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The institution is in
compliance with core requirement 2.5 addressing institutional
effectiveness. The following narrative will begin with a
general description of the institutions past practices of the
last several years. The remainder of the narrative will
document its current system of institutional effectiveness as
organized by the specifications contained in core requirement
2.5.
Background
Prior to adoption of a new biennial planning and
evaluation process in 2004, the Board of Trustees developed
"Board
Goals." The Board Goals established direction for the
institution for which the president was held accountable in
her annual performance appraisal. Progress
toward achievement of Board Goals was collected and
reported annually at a regular meeting of the Trustees in the
summer.
Also in the summer was a determination by the
Presidents Cabinet of college enrollment targets for the
upcoming fiscal/academic year. Achievement of the
enrollment targets is monitored by a series of enrollment
reports examined at regular meetings of Cabinet. The
targets serve in part as a basis for revenue
assumptions. This practice continues today.
Subsequently, operational units developed budgets
for the upcoming fiscal year. The budgets detailed the
cost of new funding initiatives in support of Board
Goals. The initiatives were prioritized by President's
Cabinet and funded based upon projected revenue growth in the
subsequent year as informed, in part, by the enrollment
targets.
During this time the institution employed a model
of program review (e.g. Biology,
English,
Library,
and Student
Services) in which those employees within the unit of
review developed recommendations for program improvement.
Reviews were scheduled on a five-year
cycle. The recommendations were followed by a series of
administrative responses by appropriate deans/directors, vice
presidents, and culminating with the president.
More recently, the college applied for a Baldrige
Quality Award. Implementation of the Sterling Navigator
Self-Assessment Survey provided a baseline measurement against
criteria similar to that of the Baldrige categories. The
2003
results revealed that the area in greatest need of
improvement was strategic planning. From this emerged
the system to be described in the following paragraphs.
Ongoing,
Integrated, and Institution-wide Planning Supporting
Accomplishment of Mission and College Goals
The biennial
planning process, approved in April 2004 by the
President's Cabinet, is the current vehicle by which
Hillsborough Community College integrates the Strategic Plan
of the college with tactical action plans across all academic,
administrative, and educational support units.
Development of the college plan begins in the even
numbered academic year (e.g. 2004/05) and by its conclusion
results in an Institutional
Effectiveness Plan summarizing the strategic direction of
the college for the next two academic years (e.g. 2005-06 and
2006-07). The table below displays a timeline of
development and closure of a given biennial plan.
Timeline of Activities Related to
Development and Closure of a Biennial Plan
|
Year |
Planning
& Evaluation Activities |
|
Year One,
even numbered year, e.g. 2004-05 |
Develop biennial
plan |
|
Year
Two |
Implement 1st year
of biennial plan |
|
Year Three,
even numbered year |
Implement
2nd year of biennial plan;
Evaluate
& report progress of 1st year (mid-cycle);
Develop next
biennial plan |
|
Year
Four |
Evaluate
& report progress of 2nd year (final report)
Implement
1st year of new biennial plan |
The Strategic
Plan consists of the institution's mission, vision, and
college goals as derived from mission - all approved by the
Board of Trustees. Renewal of these strategic elements
is preceded by two analyses, one examining internal
performance and the other anticipating external trends and
events. The latter is built from a solicitation of input
from the entire college community. Collectively, these
analyses reveal strengths and weaknesses in performance and
external opportunities and threats.
The Strategic Plan is circulated throughout the
college community and external constituencies for feedback,
after which Cabinet drafts modifications as needed. The
Strategic Plan is forwarded to the Board of Trustees for
approval.
Following Board adoption, all academic (e.g.
Associate of Arts), educational support support (e.g. Financial
Aid), and administrative units (e.g. Facilities)
develop action plans integrated toward directly supporting
fulfillment of college goals as derived from mission.
Development of action plans is facilitated by an online
Planning System (hotlink) requiring the following elements
within each unit plan:
- Identification of the Planning facilitator;
- Unit purpose statement;
- Unit planning process;
- External trends/events and their impact on the
unit (environmental scanning);
- Identification of constituents and their needs;
and
- Unit objectives.
The objectives define the
tactical activities of the unit within a biennial time
frame. The requirements for each objective include some
of the following:
- Identification of the individual(s) responsible
for achievement;
- Target date for achievement;
- Identification of the college goal the
objective supports;
- Identification of expected student
outcomes/criteria of success and means of assessment;
- Strategies for achievement; and
- Identification of financial resources required.
All unit plans must be
completed by conclusion of the fall semester in the even
numbered year (e.g. 2004-05). Subsequently in the spring
semester the budgeting process begins. The sequence of
planning and budgeting allows unit objectives and their
attendant costs (if any) to inform budget development.
Management reports within the Planning System summarize the
costs of the biennial plan. Other reports isolate those
objectives that would require additional funds beyond the
units' base budget. These reports are used by Cabinet to
inform budgeting decisions.
Research-Based Planning and
Evaluation Resulting in Continuous Improvement
Progress toward fulfillment of the college plan is
demonstrated through a variety of channels corresponding to
hierarchical levels of assessment (institutional and
unit). The annual Critical Success Factor document links
the factors and their measures to each college goal (hotlink
to CSF linkage table) providing evidence of the extent to
which outcomes are being achieved. The findings of this
document are presented to Cabinet as they review strategic
direction (mission, vision, college goals).
Progress towards fulfillment of unit plans is
reported annually using the Planning System. Progress is
expressed by attainment of expected student outcomes or
criteria of success defined for each objective as measured by
the means of assessment (e.g. hotlink Opticianry, Student
Services, Finance).
The progress reports include the following
elements per each unit objective:
- Restatement of objective (planning system
automatically displays);
- Restatement of expected student
outcomes/criteria of success (automatically displayed);
- Restatement of means of assessment
(automatically displayed);
- Results of assessment per each criterion of
success;
- Achievement status of the overall objective in
view of assessment results; and
- Statement of how assessment results will be
used for improvement.
Management reports within
the Planning System specifically report progress on the unit
plans sorted by the primary college goal each objective
supports (hotlink).
Incorporation of a Systematic
Review of Programs and Services
The unit planning process provides opportunity for
internal development of strategic direction. The program
review process complements unit planning with an external
perspective in the review of those plans and the quality of
the programs and services. Every academic (e.g. AA,
Industrial
Management), academic support (e.g. X), and administrative
unit (e.g. X) is subject to program
review within a five-year cycle (hotlink to schedule)
barring a specialized external accrediting review within the
same cycle (e.g. Dental Hygiene accreditation).
The review is conducted by a task
force of those outside the unit under review except for
the task force chair (hotlink to task force
composition). The charge of the task force is to
identify strengths, weaknesses and recommendations for
improvement. In particular the task force derives its
recommendations from an examination of data. If the task
force deems the available data insufficient to develop
recommendations, it can elect to supplement this with
additional data gathering (e.g. focus groups, survey,
interviews, etc.).
Subsequent to the final
report of recommendations, the task force chair completes two
progress reports. The first is completed one semester
following the review and the second a year later. Each
report consists of brief statements summarizing the status of
each recommendation (hotlinks). All reports are made
available to the college community by an electronic posting to
public folders (hotlink?).
Recommendations that are not completed within a year
may become "objectives" in the unit plan, thereby ensuring a
continued focus toward their achievement (e.g. hotlink to
example). A field in the online Planning System is
available to show the derivation of objectives from program
review recommendations. | 
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