in the room, how they're showing up, what their disposition is, what their politics are, what their interests are, what their goals are, and how we can all fit into that and go in the same direction. It sounds easy, but it's not.
Don, I'm glad you said that, because another one of the competencies that I wanted to get to early on was the one regarding institutional acumen. Again, Loren, what's your elevator pitch for defining institutional acumen?
Rullman: It’s the ability to understand what context matters in a particular decision-making or planning process. You're looking at past planning and successes. You’re taking into account others’ priorities. You're identifying the questions that need to be asked and answered in this particular plan.
Certainly, the strategic plan, vision, mission, priorities, and all that stuff have to make their way into it, along with your ability to interpret and utilize all of those pieces. Similar to what Mary and Don were talking about, what you need to do in planning is listen with a third ear. The obvious stuff is what we all hear. The less conspicuous stuff is what you hear with your third ear. It's reading the room. It's knowing what is really going on here.
I think your first question and this one are related. It's a matter of building trust, listening for what's in the room, taking into account what’s really going to matter at the institution, and all the context that's going to matter. Some of that is obvious, and some you’ll need to listen for with that third ear that we have as leaders.
Steve Harrison: I love the idea of the third ear. Burton Clark wrote about what he calls the organizational saga in higher education: the sociological idea around the story we tell ourselves about who we are, why we are, and where we came from. To me, the idea of a third ear connects with institutional acumen and even with integrated planning. I talk a lot with my team about how we have to do the work, and we need to talk about the work, but we also need to do the meta thing of talking about how we're going to talk about the work. So I love the third ear in that context.
I recognize that institutional acumen in my own career; I’m now in my 16th year here, and as I look around I think that, of all the people in the room, I've been here the longest. I've sat at the weirdest tables. I have information about who we are and why we are doing things that others don't. How do I use those skills and knowledge not in a “get off my lawn” way, but in a way that shows I have a very specific understanding of the situation and what we're talking about? We're only able to do this thing or another at this institution because of the way the community taxes itself or because of how we did or didn't do a previous thing.
I think the meta part of that is really important, particularly in times when we're fearful or coming from a place of scarcity; we need to be very clear with ourselves and with everybody else about going back to the big questions of who we are and why things are essential.
Nyerere, can you think of some instances when you've had to take institutional acumen into account to guide a project? I’m sure there are a lot of different outside factors that are going to affect your decision.
Nyerere Tryman: I think of it not necessarily because of a specific project but more because my boss and I always talk about how relationships are the capital that runs the university. When you think about who you interface with, an idea that may be a great one under one administration will not be a great idea under another administration.
It even affects us when telling the story of success. If I didn't invite somebody to be part of the success at square one, it wouldn’t be a story of success, because they weren't involved from the beginning. You have to learn where those pitfalls, those landmines, are. One of the things I try to impress upon the younger professionals is that these are things you'll need to know as you move through your career. It's all great to be gung-ho about something and putting it out there, but understand that if the priorities change or someone influential enough disagrees, then the direction may change or the initiative may be cancelled, and it doesn’t matter what the research or the market analysis says. It doesn’t matter if it is a great idea from a best-practices or sustainability lens. None of those things will move the needle with that person if they weren’t included in the planning.
One time, when I was visiting a colleague and looking at a new project that they did, I was being sort of tongue-in-cheek and said, “This is really, really on brand for who you are.” And they told me the president chose the carpet, the paint, and the graphics. This is a Research 1, Division I institution, and I thought it was interesting that the president was involved at such a granular level. But again, that is the institutional acumen: knowing how the president or the board operates and how all the pieces fit together so you can build relationship capital.
You all have been at your current institutions for a while, so I can imagine you have memories of when you were developing that institutional acumen or, as Steve was saying, a moment when you see someone else start down a path and you’re thinking, “Oh no, that’s not going to end well.” I see lots of smiling and nodding in agreement.
Baier: Well, it changes all the time, right? No matter how long your history is in a place, all it takes is one new highly influential person in a high-level office to switch, and now you need a totally different conception of institutional acumen. Nyerere was talking about this notion of stakeholders and involving people. I think a lot of institutional acumen is identifying the stakeholders as they constantly change and then right-setting the ways in which you bring people to the table or make people feel like they are at the table, even though they're not really at the table. You want them to feel part of the conversation, but you recognize that they're not going to be the most important part of the conversation, if you can be that blunt. But that changes all the time. Institutional acumen is knowing what the current is and what the change is and then adapting your practices to embrace that change in a way that benefits your organization.
