PRIORITY3

Faculty, staff and students will co-create a culture of hope, opportunity, excellence, innovation, flexibility, belonging, and fun to deliver consistently excellent and equitable student outcomes.

1) Modify NSCC facilities, buildings, and infrastructure to enable excellent, equitable student outcomes and long term sustainability.

2) Hire, develop, and nurture NSCC human resources to meet the ever-changing needs of students and their communities.

3) Prioritize professional development so faculty, staff, and administrators excel in and enjoy their work and center the student experience.

4) Hold ourselves accountable to NSCC values and goals by engaging in dataenriched practice.

5) Serve as a HUB of the North Shore region by acting as convener, event host, and knowledge source on important issues and shared values.

6) Align institutional resources with local conditions to assure long-term financial sustainability.

7) Explore innovations in job positions with our collective bargaining units and local partners to address the stiff competition for excellent faculty, staff, and administration.

This third strategic priority recognizes that the college will have to act and think in fundamentally different ways to accomplish the first two priorities and the new vision. It commits NSCC to use its financial, human, and physical resources to effectively build this transformational college environment for today and tomorrow. While NSCC has a track record of responsible fiscal management, building a future-focused college environment will necessitate that the college make strategic investments in developing human capital and creating programs aligned with urgent regional needs, while at the same time committing to responsible resource management, guided by principles of environmental sustainability.

This includes working smarter by serving our students with simpler processes, informed by readily accessible data. NSCC is implementing a new data software package named Zogotech, for instance, that will allow more members of the college community to access and parse the information they need to serve students well. Being able to disaggregate student completion data by program, in core courses, or by race in major courses, allows faculty and program coordinators to better address equity gaps at the course level. Providing such democratic access decentralizes information and arms the faculty and staff delivering curriculum with the tools to adapt and tailor that curriculum. Combined with the Navigate student success tool, NSCC will be able to more quickly identify groups of students with specific needs, communicate with them, and deliver solutions, buttressing student retention and completion.

Making support unavoidable for students by integrating it into their experience at the college is also part of this strategic priority and a key retention tool. During the pandemic, the college created a virtual student support center called CentroHub, which allowed students to access academic advising, financial aid, and other services remotely. Students’ use of CentroHub remains strong even as the pandemic wanes and they are increasingly on campus for classes. The ability to move a student among staffers with different expertise to meet all of their needs in a single “virtual visit” makes it far more likely students will take advantage of all the support the college offers. There is an opportunity to scale CentroHub as the tool for students needing these types of