Futuring is an evolutionary process that combines regular conversations and collaborative research to assess our strategic position. We identify current and emerging patterns, trends, and expectations to define our future direction, and we determine the most effective measures to evaluate each developmental stage. Futuring allows us to continually realign our mission, planning, and intended outcomes of our programs and services to meet market needs and stakeholder expectations. We review our achievement indicators, which prompt new research questions. Each investigation clarifies short-term goals that lead us to our desired future.
This comprehensive plan shows how we are using the futuring process to evolve our campus to meet our community's needs.
The Comprehensive Plan
Framework
The Foundation
CEI’s mission leads each action on our campus, which show our commitment “to provide open-access to affordable, quality education that meets the needs of students, regional employers, and community.” The mission is articulated by CEI’s Sustain core themes: learning for work and life, student-centered, and community engagement. They guide our discussion and focus our initiatives.
This plan offers the quantitative and qualitative measures that prove that we are meeting our mission by focusing on our core themes, and it shows how we use those measures to constantly drive intelligent innovation.
The Purpose
CEI utilizes a flexible futuring framework rather than a static strategic plan. The Framework is designed to
- Keep CEI nimble, innovative, and responsive to market pressure, while ensuring that change is data-driven, research-based, and measurable.
- Show how data is communicated across the entire campus so that successes can be replicated and celebrated.
- Encourage each department to scan and respond to the constantly shifting environment.
- Show possible lines of administrative support so the institution can pivot to capitalize on its opportunities.
This report makes the Framework visible. It outlines how information is created and shared across campus so that our diverse campus can make new connections. With a shared Framework, each department can ask new research questions and see how those answers will fit into the greater whole. The Framework outlines consistent assessment measures, as well as the short-term initiatives that spring from them.
Ultimately, the Framework shows the collaborative strength of CEI’s participatory governance. It shows how CEI ties all our content experts into a cohesive whole capable of moving the College into our desired future.
The Contributors
This report was instigated by the Idea Lab, which runs the Connected Campus-Connected Future Initiative. The Idea Lab is comprised of
- Amy Brumfield, Accreditation Chair
- Dave Face, Executive Director CEI Foundation
- Christy Haack, Workforce Training & Continuing Education Operations Director
- Linda Montgomery, Consultant
- Lee Stimpson, Director of Institutional Effectiveness & ALO
- Larry Surtees, Director of Testing & Placement
- Sandra Takahashi, Director of College & Career Readiness
- Ruby Taylor, Senior Human Resources Generalist
Connected Campus is a monthly series of cross-campus discussions, designed to guide CEI’s priorities. Administration ensures that every employee has time during work hours to participate because that strengthens our participatory governance and ensures our institutional sustainability.
This report represents the work of the entire campus, though. The following standing committees discussed each stage of development, and they will continue to enable and monitor the results:
- The Presidenty's Advosry Council
- The Executive Council
- The Vice President's Council
- The Faculty Senate
- The Staff Senate
- The Governance Committee
- The Institutional Effectiveness Committee
Objectives
The Aspirations
Students
aspire to greater personal and professional satisfaction
Employees
aspire to greater professional advancement and enrichment
Community
aspire to strengthen its economic base and the happiness of its community members
Institution
aspires to be well-respected as a stellar institution of higher learning
Mission Driven Objectives
CEI is taking an ambidextrous approach to achieving our mission. The left side focuses on student achievement objectives, and the right side focuses on institutional sustainability objectives.
CEI continually challenges its faculty and staff to experiments with new ways to meet our college priorities.
Priorities
At the 2022 Futuring Summit, our leaders scanned the environment and prioritized these challenges:
Student Achievement
Priority #1: Cultivate Esteemed Graduates
2021 Priorities
CEI initiated an Institutional Student Learning Outcomes Pilot Program. Under the direction of VP Barber, CEI has designed cascading levels of outcome assessment. The assessment measures are designed to unify decisions at every level. Their collective purpose is to show our students and every other stakeholder that
- our courses of study are comprehensive, coherent, and connected.
- our credentials have demonstrable meaning and currency within our community and at our peer institutions.
- our educational foundation can support our graduates’ lifelong learning.
2022 Priorities
- 2022 Strategic Initiative: Expand and deepen community engagement.
- CEI strives for greater integration with regional employers to develop key programs, access greater expertise and resources, and produce prepared graduates for the region’s high-demand jobs. We will strategically expand industry sector board involvement and transfer relationships.
- Measure: Create a comprehensive document of current involvement and compare additions at next Futuring Summit.
Priority #2: Remove Educational Objectives
2021 Priorities
CEI adopted a Disaggregated Data Proposal, creating a new series of disaggregated data benchmarks that follow the academic timeline. Essentially, it quantifies our performance at pivotal points where a student chooses to persist or leave. It further refines the data by target populations which are either underrepresented on our campus or at high risk of failure. With that information, departments can tailor solutions that will increase persistence and overall success.
2022 Priorities
- 2022 Strategic Initiative: Automate student and staff processes.
- CEI is integrating new software platforms that reduce paper-based processes. Students can easily access key services and track progress through the system. Staff can share information easily. Each addition will springboard the amount and quality of our data so that we can more accurately assess our achievements and effectiveness. That data will be disaggregated, contextualized, and embedded in our review processes.
- Measure: Expand the systematic data discussions and publicly document their findings.
Institutional Stability
Priority #3: Ensure Institutional Sustainability
2021 Priorities
CEI instigated a multidisciplinary, interdepartmental study of all its policies and procedures. Its goals are to ensure that CEI’s institutional framework is in alignment with professional standards, that our work is more transparent and apparent to our community stakeholders, and that we purposefully eradicate siloes as we grow. This serves to assure stakeholders that CEI is financially sustainable institution and a stellar investment. (This can be shown by a compiled list of all the newly formed policies, handbooks, etc., that the accreditation checks performed by the Governance and IE committees have brought into being.)
2022 Priorities
- 2022 Strategic Initiative: Grow existing revenue bases and develop alternate revenue streams.
- Inflation challenges our limited budget. We will hold strategic conversations to grow existing revenue bases, develop alternate revenue streams, and plan spending based on a unpredictable supply chain.
- Measure: Research, develop and launch new initiatives through stakeholder-based conversations like Leadership Cohort
Priority #4: Enrich Employee's Potential
2021 Priorities
CEI began the Connected Campus-Connected Future discussions in March 2021. They resulted in a string of changes, all instigated by employee suggestions. In this year, the college will address interrelated questions that all tie to these objectives, and their answers will continue to shape practice. (This progress can be measured by a compiled list of CCCF action items.) Human Resources and the VP of Academic and Student Affairs also worked to refined the campus service requirements so that the workload was more evenly distributed and employees could be certain that their work was noticed and rewarded.
2022 Priorities
- 2022 Strategic Initiative: Enhance the campus culture.
- CEI’s richest resource is its employees. We will strengthen our content experts with professional development; re-examine employment conditions to allow flexibility and autonomy where possible; develop more cohesive, mission-driven employee materials; and continue to celebrate their many accomplishments.
- Measure: Monitor employee retention and hiring rates, as well as perform more surveys and conversations to gauge employee satisfaction
Data
Tactics
The Recurring Mission Measures
CEI’s student success is the greatest measure of our mission fulfillment. We are committed to work, measure, and innovate continually to ensure that our students leave with credentials that are backed by proven performance. To make sure we get there, we continually grade our own work as rigorously as we grade our students.
This page lets us share our quantitative and qualitative measures with our community. Have questions? Please use the contact information to get to the right person!