Loren, a lot of what Nyerere and Kate just said there sounds to my ear like what would fall under the focus competency and maybe also the champion planning competency. So, again, maybe you could give us your elevator definition of those pieces.
Rullman: I want to comment a little bit on what they said, because it’s so relevant. Being a champion for planning involves getting consensus, building a groundswell of support, inviting the right people in, making it relevant to their priorities, making it pertinent to the institution’s other plans and priorities, and then making sure you have a way to navigate all the landmines.
I was going to add to not only the people conversation, as you all have so rightly pointed out, but also the issue of timing. Involving the right people at the wrong time is just as bad as involving the wrong people at the right time. The acumen element of timing is important. Right now, most of these competencies are particularly difficult because of the changing landscape of society, politics, and higher ed. It's really hard to know what context matters. It's really hard to know who's making the decisions. It's really hard to know whether the people who are supportive in making the decisions are distracted by things they wish they didn't have to deal with because of the time we're in.
Again, this points out the benefits of this being a framework, not a formula. There's not a step one, then you go to step two. Sometimes you go backwards a step before you get to step four. Or somebody comes along and there are new priorities, and it’s now a great moment to move to step six when you thought you should be at step two. So the timing really matters and acumen really matters if you want to be the champion you hope to be. It's really hard right now, I think, as everybody here would attest, because all of that stuff is shifting around.
Elliott: What you said, Loren, reminded me of how, so often, you have to remind yourself that you're playing a long game. The immediacy is sometimes not part of the reality, and I think you need to have the ability to be dynamic. Like Kate said, things change all the time. People change. The political atmosphere changes. Your available resources change.
That is why I always go back to relationships. A huge piece of this is to build relationships with different folks on your campus or understand the political environment of your Board of Regents or whoever is going to help make decisions. The continued ability to remind yourself that you're in a long game is sometimes important. There are times when I think, “Ugh, this is really ticking me off right now,” and then I remember that we're in it for the long haul.
There may be a vision that I have, or that I have shared with other folks, to get them on board. It's okay that we're looking further into the future than we're comfortable with, but that helps build some of the foundation needed to actually do something down the road, whether it's a project or a reframing of our department or even thinking about the university into the future.
Harrison: When it comes to newer professionals (and I don't assign that to age or even years in the profession or the institution), you hope they're curious, and you hope they've got humility. But they don't have a sense of the long game and where we are in it. That's such an important thing to think about. I’m always thinking of quotations from The West Wing, and one that occurs to me now is this scene between President Bartlet and a big fundraiser. This person wants him to speak to a particular issue being raised in Congress, and he says, “You have to understand I know what I'm doing. I'm a human starting gun. If I speak to this, it gives them what they want.”
In the moment we're in now, politically, there are moments when we've got staff, rightly, coming forward to say, this is not okay. You have to be able to contextualize that, as you point out, within the relationships we have with these folks and other folks to say, “I don't disagree. But if I get into this, we are never going to be able to do the other thing we have to do.”
Rullman: One of the competencies is personal effectiveness, and that speaks to the issue of trust. In terms of the notion of relationships and stakeholders, timing is crucial, and telling newer staff that this isn't the moment, and it'll come later, all has to do with this ability as a planning leader to engender relationships built on trust. When you say, “I hear you, I agree with you, I just need you to hang on, because it's not our moment,” people are more able to hear that if there's trust in the relationship. And if there's trust in the relationship, then I'm willing to share my planning materials or my planning processes, or I'm willing to join you to see that this housing or dining or residence life thing moves forward. The trust piece may be one of those inconspicuous things you were talking about earlier.
Yackley: I'm really resonating with the trust discussion. I think there's also something about managing the changing priorities that are signaled from the university or the division that you really have to strategically work to help your team or your partner see. This is especially true with new professionals, who may start to get a black and white perspective on right or wrong directions that you may be going in. If you are authentic with your values and the mission, the new work may feel like a change. But if you work to help them see themselves and their values in the new direction and how this relates to the core mission and values as a department, you can get there more easily. Again, that's based on relationship and trust. I think it's an important piece of the puzzle here.
James A. Baumann is editor of Talking Stick and the ACUHO-I publications director.
