NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Dr. J.D. LaRock, Chair

Maria Vega-Viera, Co-Vice Chair

Joseph Riley, Co-Vice Chair

Brigadier General (Ret) Andrea Gayle-Bennett

Barbara Heinemann

Angel Garcia, Student Trustee

Anh Dao Tran-Moseman

Richard Yagjian

October 2022

Dear Friends of North Shore Community College:

It is an honor to present this document, Transforming the Future with Our Community: North Shore Community College Strategic Plan 2022-2027, to our students, faculty and staff, and the community we serve.

Since beginning my tenure in July 2021, perhaps the strongest wish I have heard from all the constituents of NSCC has been for a “fresh start.” And no wonder. A global pandemic, a nation struggling with deep divisions, enormous environmental challenges, institutional leadership changes, and the shift to remote work and learning are just some of the challenges our community have been facing in the last few years.

A fresh start is what this new strategic plan delivers. Right from the beginning, the planning process was different than any previous one at NSCC. The process itself was designed in a collaborative, bottom-up way in the college and wider community have been deeply involved in each step of the plan’s development. The appreciative inquiry process energized our stakeholders while highlighting the college’s strengths. The environmental scanning process helped us understand how our region is changing and what it needs most from its Community College. A rousing in-person summit last May synthesize these findings into themes that are the foundation of the document you are about to read.

In fresh new ways, the plan connects to the ongoing, vital mission of our institution and its enduring strengths with the challenges of the 2020s: economic, technological, cultural, social, and also of spirit. It is with the last of these that I find my greatest pride in the people of NSCC. Like so many others, the college’s students, faculty, and staff have had a bumpy ride through the pandemic years but they rose to this opportunity for a fresh start with hope, enthusiasm, creativity, and grit.

As we turn to the hard work of implementation, that spirit and those strengths give me great confidence in this plan’s vision of delivering consistently excellent and Equitable Life outcomes for our students. Equity is at the heart of so many of our opportunities and challenges as a society, and this plan makes bold commitments to social justice.

Thank you to the hundreds of NSCC employees, students, and community members who contributed to this plan and this vision for our future.

William Heineman, President

North Shore Community College (NSCC) was formed in 1965 as the fourth two-year public college in a segment consisting of 15 institutions in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ public higher education system serving more than 30 primary and secondary cities and towns north of Boston, NSCC confers Associate degrees and certificates in a range of career/vocational and transfer programs and delivers a wide variety of workforce training and certifications via its noncredit Corporate and Professional Education division. Two NSCC campuses — one in the city of Lynn and one in the town of Danvers — are strategically located within the college’s service area in southern Essex county. The college has educated more than 225,000 students in its fiftyseven year history, and its graduates number more than 32,000. In the most recent fiscal year, NSCC enrolled some 8000 credit and noncredit students in more than 70 degree and certificate programs across the spectrum of health care, human services, business, liberal arts and STEM fields. In the summer of 2021, following the appointment of a year-long interim president and the turnover, through retirement and resignation, of several key positions on the executive staff, newly selected President William Heineman assumed the helm as the college’s fifth president.

In the intervening years since the college’s last strategic planning cycle, both NSCC and the greater community it serves experienced tremendous change. A global pandemic and the rising tide of awareness around critical socio/political issues of racial injustice and an ever widening wealth gap coincided with an almost complete turnover in the college’s executive staff. Change, although often challenging, provides the impetus an organization needs to move forward. President Heineman’s newly reimagined executive cabinet features: a Provost to lead the merged departments of Academic Affairs and Student Affairs; a Chief Diversity and Equity Officer, to promote and ensure diversity, equity and inclusion on campus; a Chief People and Culture Officer, to attract, retain and develop the college’s workforce; and a Chief Financial Officer, to steward the college’s financial resources. This new leadership team is poised to inspire and guide an energized staff to further the strong history of innovation that NSCC has built over the years, from pioneering teaching and learning online, to developing a groundbreaking credit for prior learning program, to spearheading noncredit to credit pathways. NSCC’s new strategic plan heralds more innovation for the college, by redefining its role in the “community.” This new vision for the next 5 years, designed from the ground up, merges strategic priorities with new approaches to measuring them. This plan doesn’t just address issues of equity. Rather, it prioritizes equity across all facets of the college: its students, its community, and its employees.