The Strategic Plan 2026-2031, from the School of Emergent Priorities, builds a single Continuance Service that asks every holder of a standing commitment whether they are still here.
A School of Emergent Priorities plan builds one check-in for every enrolment, committee seat and standing meeting the University holds
Anyone who has left a screen running past the last episode knows the question that arrives next. Under the Strategic Plan 2026-2031, released today by the School of Emergent Priorities as “Who Is Still Watching When the Prompt Goes Unanswered?”, the University will put it to the holder of every enrolment, committee seat and standing meeting it carries.
Most of the work went into the sentence, and the sentence was the easy part to agree on. What we have learned about ourselves is how many arrangements we were holding without having been asked.
— Ronja Oyelaran, Senior Lecturer and Deputy Convenor, Strategic Drift Survey
The Plan, led by Hedvig Anyanwu with Ms Oyelaran, builds what it calls the Continuance Service in four parts: a single prompt, a register of every standing commitment, a rule of closure and a ledger of answers. Each part is taken up as a pillar of the Plan, and each is to be carried into every school and unit in the same form.
Under the rule of closure, a commitment ends when its third consecutive prompt goes unanswered. There is no ordinary override, Council’s own seats are entered on the same terms as any other, and a committee’s quorum is to be established by the answers received. An answered prompt will count as attendance for unit credit and supervision hours.
The University regards it as a source of quiet satisfaction that the whole of the Service can be put to a holder in four words. Ms Anyanwu said the School was “pleased to have found a question small enough to ask everywhere”.
The full plan is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.s34u6n.