Furman
Children's Choir formed
Man
with the plan:
Profile
of Phil Winstead, coordinator of institutional planning and research
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April
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Furman's broad approach is big appeal
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Man with the plan
Phil Winstead, Furman’s longtime coordinator of institutional planning and research, vividly remembers the first time he realized the importance of planning.
It was 1958 when Winstead, then a junior varsity football coach at McClenaghan High School in Florence, S.C., watched his team give up a safety during a game. Then the embarrassed coach looked on as his puzzled team scrambled around the field, not knowing what to do next.
“They didn’t know we were supposed to punt the ball,” says Winstead. “It was my fault. It had never occurred to me to coach them on what to do in the event of a safety. I promised myself that I would never be caught in that position again.”
That single mishap sparked the young educator’s interest in planning as a career. An undergraduate history major at Davidson College, he later left the high school to earn master’s and doctoral degrees in educational administration from Appalachian State and Duke universities, respectively.
After helping to direct the National Laboratory for Higher Education in Durham, N.C., for three years, Winstead was appointed coordinator of Furman’s newly created Office of Institutional Planning and Research in 1972.
During the late ’60s and early ’70s growing demand for higher education and expanding campuses led many universities to adopt long-range and strategic plans to help manage growth and to meet the broadening educational needs of students. Institutional planning was an education buzzword, and Furman was one of the first universities in the nation to establish a separate institutional planning and research office. By many accounts, the Furman program has remained a model through the years.
And Winstead’s longevity at Furman has become somewhat legendary. He’s one of the few Furman employees to work for three university presidents (Blackwell, Johns and Shi). And as a member of the administration he has missed only two trustee meetings in nearly three decades. Winstead has also served as an education professor and has been heavily involved in faculty development programs.
It’s this diverse involvement that Winstead says he will miss the most when he steps down in August as coordinator of institutional planning and research. He will remain at Furman until December 2000 as an instructor in the education department before retiring.
“No two days have been alike,” says Winstead. “The combination of teaching and administrative work has been the thing that’s kept me going. But I’m really going to miss being part of an administrative team.”
Summing up his 28-year career at Furman, Winstead says he’s most proud of his office’s work on Furman’s two strategic plans and three institutional self-studies. His work on faculty development initiatives and as a professor have been personally fulfilling, as has the unique experience of having served as secretary to the Presidential Search committees that chose both John Johns and David Shi to lead Furman.