As the Task Force talked about ACSP stakeholders and the issues confronting the organization, it seemed that the discussion— like so many at Executive Committee meetings—was structured by two broad images of the organization. Those images are not very precisely defined, they are sometimes but not always competitive and they are not uniquely associated with discrete groups. Indeed, introspectively, the Task Force recognize how much each of us is sometimes attracted by one image and sometimes by the other. ACSP lives—as an organization—between those inchoate and ambiguous images. Thus, the Task Force recommended to the Executive Committee that it make time for thoughtful reflection on being "in between" in order to manage and even creatively exploit the tension between the images that operate as (what Ian Mitroff calls) "stakeholders of the organizational mind."

The Task Force had no trouble naming and elaborating the first image: ACSP as a Consortium of Schools, very much like other academic progressional organizations that represent the interest of their fields within the university, but unusual in that it is comprised of and funded by departments rather than individual faculty. It is convenient to think of this as the "original" or "traditional" image of the organization but it would be a mistake either to ignore its continued vitality among both "old-timers" and new recruits or to assume that it accurately describes our organizational beginnings. Within this image, ACSP has very limited moral authority or powers of suasion over member schools. However, it depends on the schools not merely for dues but for a variety of informal or indirect subsidies that make it possible for the ACSP Executive Committee and committees to operate. The leadership group that emerges from the schools presumes that it will rarely confront deep divisions within its own ranks: politicking (except in the public interest) is neither seemly nor necessary.

The Task Force had much greater trouble naming the second image and settled on the proposed label -— ACSP as an Arena for Faculty and Other Interests —- only after the Minneapolis meeting. Our difficulty may stem from the fact that the Arena is often cast as the new and not fully formed notion that now appears to challenge the traditional image. Again the Task Force caution: the remarkably successful annual conference and the growth of interests suggest to us that the Arena is already a part of the ACSP structure rather than an external upstart.

Within the image of the Arena, faculty attempt to use ACSP to alter the behavior of the schools and, indeed, of the larger professions with which ACSP are associated. They seek to create and allocate a central treasury capable of supporting these initiatives without depending on the few schools willing to subsidize travel and research expenditures. ACSP emerges as an important setting for the articulation of interest groups and the creation of reputations. Politicking for office and advocacy of policy positions are both expected and legitimate.

Figure 1 is a graphic representation of these models. It indicates the ways in which a series of practices and ideas converge to shape each of the central notions and then the consequences of acting within its frame. The cognitive map was intended to initiate discussion by the Executive Committee rather than to replace it: therefore, the Task Force deliberately suppressed some of its reflections on the policy implications of each image in order to focus the Executive Committee’s attention on its provenance and meaning.

The Executive Committee briefly discussed the two cognitive models identified in the Task Force’s deliberations. Members agreed that the organization was being increasingly confronted by diverse needs and demands on its resources. However, some members questioned whether this was a real shift or simply a tangent created by a short-lived budget surplus. Others asserted that fundamentally different concerns were being brought to the table as the organization became more representative of increasingly diverse planning faculty interests.

The Executive Committee noted that while the cognitive models provide a useful conceptualization of ACSP’s internal dynamics, they do not incorporate the impact and changing character of "external" factors (e.g., university budgetary threats) on the planning academy.