Our new Strategic Plan is gaining significant traction in many areas. With updated vision and mission statements, our work is increasingly focused. With new statements of values and purpose, our work is increasingly collaborative. Part of our Statement of Purpose highlights our endeavors to support community and economic development. One of our five strategic priorities is a focus on creative partnerships with a strategic direction to expand workforce development efforts. To expand our capacity in workforce development, we recently resourced this area with a new organizational structure and staffing pattern in our Center for Corporate and Community Education (CCED) and found a tremendous return on investment. When layoffs happen or workplace technologies shift, CCED gets creatively nimble. Working closely with our faculty and other experts, CCED delivers credit and non-credit learning opportunities where they're needed most.
In 2007-2008, 6,617 students took non-credit classes - that's about as many as the number who took credit classes at MVCC. About 13% of these students took professional development courses like phlebotomy, computer skills, or other training to upgrade their professional value in the marketplace. Another 23% were enrolled through courses and workshops specific to the workplace through training contracts with local employers (nearly 1,500 workers)! The largest portion of the enrollment (64%) came through registrations in community education - everything from ballroom dancing to swimming to yoga. Even the community education arena has taken a workforce development focus, with the addition of 9 career camps in our College for Kids summer programming.
CCED is intended to operate on a "break-even/no loss" basis. In 2007-08, revenues (including grants and contracts) exceeded $1.2 million with a positive margin over expenses of more than $100,000 to the good - a 13.6% increase over the previous year. The Center maintains more than 50 partnerships and serves as a beacon for our creative partnerships priority. With additional staff and their refined roles and responsibilities, I fully anticipate the role of CCED to grow in significance as we find new and meaningful ways to serve the educational and training needs of our community and business partners. If you have any thoughts on workforce or community development, contact me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Design Team Updates
Last year we created six System Design Teams, comprised of more than sixty faculty and staff, with each team examining a key college service or operational system. Each Team conducted research of best practices and then made bold and thoughtful recommendations to strengthen a number of important functions for us. I've recently heard the question asked, "Whatever happened to all those recommendations?" The answer is short - much has happened and even more will happen. Having all recommendations come together simultaneously last spring “flooded the marketplace” with ideas, leaving us much to consider! Fortunately, everything the Design Teams submitted was integrated into the Strategic Plan and many initiatives are underway based directly on those recommendations. Here’s a brief review.
Student Intake and Student Support
Many of the recommendations from these two Teams greatly informed the changes to the organizational structure last spring. Two full-time academic advisors were hired as part of a larger effort to improve first-year experiences for students. The Testing Center was renovated to allow for more consistent and comprehensive services. New student orientation was greatly enhanced including faculty meeting with new students in their program of interest. The Process Review Team is working on the remainder of the recommendations and sorting through the complexities of implementing a true one-stop model.
Adjunct Faculty Support
An adjunct support coordinator position was created and Susan Smith now fills that role, reporting directly to the VP for Learning and Academic Affairs. An adjunct faculty orientation was held prior to the beginning of fall semester, with more than eighty individuals attending. The remaining recommendations provide an action agenda for the coordinator and academic department heads.
Hiring of New Employees
The Affirmative Action Committee served as the Design Team for this charter and they have continued to refine their recommendations. Their initial findings and suggestions were presented to the Senate and refined before being forwarded to the Cabinet. The Cabinet suggested further refinements, which were communicated to the Senate. The final recommendations will be discussed by the Cabinet in the next few weeks and we'll see subsequent action taken after the first of the year. The focus of these recommendations is to simplify the search process and increase dialogue between the hiring supervisor and the screening committee. The recommendations introduce some very new thinking about how we conduct our search processes. Training opportunities will also be an important action item here.
Staff Development
The recommendations for a staff development system were certainly bold and thoughtful. Although interesting, the specific recommendation requiring twelve hours of annual staff development for full-time employees will not be implemented this year or next. Remaining recommendations will help guide a viable approach to staff development that yields successful and meaningful experiences while avoiding the distractions associated with what is or isn’t included, and how much is or isn't required. The Executive Assistant to the President's position has been eliminated. A new position, Executive Director of Organizational Development, with administrative responsibility for professional development has been created - John Bullis was hired in August for this role. David Katz is on partial release from teaching to serve as Coordinator of Faculty and Staff Development. David is developing and coordinating the New Faculty Institute that has been very well received by participants. Looking forward to next year, the proposed College Calendar has a professional development day identified prior to the start of the fall and spring semesters to provide opportunities for more coordinated and comprehensive staff development offerings. The remainder of the recommendations will be addressed by John, David and the staff development committee.
Employee Recognition
The recommendations for this system combine a refinement and expansion of our employee awards with some additional ideas that I believe will provide a great program of employee recognition for many years to come. The final recommendations are still in discussion at the Cabinet level and I look forward to sharing the final decisions with the College Senate after the first of the year with anticipated implementation next fall.
The results from each of these Design Teams were all worthy of immediate implementation. Although action on some of these recommendations may seem slower than some would prefer, I recognize that any action may seem too fast for others. As a result, I've chosen a more considered path of dialogue and process to increase the likelihood for wider understanding and longer-term success. When the charters were created for these Design Teams, I wasn't looking for quick fixes for systems, as some weren't necessarily broken. I was looking for, and believe we have found, a clear and ambitious path that provides a strategic focus toward improving major systems in an orderly and effective manner.
Let me know if this helped answer the question - "what's happening with all those recommendations anyway?" - presblog@mvcc.edu.
Student Intake and Student Support
Many of the recommendations from these two Teams greatly informed the changes to the organizational structure last spring. Two full-time academic advisors were hired as part of a larger effort to improve first-year experiences for students. The Testing Center was renovated to allow for more consistent and comprehensive services. New student orientation was greatly enhanced including faculty meeting with new students in their program of interest. The Process Review Team is working on the remainder of the recommendations and sorting through the complexities of implementing a true one-stop model.
Adjunct Faculty Support
An adjunct support coordinator position was created and Susan Smith now fills that role, reporting directly to the VP for Learning and Academic Affairs. An adjunct faculty orientation was held prior to the beginning of fall semester, with more than eighty individuals attending. The remaining recommendations provide an action agenda for the coordinator and academic department heads.
Hiring of New Employees
The Affirmative Action Committee served as the Design Team for this charter and they have continued to refine their recommendations. Their initial findings and suggestions were presented to the Senate and refined before being forwarded to the Cabinet. The Cabinet suggested further refinements, which were communicated to the Senate. The final recommendations will be discussed by the Cabinet in the next few weeks and we'll see subsequent action taken after the first of the year. The focus of these recommendations is to simplify the search process and increase dialogue between the hiring supervisor and the screening committee. The recommendations introduce some very new thinking about how we conduct our search processes. Training opportunities will also be an important action item here.
Staff Development
The recommendations for a staff development system were certainly bold and thoughtful. Although interesting, the specific recommendation requiring twelve hours of annual staff development for full-time employees will not be implemented this year or next. Remaining recommendations will help guide a viable approach to staff development that yields successful and meaningful experiences while avoiding the distractions associated with what is or isn’t included, and how much is or isn't required. The Executive Assistant to the President's position has been eliminated. A new position, Executive Director of Organizational Development, with administrative responsibility for professional development has been created - John Bullis was hired in August for this role. David Katz is on partial release from teaching to serve as Coordinator of Faculty and Staff Development. David is developing and coordinating the New Faculty Institute that has been very well received by participants. Looking forward to next year, the proposed College Calendar has a professional development day identified prior to the start of the fall and spring semesters to provide opportunities for more coordinated and comprehensive staff development offerings. The remainder of the recommendations will be addressed by John, David and the staff development committee.
Employee Recognition
The recommendations for this system combine a refinement and expansion of our employee awards with some additional ideas that I believe will provide a great program of employee recognition for many years to come. The final recommendations are still in discussion at the Cabinet level and I look forward to sharing the final decisions with the College Senate after the first of the year with anticipated implementation next fall.
The results from each of these Design Teams were all worthy of immediate implementation. Although action on some of these recommendations may seem slower than some would prefer, I recognize that any action may seem too fast for others. As a result, I've chosen a more considered path of dialogue and process to increase the likelihood for wider understanding and longer-term success. When the charters were created for these Design Teams, I wasn't looking for quick fixes for systems, as some weren't necessarily broken. I was looking for, and believe we have found, a clear and ambitious path that provides a strategic focus toward improving major systems in an orderly and effective manner.
Let me know if this helped answer the question - "what's happening with all those recommendations anyway?" - presblog@mvcc.edu.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Make Today a Masterpiece
To provide me with a change of pace from various readings on leadership and organizational development, a long and fruitful conversation with a respected colleague here led me to "Reflections on Coaching and Life" by John Wooden, the UCLA men's basketball coach whose teams won 10 national titles in 12 years. I expected to get lost in reading about winning in basketball and found the book to be much more about life in general with applications to me as an individual, as well as what I hope to see happen at the College.
My favorite part of the book was a little section where he talked about making each day a masterpiece. Wooden wrote, "Too often we get distracted by what's outside our control. You can't do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So make today a masterpiece. You have control over that" (p. 11). He has a simple rule for making this happen - apply yourself each day to become a little better. If you do that, over time, you'll become a lot better. When I think about all the continuous quality improvement efforts in business and higher education - and their associated complex frameworks...I like Coach Wooden's take on things - just get a little better every day and commit to that over a long period of time and you'll be amazed at what you accomplish. This idea has a great deal of power in its simplicity when I think of our Strategic Plan and how the next five years may unfold for us at MVCC - we just need to work at it each and every day and try to get a little better as we go.
I was also struck by his indirect approach to focusing his teams. He underscored the fact that winning was not their goal - rather, it was a by-product of their primary focus, which was playing well together as a team. I quickly gravitated toward this notion. I don't see increases in enrollment, graduation or retention rate as our primary focus. I see the pursuit of our vision by fulfilling our mission through the animation of our core values as the focus and, like winning ten national championships, all of the other accomplishments and successes are natural by-products from a collective focus on what matters most.
Perhaps inspired by Dr. Eannace in her last post, I'll close with a poem that Coach Wooden inserts from sportswriter Grantland Rice. I think it applies to sports, theatre, work and life in general.
How to be a Champion
You wonder how they do it,
You look to see the knack,
You watch the foot in action,
Or the shoulder or the back.
But when you spot the answer
Where the higher glamours lurk,
You'll find in moving higher
Up the laurel-covered spire,
That most of it is practice,
And the rest of it is work.
As ever, I'd appreciate your thoughts and insights - presblog@mvcc.edu.
My favorite part of the book was a little section where he talked about making each day a masterpiece. Wooden wrote, "Too often we get distracted by what's outside our control. You can't do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So make today a masterpiece. You have control over that" (p. 11). He has a simple rule for making this happen - apply yourself each day to become a little better. If you do that, over time, you'll become a lot better. When I think about all the continuous quality improvement efforts in business and higher education - and their associated complex frameworks...I like Coach Wooden's take on things - just get a little better every day and commit to that over a long period of time and you'll be amazed at what you accomplish. This idea has a great deal of power in its simplicity when I think of our Strategic Plan and how the next five years may unfold for us at MVCC - we just need to work at it each and every day and try to get a little better as we go.
I was also struck by his indirect approach to focusing his teams. He underscored the fact that winning was not their goal - rather, it was a by-product of their primary focus, which was playing well together as a team. I quickly gravitated toward this notion. I don't see increases in enrollment, graduation or retention rate as our primary focus. I see the pursuit of our vision by fulfilling our mission through the animation of our core values as the focus and, like winning ten national championships, all of the other accomplishments and successes are natural by-products from a collective focus on what matters most.
Perhaps inspired by Dr. Eannace in her last post, I'll close with a poem that Coach Wooden inserts from sportswriter Grantland Rice. I think it applies to sports, theatre, work and life in general.
How to be a Champion
You wonder how they do it,
You look to see the knack,
You watch the foot in action,
Or the shoulder or the back.
But when you spot the answer
Where the higher glamours lurk,
You'll find in moving higher
Up the laurel-covered spire,
That most of it is practice,
And the rest of it is work.
As ever, I'd appreciate your thoughts and insights - presblog@mvcc.edu.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Academic Affairs Structure Review
The President’s Think Tank recently encouraged me to write a post with an update on the status of reorganization considerations in the Academic Affairs area. I asked our VP for Learning and Academic Affairs, Dr. Maryrose Eannace, for a sense of where she is in leading the process. Dr. Eannace subsequently provided me with the following, that I think serves as a wonderful perspective on process as well as spirit – I rightly have left it in tact for your review.
---------------------------------------------
EXHORTATION AND INVITATION
A Guest Blog by Dr. Maryrose Eannace
How do we go about re-organizing the Academic Affairs Unit? With the collaborative and creative input of involved community members! With courage, positive anticipation, maybe a frisson of fear and a dose of caution. Alice Walker, in a commencement address to the graduates of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco (May 2002), shared the following Hopi exhortation:
We have been telling the people that this is the
Eleventh Hour
Now we must go back and tell the people this is the
Hour
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The Elders say we must let go of the shore, and
push off and into the river, keep our eyes open, and
our head above the water.
See who is in there with you and Celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth
and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word “struggle” from your attitude and
your vocabulary.
All that you do now must be done in a sacred manner
And in celebration.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for…”
--The Elders, Hopi Nation, Oraibi, Arizona
As quoted in Walker’s We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, New Press 2006.
For the past four months, I have been gathering thoughts, ideas and opinions about effective and exciting potential structures for our Academic Unit from members of our college community, colleagues in the SUNY community college network and many others. A small design group has been busy researching and constructing models of what might work for us. The timeline is pressing, driven by strategic indicators (our vision) and an ever challenging budget (our current realities).
