Community College of Allegheny County

Integrating Self Study with Strategic Planning

February 18, 2005

Kevin G. Smay Executive Director of Strategic Planning

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Summary This documents the integration of CCAC’s self study process, its findings and the recently begun strategic planning process. There are five points of contact joining self study and strategic planning which will be more fully explained in this report. The self study steering committee provided the strategic planning process with a set of prioritized strategic challenges that emerged through the self study process. In an exercise with president’s cabinet, the steering committee identified seven challenges that would require a strategic planning response. Continuity between self study and strategic planning will be maintained through people. There is a 78% overlap in participation in both processes. All strategic planning working committee chairs participated in self study with one exception, Brian Johnson, who is new to CCAC. The findings of self study are an integral part of the design for strategic planning. The design incorporates the self study findings as a major component of the internal assessment of the college. An environmental scanning process will provide the assessment of the college’s context. The design for strategic planning incorporates self study recommendations from no fewer than four of the Middle States standards: Chapter One: Mission, Goals, and Objectives; Chapter Two: Planning, Resource Allocation, and Institutional Renewal; Chapter Four: Governance and Chapter Seven: Institutional Assessment. Categories of self study and their related recommendations align well with CCAC’s strategic planning organization. There are three working committees that will plan for the major functional areas of the college: student services, educational model and delivery systems. The ten chapters of self study not already addressed distribute nicely over these three working committees. 1. The self study steering committee has provided the strategic planning process with a set of prioritized strategic challenges that emerged through the self study process. President’s Cabinet and the Self Study Steering Committee were asked to evaluate a list of recommendations and improvements from self study, and to classify them according to the type of planning response they required: strategic, operational, or action planning. The lists returned to the executive director for strategic planning were clustered according the level of planning response required, and by topic area. The clustering of the findings and recommendations

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was not limited by the fourteen Middle States Association standards. This allowed for the un-duplication of recommendations made by the fourteen self study taskforces. As a final step, the new clusters were ranked according to the number of strategic level recommendations in them. This suggests a ranking of strategic challenges for the college:

1. Assessment of student learning and institutional effectiveness (12

strategic recommendations)

2. General education (7 strategic recommendations)

3. Faculty (3 strategic recommendations)

4. Distance education (2 strategic recommendations)

5. Student services (2 strategic recommendations)

6. Planning and resource allocation (2 strategic recommendations)

7. Administration and leadership (1 strategic recommendation)

2. Continuity between self study and strategic planning will be maintained through people. The following is a list of current strategic planning participants grouped according to their role in self study. Strategic planning committee chairs are noted in bold font. Self Study Co-Chairs

Betty Davis, Dean, Enrollment Management, CO Daniel Lowe, Faculty, Associate, Allegheny Susan Myrick, Faculty, Professor, North

Steering Committee Members

Charles Blocksidge, VP, Center for Learning, CO John Glenn, Dean, Occupational Technologies, North Joe Hester, Senior Vice President of Administration & Chief Financial Officer Jim Holmberg, Vice President of Academic and Student Services Joanne Jeffcoat, Facutly Professor, Boyce Diane Maldonado, Faculty, Associate, South Martin Olshinsky, VP, South Kevin Smay, Executive Director of Strategic Planning Judy Savolskis, Dean, Occupational Technologies, Boyce Allysen Todd, Dean, Arts & Sciences, Allegheny

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Explorers Nick Akinkuoye, Dean, Occupational Technologies, South Mary Frances Archey, Dean, Arts & Sciences, South Jean Aston, Faculty, Professor, Allegheny Rich Betters, Dean, Arts & Sciences, Boyce Joyce Breckenridge, Controller, CO Nancilee Burzachechi, VP of Institutional Advancement & External Relations Jacqui Cavalier, Faculty, Assistant, Allegheny Christine Cornely, Web Content Manager, CO Gordon Crocker, Chair College Council, South Pearley Cunningham, Faculty, Professor, South Joyceann Ditka, Faculty, Professor, North Ross Donehue, Assistant Dean, Instructional Technology, Allegheny John Dziak, Faculty, Assistant, Allegheny Bob Farinelli, Faculty, Associate, Boyce Diane Gnipp, Director of Lifetime Learning, Allegheny Cheryl Graham-Eason, Faculty, Professor, North Jane Greenwood, Assistant Dean, Braddock Hills Stacey Hallock, Public Information Officer, CO Robert Hamilton, Dir. Facilities Management, CO Rebecca Harmon, Assistant Dean, Allied Health, Boyce Donna Imhoff, Faculty, Professor, South Ron Logreco, Assistant Dean, Neville Alice McKenna, Director, Center for Learning, CO Kyle Mosley, Dir. Financial Aid, South Gretchen Mullin, Assistant Dean, Bethel Park Dennis Musher, Dean, Student Development, North Annie Pettway, Director, Multicultural Affairs, Allegheny Jim Robertson, Asst. Dir., Planning & Research, CO Christina Russell, Dir., Information Technology Services, CO Jeanne Shader, Ex. Dir., Human Resources, CO Anne Tanski, Dir. Library & Learning Services, Allegheny Brenda Trettel, Director, Distance Learning Services, Allegheny Stephen Wells, Faculty, Assistant, South Margaret Williams-Betlyn, SVP Workforce Development/CEO North, Boyce Carol Yoannone, Student Performance Director, CO

