Strategic Planning

• Strategic Directions and Goals for 2001-03

Cascadia Community College shall provide educational services to the residents in Community College District 30 of the State of Washington and shall be guided by the College's Strategic Plan, developed annually, under authority of the President. The Board of Trustees shall provide, through a collaborative annual process, strategic directions, which shall guide the strategic planning process by the College.

The Process

The Initial Mission Statement 1994-1998

Cascadia's planning process began with the creation of the college's first mission statement, which was developed as the college was being planned during the years of 1994 and 1998:

Cascadia Community College will be an exemplar of the 21st century community college, a learner centered, comprehensive, culturally rich, and technologically advanced learning and teaching institution which emphasizes student achievement and educational excellence, seamlessly linked with the community, area enterprise and other educational institutions.

Vision - Mission and Values Development 1998-2001

During the 1998-1999 academic year, with broad-based input from citizens, community leaders and neighboring community college faculty, staff and administrators, the Board of Trustees and the Cascadia Staff established the elements the vision and mission of the college should address and re-adopted the original mission statement.

The mission was: Cascadia Community College will be the learning college for the 21st Century.

The first strategic plan was designed, and at the conclusion of the year the Board of Trustees adopted the college's first Annual Report, which assessed the accomplishments of that year (1998-1999).

The subsequent year (1999-2000) the Board adopted its first annual Strategic Plan. The Board of Trustees adopted for the first time a vision statement, re-adopted the original mission for one more year, and adopted for the first time the core values of the institution.

The vision was: Cascadia Community College will be a community of learners pioneering innovative pathways to successful learning.

As the college began operations fall of 2000, a collaborative college-wide review of its vision, mission, core values and strategic directions took place. The result was, upon recommendation of the college community and the President, adoption by the Board of Trustees of a new vision and mission statements, addition of a new value and changes in language or the existing values.

The new vision is: Cascadia Community College will be a community of learners pioneering innovative pathways to successful learning.

The new mission is: Cascadia is a community college whose caring culture supports creative, comprehensive, culturally rich, technologically advanced and learner-centered education that is environmentally sensitive and seamlessly linked with the community, area enterprise and other educational institutions.

Thus began the formal strategic planning process for Cascadia Community College.

The college's annual planning processes include opportunity to reexamine and reaffirm and/or revise its vision, mission, and values. Based on these core documents, and a review of pertinent internal and external data (an environmental scan), the college sets strategic directions and goals for a two-year period, with an annual review to monitor progress and make adjustments as needed.

Because the concepts of "learning organization" and "learning college" are so central to Cascadia's vision, mission, and core values, and because some employees were not previously familiar with them, special efforts have been made to introduce these concepts to all employees, especially new employees. The President has made several presentations of these concepts, one of which was made for the whole college at the opening of the 2001-2002 academic year. In this presentation, entitled "Birth of a Learning College" (1.3), the President defined the concepts and illustrated how they find expression in specific structures and processes at Cascadia. These efforts seem to have proven helpful. In the Cascadia Employee Survey (1.1), conducted in fall quarter 2001, more than 90% of respondents indicated that they understood what Cascadia meant by describing itself as a learning organization and a learning college.

Similar discussions occurred during orientation sessions for new faculty (summer 2001). The Employee Learning Institute (ELI), inaugurated in fall quarter 2001, has developed a series of nine learning modules for new employees. The "Employee Orientation" module addresses vision, mission, and core values; the "Learning Organization" module contains sections on the Learning Organization, the Learning College, and Learning Outcomes (1.4).

Step 1: Strategic Planning Retreat

Cascadia's planning cycle begins with an all-college strategic planning retreat held in December of each year, where the college community, the President and Board of Trustees collaboratively review and modify the current vision, mission and core values and assess the college's strategic directions for the coming biennium. These decisions are reached through internal reflective processes as well as from data collected from both internal and external scanning.

The same retreat is conducted in between years of the biennium to make sure that the college continues to be responsive to its students and the socio-economic factors affecting the service region.

Step 2: All College Assembly Review and Recommendation to the President

Based on the outcome of the retreat, a strategic planning writing team (composed of volunteers from all areas of the college) re-writes the vision, mission, core values and strategic directions as appropriate. Once consensus has been reached within the committee, the changes and new language are then presented to the All College Assembly (ACA) where they are considered. Once consensus is reached by the ACA, the changes and/or new language is then forwarded to the President for adoption.

Step 3: Board Adoption of Vision, Mission, Values and Strategic Directions

The President considers the recommendation from the ACA. The President, being part of all the previous steps, and having participated in the consensus process of the ACA, is in agreement with the proposed changes and forwards the new language for the Board for adoption.

In the event that the President does not agree with some of the changes, the President will present to the Board of Trustees the different points of view for their consideration.

The Board of Trustees then adopts the college's vision, mission, values and strategic directions for the coming biennium, or adjusts them for the current biennium as necessary.

Step 4: Establishing the College Goals

The next step in Cascadia's cyclical process is the development of college-wide goals, all of which are designed to take the college in the defined strategic directions.

The development and design of the goals then go through steps 2 and 3 above.

Step 5: Development of the Strategies to fulfill each Goal and Strategic Direction

With the establishment of college-wide goals, the President's Cabinet works to develop strategies for each area in conjunction with available budget figures and in collaboration with all the members of each of the college areas.

The teams then meet to review each other's strategies looking for areas of collaboration, seeking elimination of duplicated efforts, and identifying gaps in the overall picture. They also determine priorities and project a timeline for assessment of the strategies.

The planning matrix is the product resulting from that effort. The matrix is organized according to strategic directions, college-wide goals under each strategic direction, and specific strategies under each goal. For each strategy, a person or office of primary responsibility is identified along with collaborators, assessment measures, applicable accreditation standards, Vanguard Learning College objectives, related areas of college policies and procedures, college values, and a timeline for dates of projected assessment. Each strategy will be implemented and assessed against identified measures in the Annual Report.

The Planning Cycle

The biennial planning cycle is designed to fit with the state's biennial budget planning and allocation system. At the midpoint of the two-year plan, during the summer, the college assesses the first year goals and strategies and determines whatever adjustments need to be made in its strategies for the succeeding year.

A new strategic planning process will begin in December for the subsequent biennium.

The college will continue to assess the effectiveness of its planning, budgeting, and assessment process on a cyclical basis. As the Institutional Effectiveness Committee (IEC) completes work on the college-wide plan for assessment, it will take a more active and visible role in the assessment of the Strategic Plan. The IEC fulfilled its first official role in the planning process in January 2002 when it reviewed the work emanating from the December 2001 strategic planning retreat and developed a set of recommendations for review by the All College Assembly.

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