This month and next, I will be holding conversation forums with unit faculty and staff. All interested community members are welcome. The first conversation is scheduled for Monday, November 24th from 12:30-2:00 in IT225 and the second is slated for Thursday, December 4th from 2:30-4:00 at PH300. I am also happy to meet with individuals and groups at other times. The goal during this stage is to generate lists of possibilities that we can craft into workable, effective models for richer academic engagement and strategic goal fulfillment.
In January 2009, we will examine a proposed re-organization model for the Academic Affairs unit, with an expectation of feedback and refinement. By early February, we will be putting budget numbers to the model, with anticipated adjustments based on budget dictates. By March, I would expect to take the proposal to the President’s Cabinet. If all goes well, the Board of Trustees should have the final proposal in hand for their review by April. By May, we should start planning for transition.
Phew! It feels something like a gallop! But I’m inspired by Margaret Wheatley’s exhortations, in her Leadership and the New Science, concerning change and restructuring. She encourages us to “analyze wholeness,” recognizing how change will affect the whole and she suggests that “If we can’t analyze wholeness, how then do we learn to know it?”(140). I delight in her suggestion that appreciating system dynamics and individuals is a “dance of discovery” (143).
As we move forward together, in our ever-changing, ever-responsive college community, I invite you to think about replacing “struggle” with “celebration.” I invite your creativity, your “huzzah moments” (which I define as bigger than an “aha moment” and closer to an epiphany—but less overworked.) I also respectfully suggest that we honor the history that brought us to this strong place of potential and change—and that we not let that history tether us to the banks. “The river has its destination.” We are on our journey together—with our eyes open, our head above water—in celebration of the journey and the destination.
If you have any thoughts on her commentary, you can contact Dr. Eannace at meannace@mvcc.edu.
---------------------------------------------
EXHORTATION AND INVITATION
A Guest Blog by Dr. Maryrose Eannace
How do we go about re-organizing the Academic Affairs Unit? With the collaborative and creative input of involved community members! With courage, positive anticipation, maybe a frisson of fear and a dose of caution. Alice Walker, in a commencement address to the graduates of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco (May 2002), shared the following Hopi exhortation:
We have been telling the people that this is the
Eleventh Hour
Now we must go back and tell the people this is the
Hour
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The Elders say we must let go of the shore, and
push off and into the river, keep our eyes open, and
our head above the water.
See who is in there with you and Celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth
and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word “struggle” from your attitude and
your vocabulary.
All that you do now must be done in a sacred manner
And in celebration.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for…”
--The Elders, Hopi Nation, Oraibi, Arizona
As quoted in Walker’s We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, New Press 2006.
For the past four months, I have been gathering thoughts, ideas and opinions about effective and exciting potential structures for our Academic Unit from members of our college community, colleagues in the SUNY community college network and many others. A small design group has been busy researching and constructing models of what might work for us. The timeline is pressing, driven by strategic indicators (our vision) and an ever challenging budget (our current realities).
This month and next, I will be holding conversation forums with unit faculty and staff. All interested community members are welcome. The first conversation is scheduled for Monday, November 24th from 12:30-2:00 in IT225 and the second is slated for Thursday, December 4th from 2:30-4:00 at PH300. I am also happy to meet with individuals and groups at other times. The goal during this stage is to generate lists of possibilities that we can craft into workable, effective models for richer academic engagement and strategic goal fulfillment.
In January 2009, we will examine a proposed re-organization model for the Academic Affairs unit, with an expectation of feedback and refinement. By early February, we will be putting budget numbers to the model, with anticipated adjustments based on budget dictates. By March, I would expect to take the proposal to the President’s Cabinet. If all goes well, the Board of Trustees should have the final proposal in hand for their review by April. By May, we should start planning for transition.
Phew! It feels something like a gallop! But I’m inspired by Margaret Wheatley’s exhortations, in her Leadership and the New Science, concerning change and restructuring. She encourages us to “analyze wholeness,” recognizing how change will affect the whole and she suggests that “If we can’t analyze wholeness, how then do we learn to know it?”(140). I delight in her suggestion that appreciating system dynamics and individuals is a “dance of discovery” (143).
As we move forward together, in our ever-changing, ever-responsive college community, I invite you to think about replacing “struggle” with “celebration.” I invite your creativity, your “huzzah moments” (which I define as bigger than an “aha moment” and closer to an epiphany—but less overworked.) I also respectfully suggest that we honor the history that brought us to this strong place of potential and change—and that we not let that history tether us to the banks. “The river has its destination.” We are on our journey together—with our eyes open, our head above water—in celebration of the journey and the destination.
If you have any thoughts on her commentary, you can contact Dr. Eannace at meannace@mvcc.edu.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Student Success & Community Involvement
A colleague of mine recently asked me about my blog - "how do you ever find enough to write about every week?” Sometimes it comes from just experiencing all MVCC has to offer. In the past few weeks, I've seen how our mission of promoting student success and community involvement through a commitment to excellence and a spirit of service takes shape beyond our classes.
Cultural Series
I had the opportunity to attend the fall musical, Fantasticks. The hard work of the faculty and students was clear to see in such wonderful performances after just a few weeks of the semester. Last week, I had a chance to join some criminal justice students and faculty to meet New York Times and syndicated writer Randy Cohen prior to his lecture at the Utica Campus. I'm looking forward to meeting Jean Kilbourne when she visits the College this Friday. All of the Cultural Series events are open to the public, many are free while some performances have a small admission fee (usually around $5) and provide our students with outstanding experiences. For more information, visit http://www.mvcc.edu/culture.
Athletic Success
At MVCC, student success and learning happens outside of class in meaningful ways. In addition to the cultural series, our 20 athletic teams provide hundreds of athletes with tremendous learning opportunities. I recently watched our men's and women's cross country track teams qualify for the national competition. Being that this was the first cross country meet I'd ever attended, I was fortunate to have the full experience. I was told that it was a perfect, standard day for a cross country meet in New York - persistent rain, a chilling breeze and about 52 degrees. That didn't stop our teams from qualifying and going on to have the women's team take the national championship and the men's team place second. This past weekend, I watched the men's and women's basketball championship games in the 8th annual Torcia Classic. Both of our teams lost solid leads in the second half, only to learn what it means to never give up and pull together for dramatic victories in both games. In addition to the success they experience in competitions like these, our student athletes are committed to community involvement through volunteering for different fundraisers and participation in community events.
Smarter than a Fifth Grader
A great example of promoting student success and community involvement was the recent “Smarter than a Fifth Grader” competition. WUTR organized the event and MVCC was the presenting partner. Nine finalists along with their adult teammates competed in the 2nd annual event. The questions ranged from geometry to geography, with U.S. presidential trivia and a few Nickelodeon fifth grade pop culture questions mixed in. I confess that several of the questions sometimes gave one pause as to whether or not you actually were smarter than a fifth grader. All of the finalists received laptop computers, an MVCC backpack/carrying case and the winner won a large flat screen television and a two-year full tuition scholarship to MVCC. By the time that scholarship comes due in 2016, I can only imagine all of the ways in which our significant mission will come to life beyond the great things we see today.
Cultural Series
I had the opportunity to attend the fall musical, Fantasticks. The hard work of the faculty and students was clear to see in such wonderful performances after just a few weeks of the semester. Last week, I had a chance to join some criminal justice students and faculty to meet New York Times and syndicated writer Randy Cohen prior to his lecture at the Utica Campus. I'm looking forward to meeting Jean Kilbourne when she visits the College this Friday. All of the Cultural Series events are open to the public, many are free while some performances have a small admission fee (usually around $5) and provide our students with outstanding experiences. For more information, visit http://www.mvcc.edu/culture.
Athletic Success
At MVCC, student success and learning happens outside of class in meaningful ways. In addition to the cultural series, our 20 athletic teams provide hundreds of athletes with tremendous learning opportunities. I recently watched our men's and women's cross country track teams qualify for the national competition. Being that this was the first cross country meet I'd ever attended, I was fortunate to have the full experience. I was told that it was a perfect, standard day for a cross country meet in New York - persistent rain, a chilling breeze and about 52 degrees. That didn't stop our teams from qualifying and going on to have the women's team take the national championship and the men's team place second. This past weekend, I watched the men's and women's basketball championship games in the 8th annual Torcia Classic. Both of our teams lost solid leads in the second half, only to learn what it means to never give up and pull together for dramatic victories in both games. In addition to the success they experience in competitions like these, our student athletes are committed to community involvement through volunteering for different fundraisers and participation in community events.
Smarter than a Fifth Grader
A great example of promoting student success and community involvement was the recent “Smarter than a Fifth Grader” competition. WUTR organized the event and MVCC was the presenting partner. Nine finalists along with their adult teammates competed in the 2nd annual event. The questions ranged from geometry to geography, with U.S. presidential trivia and a few Nickelodeon fifth grade pop culture questions mixed in. I confess that several of the questions sometimes gave one pause as to whether or not you actually were smarter than a fifth grader. All of the finalists received laptop computers, an MVCC backpack/carrying case and the winner won a large flat screen television and a two-year full tuition scholarship to MVCC. By the time that scholarship comes due in 2016, I can only imagine all of the ways in which our significant mission will come to life beyond the great things we see today.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Empowerment and Action
I firmly believe that individuals achieve their greatest successes when they become part of something larger than themselves. I also believe that we achieve our best when we succeed as a community. Community, no matter how you define it (global, national, city, neighborhood, campus), can only succeed if those involved are committed and empowered. Certainly our country’s most recent national elections prove that point.
As I sat in the Commons of the Academic Building earlier this week, trying to encourage others to participate in our mock presidential election, I enjoyed my interaction with students. I also enjoyed the social experiment element, in terms of gaining a window on what motivates people to participate. What are the intellectual and emotional processes that drive individuals to turn toward an unknown direction or untested proposal? Why do some people want to engage in and learn more about new ideas, while others act like they don't hear or see the call to gain their attention? Reflecting on an historic presidential election - the first in fifty years without an incumbent President or Vice President on either ticket - I think about those who chose not to vote; not to engage; not to participate. While tens of millions of Americans fulfilled their obligation to vote last Tuesday, millions of others stayed home.
What is the price that comes from choosing to sit idly while afforded opportunity passes by?
I've been thinking about that question a lot lately, both in terms of the election and in terms of how our faculty and staff engage in the life of the College. If opportunities offered faculty and staff are not engaged, how is the institution’s direction affected? When does the accumulation of missed opportunities lead to institutional stagnation or, worse, willing complacency?
The American Heritage Dictionary definition of empowerment is, "to equip or supply with an ability; to enable." If people don't believe they are empowered, feel empowered or act empowered, how do they move forward? What advantage is there to providing opportunity for engagement if those involved are unable or unwilling to trust the validity of the offer?
Because our mission is so critically important to individual students and our greater community, success or crisis on campus is – or should be - a shared commodity. The triumph or failure of one department should prompt the pride or concern of all. We should all be proud then when, each year, hundreds of smiling associate degree and certificate holders cross our commencement stage on their way to achieving their life goals. In the same breath, we should all be concerned when one student fails to thrive!
As an institution dedicated to the realization of human potential, our sense of connection comes only when we engage in things beyond the j-o-b. This type of engagement comes only through individual empowerment. I recognize that the primary condition that allows individuals, offices, and departments to feel and act empowered is multi-level leadership that understands how to support opportunities that enable. It also requires balance, dialogue, teamwork, and...oh, I almost forgot...time.
I believe MVCC stands at a point of demarcation - a point at which a cultural shift has the opportunity to occur. For that to happen, we all need to nurture it every day we come to work, through actively empowered engagement! I'd appreciate your thoughts on empowerment and the journey ahead. Share your thoughts with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
As I sat in the Commons of the Academic Building earlier this week, trying to encourage others to participate in our mock presidential election, I enjoyed my interaction with students. I also enjoyed the social experiment element, in terms of gaining a window on what motivates people to participate. What are the intellectual and emotional processes that drive individuals to turn toward an unknown direction or untested proposal? Why do some people want to engage in and learn more about new ideas, while others act like they don't hear or see the call to gain their attention? Reflecting on an historic presidential election - the first in fifty years without an incumbent President or Vice President on either ticket - I think about those who chose not to vote; not to engage; not to participate. While tens of millions of Americans fulfilled their obligation to vote last Tuesday, millions of others stayed home.
What is the price that comes from choosing to sit idly while afforded opportunity passes by?
I've been thinking about that question a lot lately, both in terms of the election and in terms of how our faculty and staff engage in the life of the College. If opportunities offered faculty and staff are not engaged, how is the institution’s direction affected? When does the accumulation of missed opportunities lead to institutional stagnation or, worse, willing complacency?
The American Heritage Dictionary definition of empowerment is, "to equip or supply with an ability; to enable." If people don't believe they are empowered, feel empowered or act empowered, how do they move forward? What advantage is there to providing opportunity for engagement if those involved are unable or unwilling to trust the validity of the offer?
Because our mission is so critically important to individual students and our greater community, success or crisis on campus is – or should be - a shared commodity. The triumph or failure of one department should prompt the pride or concern of all. We should all be proud then when, each year, hundreds of smiling associate degree and certificate holders cross our commencement stage on their way to achieving their life goals. In the same breath, we should all be concerned when one student fails to thrive!
As an institution dedicated to the realization of human potential, our sense of connection comes only when we engage in things beyond the j-o-b. This type of engagement comes only through individual empowerment. I recognize that the primary condition that allows individuals, offices, and departments to feel and act empowered is multi-level leadership that understands how to support opportunities that enable. It also requires balance, dialogue, teamwork, and...oh, I almost forgot...time.