Not Directly Involved in Self Study

Rick Adams, Assistant Dean, Homewood Brushton Doralee Brooks, Faculty, Professor, Allegheny Thomas Canada, Counselor, Allegheny Tom Cortese, Assistant Dean, Airport West Donna-Rene Ferris, System Steward & Secretary Typist, Supportive Serv., Allegheny

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Rita Gallegos, Faculty, Associate, Boyce Brian Johnson, SVP, Student & Community Services & CEO Allegheny Campus Reggie Overton, Ex. Dir., Institute for Corporate & Professional Devel., CO Julia Peters, Research Analyst, Planning & Research, CO Terri Piekut, Assistant Dean of Nursing, Boyce Ralph Proctor, Faculty, Associate, Allegheny Mary K. Quinlan, Intern, Planning & Research, CO Maura Stevenson, Faculty, Associate, Allegheny Lucy Wang, Research Assistant, Planning & Research, CO

3. The findings of self study are an integral part of the design for strategic planning.

4. The design for strategic planning incorporates self study recommendations from no fewer than four of the Middle States

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standards. Chapter One: Mission, Goals, and Objectives The Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals (M/V/V/G) at CCAC were re-developed most recently during the 1998-1999 academic year. The M/V/V/G, highly generalized in order to embrace the College's multiple and complex initiatives, form the basis for all planning at the College, and planning goals are measured within their context. While the majority of College employees believe the CCAC is fulfilling its mission, they are not entirely satisfied that all constituencies are involved in college planning. Recommendations:

1. Correct the perception that not all employees are involved in M/V/V/G as they are linked to planning by either better communicating to employees the means by which their concerns are addressed or by reconfiguring the Planning Committee to reach broader college constituencies.

Chapter Two: Planning, Resource Allocation, and Institutional Renewal Planning at CCAC has become sophisticated and comprehensive since the last self-study report in 1994, when campuses were accredited separately and campus plans were sometimes in conflict. While the College has made enormous strides in implementing its planning initiatives, fiscal, academic, and institutional planning still need to work more effectively in concert with each other so that appropriate resources can be dedicated to areas with the clearest and most urgent need. Recommendations:

1. Develop an integrated college planning and budgeting process that considers individual unit plans and determines resource allocation. The planning calendar should coincide with the budgeting calendar.

2. Develop college-wide resource allocation criteria founded in the College Plan to arbitrate competition for scarce resources.

3. Coordinate and integrate learning outcomes and institutional assessment processes for incorporation into the College Plan.

4. Incorporate Discipline Program Reviews into the College Plan, defining budget needs for human resources and program needs along with a process for the approval of new programs as a result of the planning process.

Chapter Seven: Institutional Assessment CCAC conducts institutional assessment regularly and consistently, but the

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information resulting from such assessment is not always effectively disseminated nor used to promote institutional change. The College should develop a comprehensive method of institutional assessment that effectively incorporates measures of student learning outcomes so that appropriate resources can be dedicated towards positive change. Similar findings are discussed in Chapter 14. Recommendations:

1. Review, revise, and adopt a framework for formalized institutional assessment through a leadership team comprised of all college stakeholders.

2. Improve faculty and staff awareness that data is and must be used in long-term and day-to-day decision making.

Chapter Four: Governance CCAC's chief governing body is the Board of Trustees, which has ultimate responsibility for the College and delegates operations to the college president while approving policies that govern operations. College Council, staffed by both college administrators and faculty members, is charged with the development and approval of institutional policy and academic procedures. The College needs to develop assessment tools for measuring the effectiveness of the Board and College Council.1 Recommendations:

1. Identify assessment tools for measuring the effectiveness of the Board of Trustees.

2. Identify assessment tools for measuring the effectiveness of College Council

5. Categories of self study and their related recommendations align well with CCAC’s strategic planning organization. I - Educational Model Working Committee Chapter Ten: Faculty CCAC employs highly qualified faculty to develop, review, modify, and support its academic programs and to consistently lead students to success in their educational endeavors. Faculty qualifications are governed by consistent policy, and the CBA establishes clear guidelines in terms of faculty duties, obligations and college governance. The College effectively supports faculty development in 1 According to Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards, Richard Ingram (2002), boards determine the organization’s mission and purpose and they ensure effective organizational planning.

