2012-2017 Strategic Plan

tion c u d o Intr

Today the community colleges across the nation are under close scrutiny because of many factors, including their role as a portal to opportunity for millions of college students, employees, and community stakeholders, their critical role in economic development and as contributors to a re-contextualized workplace in a post-recessionary environment, and as a catalyst for meaningful dialog about who we are as individuals and as members of a post-modern local, national, and global community.

Wallace State Community College is embarking on its third five-year plan as a leader institution that understands its various roles in establishing broad and deep learning partnerships that transcend conventional institutional definitions. Through the establishment of its success agenda—Start Early, Start Right, Finish, Succeed—the college has positioned itself for strategic dynamism as much as strategic planning. To improve access at the first point of entry, for example, Wallace State has developed a flexible and responsive one-stop student services model based on extensive research and development and examination of best practices across the region and nation and has upgraded its support infrastructure and platforms to better serve the needs of students.

START

EARLY

START RIGHT

FINISH

Despite the financial constraints of a recessionary economy and natural disasters, Wallace State has also invested heavily in academic programs and services that promote adaptive learning and workplace preparedness. The institution has established an elearning laboratory, for example, that promotes, as a foundation principle, a digital campus without borders both as an internal developer of three-dimensional models and other resources, and as a guide to the limitless curricular and co-curricular materials available to students and faculty online.

SUCCEED

Our Mission

The Wallace State Community College mission statement serves as a beacon for guiding its programs and services

Wallace State Community College is committed to enabling meaningful learning that transforms lives and communities. In support of the mission, Wallace State Community College is committed to:

• • • • • •

promoting student success in learning environments that are student centered, innovative, engaging, and supportive providing teaching excellence that inspires a quest for lifelong learning respecting uniqueness and valuing diversity forging strategic partnerships that advance community, workforce and economic development culturally enriching our communities accountability and integrity

Our Vision

Vision Statement:

Wallace State will facilitate learning without boundaries, will be committed to every student’s success, will exemplify the spirit of perpetual improvement, and will promote an overarching sense of community.

In addition, Wallace State has committed to multiple capital projects that will better position the institution for strategic growth and development. It is embarking, for example, on the construction of a $25M Nursing and Science building to be completed by August 2013 and for a $7M renovation of the library that will represent a dramatic transition from a traditional conceptual model to that of a “Learning Commons” prevalent at top universities and colleges across the nation.

The accomplishments of Wallace State have been exceptional, including being named an Aspen Institute semifinalist for the previous two years, an award given annually to the most outstanding community college in the nation, and being one of a select number of colleges participating in the seminal Achieving the Dream program, a program begun by the Lumina Foundation and other organizations to enable more students to achieve the dream of realizing their own personal and professional potential, a step that often begins at the door of a community college.

However, despite its many successes, Wallace State is beginning its new five-year plan with a broader and stronger vision for its role as a vital, creative force for positive change for everyone touched by its many programs and services. This vision incorporates its student success agenda but moves further and faster into its role as an accelerator of personal and professional growth and becoming, a vision expressed simply and powerfully in the idea of readiness:

READY

Ready for college. Ready for work. Ready for life.

FOR COLLEGE

READY FOR WORK READY FOR

LIFE

2012-2017 Strategic Plan

Ready for Life

y d a Re ork W r fo

s s e n i Read

3

P.O. Box 2000 801 Main Street NW Hanceville, AL 35077-2000 www.wallacestate.edu 1.866.350.WSCC • 256.352.8000

For the latest course schedule information, visit www.wallacestate.edu.

y Read ge e l l o C r o f

tion c u d o Intr

Today the community colleges across the nation are under close scrutiny because of many factors, including their role as a portal to opportunity for millions of college students, employees, and community stakeholders, their critical role in economic development and as contributors to a re-contextualized workplace in a post-recessionary environment, and as a catalyst for meaningful dialog about who we are as individuals and as members of a post-modern local, national, and global community.

Wallace State Community College is embarking on its third five-year plan as a leader institution that understands its various roles in establishing broad and deep learning partnerships that transcend conventional institutional definitions. Through the establishment of its success agenda—Start Early, Start Right, Finish, Succeed—the college has positioned itself for strategic dynamism as much as strategic planning. To improve access at the first point of entry, for example, Wallace State has developed a flexible and responsive one-stop student services model based on extensive research and development and examination of best practices across the region and nation and has upgraded its support infrastructure and platforms to better serve the needs of students.