I believe MVCC stands at a point of demarcation - a point at which a cultural shift has the opportunity to occur. For that to happen, we all need to nurture it every day we come to work, through actively empowered engagement! I'd appreciate your thoughts on empowerment and the journey ahead. Share your thoughts with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Building the Brand
Brand. We all know it when we see it. The curved checkmark embraced and modified by Nike to now be known as the “swoosh.” The white script on red background that will always spell out Coca-Cola. The team of draft horses and catchy jingle that for years represented Budweiser (and still does at holiday time). Think about where and when you’ve seen these brands – and in what context – and you are likely reflecting on the process of integrated marketing.
The American Marketing Association defines integrated marketing as “a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time” (Brand is defined as a product's attributes — name, appearance, reputation, and so on — taken collectively and abstractly).
Integrated marketing begins with branding. While we can relate visually to Nike’s swoosh, we are also relating subliminally to all the characteristics that the swoosh represents – physical fitness, excellent athletic apparel, exceptional sports performance are just a few. These are the attributes of Nike’s brand, and consumers expect these attributes and a lot more every time they come in contact with Nike marketing, such as purchasing a Nike product, watching a Nike-sponsored sporting event, or hearing from an athlete who endorses Nike apparel.
If we were to define a brand for MVCC, what attributes would be included? Excellent education? Friendly and welcoming atmosphere? Convenience and flexibility? What would our brand look like? Tea leaves? A hawk? What would our brand promise be?
The college’s Marketing and Communications department, with my support, will be conducting focus groups across the college, to collect faculty, staff and student opinions on branding, through an exercise known as the Brand Platform. The Brand Platform is a five-step process designed to elicit our best thinking about brand purpose, values, positioning, personality and promise. Working with many of the current college committees, we will try to survey as many of you as possible so that our brand development is as informed as it can be. Our goal is to complete the surveying process by December, so that branding – the first step in achieving truly integrated marketing – can be developed and finalized during the spring.
I know many of you have clear opinions on what the college should represent to our students, and what it should not. Please share your answers to the questions above by emailing me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
The American Marketing Association defines integrated marketing as “a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time” (Brand is defined as a product's attributes — name, appearance, reputation, and so on — taken collectively and abstractly).
Integrated marketing begins with branding. While we can relate visually to Nike’s swoosh, we are also relating subliminally to all the characteristics that the swoosh represents – physical fitness, excellent athletic apparel, exceptional sports performance are just a few. These are the attributes of Nike’s brand, and consumers expect these attributes and a lot more every time they come in contact with Nike marketing, such as purchasing a Nike product, watching a Nike-sponsored sporting event, or hearing from an athlete who endorses Nike apparel.
If we were to define a brand for MVCC, what attributes would be included? Excellent education? Friendly and welcoming atmosphere? Convenience and flexibility? What would our brand look like? Tea leaves? A hawk? What would our brand promise be?
The college’s Marketing and Communications department, with my support, will be conducting focus groups across the college, to collect faculty, staff and student opinions on branding, through an exercise known as the Brand Platform. The Brand Platform is a five-step process designed to elicit our best thinking about brand purpose, values, positioning, personality and promise. Working with many of the current college committees, we will try to survey as many of you as possible so that our brand development is as informed as it can be. Our goal is to complete the surveying process by December, so that branding – the first step in achieving truly integrated marketing – can be developed and finalized during the spring.
I know many of you have clear opinions on what the college should represent to our students, and what it should not. Please share your answers to the questions above by emailing me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Beyond Doing More with Less
I recently attended the fall colloquium of the Strategic Horizon Network, along with faculty and staff from the College and teams from 13 other Network community colleges. We spent the better part of the last three days in Ann Arbor and enjoyed dynamic presentations from a University of Michigan professor, a newly minted Ph.D. graduate who shared his dissertation findings, the CEO of Menlo Innovations - a very creative software development company - and a leader from the Ann Arbor office of Google. We also took "behind the scenes" tours of Borders, Whole Foods, Menlo Innovations and Zingerman's Deli, which is internationally known for its customer service training programs. The primary purpose of the Colloquium was to provide the college teams an opportunity to look beyond our "academic cultures" and peek into other organizations to see what we might learn about making our community colleges, as organizations, stronger for the ever-changing future that awaits us.
A few common themes emerged from all of the presentations, tours and small group conversations. Much of the discussion centered on employee empowerment and how healthy and vibrant cultures inspire people to work better together, replacing the vicious circles of negativity with a virtuous circle of positivity. All of that positivity can increase organizational capacity to do more...and that might quickly take one to the notion of “doing more with less.” With the implications of the financial meltdown in this country still yet to be revealed, "doing more with less" could easily be a rallying cry. Fortunately, that phrase was never once mentioned in the three days of the Colloquium. Instead, we were given some tools and insights to think about our places of work through a different lens.
I will likely blog in the future about some of the learning from the past few days, as it sinks in and I have more time to reflect. However, some early thoughts for me really reinforce some important reminders. Multiple speakers emphasized the notion that today’s workplace requires spending as many of our waking hours at work as we do at home. They challenged us to think about our places of work and to think about how we live while we work – in our world, this can translate to how we treat each other and our students, and in turn, how they treat us. Other common elements were to challenge long-held beliefs by asking questions and be willing to experiment more - a practice embraced by the CEO of Menlo Innovations, who often referenced Thomas Edison as he described how he re-invented his company’s work environment. It made me think about how often we try to "pilot" new ideas in a very traditional sense and how much more fun and rewarding it might be if we were to think of those pilot efforts as "experiments."
Throughout all the conceptual models, quotes and insights, my favorite and perhaps most challenging “take-away” was that of how to increase organizational capacity. How do we make our workplace more effective for those who access our programs and services and more enjoyable for those who work there? In other words, how do we do more of what works and less of what doesn't. I'd welcome any thoughts you have on helping MVCC do more of what works and less of what doesn't - email me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
A few common themes emerged from all of the presentations, tours and small group conversations. Much of the discussion centered on employee empowerment and how healthy and vibrant cultures inspire people to work better together, replacing the vicious circles of negativity with a virtuous circle of positivity. All of that positivity can increase organizational capacity to do more...and that might quickly take one to the notion of “doing more with less.” With the implications of the financial meltdown in this country still yet to be revealed, "doing more with less" could easily be a rallying cry. Fortunately, that phrase was never once mentioned in the three days of the Colloquium. Instead, we were given some tools and insights to think about our places of work through a different lens.
I will likely blog in the future about some of the learning from the past few days, as it sinks in and I have more time to reflect. However, some early thoughts for me really reinforce some important reminders. Multiple speakers emphasized the notion that today’s workplace requires spending as many of our waking hours at work as we do at home. They challenged us to think about our places of work and to think about how we live while we work – in our world, this can translate to how we treat each other and our students, and in turn, how they treat us. Other common elements were to challenge long-held beliefs by asking questions and be willing to experiment more - a practice embraced by the CEO of Menlo Innovations, who often referenced Thomas Edison as he described how he re-invented his company’s work environment. It made me think about how often we try to "pilot" new ideas in a very traditional sense and how much more fun and rewarding it might be if we were to think of those pilot efforts as "experiments."
Throughout all the conceptual models, quotes and insights, my favorite and perhaps most challenging “take-away” was that of how to increase organizational capacity. How do we make our workplace more effective for those who access our programs and services and more enjoyable for those who work there? In other words, how do we do more of what works and less of what doesn't. I'd welcome any thoughts you have on helping MVCC do more of what works and less of what doesn't - email me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Silent Epidemic - student failure
I recently had the good fortune of attending the Governor's Student Engagement and Dropout Prevention Summit. It was very interesting for me to attend, since just a few days before, I listened to a lively College Senate discussion focused on underprepared students. The nexus for me in all of this is that there are some significant alterations in what is happening to our youth and to education overall. We have two overwhelming forces at play - numbing figures of high school dropouts coupled with staggering figures of college students in remedial/college prep courses because they are not prepared for college-level work.
At the Summit, I learned about how important the calculation of high school dropouts can be. For many years, the rate was focused on how many 12th graders started their senior year and how many graduated. More recently however, the standard calculation considers those that dropped out of high school in 11th, 10th, and the even larger numbers seen dropping out in 9th grade - 9th grade! You can learn more than you want to know about this topic by a simple Google search on "the silent epidemic." I was also intrigued by the statement "the normalization of failure" made by our amazing keynote speaker, Dr. Pedro Noguera, from NYU, as he spoke about how schools (and colleges) plan for a "certain number" of students in each grade (or class) to dropout. His remarks provided the many ways in which we as educators have tried to ignore, or at least explain away, this disturbing trend of student failure in this country and this state.
We can cite all the data we want - the financial impact of educational attainment - High school dropout average salary - $17,299; High school diploma - $26,933; Associate's degree - $36,645; and Bachelor's degree - $52,671 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005) and we still can't make the point. Rather a focus on the financial advantages of education to a student’s future does not seem to effectively counteract student perceptions about school. The message that I heard from a student panel at the Summit is that education is not relevant. Indeed, the “Silent Epidemic” report tells us that nearly half of the high school drop-outs surveyed found their classes boring and an even greater percentage—69%--said that they were unmotivated and uninspired at school. It seems to me that as adults we fail to fully comprehend the implications of the exponential ways in which students have changed in their ways of thinking, their comfort with technology, and their methods of interacting with us and their peers. We are so busy trying to “tell” students that education is relevant that we are not spending enough time “showing them.” The study suggests that more experiential learning opportunities—internships, job shadowing, and service learning activities, which help to demonstrate the applicability of learning--may be effective ways to offset that perception.
At the College Senate meeting last week, everyone received a copy of the Diploma to Nowhere report. I've included a link to the website here, with links to the executive summary and full, 17-page report. http://www.edin08.com/diplomatonowhere.aspx. As educators at the College level, community college faculty and staff are growing increasingly frustrated by the challenges associated with increasingly high numbers of students needing remediation before enrolling in college-level courses. It's not that community colleges aren't used to or capable of helping students address deficiencies. We've helped those returning adults who have been out of the classroom for years. However, the issues seem to be deeper and more complex than they've ever been. Our frustration is combined with that of our students, who thought their diploma would qualify them for college. We share in their frustration in federal and state financial aid policies that place limits on students' abilities to afford these developmental/college-prep classes, leaving students in a hurry to get these classes over with so they can get on with what they think they came for - "college."
Addressing the needs of underprepared students and the curriculum they learn is a key initiative in our Strategic Plan. In addition, we will do a better job of communicating with our partner school districts to provide them with better information about what college-level work looks like. Attending the Summit and listening to the Senate conversation, I'm left wrestling with some very tough questions - To what extent have we normalized failure? How different are we than the high schools? If the students are bored in high school classrooms, how bored are they in ours? The high performing high schools - those large urban schools in high poverty areas that achieve 90%+ graduation rates - that buck the trend do so by focusing on what works. We know that schools (and colleges) that focus on rigor, relevance and relationships create environments that promote and produce student success in ways less focused schools (and colleges) can even dream. How can we organize our efforts around simultaneously maintaining and/or increasing rigor, relevance and relationships for the benefit of our students?
I'd appreciate your thoughts and insights. You can share them with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
At the Summit, I learned about how important the calculation of high school dropouts can be. For many years, the rate was focused on how many 12th graders started their senior year and how many graduated. More recently however, the standard calculation considers those that dropped out of high school in 11th, 10th, and the even larger numbers seen dropping out in 9th grade - 9th grade! You can learn more than you want to know about this topic by a simple Google search on "the silent epidemic." I was also intrigued by the statement "the normalization of failure" made by our amazing keynote speaker, Dr. Pedro Noguera, from NYU, as he spoke about how schools (and colleges) plan for a "certain number" of students in each grade (or class) to dropout. His remarks provided the many ways in which we as educators have tried to ignore, or at least explain away, this disturbing trend of student failure in this country and this state.
We can cite all the data we want - the financial impact of educational attainment - High school dropout average salary - $17,299; High school diploma - $26,933; Associate's degree - $36,645; and Bachelor's degree - $52,671 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005) and we still can't make the point. Rather a focus on the financial advantages of education to a student’s future does not seem to effectively counteract student perceptions about school. The message that I heard from a student panel at the Summit is that education is not relevant. Indeed, the “Silent Epidemic” report tells us that nearly half of the high school drop-outs surveyed found their classes boring and an even greater percentage—69%--said that they were unmotivated and uninspired at school. It seems to me that as adults we fail to fully comprehend the implications of the exponential ways in which students have changed in their ways of thinking, their comfort with technology, and their methods of interacting with us and their peers. We are so busy trying to “tell” students that education is relevant that we are not spending enough time “showing them.” The study suggests that more experiential learning opportunities—internships, job shadowing, and service learning activities, which help to demonstrate the applicability of learning--may be effective ways to offset that perception.
At the College Senate meeting last week, everyone received a copy of the Diploma to Nowhere report. I've included a link to the website here, with links to the executive summary and full, 17-page report. http://www.edin08.com/diplomatonowhere.aspx. As educators at the College level, community college faculty and staff are growing increasingly frustrated by the challenges associated with increasingly high numbers of students needing remediation before enrolling in college-level courses. It's not that community colleges aren't used to or capable of helping students address deficiencies. We've helped those returning adults who have been out of the classroom for years. However, the issues seem to be deeper and more complex than they've ever been. Our frustration is combined with that of our students, who thought their diploma would qualify them for college. We share in their frustration in federal and state financial aid policies that place limits on students' abilities to afford these developmental/college-prep classes, leaving students in a hurry to get these classes over with so they can get on with what they think they came for - "college."