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the spirit of academic freedom. CCAC needs to develop a faculty evaluation system that will fairly measure the quality of full and part-time faculty from the perspective of students. Recommendations:

1. Strengthen the criteria for promotion and tenure. 2. Consider a faculty evaluation system that would fairly measure the quality

of the faculty’s teaching presentation from the perspective of students. An option would be to require full-time tenured faculty to be involved in the SOSO process.

Chapter Eleven: Educational Offerings CCAC offers courses, programs, certificates, and degrees that are characterized by appropriate levels of content rigor, depth, sequencing, and sensitivity to the needs of both adult and traditional-aged learners. These are offered through multiple delivery methods and scheduled with flexibility. All programs need to do further work to insure that information literacy is a measurable student learning outcome, and faculty course outlines need to more clearly reflect requirements established in common course syllabi. Recommendations:

1. Implement a systematic process for reviewing Faculty Course Outlines to ensure their congruence with the departmentally approved Common Course Syllabi.

2. Collect and store all noncredit program/course evaluations and student outcomes data in a single place to allow for system-wide analyses.

3. Design a strategy, within College governance processes, to get teaching faculty and LLS professionals to partner to make information literacy an integral part of all new courses and programs.

4. Institute an annual assessment of the outcomes of Fastrack programs and courses and use these data for planning, program assessment, and student recruitment.

Chapter Twelve: General Education From its inception, CCAC has included General Education courses as part of all Associate’s Degree programs. The College needs to develop a clearer and more consistent statement of its general education philosophy, and better define a core of general education courses to ensure rigorous general education requirements in all of its programs. Exit criteria and common assessment indicators should be developed for each general education course. Recommendations:

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1. Develop a clear and concise statement of CCAC's philosophy of general education in the College's M/V/V/G and print it in the College Catalog and other appropriate publications.

2. Consolidate information in the College Catalog into a clearly defined section that covers all aspects of the general education/distribution requirements.

3. Locate General Education Requirements on one of the first pages of the college website, and establish a keyword link to these requirements to enhance student accessibility.

4. Clearly define the core of General Education courses to ensure rigorous general education requirements in CCAC’s transfer and career programs.

5. Establish clear criteria for the measurement and application of essential General Education skills.

6. Include references to the study of values, ethics, and diverse perspectives in all programs of study and use Program Review to assure that these will be incorporated.

7. Require--rather than recommend--that all students take a computer information technology course or otherwise demonstrate basic competency.

8. Develop college-wide exit criteria and common assessment indicators for each general education course, and revise curricula in light of these measures.

9. Develop performance indicators for information literacy. Chapter Thirteen: Related Educational Activities CCAC works to maintain educational standards through every method of delivery and at every site, from developmental courses at its main campuses to distance learning courses offered on-line. While these standards represent a College strength, CCAC needs to better demonstrate that student learning outcomes are consistent and measurable everywhere and every way it offers courses. Recommendations:

1. Establish a more formal, consistent training process for advisors, and develop a handbook to provide uniformity in the advising process that describes the developmental sequence and establishes appropriate courses for students.

2. Develop materials that describe the importance of developmental education, and distribute these to faculty and new students at the time they register.

3. Establish a bottom score for the COMPASS and any other placement measure to identify students who are significantly under-prepared.

4. Develop a formal program of support for significantly under-prepared students.

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5. Develop a college-wide strategy to assess developmental student’s academic skills, their content knowledge, and their performance in credit level courses taken later in their college careers. Identify quality indicators for developmental education courses and associated learning support service providers, and benchmark their performance on a regular basis.

6. Assess in measurable terms the availability of staffing and services at the College's centers and satellites, and dedicate resources to each when deficiencies threaten student learning or student enrollment.

7. In order to facilitate continued growth of DL enrollment, establish processes for online advising so first time students can register for classes at a distance.

8. Develop a centralized log and repository of all academic partnerships and preferably have the data posted and maintained within a webpage environment.

Chapter Fourteen: Assessment of Student Learning CCAC students experience different types of student learning assessment on an individual course or program basis, and some anecdotal and institutional data is collected in these courses and programs on student learning outcomes. The governance process insures that all changes in programs and courses incorporate learning goals. But the College has no institutional, official, or comprehensive plan that describes student learning assessment activities; nor does it have a means by which planning and resource allocation emerges from such assessment. Recommendations:

1. Establish an official college definition of assessment of student learning. 2. Train faculty and administrators in the latest methodologies of establishing

both direct and indirect measures of student learning assessment. 3. Revise all Common Course Syllabi in credit and noncredit areas to include

clear and specific learning objectives, and have faculty include these objectives in their own course outlines.

