2004 LRPC Annual Report

LONG-RANGE PLANNING COMMITTEE
ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2003

1. The stated tasks of the Long-Range Planning Committee are:

* to determine which activities in pursuit of the AAA mission are best carried out as Association-wide activities,
* to encourage the Sections of the Association to develop long-range goals and plans,
* to provide a basis for setting priorities in the face of legitimate but competing claims for limited AAA resources, leading to a coherent approach to helping advance anthropology as a discipline and a profession, within higher education and society at-large,
* to rekindle and strengthen the sense of common purpose among AAA members through an open and inclusive planning process.
In March, 2003, the Long-Range Planning Committee met in Arlington and:
* changed the wording of five LRP Objectives, eliminated Objectives X and XII (because raising resources and the use of electronic media have become a part of normal AAA operations) and added a new Objective X: "The AAA will expand collegial and organizational collaboration across international and disciplinary boundaries."
* reviewed and revised the Long-Range Planning process to produce the AAA's first Operational Plan. After the LRPC discussed the Objectives and Initiatives for the 2004 Long-Range Plan, the AAA staff forged the 2004 Operational Plan. This plan fleshed out 17 Initiatives for the AAA in terms of project descriptions, anticipated benefits, costs, anticipated source of funding, anticipated staff time, performance measures, and predicted impact on the full range of LRP objectives. The Operational Plan greatly facilitated budgeting for 2004. The process of developing an Operational Plan for 2005 will be refined in 2004.
* recommended the formation of a permanent Anthropology & Education Committee to continue the work of the Anthropology & Education Commission.

Budgetary constraints severely affected the ability of the LRPC to move forward on about half of its Initiatives. Only Initiatives I.A, I.B, II.A, V.A, VI.C, VIII.A, and IX.A will be carried out in 2004; the rest are more or less on hold.

2. In 2004, the Long-Range Planning Committee intends to refine the process of developing an AAA Annual Operational Plan. Specifically, we will rely on LRPC members to write the Project Description and the Anticipated Results/Benefits of each Initiative, and AAA staff will supply discussion of anticipated costs, anticipated source of funding, anticipated staff time, performance measures, and predicted impact on the full range of LRP objectives. The LRPC will also revise the Operational Plan process so that all of the proposed initiatives are fleshed out. For some reason, Initiatives II.C Anthropological Experts Database and X.A International Outreach were not fleshed out as were the other Initiatives. The LRPC needs to understand why this happened.

The LRPC also plans to continue its efforts to liaison with the sections and encourage them to undertake long-range planning, particularly in response to the challenges to section membership posed by the provision of all AAA publications to members as a benefit of membership

The LRPC also hopes to extend the scope of its thinking, from the current three-year focus to vision of the AAA ten or twenty years hence.

3. The goals of the Long-Range Planning Committee have not changed.

4. The Long Range Planning Committee has no questions for the Executive Board.

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