Addressing the needs of underprepared students and the curriculum they learn is a key initiative in our Strategic Plan. In addition, we will do a better job of communicating with our partner school districts to provide them with better information about what college-level work looks like. Attending the Summit and listening to the Senate conversation, I'm left wrestling with some very tough questions - To what extent have we normalized failure? How different are we than the high schools? If the students are bored in high school classrooms, how bored are they in ours? The high performing high schools - those large urban schools in high poverty areas that achieve 90%+ graduation rates - that buck the trend do so by focusing on what works. We know that schools (and colleges) that focus on rigor, relevance and relationships create environments that promote and produce student success in ways less focused schools (and colleges) can even dream. How can we organize our efforts around simultaneously maintaining and/or increasing rigor, relevance and relationships for the benefit of our students?
I'd appreciate your thoughts and insights. You can share them with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Waiting on the World to Change
This past week Dick Alfred and Pat Carter from the Strategic Horizon Network visited the College. They spent a morning with the Board of Trustees before separate meetings with the College Senate, Strategic Planning Committee/President's Think Tank and the President's Cabinet. I found their visit very thought-provoking, as their presentations and the conversation they initiated prompted questions and reflections on where we are as a college. I wanted to share some of my own observations here in this post.
We have a very good Strategic Plan. However, it's different than anything the College had previously, and as an institution we seem to be tentative in bringing it to life. The Plan has a number of far-reaching directions and aggressive initiatives that may leave people asking the question, "Where do we start?" It's as though some of us are waiting on the world to change for us -- passively observing -- without recognizing the empowerment that results naturally from committing to and immersing ourselves in the dialogue, action and process of change.
Dick and Pat also challenged us to take the nice sounding words from the Strategic Plan and be sure we develop shared meaning for them - what do we mean by valuing learning, accessibility, collaboration, excellence, diversity, affordability and integrity? They also mentioned the greatest barriers they've seen for community colleges to overcome are a sense of entitlement among employees and a lack of strategic thinking throughout the organization. To overcome them and reach our fullest potential, we need to answer the question, "Do we want to survive or thrive?" Surviving is easy - putting your head down, doing your job and staying off the radar screen. Thriving takes work - jumping into "the too hard to do box" and bringing meaning, value, and yes, life to those pretty words in the Strategic Plan. Thriving will require the development of a collective will to advance our mission by truly working together. We must change the question from what's in it for me? to what's in it for our students? for our community?
Changing the questions we ask can be a powerful tool. Dick and Pat's visit made me think that I need to clarify something along those lines. With all the changes occurring around us, I don't think the main question is how will we change, but how will we evolve? Saying we need to change can imply something is broken or was done wrong in the past. Rather, I believe we need to evolve and move along a natural, strategic path with our vision, values, mission and purpose as our guide. We have a great Strategic Plan with some lofty goals. I'd rather accomplish 80% of lofty goals than 100% of easy goals. It's the difference between saying "it may be possible, but it's too difficult" and saying, "it may be difficult, but it's possible."
These are some of my reflections; share yours with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
We have a very good Strategic Plan. However, it's different than anything the College had previously, and as an institution we seem to be tentative in bringing it to life. The Plan has a number of far-reaching directions and aggressive initiatives that may leave people asking the question, "Where do we start?" It's as though some of us are waiting on the world to change for us -- passively observing -- without recognizing the empowerment that results naturally from committing to and immersing ourselves in the dialogue, action and process of change.
Dick and Pat also challenged us to take the nice sounding words from the Strategic Plan and be sure we develop shared meaning for them - what do we mean by valuing learning, accessibility, collaboration, excellence, diversity, affordability and integrity? They also mentioned the greatest barriers they've seen for community colleges to overcome are a sense of entitlement among employees and a lack of strategic thinking throughout the organization. To overcome them and reach our fullest potential, we need to answer the question, "Do we want to survive or thrive?" Surviving is easy - putting your head down, doing your job and staying off the radar screen. Thriving takes work - jumping into "the too hard to do box" and bringing meaning, value, and yes, life to those pretty words in the Strategic Plan. Thriving will require the development of a collective will to advance our mission by truly working together. We must change the question from what's in it for me? to what's in it for our students? for our community?
Changing the questions we ask can be a powerful tool. Dick and Pat's visit made me think that I need to clarify something along those lines. With all the changes occurring around us, I don't think the main question is how will we change, but how will we evolve? Saying we need to change can imply something is broken or was done wrong in the past. Rather, I believe we need to evolve and move along a natural, strategic path with our vision, values, mission and purpose as our guide. We have a great Strategic Plan with some lofty goals. I'd rather accomplish 80% of lofty goals than 100% of easy goals. It's the difference between saying "it may be possible, but it's too difficult" and saying, "it may be difficult, but it's possible."
These are some of my reflections; share yours with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Understanding Transfer Success
Over the past week, I heard from people who have had very similar experiences as I did attending a community college - MVCC or any of the other 1,200 community colleges around the country. The incredibly supportive environment most community colleges offer can result in success students might not have dreamed possible. I firmly believe the academic success I experienced my freshman year at a community college was not because the classes were easier than classes I took at the university – rather, the academic standards were just as high as at a university, but a more supportive learning environment allowed me to explore and thrive.
Similar to maintaining high standards, the objectives of the community classes had to be the same as the university classes for my classes to transfer. The same is true here at Mohawk Valley Community College, as our faculty and staff work with faculty and staff from our university partners to align the curriculum and create transfer articulation agreements. These pathways are the key to opportunity for students who start at MVCC and transfer. I've spoken to students (or parents of students) who have transferred to our closest partners like SUNY-IT, Utica College, SUNY Oneonta or Clarkson, or to four-year institutions that review our courses on a course-by-course basis like Temple, NYU or Boston College. These students, and their parents, routinely report not only success in the transfer process, but academic readiness for their continued study, thanks to the preparation they received at MVCC.”
Across the country, community college students who transfer to a four-year college or university regularly achieve grade point averages after transfer equal to or greater than students who start at the four-year schools. The tradition of the transfer success of our students is a great foundation upon which to build and our new Strategic Plan calls for us to expand our transfer agreements with four-year colleges and universities. The State University of New York (SUNY) has begun a more aggressive transfer initiative throughout the 64 campuses. However, we can't wait for a larger system to come together in ways it hasn't in 60 years - we're taking our own actions to create even more opportunities for MVCC students to transfer to four-year schools and experience success they may not have even known was possible.
If you have any thoughts on how we can improve our transfer programs for students, please share them with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Similar to maintaining high standards, the objectives of the community classes had to be the same as the university classes for my classes to transfer. The same is true here at Mohawk Valley Community College, as our faculty and staff work with faculty and staff from our university partners to align the curriculum and create transfer articulation agreements. These pathways are the key to opportunity for students who start at MVCC and transfer. I've spoken to students (or parents of students) who have transferred to our closest partners like SUNY-IT, Utica College, SUNY Oneonta or Clarkson, or to four-year institutions that review our courses on a course-by-course basis like Temple, NYU or Boston College. These students, and their parents, routinely report not only success in the transfer process, but academic readiness for their continued study, thanks to the preparation they received at MVCC.”
Across the country, community college students who transfer to a four-year college or university regularly achieve grade point averages after transfer equal to or greater than students who start at the four-year schools. The tradition of the transfer success of our students is a great foundation upon which to build and our new Strategic Plan calls for us to expand our transfer agreements with four-year colleges and universities. The State University of New York (SUNY) has begun a more aggressive transfer initiative throughout the 64 campuses. However, we can't wait for a larger system to come together in ways it hasn't in 60 years - we're taking our own actions to create even more opportunities for MVCC students to transfer to four-year schools and experience success they may not have even known was possible.
If you have any thoughts on how we can improve our transfer programs for students, please share them with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A Great Place to Start
I recently read an article about a significant jump in students completing their GED and the fact that a large percentage of them indicated that the main reason for taking the GED was a "dissatisfaction with high school." This reminded me of my own high school experience - it was good, I guess. I was fortunate to have nice teachers and we took pride in our district. The top students in our class went to Brown, Swarthmore, Michigan, and other highly regarded schools. But I look back on that experience and think of myself as fairly disengaged, with my share of study halls my senior year. Unlike some of my friends, I lacked a laser focus on preparing for college and ended up falling short of graduating in the top 10% of my class of 265. Yet years later, I found myself walking across the stage in Crisler Arena, accepting a doctoral degree from the number one ranked higher education administration program in the country at The University of Michigan. I connect those two experiences with one decision upon high school graduation - to attend Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, 18 miles from my home where I found confidence and direction.
The selling points for me were that the classes were smaller; instruction would come from those that were actually teaching the class, not from a graduate student working for a 'teacher of record'; the campus was small enough that I wasn't intimidated; the price was right; and most importantly, I knew all my classes would transfer to one of five universities that had good reputations and programs. I came to find truth in their advertising. Some of my classes were smaller than what I had in high school, so it was easy to participate in class discussions and I felt comfortable - perhaps for the first time - with learning. My English instructor was able to transfer his passion for the art of "word choice" to me; my history professor introduced me to the importance of asking "why" things happen instead of just memorizing the "what"; and my psychology instructor taught me the meaning of academic standards when she gave me a B (that I earned) when I was expecting an A.
The final highlight to my community college experience was when all 31 of my credits transferred to the university of my choice. I finished my Bachelor's degree three years later and when I found my laser focus on a career, it was aimed squarely at the very environment that gave me such a good start. If a community college was that special a place to me as a student, I reasoned, it was likely to be a special place to work. Looking back I never imagined how true that could be. Having worked in community colleges in three other states, I now know why more than 50% of all students enrolled in college in this country are enrolled in community colleges. All of the outstanding characteristics that drew me into a community college classroom are evident here at MVCC - making it a great place to begin...or begin again.
You can share your reactions and reflections with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
The selling points for me were that the classes were smaller; instruction would come from those that were actually teaching the class, not from a graduate student working for a 'teacher of record'; the campus was small enough that I wasn't intimidated; the price was right; and most importantly, I knew all my classes would transfer to one of five universities that had good reputations and programs. I came to find truth in their advertising. Some of my classes were smaller than what I had in high school, so it was easy to participate in class discussions and I felt comfortable - perhaps for the first time - with learning. My English instructor was able to transfer his passion for the art of "word choice" to me; my history professor introduced me to the importance of asking "why" things happen instead of just memorizing the "what"; and my psychology instructor taught me the meaning of academic standards when she gave me a B (that I earned) when I was expecting an A.
The final highlight to my community college experience was when all 31 of my credits transferred to the university of my choice. I finished my Bachelor's degree three years later and when I found my laser focus on a career, it was aimed squarely at the very environment that gave me such a good start. If a community college was that special a place to me as a student, I reasoned, it was likely to be a special place to work. Looking back I never imagined how true that could be. Having worked in community colleges in three other states, I now know why more than 50% of all students enrolled in college in this country are enrolled in community colleges. All of the outstanding characteristics that drew me into a community college classroom are evident here at MVCC - making it a great place to begin...or begin again.
You can share your reactions and reflections with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Strategic Horizon
The future is now and things are changing. We need to change, but we are an organization of more than 400 full-time faculty and staff and hundreds more adjunct faculty and part-time staff. How do we develop the capacity and the will to change, and keep changing, to remain relevant? The short answer is any way we can. A longer answer would involve multiple strategies and one of those is joining the Strategic Horizon Network - a collaboration of 15 community colleges from around the country. MVCC recently joined the Strategic Horizon Network as a community college interested in preparing itself for a complex current day and an ever-changing and emerging future.
The Network is coordinated and facilitated by Dr. Richard Alfred and Patricia Carter from the Center for Community College Development in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The presidents of the network colleges work with the facilitators to provide direction and determine the organizational curriculum and priorities for the Network. One of the important emphases of the Network is that leadership exists throughout the college. Twice a year the colleges bring teams (usually around 5-7 staff and faculty) for a colloquium event in addition to optional learning site visits. Two are being proposed for 2009: one with the National Coalition Building Institute (that focuses on building capacity through inclusivity) and one for faculty to preview research being done by Network college faculty on alternatives to textbooks using public domain sources. I would characterize the colloquia and site visits as common learning through uncommon experiences.
For example, in June the Colloquium was in Annapolis, Maryland and focused on Entrepreneurship and the ways community colleges can become more entrepreneurial and help their communities become more entrepreneurial - that was the common learning part. The uncommon part was the fact that we heard from a very funny economist (seriously) and experienced a behind the scenes tour of a defense industry leader and learned about many of their entrepreneurial strategies to prepare their organization for the future. We then had an opportunity for our college teams to process our experiences and have some conversation about what we saw and heard and the implications for our colleges. In the past, the colleges have learned about strategic human resources practices by visiting the headquarters of a major airline and customer service with a behind the scenes experience at the headquarters of a major hotel chain in addition to many other remarkable experiences. The fall colloquium will take our team to Ann Arbor to hear from leading academics in the University of Michigan Business School about abundance theory and positive organizational psychology with site visits to businesses and organizations putting those theories and ideas into practice.
On October 1st and 2nd, Richard Alfred and Pat Carter will visit the College to join the MVCC Board of Trustees in a workshop before meeting with members of the College Senate, followed by time with the Strategic Planning Committee and finally with the President's Cabinet. The intent of their visit is to help them get to know us and us to know them. They will likely prompt many conversations that we have yet to have here. Our time with them and our participation in the Strategic Horizon Network will likely surface glimpses of our own collective strategic horizon and help us reflect on new ways of thinking that will allow us to serve our students and community in significantly new and different ways.
Please share your thoughts with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
The Network is coordinated and facilitated by Dr. Richard Alfred and Patricia Carter from the Center for Community College Development in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The presidents of the network colleges work with the facilitators to provide direction and determine the organizational curriculum and priorities for the Network. One of the important emphases of the Network is that leadership exists throughout the college. Twice a year the colleges bring teams (usually around 5-7 staff and faculty) for a colloquium event in addition to optional learning site visits. Two are being proposed for 2009: one with the National Coalition Building Institute (that focuses on building capacity through inclusivity) and one for faculty to preview research being done by Network college faculty on alternatives to textbooks using public domain sources. I would characterize the colloquia and site visits as common learning through uncommon experiences.