START

EARLY

START RIGHT

FINISH

Despite the financial constraints of a recessionary economy and natural disasters, Wallace State has also invested heavily in academic programs and services that promote adaptive learning and workplace preparedness. The institution has established an elearning laboratory, for example, that promotes, as a foundation principle, a digital campus without borders both as an internal developer of three-dimensional models and other resources, and as a guide to the limitless curricular and co-curricular materials available to students and faculty online.

SUCCEED

Our Mission

The Wallace State Community College mission statement serves as a beacon for guiding its programs and services

Wallace State Community College is committed to enabling meaningful learning that transforms lives and communities. In support of the mission, Wallace State Community College is committed to:

• • • • • •

promoting student success in learning environments that are student centered, innovative, engaging, and supportive providing teaching excellence that inspires a quest for lifelong learning respecting uniqueness and valuing diversity forging strategic partnerships that advance community, workforce and economic development culturally enriching our communities accountability and integrity

Our Vision

Vision Statement:

Wallace State will facilitate learning without boundaries, will be committed to every student’s success, will exemplify the spirit of perpetual improvement, and will promote an overarching sense of community.

In addition, Wallace State has committed to multiple capital projects that will better position the institution for strategic growth and development. It is embarking, for example, on the construction of a $25M Nursing and Science building to be completed by August 2013 and for a $7M renovation of the library that will represent a dramatic transition from a traditional conceptual model to that of a “Learning Commons” prevalent at top universities and colleges across the nation.

The accomplishments of Wallace State have been exceptional, including being named an Aspen Institute semifinalist for the previous two years, an award given annually to the most outstanding community college in the nation, and being one of a select number of colleges participating in the seminal Achieving the Dream program, a program begun by the Lumina Foundation and other organizations to enable more students to achieve the dream of realizing their own personal and professional potential, a step that often begins at the door of a community college.

However, despite its many successes, Wallace State is beginning its new five-year plan with a broader and stronger vision for its role as a vital, creative force for positive change for everyone touched by its many programs and services. This vision incorporates its student success agenda but moves further and faster into its role as an accelerator of personal and professional growth and becoming, a vision expressed simply and powerfully in the idea of readiness:

READY

Ready for college. Ready for work. Ready for life.

FOR COLLEGE

READY FOR WORK READY FOR

LIFE

2012-2017 Strategic Plan

Ready for Life

y d a Re ork W r fo

s s e n i Read

3

P.O. Box 2000 801 Main Street NW Hanceville, AL 35077-2000 www.wallacestate.edu 1.866.350.WSCC • 256.352.8000

For the latest course schedule information, visit www.wallacestate.edu.

y Read ge e l l o C r o f

Ou r P roc ess

In March, 2012, Dr. Vicki P. Hawsey, President of Wallace State Community College, launched the development of a new five-year plan with the establishment of a Strategic Planning Task Force, comprised of approximately forty representatives of various campus and community constituencies.

The Task Force met off campus at a two-day planning retreat on March 15, 2012.

The retreat began with background briefings from the College Dean, the Executive Vice President, the Dean of Financial Affairs and the President. A facilitator, a planning and effectiveness consultant from a neighboring state, guided the group through a number of collaborative exercises and work sessions. The retreat culminated in the production of a written compendium of views on the future direction of the college.

This five-year strategic plan is based on the work of the Task Force before, during, and following the March retreat.

PRIORITIES AND

READY

FOR COLLEGE

GOALS

Strateg ic Priority 1

To strengthen portals of entry, including recruiting, outreach, and marketing, and points of entry, such as physical and electronic contacts, through innovative and effective methods and practices

The terms “portals of entry” and “points of entry” represent two dimensions of the same challenge, how to best reduce barriers of access to the college’s programs and services. Increasingly, prospective students and other stakeholders reach out to a community college through the Internet and all its modalities, including search engines, social media, and other communication mediums. But the first actual points of entry are also critically important, a guiding principle that requires superior and market-tested levels of customer service and entry efficiencies.

Goal 1: To develop enrollment management strategies that maximize growth and that advance the institutional mission

Goal 2: To develop infrastructure and technologies that optimally position the college in a dynamic global marketplace

Goal 3: To implement at all points of contact a superior and market-tested model of customer service marked by quality, efficiency, consistency, adaptability, and effectiveness

egic Strat 2 ty Priori

To enhance student success through multi-dimensional programs and intentionality of services that improve preparedness, build self-esteem, and remove barriers to academic and personal success In an educational milieu of increasing numbers of underprepared students, the college must develop holistic strategies for developmental education that engage diverse learners across multiple fulcrums of opportunity before, during, and after entry. However, it is a core institutional value that all learners can benefit from access to wide-ranging support services that promote open personal and professional inquiry in an environment characterized by academic freedom, acceptance, and safety.

