A innovative element in the Academic Quality Improvement Program’s accreditation process, the Strategy Forum brings together teams from diverse colleges and universities for three days to generate and test new improvement strategies in a creative, supportive environment. At a Strategy Forum, an institution’s team will benefit from both giving and receiving feedback about the best ways to address challenges shared by its higher education peers. The atmosphere at Strategy Forums is serious, but collegial and collaborative. The institutions that interact all share a commitment to continuous quality improvement and its application to the operations, values, and goals of higher education. Participating in a Strategy Forum provides an institution with supportive, facilitated peer feedback to stimulate and assist it in conceiving, critically examining, and committing to a key set of Action Projects. Within the larger sequence of activities and services that constitute AQIP, these Action Projects should strengthen an institution’s commitment to continuous quality improvement; educate and motivate its faculty, staff, and administrators in the philosophy and tools of continuous improvement; and enhance systems and processes to make the institution more successful in achieving its goals. See Preparing for the Strategy Forum for specific requirements and advice on building a team and preparing for the Strategy Forum.

The Strategy Forum provides two distinct tracks. Strategies for Action is intended for and open to organizations new to AQIP, and will help them find realistic strategies for addressing one or more high-priority institutional challenges by creating practical, achievable Action Projects. This track provides institutional teams the tools to do this while letting them practice those tools on their own institution's unique agenda.This Strategy Forum also helps an institution to begin to more effectively develop its Systems Portfolio.

Creating the Climate for Continuous Learning uses an organization's feedback report from its Systems Appraisal as a case study in organizational debriefing. This Strategy Forum track focuses a team of faculty, staff, and administrators on developing and fine-tuning processes for continuous organizational learning. Strengthening the mechanisms that transform institutional learning into continuous improvement of key processes and performance results is essential in helping AQIP colleges and universities transform feedback from the Systems Appraisals, as well as other internal and external feedback mechanisms, into concrete plans for future improvements.