For example, in June the Colloquium was in Annapolis, Maryland and focused on Entrepreneurship and the ways community colleges can become more entrepreneurial and help their communities become more entrepreneurial - that was the common learning part. The uncommon part was the fact that we heard from a very funny economist (seriously) and experienced a behind the scenes tour of a defense industry leader and learned about many of their entrepreneurial strategies to prepare their organization for the future. We then had an opportunity for our college teams to process our experiences and have some conversation about what we saw and heard and the implications for our colleges. In the past, the colleges have learned about strategic human resources practices by visiting the headquarters of a major airline and customer service with a behind the scenes experience at the headquarters of a major hotel chain in addition to many other remarkable experiences. The fall colloquium will take our team to Ann Arbor to hear from leading academics in the University of Michigan Business School about abundance theory and positive organizational psychology with site visits to businesses and organizations putting those theories and ideas into practice.
On October 1st and 2nd, Richard Alfred and Pat Carter will visit the College to join the MVCC Board of Trustees in a workshop before meeting with members of the College Senate, followed by time with the Strategic Planning Committee and finally with the President's Cabinet. The intent of their visit is to help them get to know us and us to know them. They will likely prompt many conversations that we have yet to have here. Our time with them and our participation in the Strategic Horizon Network will likely surface glimpses of our own collective strategic horizon and help us reflect on new ways of thinking that will allow us to serve our students and community in significantly new and different ways.
Please share your thoughts with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Rethinking Workplace Success
I have the good fortune of frequently talking with employers about their workforce needs and how MVCC might better support their operations - educating and training the workers of today and tomorrow. There is an apparent trend that parallels my experience with businesses in Omaha and it reflects a significant shift in today's workplace. I often ask employers for the most essential skills their entry level workers (likely those with associate degrees, certificates or less) should have to be successful. What comes to mind for you? Computer skills? Teamwork? Problem solving? Critical thinking? Appreciation of diversity? That's what I used to think. However, over the past five years, I've found that businesses share a troubling challenge of finding workers with newly defined essential skills and are having to rethink workplace success. The top five essential skills that too many new hires are lacking are often 1. Punctuality (just get me someone to show up consistently on time!); 2. Basic customer service (there's more to it than people think); 3. Respect for others (before we even talk teamwork...); 4. Positive attitude and a desire to learn (wet blankets need not apply); and 5. Professionalism (appearance, ethics, language, etc.). One employer said, "These are things so many of us used to learn in the home - but the needs are so pervasive, we can’t afford to ignore the fact that so many people lack these skills.”
Couple this revelation with the facts about the workforce in Oneida County. "After declining gradually from 2004 through 2006, the county's unemployment rate has climbed incrementally to 5.1% in May 2008, though it remains only slightly below that of the state and still below the national figure. Consistent with the upstate New York region, income levels in the county remain below average, and market value per capita is weak at $39,660" (http://www.pr-inside.com/fitch-rates-oneida-county-new-york-r754736.htm). Five percent unemployment used to mean "unemployable" and with plenty of workers, that was okay. As baby boomers begin to retire, our economy will need everyone and anyone who has the potential to enter the workforce to do so - and MVCC is the logical solution to connect workers and employers. With leadership from our Center for Corporate and Community Education (CCED) and our Humanities department, MVCC is launching a short-term workplace success program. Employability skills, customer service skills and communication, math and technology for the workplace can all be coupled with short-term training to quickly solidify the essential skills necessary for workplace success.
In addition, the average income level demonstrates that we likely have a number of people underemployed. When higher paying jobs surface in the area - nanotech or those already in development, such as expansion of the worker pool at DFAS in Rome - many people will need to be retrained. This retraining will require us to more intentionally provide courses and support services that meet the needs of working adults. Traditional concepts of curriculum content may need to evolve. In addition, we'll have to increase our efforts to strategically expand our transfer articulation agreements with SUNY-IT, Utica College, SUNY-Morrisville and others to maximize opportunities for our students. As these people move into higher paying jobs, local businesses will likely need more workers to backfill the vacancies. This is where our new workplace success curriculum will serve as the starting point for so many individuals. It's a flexible curriculum that can be offered in many ways to the myriad cohorts that will benefit from the fundamental success skills in the course objectives. The workplace success program is one of the many ways in which MVCC is addressing complex needs in our community with clear and relevant programs and services.
What do you think? Have you seen or heard about any of these same issues? Let me know at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Couple this revelation with the facts about the workforce in Oneida County. "After declining gradually from 2004 through 2006, the county's unemployment rate has climbed incrementally to 5.1% in May 2008, though it remains only slightly below that of the state and still below the national figure. Consistent with the upstate New York region, income levels in the county remain below average, and market value per capita is weak at $39,660" (http://www.pr-inside.com/fitch-rates-oneida-county-new-york-r754736.htm). Five percent unemployment used to mean "unemployable" and with plenty of workers, that was okay. As baby boomers begin to retire, our economy will need everyone and anyone who has the potential to enter the workforce to do so - and MVCC is the logical solution to connect workers and employers. With leadership from our Center for Corporate and Community Education (CCED) and our Humanities department, MVCC is launching a short-term workplace success program. Employability skills, customer service skills and communication, math and technology for the workplace can all be coupled with short-term training to quickly solidify the essential skills necessary for workplace success.
In addition, the average income level demonstrates that we likely have a number of people underemployed. When higher paying jobs surface in the area - nanotech or those already in development, such as expansion of the worker pool at DFAS in Rome - many people will need to be retrained. This retraining will require us to more intentionally provide courses and support services that meet the needs of working adults. Traditional concepts of curriculum content may need to evolve. In addition, we'll have to increase our efforts to strategically expand our transfer articulation agreements with SUNY-IT, Utica College, SUNY-Morrisville and others to maximize opportunities for our students. As these people move into higher paying jobs, local businesses will likely need more workers to backfill the vacancies. This is where our new workplace success curriculum will serve as the starting point for so many individuals. It's a flexible curriculum that can be offered in many ways to the myriad cohorts that will benefit from the fundamental success skills in the course objectives. The workplace success program is one of the many ways in which MVCC is addressing complex needs in our community with clear and relevant programs and services.
What do you think? Have you seen or heard about any of these same issues? Let me know at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Color My World
The first week of classes – what a glorious time at a community college. Students, both new and returning to the institution, rushing everywhere, caught in the tumult and trepidation of new beginnings. Faculty and staff energized and focused. A campus refreshed by new landscaping, new furniture, clean classrooms, fresh paint…
Ah, paint. Watching the email threads that dotted our inboxes during the first week of classes concerning the new paint scheme in the MV Commons Snack Bar brought to mind a quote by Ambrose Bierce. “Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.” It also brought to mind the College’s new Strategic Plan and Priority #4 – Vibrant Culture. As noted in the plan, the first direction for Vibrant Culture is to enhance faculty and staff communication.
We are members of a special community – a community that has the power to change or transform the life of every student we serve. How we communicate about each other and to each other is vital to the harmony of this community. There is nothing healthier than inspired debate about issues that are crucial to our future. However, the time, place and tone of such debate are as important as the subject matter. As MVCC moves forward with ambitious development of campus technology, our methods of campus-wide communication will change – and although these changes are not yet thoroughly defined, I can promise a better platform for conversations such as Wednesday’s dialogue about paint schemes. By better, I mean a more appropriate space for collegial conversation and inspired debate.
Until then, remember that every day is a new opportunity to focus on conversations of a much more essential nature – those that guide and mentor our most important community members, our students.
“Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”
-Oscar Wilde
If you have any additional thoughts on the matter, let me know at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Ah, paint. Watching the email threads that dotted our inboxes during the first week of classes concerning the new paint scheme in the MV Commons Snack Bar brought to mind a quote by Ambrose Bierce. “Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.” It also brought to mind the College’s new Strategic Plan and Priority #4 – Vibrant Culture. As noted in the plan, the first direction for Vibrant Culture is to enhance faculty and staff communication.
We are members of a special community – a community that has the power to change or transform the life of every student we serve. How we communicate about each other and to each other is vital to the harmony of this community. There is nothing healthier than inspired debate about issues that are crucial to our future. However, the time, place and tone of such debate are as important as the subject matter. As MVCC moves forward with ambitious development of campus technology, our methods of campus-wide communication will change – and although these changes are not yet thoroughly defined, I can promise a better platform for conversations such as Wednesday’s dialogue about paint schemes. By better, I mean a more appropriate space for collegial conversation and inspired debate.
Until then, remember that every day is a new opportunity to focus on conversations of a much more essential nature – those that guide and mentor our most important community members, our students.
“Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”
-Oscar Wilde
If you have any additional thoughts on the matter, let me know at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Education, Environment, and Entrepreneurship
Earlier this summer, I was fortunate to attend a presentation by a talented economist named Anirban Basu, from the Sage Policy Group. He did a fantastic job of synthesizing various economic trends, linking them with materials from Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat, and the levers contributing to the increasing trend toward globalization. He affirmed the reality of expanding economies in China and India and the equally stagnant United States economy. One important conclusion he drew was that entrepreneurship would be key to the survival of our country - large corporations will continue to thrive through maximizing the benefits of globalization, but it will be the smaller more entrepreneurial enterprises that will be our economic savior.
Traveling home on the plane two days later I sat next to a gentleman from Saratoga Springs who had been involved in the intentional renewal of that city in the 60s and 70s. We talked about the benefits that city found in finding a focus - a focus to rally around and channel all major initiatives that, over a decade or two, guided all development, investment and renewal in the area. He said it all clicked when they landed on the theme of History, Health, and Horses as the guiding principle for the region. They wanted to go beyond having think of the area as “one month of the year” to recognize that there is more to the area. Now, when one thinks of what makes Saratoga Springs special, history, health and horses pretty much capture the signature elements of the area.
EDUCATION
Driving home from the airport I got to thinking about Oneida County and the Mohawk Valley and what the signature elements of our area might be. My involvement on the Genesis Board of Trustees has helped me to appreciate the potential and influence of education - K-12 as well as the multiple colleges in the area. The recent CollegeTown project supported by the Genesis group, involving college students from MVCC, SUNY-IT, Utica College, Hamilton College, and Munson Williams Proctor/Pratt Institute to benefit local agencies on hospitality row gave us an example of the significant impact education can have on the region. Higher education often provides the dynamic nexus needed to "break the bones" of economic stagnation, ultimately leading to meaningful and productive community-wide transformation. Locally, that theme has lead the effort among legislators, economic developers, and the business community to pursuing a nanotechnology center on the SUNY-IT campus.
ENVIRONMENT
I then started thinking about the incredible environmental resources in this area - for recreation and quality of life, as well as renewable energies and thought of the many conversations happening considering "green" as a signature element of this area. It would be hard to find a region in the Eastern United States with more potential to lead the way toward an economy that can leverage its natural resources to achieve a green economy. EDGE has recognized this attribute most recently, adopting the green apple as a new logo to promote economic development throughout the region. In addition, the quality of life and healthy aspects of our environment here separate this community from others. Our air and water quality along with four seasons of outdoor activities and healthy signature events like the Boilermaker and Heart Run/Walk make for a uniquely healthy environment in which to live.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Just before I took the exit off the thruway I thought back to the presentation I saw on the key to our country's economic future - entrepreneurship. I believe the entrepreneurial spirit is alive here in a big way - from the hundreds of successful small businesses located in every Mohawk Valley community, to the incredibly successful operations of the Oneida Indian Nation, Sovena, Indium, Utica National Insurance and many others. It could be semantics, but I think it’s worth consideration, that we might have more success lobbying for a better business environment if our arguments were tied to a larger framework for development beyond “cut taxes and provide more incentives.” Entrepreneurship is flourishing across the Mohawk Valley region and, with a little more nourishment, it could be rampant!
We do have our share of plans – 5 point plans, 10 point plans, etc. – But having Education, Environment and Entrepreneurship as guiding principles for all plans could provide a focus for development and renewal that hasn't existed here for at least 60 years, if not 160. These three principles could serve as a unifying force for a larger community that is, too often, subject to a significant lack of unification when it comes to development efforts. These are just some thoughts I've had as I think about the many significant challenges we collectively face in this region and how we might move forward with a common vision. Tell me what you think at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Traveling home on the plane two days later I sat next to a gentleman from Saratoga Springs who had been involved in the intentional renewal of that city in the 60s and 70s. We talked about the benefits that city found in finding a focus - a focus to rally around and channel all major initiatives that, over a decade or two, guided all development, investment and renewal in the area. He said it all clicked when they landed on the theme of History, Health, and Horses as the guiding principle for the region. They wanted to go beyond having think of the area as “one month of the year” to recognize that there is more to the area. Now, when one thinks of what makes Saratoga Springs special, history, health and horses pretty much capture the signature elements of the area.
EDUCATION
Driving home from the airport I got to thinking about Oneida County and the Mohawk Valley and what the signature elements of our area might be. My involvement on the Genesis Board of Trustees has helped me to appreciate the potential and influence of education - K-12 as well as the multiple colleges in the area. The recent CollegeTown project supported by the Genesis group, involving college students from MVCC, SUNY-IT, Utica College, Hamilton College, and Munson Williams Proctor/Pratt Institute to benefit local agencies on hospitality row gave us an example of the significant impact education can have on the region. Higher education often provides the dynamic nexus needed to "break the bones" of economic stagnation, ultimately leading to meaningful and productive community-wide transformation. Locally, that theme has lead the effort among legislators, economic developers, and the business community to pursuing a nanotechnology center on the SUNY-IT campus.