2. Implement and distribute the new Program Review Process that is currently being developed by the ad hoc Program Review Committee.

3. Ensure that assessment information is collected and distributed to the appropriate constituencies by reviewing the information distribution processes regarding assessment of student learning.

4. Assure that Institutional Research tracks student learning goals and make this information available to all appropriate college constituencies, especially faculty.

5. Develop a student learning assessment plan by further pursuing planning initiatives currently underway.

5. Review qualitative student learning assessment information collected at the campus and program levels and coordinate this activity across the system for use in institutional assessment.

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6. Develop an efficient process to ensure that this data enter the governance process.

7. Study successful student learning assessment models at appropriately benchmarked community colleges.

II - Student Services Working Committee Chapter Eight: Student Admissions CCAC's open admissions policy is founded in a college mission that provides flexibility in developing policies that provide a bridge from secondary education to baccalaureate and further educational study. The College's Admissions and Financial Aid policies are generally effective and equitable and fully communicated to students through publications and the college website. In order to communicate to prospective students the quality of its programs, CCAC should better measure student success through assessment measures exemplified by the Perkins program and other programs that are assessed externally. Recommendations:

1. Develop and standardize measurements and attributes for student learning outcomes in order to make them available to prospective students.

2. Create consistent practices across the College with regard to accepting D grades and credits from proprietary schools in order to assure transfer policies are uniform.

3. Develop assessment practices for all college programs similar to those currently exemplified by Perkins funded programs and others that are monitored by external evaluation measures.

Chapter Nine: Student Support Services CCAC provides appropriate student services to all credit and noncredit students regardless of the time or place the students attend; these services are comprehensive and support the diversity of demographics and educational experiences selected by students. The College needs to address weaknesses in the consistency in its offering of academic advisement, particularly with regard to students seeking to transfer to other institutions. Recommendations:

1. Review the Academic Advisement Centers, developing a better integration between the counseling and advising functions while articulating that difference to students.

2. Standardize training materials and programs for Academic Advisors, providing system-wide training sessions when appropriate.

3. Integrate the current student services assessment instruments and

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strategies into a comprehensive assessment plan covering all student support services provided at CCAC.

III - Delivery Systems Working Committee Chapter Three: Institutional Resources The College's financial planning processes insure involvement at all levels of college operations. Human Resources, from administration to faculty to staff, remain adequate as measured against available benchmarks. Like most public institutions, CCAC occasionally struggles to maintain viability in its technological and physical plant facilities, due to budget constraints. In particular, the College's technological infrastructure is in urgent need of updating in order for CCAC's on-line academic offerings to remain cutting edge. Fiscal and institutional planning need to work more effectively within the context of each other so resources can be dedicated to appropriate areas. Recommendations:

1. Require the compilation of a comprehensive evaluation of college staff, equipment, facilities, and other resources relative to its M/V/V/G and planning cycles as part of its annual budget process.

2. Give special attention with regard to resource allocation to upgrading the College’s ITS infrastructure so that CCAC remains on the cutting edge of technological advances in educational offerings.

Chapter Five: Administration The organizational structure of CCAC, along with its administrators, is generally effectively in managing the College's diverse student population, faculty, and staff. On occasion, open administrative positions have been left to interim appointees for protracted periods of time. The recent Employee Survey indicates concern with the effectiveness of college leadership in terms of developing a spirit of teamwork and cooperation among employees, developing effective lines of communication, and nurturing an environment of trust and mutual respect at the College. Recommendations:

1. Research the reasons behind employees' lack of confidence in the abilities of administration to perform key managerial roles.

2. Convene focus groups to discuss the motivation and reasoning behind the responses to the survey questions, and incorporate findings into the College planning as initiatives for improvement.

Chapter Six: Integrity

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The self-study reveals that CCAC effectively manages student evaluation, grievances, and disciplinary procedures, and makes every effort to communicate the College's policies concerning these issues to students. The College's hiring practices are generally well-considered and equitable. The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the College and the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers governs issues of faculty obligation and academic integrity and freedom. As described in Chapter 5, there are some concerns over the spirit of teamwork, cooperation, and mutual respect at the College that must be addressed. Recommendations:

1. Investigate the reasons for employee perception that certain integrity principles are not practiced at the College and implement a plan for addressing these.

2. Assure that principles of integrity are incorporated into ongoing efforts to develop a comprehensive assessment plan for all college operations.