Goal 1: To maximize the success of developmental students through holistic strategies characterized by innovation, effectiveness, and best practices

Goal 2: To develop a comprehensive network of support that empowers learners and reduces barriers to student success

READY FOR WORK

gic 3

Strate To enhance workplace preparedness through programs and services that broaden vocational engagement, that improve in vital, innovative rity io r P ways the institutional response to the present and future needs of business and industry, that represent synergistic partnerships that promote the college’s mission and vision, and that produce graduates with the adaptive skills and training needed to succeed in the millennial workplace environment

It is a critical part of the college’s mission to offer programs and services that effectively respond to both the present needs of business and industry and the dynamics of rapid economic change. To this end, the college must be positioned to understand the needs of regional employers and to come to terms with the engines of change, including trends and innovations that shape the marketplace.

Goal 1: To systemically strengthen and enhance institutional awareness of the present and future economic landscape Goal 2: To develop synergistic partnerships that advance the mission of the college

READY FOR

LIFE

To develop multiple strategies of resource acquisition to support a culture of learning

Strat e Prior gic ity 4

In recognition of the precarious nature of funding and the college’s interest in reducing the financial barriers to entry, the institution will need to aggressively pursue multiple revenue sources and strive always to recognize opportunities to utilize economies of scale and other measures of good fiscal stewardship and effectiveness.

Strategic Priority 5

To hold as a foundational principle that the dynamics of change will be grounded in a culture of evidence marked by integrity, accountability, and a belief in a continuous cycle of institutional effectiveness

It will be a critical underpinning of the college’s strategic initiatives for the next five years to have in place a framework for data-based decision-making. The college will continue to be an innovator and a beacon of opportunity for diverse learners, but its strategies will be contextualized by meaningful data both to provide context for analysis and to serve as a crucible for determining effectiveness.

Goal 1: To develop and maintain baseline institutional data utilizing the sixteen core indicators of effectiveness recommended by the American Association of Community Colleges and other established measures of performance

Goal 2: To utilize institutional data through environmental scanning and other methodologies to promote a personal and institutional culture of integrity and inquiry To establish transformational learning opportunities within, across, and beyond the college’s curriculum that prepare participants to lead successful and fulfilling lives without boundaries

Goal 1: To develop and implement cross-disciplinary communities of learners that enhance engagement among all campus constituencies

Goal 2: To offer online and web-enhanced courses that utilize multi-dimensional sources and constructs that challenge the limits of learning

Goal 3: To challenge the college’s community of learners to think critically and transformationally about themselves and their place in the post-modern economic, social, and cultural milieu

Goal 1: To maximize current revenue sources through proactive communication and management strategies

Goal 2: To aggressively pursue new revenue opportunities to support present and future programs and services

S

trategic The college will embrace the challenges inherent in a changing educational landscape and be an agent of positive change in aggressively seeking ways to Priority 6 enhance the learning partnership for a broad community of participants. The development of credit and non-credit courses and programs will be based upon an institutional belief that learning has no borders, that curricular and co-curricular offerings are grounded in the dynamics of change and effectiveness.

READY

FOR COLLEGE

READY FOR WORK READY FOR

LIFE

Ou r P roc ess

In March, 2012, Dr. Vicki P. Hawsey, President of Wallace State Community College, launched the development of a new five-year plan with the establishment of a Strategic Planning Task Force, comprised of approximately forty representatives of various campus and community constituencies.

The Task Force met off campus at a two-day planning retreat on March 15, 2012.

The retreat began with background briefings from the College Dean, the Executive Vice President, the Dean of Financial Affairs and the President. A facilitator, a planning and effectiveness consultant from a neighboring state, guided the group through a number of collaborative exercises and work sessions. The retreat culminated in the production of a written compendium of views on the future direction of the college.

This five-year strategic plan is based on the work of the Task Force before, during, and following the March retreat.

PRIORITIES AND

READY

FOR COLLEGE

GOALS

Strateg ic Priority 1

To strengthen portals of entry, including recruiting, outreach, and marketing, and points of entry, such as physical and electronic contacts, through innovative and effective methods and practices

The terms “portals of entry” and “points of entry” represent two dimensions of the same challenge, how to best reduce barriers of access to the college’s programs and services. Increasingly, prospective students and other stakeholders reach out to a community college through the Internet and all its modalities, including search engines, social media, and other communication mediums. But the first actual points of entry are also critically important, a guiding principle that requires superior and market-tested levels of customer service and entry efficiencies.