ENVIRONMENT
I then started thinking about the incredible environmental resources in this area - for recreation and quality of life, as well as renewable energies and thought of the many conversations happening considering "green" as a signature element of this area. It would be hard to find a region in the Eastern United States with more potential to lead the way toward an economy that can leverage its natural resources to achieve a green economy. EDGE has recognized this attribute most recently, adopting the green apple as a new logo to promote economic development throughout the region. In addition, the quality of life and healthy aspects of our environment here separate this community from others. Our air and water quality along with four seasons of outdoor activities and healthy signature events like the Boilermaker and Heart Run/Walk make for a uniquely healthy environment in which to live.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Just before I took the exit off the thruway I thought back to the presentation I saw on the key to our country's economic future - entrepreneurship. I believe the entrepreneurial spirit is alive here in a big way - from the hundreds of successful small businesses located in every Mohawk Valley community, to the incredibly successful operations of the Oneida Indian Nation, Sovena, Indium, Utica National Insurance and many others. It could be semantics, but I think it’s worth consideration, that we might have more success lobbying for a better business environment if our arguments were tied to a larger framework for development beyond “cut taxes and provide more incentives.” Entrepreneurship is flourishing across the Mohawk Valley region and, with a little more nourishment, it could be rampant!
We do have our share of plans – 5 point plans, 10 point plans, etc. – But having Education, Environment and Entrepreneurship as guiding principles for all plans could provide a focus for development and renewal that hasn't existed here for at least 60 years, if not 160. These three principles could serve as a unifying force for a larger community that is, too often, subject to a significant lack of unification when it comes to development efforts. These are just some thoughts I've had as I think about the many significant challenges we collectively face in this region and how we might move forward with a common vision. Tell me what you think at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
New Vision - Renewed Purpose
Anytime you venture off into unknown territory, it's good to have a map or some sort of guide to provide direction along the way. Our new statements of vision, mission, purpose and values provide just that, as we begin the implementation of an exciting new strategic plan. These statements will provide a collective focus as we intentionally work to create our future and anchor us in times of uncertainty that are bound to appear with change - both planned and unplanned.
New Vision
As I recently heard an inspirational speaker say, "vision is important - it is so important because it sustains you for the long haul." As he spoke, I thought about that long haul and how vision - be it a personal vision or one for an organization like MVCC - can inspire you to do more in good times and keep you going in bad times. Our new vision of "transforming lives by creating an innovative learning environment that meets the needs of our rapidly changing communities" is the result of a full year of conversation and analysis from faculty and staff and listening to members of our external community. A vision of having people's lives transformed through the power of education and creating an innovative learning environment goes far beyond offering classes and programs and speaks to a community college that is vibrant and significant in the eyes of the community, students, faculty and staff associated with it.
Renewed Mission and Purpose
At the core, our mission has not changed but separating them out into two statements of mission and purpose allows us to clarify and focus our mission and provide a greater sense of purpose. Our new mission statement certainly provides that focus - to "promote student success and community involvement through a commitment to excellence and a spirit of service." Putting student success first and foremost in our minds and bringing community involvement to life along with committing to excellence and service makes it a little easier to get out of bed each day for me. In addition, the new statement of purpose highlights the fact that we have a comprehensive array of programs and services that must be continuously balanced for the overall success of our College and our community - “As a diverse institution with a global view, MVCC provides opportunities for affordable education, with support from Oneida County and the State of New York, and offers career, transfer and transitional education, programs for personal and culture enrichment and supports community and economic development.”
Values at the Core
And having a brand new statement of core values provides a steady compass for the journey in pursuit of our vision. The core values of Learning, Accessibility, Affordability, Collaboration, Diversity, Excellence and Integrity were identified through a series of workshops involving all full-time faculty and staff that provided a chance to reflect on who we are and what values we share in the MVCC community. Bringing our core values to life in our daily work in the years to come will not only transform our organization and how it feels to be a part of it, but will help MVCC move from a successful community college to a significant community asset.
Put simply, our vision is about aspiration - what we aspire to become; our mission and purpose are a little more about perspiration - what we work hard to fulfill in our daily efforts or WHAT we do; and our values represent HOW we do our work. I hope you're as excited as I am about what it feels like to have such focus and direction - now we just need to put our collective shoulder to the wheel and start turning. Let me know what you think at presblog@mvcc.edu.
New Vision
As I recently heard an inspirational speaker say, "vision is important - it is so important because it sustains you for the long haul." As he spoke, I thought about that long haul and how vision - be it a personal vision or one for an organization like MVCC - can inspire you to do more in good times and keep you going in bad times. Our new vision of "transforming lives by creating an innovative learning environment that meets the needs of our rapidly changing communities" is the result of a full year of conversation and analysis from faculty and staff and listening to members of our external community. A vision of having people's lives transformed through the power of education and creating an innovative learning environment goes far beyond offering classes and programs and speaks to a community college that is vibrant and significant in the eyes of the community, students, faculty and staff associated with it.
Renewed Mission and Purpose
At the core, our mission has not changed but separating them out into two statements of mission and purpose allows us to clarify and focus our mission and provide a greater sense of purpose. Our new mission statement certainly provides that focus - to "promote student success and community involvement through a commitment to excellence and a spirit of service." Putting student success first and foremost in our minds and bringing community involvement to life along with committing to excellence and service makes it a little easier to get out of bed each day for me. In addition, the new statement of purpose highlights the fact that we have a comprehensive array of programs and services that must be continuously balanced for the overall success of our College and our community - “As a diverse institution with a global view, MVCC provides opportunities for affordable education, with support from Oneida County and the State of New York, and offers career, transfer and transitional education, programs for personal and culture enrichment and supports community and economic development.”
Values at the Core
And having a brand new statement of core values provides a steady compass for the journey in pursuit of our vision. The core values of Learning, Accessibility, Affordability, Collaboration, Diversity, Excellence and Integrity were identified through a series of workshops involving all full-time faculty and staff that provided a chance to reflect on who we are and what values we share in the MVCC community. Bringing our core values to life in our daily work in the years to come will not only transform our organization and how it feels to be a part of it, but will help MVCC move from a successful community college to a significant community asset.
Put simply, our vision is about aspiration - what we aspire to become; our mission and purpose are a little more about perspiration - what we work hard to fulfill in our daily efforts or WHAT we do; and our values represent HOW we do our work. I hope you're as excited as I am about what it feels like to have such focus and direction - now we just need to put our collective shoulder to the wheel and start turning. Let me know what you think at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Community Colleges - Our Time is Now
A recent series of articles in USA Today that focused on community colleges captured the essence of what I've seen emerging over the past few years. Global forces are underway and changing the nature of how we live and work. These changes amplify the importance of our mission and position community colleges to make a significant difference in meeting the needs of our communities, states and country.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-07-22-comcol-main_N.htm
The article in the link above was the first in the series and was very well done – highlighting the nimble nature of community colleges in providing transitional/college-prep courses, career education and transfer education and how our efforts to reach out to under served populations are critical to supplying a competitive and trained workforce. Our ability to provide English as Second Language for the refugee and immigrant populations here and G.E.D. equivalent experiences for others helps us to move people through employment services versus social services. MVCC began as a technical institute and our career programs are as strong as they've ever been with our connections with local businesses growing stronger by the day. Over the past two decades the transfer programs at MVCC have increased significantly and with the economics of college tuition, we continue to see students even more readily choose to get their start at MVCC before transferring to a four-year institution. The small class sizes and supportive environment provide opportunities for thousands who seek a place to learn and develop skills while they clarify and advance their career paths.
I once worked with a talented administrator who would often counter the statement, "we can't be all things to all people" with a semantic twist - "we can be different things to different people." As an open access institution, our work in offering credit and non-credit programs has never been more important or significant when placed in the context of the challenges faced by our local community. Our country probably has a few more years of negative references made to community colleges made out of ignorance and attempts at cheap humor. However, as millions continue to flock to community colleges nationwide and more information is shared through national media, I am very confident that the miracles that happen every day on community college campuses will become more and more evident throughout our country. What do you think? Let me know at presblog@mvcc.edu.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-07-22-comcol-main_N.htm
The article in the link above was the first in the series and was very well done – highlighting the nimble nature of community colleges in providing transitional/college-prep courses, career education and transfer education and how our efforts to reach out to under served populations are critical to supplying a competitive and trained workforce. Our ability to provide English as Second Language for the refugee and immigrant populations here and G.E.D. equivalent experiences for others helps us to move people through employment services versus social services. MVCC began as a technical institute and our career programs are as strong as they've ever been with our connections with local businesses growing stronger by the day. Over the past two decades the transfer programs at MVCC have increased significantly and with the economics of college tuition, we continue to see students even more readily choose to get their start at MVCC before transferring to a four-year institution. The small class sizes and supportive environment provide opportunities for thousands who seek a place to learn and develop skills while they clarify and advance their career paths.
I once worked with a talented administrator who would often counter the statement, "we can't be all things to all people" with a semantic twist - "we can be different things to different people." As an open access institution, our work in offering credit and non-credit programs has never been more important or significant when placed in the context of the challenges faced by our local community. Our country probably has a few more years of negative references made to community colleges made out of ignorance and attempts at cheap humor. However, as millions continue to flock to community colleges nationwide and more information is shared through national media, I am very confident that the miracles that happen every day on community college campuses will become more and more evident throughout our country. What do you think? Let me know at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Monday, June 30, 2008
In the Moment
One of the many great things about living in the Mohawk Valley is the geographic convenience to so many attractions. As our daughters' first year of school in our new home came to an end, we brainstormed multiple weekend getaways to celebrate. Since our youngest recently hit the 48 inch height milestone, we chose Canada's Wonderland in Toronto to get our summer off to a great start. The amusement park has the third highest number of thrill-ride roller coasters in North America and since Jennifer and I grew up a few hours away from Cedar Point (roller coaster heaven), we thought we would rekindle some wonderful childhood memories.
We arrived at the park early, excited, prepared and focused. After quickly making our way to the root of our inspiration - the Behemoth roller coaster, we had to separate as our youngest daughter didn't make the 54 inch height requirement. While they went off to ride the wooden Minebuster (or more aptly named "mind" buster) coaster, our oldest daughter and I stood in the long line (even though the park had just opened) to await our fate on Canada's tallest and fastest roller coaster.
I showed our daughter the video simulation of the Behemoth that's available on the Internet but that really pales in comparison to the full experience. The first hill is 230 feet high and drops at a 75 degree angle and reaches speed of almost 80 miles per hour (125 kilometers per hour sounds faster). By the time we reached the second hill, pretty much all of my childhood reverie was long gone - it was now about survival. Three minutes later when the ride ended, I tried to put myself back together in contrast to my daughter who was a bundle of energy and couldn't wait to do it again. We regrouped as a family and were able to ride nearly all of the rides together for the rest of the day - with each one draining slightly more life out of the adults and adding more life to the children.
After riding the Flying Dragon with its double loops three times and the wild beast with its classic jolts that can only come with a wooden coaster, I had to find a survival mechanism to get me through the day. I knew that I wasn't leaving the park without a return trip to the Behemoth. After all, I was the one who was playing up the roller coaster experience these past few weeks and here I was walking slowly with increasingly less animation and motivation to speak to anyone in an attempt to suppress my correspondingly increasing nausea. I overcame all of this by committing to being in the moment - being there for our daughters. After all, this was about them and not about me. When we returned to the Behemoth for the final ride of the day, I was able to focus on our daughter's face, listen closely to her words, listen to her screams instead of mine and enjoy the ride.
I share all of this as a reminder of how important it is to being there for someone else. Our professional lives can feel like a roller coaster, particularly during times of significant change and reorganization. Imagine where the college would be if we all focused only on our own fears and forgot entirely about the people we serve. While many thoughts flashed before my eyes at various points in the day, the most important theme for me was the importance of being in the moment to help enhance an experience - as in this case, making sure someone else had a great experience actually enhanced my experience as well. I believe the same is true in creating an effective workplace or providing great service. Whether it's a co-worker, a student - past, present, or future - or someone else, the extent to which we can all be in the moment and focused on the person in front of us is the extent to which we will create a positive and memorable MVCC experience for everyone.
We arrived at the park early, excited, prepared and focused. After quickly making our way to the root of our inspiration - the Behemoth roller coaster, we had to separate as our youngest daughter didn't make the 54 inch height requirement. While they went off to ride the wooden Minebuster (or more aptly named "mind" buster) coaster, our oldest daughter and I stood in the long line (even though the park had just opened) to await our fate on Canada's tallest and fastest roller coaster.
I showed our daughter the video simulation of the Behemoth that's available on the Internet but that really pales in comparison to the full experience. The first hill is 230 feet high and drops at a 75 degree angle and reaches speed of almost 80 miles per hour (125 kilometers per hour sounds faster). By the time we reached the second hill, pretty much all of my childhood reverie was long gone - it was now about survival. Three minutes later when the ride ended, I tried to put myself back together in contrast to my daughter who was a bundle of energy and couldn't wait to do it again. We regrouped as a family and were able to ride nearly all of the rides together for the rest of the day - with each one draining slightly more life out of the adults and adding more life to the children.
After riding the Flying Dragon with its double loops three times and the wild beast with its classic jolts that can only come with a wooden coaster, I had to find a survival mechanism to get me through the day. I knew that I wasn't leaving the park without a return trip to the Behemoth. After all, I was the one who was playing up the roller coaster experience these past few weeks and here I was walking slowly with increasingly less animation and motivation to speak to anyone in an attempt to suppress my correspondingly increasing nausea. I overcame all of this by committing to being in the moment - being there for our daughters. After all, this was about them and not about me. When we returned to the Behemoth for the final ride of the day, I was able to focus on our daughter's face, listen closely to her words, listen to her screams instead of mine and enjoy the ride.
