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When the Garfield Campus
gained official status, the college needed an educational plan.
While Garfield is the focal point of Goal 6 of the Strategic Master
Plan 2008-2014, that goal did not constitute the full plan that
Garfield needed, if it wanted to be able to apply for additional
funds from the state. The college recognized that we also need to
examine and strengthen our relationships to the surrounding
community. In the past we have not included a community survey or a
community forum in our planning process, and the college should do
this to gain better insight into the needs of the communities we
serve. Finally, we must strengthen the ties between our budgeting
and planning processes. All of this must be done for both campuses.
Last
spring, the planning coordinators and leadership of both campuses
met and agreed that we would all benefit if we worked on an
educational master plan that integrated the needs and purposes of
both Garfield and the main campus. An RFP was sent out last summer
asking for proposals on educational planning and external scans. Ten
proposals were submitted. Dawn Lindsay, the Interim
Superintendent/President; Mary Mirch, the Acting Vice President of
Instruction; Karen Holden-Ferkich, the Associate Vice President of
Instructional Services, Continuing Education and Community
Education; Ron Nakasone, the Vice President of Administrative
Services; Edward Karpp and Peggy Renner, the planning coordinators;
and Susan Courtey, Interim Director of Business Services, reviewed
the applications and chose four consulting companies for interviews.
The selection committee unanimously elected KH Group for several
reasons. KH Consulting Group had not only done considerable research
to gather information about GCC, but they also clearly demonstrated
they wanted to work with us and to use the extensive work we had
already done collecting data. KH had reviewed all of our current
plans and was impressed with our work in developing our Strategic
Master Plan 2008-2014, as well as other plans. The intent was for KH
to help us to move forward to address our goals, refine the process
for setting priorities, and ultimately to strengthen our planning
process. Gayla Kraetch Hartsough, president of KH Consulting Group,
said that GCC has done fine work collecting data, as she
complimented Ed Karpp on his work, saying that this distinguished us
as one of the best colleges she has seen.
The KH
Consulting Group proposal was then sent to the Senate Executive, who
met with Gayla; the proposal was next sent to Dawn, and finally to
the Board of Trustees for approval. The work began in the fall. To
get the ball rolling, Gayla and Heather Sims Of KH Consulting Group
met with Team B twice in September, and twice with Team A in October
and November. KH also conducted focus groups and interviews with
individuals, conducted a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
Threats) analysis in October, and a Community Survey in November and
December. On January 27, they led the Community Forum, which brought
more than fifty leaders from the community to the campus to share
their thoughts and ideas about the needs of the community. The vast
amount of information derived from these several sources was
presented to Team A at the retreat on February 4. That meeting
lasted from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Most impressively, the entire
committee was there, working hard all day long—even during lunch. We
owe all of the members of Team A a big thanks, but their work is not
finished!
Teams A
and B have divided into several work groups to address topics that
emerged from the data. These included GCC-wide issues: Student
Services; Student Access, Retention, and Success; Credit Programs
and Offerings; Revenue Enhancement/Generation and Decision Making;
Noncredit Programs and Offerings and the Garfield Campus; Workforce
& Economic development; and Career and Technical Education. Each of
these groups has set meeting schedules and will convene throughout
February and early March to prepare recommendations that will be
taken to Team A, and then up the chain of command to the Board of
Trustees.
Here are some
of the questions that these sub-committees will address: How can GCC
promote itself as a valuable option for higher education? How can
GCC create a seamless and complete student experience? How can we
effectively implement empirically-based decision making? How can
Student Services become more proactive, vs. reactive? How does GCC
balance the needs of students with legislative requirements and
fiscal pressures? How do we find the balance among the credit and
noncredit, academic, career and technical and work force development
programs? What are the ways we can effectively generate revenue? How
can we build stronger partnerships with business and industry? How
can we be a stronger factor in the economic engine of our community?
Are we a divisive campus or are we able to work together
effectively? Have we recovered from the frustrations we encountered
in the last few years, or do we have some work to do? Is campus
culture stagnant? Are the channels of communication open? Are we
ready to work together as partners in a common commitment to meet
our students’ needs and to fulfill our mission? And there are more!
Team A will
meet again in the spring to review the finding of these committees
and from this develop an Educational Master Plan that we will all
use to guide decision making and action at the college for the next
ten years. We have dared to look at the “elephants and gorillas” in
the room, those issues that we have historically ignored. Now we are
excited. We look forward to using new tools to analyze the rich data
we collect, to enhance our planning processes, and to make decisions
that will fulfill our mission for our students to greater effect.
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