Goal 1: To develop enrollment management strategies that maximize growth and that advance the institutional mission

Goal 2: To develop infrastructure and technologies that optimally position the college in a dynamic global marketplace

Goal 3: To implement at all points of contact a superior and market-tested model of customer service marked by quality, efficiency, consistency, adaptability, and effectiveness

egic Strat 2 ty Priori

To enhance student success through multi-dimensional programs and intentionality of services that improve preparedness, build self-esteem, and remove barriers to academic and personal success In an educational milieu of increasing numbers of underprepared students, the college must develop holistic strategies for developmental education that engage diverse learners across multiple fulcrums of opportunity before, during, and after entry. However, it is a core institutional value that all learners can benefit from access to wide-ranging support services that promote open personal and professional inquiry in an environment characterized by academic freedom, acceptance, and safety.

Goal 1: To maximize the success of developmental students through holistic strategies characterized by innovation, effectiveness, and best practices

Goal 2: To develop a comprehensive network of support that empowers learners and reduces barriers to student success

READY FOR WORK

gic 3

Strate To enhance workplace preparedness through programs and services that broaden vocational engagement, that improve in vital, innovative rity io r P ways the institutional response to the present and future needs of business and industry, that represent synergistic partnerships that promote the college’s mission and vision, and that produce graduates with the adaptive skills and training needed to succeed in the millennial workplace environment

It is a critical part of the college’s mission to offer programs and services that effectively respond to both the present needs of business and industry and the dynamics of rapid economic change. To this end, the college must be positioned to understand the needs of regional employers and to come to terms with the engines of change, including trends and innovations that shape the marketplace.

Goal 1: To systemically strengthen and enhance institutional awareness of the present and future economic landscape Goal 2: To develop synergistic partnerships that advance the mission of the college

READY FOR

LIFE

To develop multiple strategies of resource acquisition to support a culture of learning

Strat e Prior gic ity 4

In recognition of the precarious nature of funding and the college’s interest in reducing the financial barriers to entry, the institution will need to aggressively pursue multiple revenue sources and strive always to recognize opportunities to utilize economies of scale and other measures of good fiscal stewardship and effectiveness.

Strategic Priority 5

To hold as a foundational principle that the dynamics of change will be grounded in a culture of evidence marked by integrity, accountability, and a belief in a continuous cycle of institutional effectiveness

It will be a critical underpinning of the college’s strategic initiatives for the next five years to have in place a framework for data-based decision-making. The college will continue to be an innovator and a beacon of opportunity for diverse learners, but its strategies will be contextualized by meaningful data both to provide context for analysis and to serve as a crucible for determining effectiveness.

Goal 1: To develop and maintain baseline institutional data utilizing the sixteen core indicators of effectiveness recommended by the American Association of Community Colleges and other established measures of performance

Goal 2: To utilize institutional data through environmental scanning and other methodologies to promote a personal and institutional culture of integrity and inquiry To establish transformational learning opportunities within, across, and beyond the college’s curriculum that prepare participants to lead successful and fulfilling lives without boundaries

Goal 1: To develop and implement cross-disciplinary communities of learners that enhance engagement among all campus constituencies

Goal 2: To offer online and web-enhanced courses that utilize multi-dimensional sources and constructs that challenge the limits of learning

Goal 3: To challenge the college’s community of learners to think critically and transformationally about themselves and their place in the post-modern economic, social, and cultural milieu

Goal 1: To maximize current revenue sources through proactive communication and management strategies

Goal 2: To aggressively pursue new revenue opportunities to support present and future programs and services

S

trategic The college will embrace the challenges inherent in a changing educational landscape and be an agent of positive change in aggressively seeking ways to Priority 6 enhance the learning partnership for a broad community of participants. The development of credit and non-credit courses and programs will be based upon an institutional belief that learning has no borders, that curricular and co-curricular offerings are grounded in the dynamics of change and effectiveness.

READY

FOR COLLEGE

READY FOR WORK READY FOR

LIFE

Ou r P roc ess

In March, 2012, Dr. Vicki P. Hawsey, President of Wallace State Community College, launched the development of a new five-year plan with the establishment of a Strategic Planning Task Force, comprised of approximately forty representatives of various campus and community constituencies.

The Task Force met off campus at a two-day planning retreat on March 15, 2012.

The retreat began with background briefings from the College Dean, the Executive Vice President, the Dean of Financial Affairs and the President. A facilitator, a planning and effectiveness consultant from a neighboring state, guided the group through a number of collaborative exercises and work sessions. The retreat culminated in the production of a written compendium of views on the future direction of the college.

This five-year strategic plan is based on the work of the Task Force before, during, and following the March retreat.

