Organizational Culture

As a new college, with high expectations for itself and from its communities, Cascadia set high standards and ambitious goals to bring to reality the college described in its vision, mission, and institutional core values. After just over a year of operation, the college community is finding that the simultaneous tasks of building an institution (its policies, procedures, infrastructures, etc.) while at the same time operating the institution for a greater-than-anticipated number of students is more time-and energy-intensive than first anticipated, especially given the college's commitment to widespread participation and consensual decision-making. Members of the college community have found the need to modify processes as they learn from their experiences. Much of these modifications occurred as a direct result of communicating with the other Vanguard Colleges and/or League staff. This is a privilege that we treasure!

The greatest asset the college has is its talented, hard-working, committed employees who have demonstrated considerable ability to operate in a dynamic, innovative and fast-changing environment. This coupled with the Vanguard project benefits have enabled us to create a unique environment where our students are thriving and succeeding.

Cascadia Community College's vision, mission, and core values define the institution, all of its learning and learning support activities, and its relationship to the communities it serves. These guiding principles were developed over the years with broad community participation, have been reviewed by the entire college community, and are the basis for planning and assessment throughout the college. The "community of learners" at this new college has sought to build an infrastructure of processes, policies, and practices that provide optimal learning opportunities for its students, faculty and staff.

The college's vision, mission, and values are also at the core of its cyclical strategic planning process, which is collaborative and inclusive and contains all of the Vanguard project objectives. While the strategic planning process has recently moved to a two-year cycle (to parallel Washington State's biennial budget process), Cascadia continues to assess its goals and strategies annually, to accomplish resource allocation based on those evaluations, and to identify priorities for improvement. Much of this work could not have been done if we had not had the tremendous support and inspiration of the many experts, expansive research, and publications provided by the League, and most importantly the collaborative spirit and assistance from the 11 Vanguard colleges we have come to know and learn from.

The 2001-2002 Strategic Plan published in October 2001 is a reflection of what Cascadia as a community, has learned from the first operational year as well of what the college envisions happening during the next biennium.

In building Cascadia Community College, special attention has been paid to the language used to name positions, processes, and principles. The college has sought, for example, to utilize a common language focused on learning (for example the Office of Student learning instead of "Instruction" and the office of Student Success instead of "Student Services"). Other examples can be found in our Accreditation Self-Study Report, which we just completed this year, where the reader finds constant references to learning by all members of the community. The college envisions itself not only as a "learning college," but also as a "learning organization." Additional examples of our commitment to these principles can be seen through Cascadia's learning Model, which provides a sequential structure for all learning and learning support activities; the Student learning Council, Cascadia's curriculum review committee; College-wide learning Outcomes, the four basic outcomes anticipated for all students and employees; and learning Outcome Teams, interdisciplinary and inclusive teams that are significant to the college's curriculum, assessment, and governance systems.

Similarly, because the college views its faculty and staff as learning facilitators, the Office of Student Success includes Student Success facilitators; the Office of Institutional Effectiveness will include an Institutional Effectiveness Facilitator (instead of "researcher"); faculty, too, view themselves as facilitators of learning rather than the keepers and disbursers of knowledge.

View these and other exciting initiatives by clicking on the options to the left.