I share all of this as a reminder of how important it is to being there for someone else. Our professional lives can feel like a roller coaster, particularly during times of significant change and reorganization. Imagine where the college would be if we all focused only on our own fears and forgot entirely about the people we serve. While many thoughts flashed before my eyes at various points in the day, the most important theme for me was the importance of being in the moment to help enhance an experience - as in this case, making sure someone else had a great experience actually enhanced my experience as well. I believe the same is true in creating an effective workplace or providing great service. Whether it's a co-worker, a student - past, present, or future - or someone else, the extent to which we can all be in the moment and focused on the person in front of us is the extent to which we will create a positive and memorable MVCC experience for everyone.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
A College Never Sleeps
It's always nice to have those constants in life to give us a sense of balance. As a college administrator, one thing I have come to expect with the start of summer is the periodic conversation where someone who works in a non-academic environment says, "so, you have the summer off, right?" The reality for all colleges today is that the learning business is a year-round enterprise. So for me, the summer is divided into two parts - finishing up things from the previous academic year and then getting ready for the start of the fall semester.
When I was preparing to come to New York a year ago, I asked a friend who worked at a community college in the northeast what the summers were like. My friend said the summers are the way they should be - it's cooler than most other places, so unbearable heat is unlikely; there is much to do, from day trips or longer vacations to just enjoying being outside so much; and that people cherish summer in an area where the winters can be a touch long. I've found this all to be true; however, while the pace of work might be a little different the tasks remain equally significant.
Facilities staff are focused on readying the campuses for the coming year after the comprehensive use of the buildings and grounds during the past year. Major projects are being completed, from the dramatic landscaping upgrades at the Utica Campus to reviewing classroom and soft space furniture around campus. Lest you think that our college isn’t as popular in the summer, rest assured that we are anything but asleep. We recently had hundreds of people at the Utica Campus for a wonderful Relay for Life event and hundreds more for a Cybersecurity conference. Soon, our youngest clientele will keep the campuses hopping with College for Kids programs and sports camps. People are often surprised when I respond to the "summer's off" question with the fact that we have 1,200 students enrolled in credit classes this summer in addition to all the other activity. Students are filing and processing for financial aid and registering for the fall semester; and quietly in the background, the administrative departments are executing that two-fold action plan of wrapping up last year and unwrapping the year to come.
Henry James once wrote, "Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." Sometimes we are so captivated by the beauty and energy of summer, we forget that a college never sleeps. And while the college isn’t sleeping, neither are our many constituents. Our students, no matter where they come from, aren’t sleeping during the summer. They are engaged in their own balancing act of work, family, rising gas prices, and a sluggish economy. They are weighing their options for their future, wondering whether starting or continuing their education is the right move right now. For them and only for them we cannot afford to sleep – so that they may afford their dreams.
If you have any reflections on summer at MVCC, let me know at rvanwagoner@mvcc.edu.
When I was preparing to come to New York a year ago, I asked a friend who worked at a community college in the northeast what the summers were like. My friend said the summers are the way they should be - it's cooler than most other places, so unbearable heat is unlikely; there is much to do, from day trips or longer vacations to just enjoying being outside so much; and that people cherish summer in an area where the winters can be a touch long. I've found this all to be true; however, while the pace of work might be a little different the tasks remain equally significant.
Facilities staff are focused on readying the campuses for the coming year after the comprehensive use of the buildings and grounds during the past year. Major projects are being completed, from the dramatic landscaping upgrades at the Utica Campus to reviewing classroom and soft space furniture around campus. Lest you think that our college isn’t as popular in the summer, rest assured that we are anything but asleep. We recently had hundreds of people at the Utica Campus for a wonderful Relay for Life event and hundreds more for a Cybersecurity conference. Soon, our youngest clientele will keep the campuses hopping with College for Kids programs and sports camps. People are often surprised when I respond to the "summer's off" question with the fact that we have 1,200 students enrolled in credit classes this summer in addition to all the other activity. Students are filing and processing for financial aid and registering for the fall semester; and quietly in the background, the administrative departments are executing that two-fold action plan of wrapping up last year and unwrapping the year to come.
Henry James once wrote, "Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." Sometimes we are so captivated by the beauty and energy of summer, we forget that a college never sleeps. And while the college isn’t sleeping, neither are our many constituents. Our students, no matter where they come from, aren’t sleeping during the summer. They are engaged in their own balancing act of work, family, rising gas prices, and a sluggish economy. They are weighing their options for their future, wondering whether starting or continuing their education is the right move right now. For them and only for them we cannot afford to sleep – so that they may afford their dreams.
If you have any reflections on summer at MVCC, let me know at rvanwagoner@mvcc.edu.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Faculty and Staff Development in a Complex and Dynamic Future
I have explored our changing world in previous blog postings. With these fundamental shifts in our society and economy, professional development for our faculty and staff seems to be of unprecedented importance. This changing world was part of the impetus for creating a special system design team charter for the existing College Senate staff development committee to conduct research and make recommendations to improve staff development opportunities at MVCC - http://www.mvcc.edu/fcltystaff/involvement/development.cfm. After examining our existing staff development offerings and researching best practices in community colleges around the country, their recommendations were as follows:
Priorities for the coming year as the result of these recommendations will be to:
- 12 contact hours of staff development be required annually of all full-time employees (including the President) during the course of their normal workday and academic schedule. We think that, in time, that amount may increase.
- A minimum of 6 hours of staff development will be related to job and professional responsibilities, and the remainder may be used for professional or personal growth opportunities as desired.
- These hours will encompass self-study, presentations, and improvement, and there should be a minimum of 3 hours per academic semester completed on-campus.
- Attendance at workshops would count for 1 hour per hour of workshop and scale credit would be given for attending conferences and giving presentations.
- The Staff Development Committee will work with CCED and other groups and committees within the College to coordinate and organize workshops.
- Hours will be tracked through Banner (non-credit).
- Faculty and Staff may participate in more training, if desired.
- Approval of requests for funding for travel to conferences and professional workshops remain with the Staff Development Committee
- The Committee have additional representation from departments such as security, facilities, and secretarial staff, for a maximum of 15 members. The Committee will serve as an advisory board to the Staff Development director(s).
- The Staff Development Program itself should be run by a professional, and have an office and support staff.
- The College should join the National Council of Staff, Program and Organizational Development Membership. This organization (NCSPOD) is an affiliate council of the American Association of Community Colleges, providing training, programs and publications about staff development for community colleges.
Priorities for the coming year as the result of these recommendations will be to:
- identify personnel resources in some fashion to work closely with the Senate staff development committee to coordinate efforts in this area and implement as many of the design team recommendations as possible.
- create a system for identifying professional development needs for faculty and staff; inventorying and providing resources to provide the offerings; and creating tracking systems for registration and transcripting.
- consider identifying dedicated days in the development of the academic calendar for 2009-10.
- enhance the new employee orientation that was established this year.
- create a new faculty institute for the fall 2008 cohort of new full-time faculty.
- create a core staff development workshop (similar to the accreditation/values workshops this past March) focused on the important connection all employees share in helping to support student success.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Celebrating Student Success
'Tis the season as they say - the season to celebrate student success that is. As we come to the end of the spring semester and the academic year, I find myself readily inspired by the accomplishments and celebration of student success at MVCC. For the past two weeks, I have been addressing the recommendations of the system design teams in my blog posts. I plan on continuing to do so, but I'm compelled to insert a post here to reflect on some recent and upcoming events celebrating student success.
Last week we inducted more than 50 students into the Lambda Beta Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the international student honor society of community colleges. The family, friends, and staff in attendance filled ACC 116 and helped make for a great event that celebrated our top academic students.
The Student Clubs and Organizations Awards Reception celebrated the student leaders of the more than 40 student clubs and organizations at MVCC. With opportunities for students to participate at both the Utica and Rome Campuses, these student leaders bring a special element to making MVCC an exciting and dynamic college experience for all students. It was great to see the faculty and staff advisors recognized for their guidance and mentoring of these student leaders as well.
One of my favorite things about MVCC is the way in which some of the academic departments provide personalized ceremonies of student success. Last fall we had the "completion ceremonies" for the first class of Airframe and Powerplant students and a similar ceremony for the CNC machinists who completed the innovative program in partnership with Bartell, Inc. in Rome. Here in the spring, the Social Sciences department put together a wonderful ceremony for students who received awards and scholarships (one scholarship completely funded by the faculty in the department) - you could feel the sense of pride and belonging among the many students in attendance. As we approach the College's graduation ceremony on Friday, May 16th, we'll also have similar celebrations like the Athletic Awards Banquet and the inspiring scholarship reception that links many of our generous scholarship donors with the well-deserving student recipients. In addition, we'll have our Psi Beta student honor society induction ceremony for psychology students and our nursing program ceremony for this year's nursing class, as well as many other smaller celebrations around the College.
I once heard a community college president say that one of her favorite responsibilities was getting to be a part of so many student celebrations - I have to agree. I like to say that our success as a college is only limited by the success of our students. To see all that our students are accomplishing is a wonderful affirmation of the incredible talent and determination found in MVCC students and the fantastic support that our faculty and staff provide to do what we can to help students reach their potential during their time here. If you have any other ideas of how we can celebrate student success in unique and meaningful ways, contact me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Last week we inducted more than 50 students into the Lambda Beta Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the international student honor society of community colleges. The family, friends, and staff in attendance filled ACC 116 and helped make for a great event that celebrated our top academic students.
The Student Clubs and Organizations Awards Reception celebrated the student leaders of the more than 40 student clubs and organizations at MVCC. With opportunities for students to participate at both the Utica and Rome Campuses, these student leaders bring a special element to making MVCC an exciting and dynamic college experience for all students. It was great to see the faculty and staff advisors recognized for their guidance and mentoring of these student leaders as well.
One of my favorite things about MVCC is the way in which some of the academic departments provide personalized ceremonies of student success. Last fall we had the "completion ceremonies" for the first class of Airframe and Powerplant students and a similar ceremony for the CNC machinists who completed the innovative program in partnership with Bartell, Inc. in Rome. Here in the spring, the Social Sciences department put together a wonderful ceremony for students who received awards and scholarships (one scholarship completely funded by the faculty in the department) - you could feel the sense of pride and belonging among the many students in attendance. As we approach the College's graduation ceremony on Friday, May 16th, we'll also have similar celebrations like the Athletic Awards Banquet and the inspiring scholarship reception that links many of our generous scholarship donors with the well-deserving student recipients. In addition, we'll have our Psi Beta student honor society induction ceremony for psychology students and our nursing program ceremony for this year's nursing class, as well as many other smaller celebrations around the College.
I once heard a community college president say that one of her favorite responsibilities was getting to be a part of so many student celebrations - I have to agree. I like to say that our success as a college is only limited by the success of our students. To see all that our students are accomplishing is a wonderful affirmation of the incredible talent and determination found in MVCC students and the fantastic support that our faculty and staff provide to do what we can to help students reach their potential during their time here. If you have any other ideas of how we can celebrate student success in unique and meaningful ways, contact me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Supporting Student Success
Similar to the Student Intake Design Team, the Student Support Design Team took their charter very seriously - to "research and explore ideas to make thoughtful and daring recommendations to significantly improve the student support system." The group went above and beyond in their efforts to research best practices at other institutions. The notion of "student support" can encompass a broad range of services and attributes of the College in providing the overall student experience. The Team did a great job of further defining their task and clarifying their focus to provide a set of important and meaningful recommendations that included:
- Implement institution wide changes to Developmental Education.
- Establish an Office for the First Year Experience.
- In the Master Plan, include the construction of a multi use “Learning Commons”, centralizing all student supports.
- Develop a strategy to create a culture of service learning and volunteerism.
- Expand the services and staff of Institutional Assessment, Grants and Institutional Research, and Information Technology to collect information allowing data driven decision making.
- The college should implement systems to promote student and academic department interactions aimed at building community. Each academic department should implement specific ongoing activities to foster and encourage student and faculty engagement that will promote a sense of shared academic experience, commitment to academic excellence, and belonging.
Some of these recommendations are already being incorporated into the updated strategic plan (coordination of developmental education) or the review of the organizational structure (capacity in the assessment, grants, and IT functions). As the College pursues the update of the Campus Master Plan, conversations surrounding facility needs related to academic and student support will be central to that effort. Other recommendations like establishing an Office of the First-Year Experience, service learning, and academic department connections will require some deliberation to find the right window for implementation.
Improving our student support system requires a strategic look and includes few "quick fixes". While some things can be addressed in the short-term, the emphasis with these and other design team recommendations will be to make the initial changes that will create capacity for even greater changes in the future. Thank you to all of the members of the Student Support Design Team for their efforts in completing their charter and providing the College with useful and insightful recommendations. A complete list of the Team's recommendations can be found at http://www.mvcc.edu/fcltystaff/involvement/support.cfm. Please review them and share any reactions or reflections with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Getting Students Off to a Great Start
Over the past few months more than sixty faculty and staff served on six different design teams to closely examine major administrative systems in need of review that were identified in the College Strategic Plan. Each team was provided a charter that set forth the purpose of researching best practices at other community colleges, examining our existing internal processes, comparing and contrasting the two and then making "thoughtful and daring recommendations". This is the first of six posts that will review the recommendations from each design team.
The recommendations for all groups have been posted on a website where people can review the charters, membership and recommendations for each group as well as a future placeholder where updates will be provided. The information regarding the Student Intake System Design Team can be found here - http://www.mvcc.edu/fcltystaff/involvement/intake.cfm (Click on the recommendations tab and scroll all the way to the bottom to see a summary of their recommendations.)
