HCC Strategic Plan 2008 (download PDF of 2008 Strategic Plan Brochure)

Housatonic Community College Strategic Plan: Planning Continued Student Success

GOALS:
Grow the College
Optimize academic success
Create a positive work environment
Enhance HCC’s image and relationship in the service area

A  shared vision of student success has always been the spirit that brings the mission of community colleges to life. That vision has not changed since the founding of our College. It is evident in the core values that differentiate Housatonic Community College from other institutions. It is supported by policies that ensure affordable, accessible, and widely available educational opportunities to help students succeed.

Meeting the Needs of a Changing Student Population and the Needs of Connecticut’s Businesses and Industries for an Educated Workforce

The growth in student enrollment and the changes in student demographics require HCC to address the changing needs of the student population. It is the responsibility of the College to expand the programs and services necessary to meet the instructional, academic support and student service needs of these students. 

Expanding Access to Educational Opportunities by Supporting Student Success

To promote student success our commitment to traditional access must be broadened to include access to the entire continuum of higher education and employment opportunities, working in partnership with high schools, colleges, universities, and employers so that the students who choose Housatonic Community College are prepared to succeed in college, to achieve their goals for further education, and to find opportunities for employment, independence and self-sufficiency. 

Maintaining Affordability: Tuition, Financial Aid and Resource Development

Expanding access to success must also be supported by maintaining affordability. Our historic commitment to low tuition and fees and extensive financial aid speaks of notable achievements in this area. But this commitment must be sustained by continuing efforts to ensure the availability of financial aid for the students we serve, the neediest and most needed of Connecticut’s students, and through an increased emphasis on resource development to attract private funding to ensure student success.

Improving Accountability

Our efforts must be documented and student success must be accounted for. Increased accountability requires enhanced data collection, research, and reliable reporting that will support decision making and demonstrate the effectiveness of our interventions on behalf of student success. 

Improving Learning and Assessment

We must also seek ways to improve the quality of student learning and outcomes assessment by expanding our understanding of how students learn and why they fail. We need to know what are the barriers to learning that need to be eliminated, and what student outcomes predict success. Part of our efforts in this area must be to create opportunities for professional development for College faculty and administrators that will help them to foster success for students through new models of instructional and educational services.

Ensuring a Safe, Secure, and Inclusive Campus Environment

Another dominant issue on every campus is the need to promote a safe and secure environment that encourages inclusion and respects diversity. Learning can only take place in an environment where concepts and ideas can be expressed and explored without fear. While a community of learners cannot be isolated from the external world, it can strive to ensure that violence is excluded from its boundaries and that open debate, challenging ideas, and different viewpoints are valued rather than feared.

Objectives

Objective 1: We must agree on and follow an internal set of values and behavior

• Create a set of operational values
• Communicate operational values to entire College
• Create a plan to disseminate the values and bring them to life throughout the College

Objective 2: We must create and implement a comprehensive plan to improve a culture of diversity

• Identify current level of diversity and goal for changes needed
• Engage a consultant to work with the College in developing a diversity program
• Screen applicants for commitment to, respect for and ability to work effectively with a diverse workforce/student body
• Require and provide education and training for all faculty and staff on working effectively as part of a diverse workforce

Objective 3: We must optimize staff resources

• Review College services and activities for areas of overlap and duplication to improve collaboration and efficiency
• Identify constraints that impact productivity, remove constraints to increase efficiency and clarity
• Identify seasonal work loads.  Identify improvements in process of sharing resources during seasonal workloads
• Identify cross training opportunities and implement training
• Conduct a staffing comparison based on institution with comparable areas of responsibility

Objective 4: We must define, track, and improve student success

• Develop annual goals for increases in identified success areas such as course success, retention, program enrollments, graduation rates, transfers, Continuing Education enrollment and revenue, and Workforce Development and revenue
• Define annual measures to track student success longitudinally, for example:
  • Course success
  • Retention
  • Program enrollments
  • Graduation rates
  • Transfers
  • Continuing Education enrollments and revenue
  • Workforce Development enrollments and revenue
• Improve schedule process
• Create ways to share the results of the measures regularly and broadly

Objective 5: We must clarify, standardize, and continuously improve processes for faculty, staff, and students

• Map current processes and communication tracks to determine areas in need of improvement
• Identify areas of confusion, redundancy and/or lack of continuity across College departments
• Identify and implement needed improvements
• Document procedures

Objective 6: We must encourage participation in professional development

• Foster professional development planning based on College goals and program needs
• Provide Professional Development activities on campus for staff
• Create opportunities for conference attendees to present new information to College community

Objective 7: We must develop and implement programs that meet community needs

• Complete environmental scans to determine credit and non-credit program needs
• Develop and implement  credit, non-credit and workforce development programs based upon community needs
• Maximize student transfer by maintaining current  articulation agreements with public and private institutions
• Expand Distance Learning to permit completion of an online associate degree
• Compile validation studies to determine if credit and non-credit courses and programs offered meet community needs

Objective 8: We must refine and communicate our image to the community effectively

• Incorporate the Branding initiative into a wide range of academic department and program discussions
• Identify the top community contacts who can influence the image the most
• Create measures to track the quality of the relationships with those top influencers
• Create measures to track the image of the College and communicate those measures to the College
• Increase the visibility of graduation and transfer success both internally and externally
• Increase the visibility of honors and related academic accomplishments on campus

Objective 9: We must expand and enhance our relationship with the service area

• Insure that the College is well represented at higher education related events occurring in each town in the College’s service area
• Conduct an inventory of current faculty and staff community affiliations in each town in the College’s service area
• Enlist the aid of faculty and staff to become active in community-based organizations in each town in the College’s service area

Objective 10: We must research and secure additional fundin

• Develop funding priorities with System Office and communicate internally and externally to legislators and Regional Advisory Council
• Develop grants priorities and revenue goals annually
• Establish with Foundation annual giving campaign goals

 

August 2008