PRIORITIES AND

READY

FOR COLLEGE

GOALS

Strateg ic Priority 1

To strengthen portals of entry, including recruiting, outreach, and marketing, and points of entry, such as physical and electronic contacts, through innovative and effective methods and practices

The terms “portals of entry” and “points of entry” represent two dimensions of the same challenge, how to best reduce barriers of access to the college’s programs and services. Increasingly, prospective students and other stakeholders reach out to a community college through the Internet and all its modalities, including search engines, social media, and other communication mediums. But the first actual points of entry are also critically important, a guiding principle that requires superior and market-tested levels of customer service and entry efficiencies.

Goal 1: To develop enrollment management strategies that maximize growth and that advance the institutional mission

Goal 2: To develop infrastructure and technologies that optimally position the college in a dynamic global marketplace

Goal 3: To implement at all points of contact a superior and market-tested model of customer service marked by quality, efficiency, consistency, adaptability, and effectiveness

egic Strat 2 ty Priori

To enhance student success through multi-dimensional programs and intentionality of services that improve preparedness, build self-esteem, and remove barriers to academic and personal success In an educational milieu of increasing numbers of underprepared students, the college must develop holistic strategies for developmental education that engage diverse learners across multiple fulcrums of opportunity before, during, and after entry. However, it is a core institutional value that all learners can benefit from access to wide-ranging support services that promote open personal and professional inquiry in an environment characterized by academic freedom, acceptance, and safety.

Goal 1: To maximize the success of developmental students through holistic strategies characterized by innovation, effectiveness, and best practices

Goal 2: To develop a comprehensive network of support that empowers learners and reduces barriers to student success

READY FOR WORK

gic 3

Strate To enhance workplace preparedness through programs and services that broaden vocational engagement, that improve in vital, innovative rity io r P ways the institutional response to the present and future needs of business and industry, that represent synergistic partnerships that promote the college’s mission and vision, and that produce graduates with the adaptive skills and training needed to succeed in the millennial workplace environment

It is a critical part of the college’s mission to offer programs and services that effectively respond to both the present needs of business and industry and the dynamics of rapid economic change. To this end, the college must be positioned to understand the needs of regional employers and to come to terms with the engines of change, including trends and innovations that shape the marketplace.

Goal 1: To systemically strengthen and enhance institutional awareness of the present and future economic landscape Goal 2: To develop synergistic partnerships that advance the mission of the college

READY FOR

LIFE

To develop multiple strategies of resource acquisition to support a culture of learning

Strat e Prior gic ity 4

In recognition of the precarious nature of funding and the college’s interest in reducing the financial barriers to entry, the institution will need to aggressively pursue multiple revenue sources and strive always to recognize opportunities to utilize economies of scale and other measures of good fiscal stewardship and effectiveness.

Strategic Priority 5

To hold as a foundational principle that the dynamics of change will be grounded in a culture of evidence marked by integrity, accountability, and a belief in a continuous cycle of institutional effectiveness

It will be a critical underpinning of the college’s strategic initiatives for the next five years to have in place a framework for data-based decision-making. The college will continue to be an innovator and a beacon of opportunity for diverse learners, but its strategies will be contextualized by meaningful data both to provide context for analysis and to serve as a crucible for determining effectiveness.

Goal 1: To develop and maintain baseline institutional data utilizing the sixteen core indicators of effectiveness recommended by the American Association of Community Colleges and other established measures of performance

Goal 2: To utilize institutional data through environmental scanning and other methodologies to promote a personal and institutional culture of integrity and inquiry To establish transformational learning opportunities within, across, and beyond the college’s curriculum that prepare participants to lead successful and fulfilling lives without boundaries

Goal 1: To develop and implement cross-disciplinary communities of learners that enhance engagement among all campus constituencies

Goal 2: To offer online and web-enhanced courses that utilize multi-dimensional sources and constructs that challenge the limits of learning

Goal 3: To challenge the college’s community of learners to think critically and transformationally about themselves and their place in the post-modern economic, social, and cultural milieu

Goal 1: To maximize current revenue sources through proactive communication and management strategies

Goal 2: To aggressively pursue new revenue opportunities to support present and future programs and services

S

trategic The college will embrace the challenges inherent in a changing educational landscape and be an agent of positive change in aggressively seeking ways to Priority 6 enhance the learning partnership for a broad community of participants. The development of credit and non-credit courses and programs will be based upon an institutional belief that learning has no borders, that curricular and co-curricular offerings are grounded in the dynamics of change and effectiveness.

READY

FOR COLLEGE

READY FOR WORK READY FOR

LIFE