After more than six months of gathering data and input from the community, business and industry, faculty, students, and staff, Rogue Community College has developed a new strategic plan to guide its work through 2020.
“We are so appreciative of the many people who volunteered their own time to participate in surveys, forums and the steering committee,” says Cathy Kemper-Pelle, president of RCC. “It was an amazing community response and a significant effort by our steering team to review all the data collected.”
Some clear trends were revealed in the process. The college was identified as student-centered with strong faculty and staff, but program and course offerings were seen as the areas in most need of change. The data also showed that the greatest opportunity for RCC is in collaboration with business and industry.
Looking at these results, the strategic-planning steering committee developed three “Wildly Important Goals,” or core themes that will be central to fulfilling RCC’s mission. Objectives were written to support the goals, and RCC departments are enacting plans to achieve those objectives. The new institutional researcher at RCC will be leading the development of specific, measurable indicators so that RCC may track its progress toward the objectives.
“Our decisions will be data informed,”says Kemper-Pelle, “but also guided by our mission, vision and values.”
At college wide in-service meeting this year, staff were asked for suggestions to revise RCC’s mission, vision and values; 170 people responded, “and their input has directly affected the revised mission, values, vision and plan,” says Kemper-Pelle.
Following is the new RCC strategic plan, as well as charts from the data that helped create it.
2017–2020 Rogue Community College Strategic Plan
Mission
Rogue Community College provides quality learning opportunities for students to achieve their goals and supports the vitality of our communities.
Vision
Rogue Community College is a premier learning college that transforms, strengthens and inspires.
Values
Integrity requires us, as an institution and individuals, to be transparent, ethical and accountable.
Collaboration promotes an agile, responsive culture to address the aspirations and needs of our communities creatively.
Inclusion creates a compassionate and safe environment that views all individuals and ideas fairly.
Stewardship commits us to responsible and thoughtful guardianship of our human, economic, cultural and natural resources.
Courage frees the institution to find and pursue the best path in support of student learning and Rogue excellence.
Wildly Important Goals (Core Themes)
1. Access to educational opportunities
Objective 1: Improve access to educational and support systems for current and prospective students. Make entry to RCC a smoother transition for all students. Make use of college support systems more student friendly including course entry requirements and prerequisites.
Objective 2: Increase participation of under-served populations in our programs. College enrollments do not reflect under-served populations at the same rate as they occur in the community.
Objective 3: Create collaborative learning spaces that connect students to other students, faculty, staff and local employers. These are spaces where students can learn together, with college faculty and staff or with local employers.
2. Student success
Objective 4: Construct guided educational pathways. Guided pathways — highly structured, educationally logical program maps.
Objective 5: Increase effective student engagement strategies. Student engagement is the degree of attention, curiosity, optimism, interest and passion that students demonstrate when they are learning. It influences the level of motivation they have
to learn and progress in their
education.
Objective 6: Decrease student time to completion while maintaining high-quality education. The longer it takes a student to finish a certificate or degree, the more likely they are to drop out of college. This has a negative impact on their earning power in the workforce.
3. Collaborative partnerships
Objective 7: Increase alignment between college programs and local employers. Make sure that programs lead to actual jobs in the Rogue Valley.
Objective 8: Leverage local partnerships to enhance college strategic goals. Find ways to share resources and reduce costs.
Objective 9: Maximize cross divisional strategies to solve problems creatively. Work together for the success of our students.