The task of improving our system for getting students into MVCC from the point of admission to registration can be a daunting and complex effort. However, looking at the recommendations as a whole allows one to take in the recommendations and see that much is possible - but that it will also likely take some time. One of the College's the Intake Design Team visited said they had been on a four-year journey of transforming the way they served students in these functions of admissions, placement testing, advising, financial aid, registration, and payment.
The Process Review Committee and the Executive Committee will be meeting next week to review these recommendations along with the recommendations from the Student Support Design Team. I fully recognize that the exciting recommendations from all six of these Design Teams have created a great deal of optimism for many at the College while simultaneously creating a certain level of anxiety - a natural byproduct of change.
This approach was the best way I could think of to take a comprehensive approach toward creating positive change at the College - to review our major systems all at once and create a context in which change can occur. As the budget revenue projections become more clear in the weeks ahead, the feasibility of many of these recommendations will also become more clear. What's exciting to me is that the recommendations don't offer a series of simple fixes but rather provide a roadmap for potentially transformative change. I appreciate the time and commitment of each member of the Student Intake Design Team for a job well done.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on the recommendations - share them with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
The recommendations for all groups have been posted on a website where people can review the charters, membership and recommendations for each group as well as a future placeholder where updates will be provided. The information regarding the Student Intake System Design Team can be found here - http://www.mvcc.edu/fcltystaff/involvement/intake.cfm (Click on the recommendations tab and scroll all the way to the bottom to see a summary of their recommendations.)
The task of improving our system for getting students into MVCC from the point of admission to registration can be a daunting and complex effort. However, looking at the recommendations as a whole allows one to take in the recommendations and see that much is possible - but that it will also likely take some time. One of the College's the Intake Design Team visited said they had been on a four-year journey of transforming the way they served students in these functions of admissions, placement testing, advising, financial aid, registration, and payment.
The Process Review Committee and the Executive Committee will be meeting next week to review these recommendations along with the recommendations from the Student Support Design Team. I fully recognize that the exciting recommendations from all six of these Design Teams have created a great deal of optimism for many at the College while simultaneously creating a certain level of anxiety - a natural byproduct of change.
This approach was the best way I could think of to take a comprehensive approach toward creating positive change at the College - to review our major systems all at once and create a context in which change can occur. As the budget revenue projections become more clear in the weeks ahead, the feasibility of many of these recommendations will also become more clear. What's exciting to me is that the recommendations don't offer a series of simple fixes but rather provide a roadmap for potentially transformative change. I appreciate the time and commitment of each member of the Student Intake Design Team for a job well done.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on the recommendations - share them with me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Staying Informed - What's Next?
The Accreditation self-study process is complete. The System Design Teams have submitted their recommendations. The Strategic Plan is almost finished. The budget is slowly coming together – very slowly with the delay of the state budget in Albany. We have a lot of ideas, a number of possibilities and a fair amount of energy and anticipation for positive changes yet to come.
With all of the expectations associated with the positive momentum one thing is clear – it’s not all going to get done in the month of June. The recommendations from the Design Teams and the initiatives outlined in the Strategic Plan set forth an important and compelling direction for us – direction that will take a lot of energy and time to fully pursue. It will be important that the College Senate be fully engaged to make assignments to various committees and work groups that will carry out whatever the next steps will be to keep things moving in a positive direction.
As different groups take up this important work, communication will be paramount. An idea that has been nurtured and further developed by the President’s Think Tank is a web resource that centralizes information with updates about various initiatives underway at the College. Thanks to Paul Graziadei, the College webmaster, for putting this together and for all of the team leaders and committee chairs for providing all of the information. Hopefully, the updates that will be provided on this site in the future will keep communication flowing and give everyone easy access to the latest information as the exciting developments come together on these various initiatives.
For now, the site is called the Employee Involvement System and it will likely evolve over time. The idea is that employees need to get involved to make all of these great ideas come to life. So this Employee Involvement System web resource is a way for everyone to keep track of what’s happening with everything. Take a look at the following link http://www.mvcc.edu/fcltystaff/involvement/index.cfm and let me know what you think at presblog@mvcc.edu.
With all of the expectations associated with the positive momentum one thing is clear – it’s not all going to get done in the month of June. The recommendations from the Design Teams and the initiatives outlined in the Strategic Plan set forth an important and compelling direction for us – direction that will take a lot of energy and time to fully pursue. It will be important that the College Senate be fully engaged to make assignments to various committees and work groups that will carry out whatever the next steps will be to keep things moving in a positive direction.
As different groups take up this important work, communication will be paramount. An idea that has been nurtured and further developed by the President’s Think Tank is a web resource that centralizes information with updates about various initiatives underway at the College. Thanks to Paul Graziadei, the College webmaster, for putting this together and for all of the team leaders and committee chairs for providing all of the information. Hopefully, the updates that will be provided on this site in the future will keep communication flowing and give everyone easy access to the latest information as the exciting developments come together on these various initiatives.
For now, the site is called the Employee Involvement System and it will likely evolve over time. The idea is that employees need to get involved to make all of these great ideas come to life. So this Employee Involvement System web resource is a way for everyone to keep track of what’s happening with everything. Take a look at the following link http://www.mvcc.edu/fcltystaff/involvement/index.cfm and let me know what you think at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Accreditation - an on-going process
Just as we expect our students to meet certain requirements to graduate, MVCC must meet certain requirements to remain accredited. We are accredited by the Middle States Association (http://www.msche.org/) - a status that allows our students to receive federal financial aid, transfer credits to other colleges, take their degrees to employers to get jobs, and benefit from federal grants that we would not otherwise be able to access. The process of accreditation is a tremendous opportunity for institutional self-reflection and growth.
This week is the culmination of two years of study, with more than 100 faculty and staff participating on various committees studying every aspect of the College's operation. Through the recent workshops, all full-time employees should be familiar with our self-study process but it's worth highlighting a bit here on my blog.
With an evaluation team of eight members from other community colleges on campus for three days this week, we are in the next to final phase of our self-study. We've gone through preparing for the self-study, organizing for the self-study, conducting the self-study, discussing the results, submitting our self-study, and then preparing for the visit taking place this week. Having been heavily involved in self-study accreditation processes at two other community colleges, I feel very fortunate to have joined MVCC at the tail-end of this extensive process. I also have great appreciation for the tremendous efforts on the part of so many who have done such a fantastic job in every phase of the self-study.
However, the final chapters of the best self-study efforts always remain unwritten until well after the evaluation team has come and gone. The final chapter is what do we do with the results of the self-study and the recommendations of the team. Keeping these recommendations in front of us to guide our priorities and future work not only makes the past two years of self study worthwhile, but sets us up for success five years from now when we have our periodic review and eight years from now when we launch a new cycle for self-study. It's a great feeling to think this cycle is done, but it's important to remember the cycle of continuous improvement never ends. For more information on our self-study process, visit the following link - http://www.mvcc.edu/selfstudy/.
If you have any comments about our self study, please let me know at presblog@mvcc.edu.
This week is the culmination of two years of study, with more than 100 faculty and staff participating on various committees studying every aspect of the College's operation. Through the recent workshops, all full-time employees should be familiar with our self-study process but it's worth highlighting a bit here on my blog.
With an evaluation team of eight members from other community colleges on campus for three days this week, we are in the next to final phase of our self-study. We've gone through preparing for the self-study, organizing for the self-study, conducting the self-study, discussing the results, submitting our self-study, and then preparing for the visit taking place this week. Having been heavily involved in self-study accreditation processes at two other community colleges, I feel very fortunate to have joined MVCC at the tail-end of this extensive process. I also have great appreciation for the tremendous efforts on the part of so many who have done such a fantastic job in every phase of the self-study.
However, the final chapters of the best self-study efforts always remain unwritten until well after the evaluation team has come and gone. The final chapter is what do we do with the results of the self-study and the recommendations of the team. Keeping these recommendations in front of us to guide our priorities and future work not only makes the past two years of self study worthwhile, but sets us up for success five years from now when we have our periodic review and eight years from now when we launch a new cycle for self-study. It's a great feeling to think this cycle is done, but it's important to remember the cycle of continuous improvement never ends. For more information on our self-study process, visit the following link - http://www.mvcc.edu/selfstudy/.
If you have any comments about our self study, please let me know at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Monday, March 24, 2008
The Value of Coming Together
During the first two weeks in March more than twenty workshops were held to assist the College in preparing for the upcoming accreditation site visit. The opportunity was seized to use the workshops as a conversation about the values we all share and the mission and vision statements that should lead us through the door every day at Mohawk Valley Community College.
However, while values, mission, and accreditation were the identified content areas, a key objective was to capitalize on the value of faculty and staff coming together in mixed groups to interact in new and different ways. Overall, the workshop evaluations were positive. The most consistent feedback I've received from those that participated in the workshop was, "it was good - not as bad as I thought it was going to be." Some of the evaluation forms further stated, "a little too touchy-feely for me." For a pilot project experience, I'll take it. The workshops were a great example of small change - just getting people to interact in a new environment and have some new conversations prompted a similar reaction to most changes designed to create positive results - we as humans find ourselves not looking forward to it on the front end and generally thankful for the experience in retrospect. Besides, from everything I've gathered in talking to faculty and staff over the past few months, we could use a few "touchy-feely" experiences anyway.
The evaluations will be used if future similar workshops are developed. The input from the workshops on the creation of a values statement and the revision of the mission and vision statements is being forwarded to the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC). In combination with some additional research and review of statements from other community colleges, SPC members will go about the task of creating a values statement and updating the vision and mission statements. With MVCC poised to move from a successful community college to a significant community asset, the results from these workshops and the ultimate work of the SPC will provide a solid base and clear direction for us to enthusiastically approach an ever-increasingly complex and changing future.
If you have any thoughts on this or other matters, you can reach me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
However, while values, mission, and accreditation were the identified content areas, a key objective was to capitalize on the value of faculty and staff coming together in mixed groups to interact in new and different ways. Overall, the workshop evaluations were positive. The most consistent feedback I've received from those that participated in the workshop was, "it was good - not as bad as I thought it was going to be." Some of the evaluation forms further stated, "a little too touchy-feely for me." For a pilot project experience, I'll take it. The workshops were a great example of small change - just getting people to interact in a new environment and have some new conversations prompted a similar reaction to most changes designed to create positive results - we as humans find ourselves not looking forward to it on the front end and generally thankful for the experience in retrospect. Besides, from everything I've gathered in talking to faculty and staff over the past few months, we could use a few "touchy-feely" experiences anyway.
The evaluations will be used if future similar workshops are developed. The input from the workshops on the creation of a values statement and the revision of the mission and vision statements is being forwarded to the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC). In combination with some additional research and review of statements from other community colleges, SPC members will go about the task of creating a values statement and updating the vision and mission statements. With MVCC poised to move from a successful community college to a significant community asset, the results from these workshops and the ultimate work of the SPC will provide a solid base and clear direction for us to enthusiastically approach an ever-increasingly complex and changing future.
If you have any thoughts on this or other matters, you can reach me at presblog@mvcc.edu.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Learning About Change
Two weeks and seven Campus Conversation sessions later (with close to 150 participants) I feel much more informed as I continue to think about change and the enormous potential of MVCC. The Campus Conversations of the past two weeks allowed me to share my thoughts on things related to the changing community needs, the myriad ideas for change internally, and receive feedback and insights from faculty and staff. Along the way, I came across a couple of turns of phrase that warrant further exploration.
The Center of the Community
In one Conversation, someone said, "We need to put the community at the center of MVCC and MVCC at the center of the community." Wow. I love this phrase as it captures so much of what originally intrigued me about this place - the community seems very willing to embrace an even larger, more significant role for MVCC in community and economic development efforts and many working at the College are anxious to find ways to strengthen our connections with the community. Like many colleges, our systems are set up to serve the students we serve. However, we have reached a point that to move from a successful community college to a significant community asset, we need to review our systems and structure to be more intentional about reaching those parts of the community that we currently do not serve. Embracing the community in new and different ways will allow us to serve the community in ways we probably never thought possible, as long as we keep "community" at the center of Mohawk Valley Community College.
The Value of "And"
Another conversation surfaced the notion that many of our past and current efforts at the College have centered around an either/or dynamic. The solution is either "this or that" without spending enough time exploring the extent to which the solution could combine "this and that"? It would seem that it's as simple as working on compromising - that's an oversimplification and misses the point. An illustration of this for me is how I compare MVCC with all of the other community colleges where I've worked. It seems so many of the things MVCC does well were things we struggled with at the other colleges (e.g., recruiting recent high school graduates from local high schools) and areas where MVCC could do better were in full bloom at the other colleges (e.g., serving returning adult students). If we spend less time focusing on the OR and more on the AND, we might find some very interesting solutions that would refresh many of the old and tired internal dynamics that prevent us from reaching our potential. I don't know all the specifics, but I know we'll stretch our thinking to new solutions if we spend more time considering the value of AND.
Focus vs. Results
It was noted in one conversation that we spoke for 90 minutes about change and the need for change and we never once mentioned "the need to change is to increase enrollment and the relationship to increased budgets as a result." In another, one person asked that there was no mention made of increasing student retention - we then explored that a little. Through the conversation, we landed on the notion that if we focus on our mission - why we're here, who we're trying to serve and how we're trying to serve them - students will be successful. Our collective conclusion was that if we focus on our mission, student retention will likely increase - retention and enrollment increases are the result, not the singular focus.
Perhaps my favorite insight was in the conversation where someone stated that perhaps if we actually go through change on a more regular basis, we would all become more familiar with change. If we become more familiar with change then perhaps we will therefore increase our ability to change. All of these and other insights that surfaced during the Conversations are worth reflection. I hope everyone who attended found our time together as useful as I did. I've appreciated everyone who has responded to my blog with additional thoughts and perspectives over the past two weeks. I'd welcome any additional ideas you might have as there remains a great deal to consider in the next two months - presblog@mvcc.edu.
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