Dr. Aaron McVean and I have been visiting all the constituency groups across the District and all three campuses in order to kick off the beginning of the District’s new Strategic Plan 2025-2030. It is my greatest desire to engage in an unprecedented inclusive process and welcome you to participate in the development of the District’s future. Here’s our approach so far:
We Engaged the State’s Institutional Effectiveness Partnership Initiative (IEPI)
On April 3, 2024 (2 days following my appointment as permanent Chancellor) I wrote a Letter of Intent to participate in the IEPI program. This District has had some great success with this program. Each of the three colleges actually have an active IEPI grant right now! And the District now adds a fourth. Our letter was accepted and we are now working through their process. I knew this approach would be helpful, but honestly, I did not expect this to be as valuable as it is. The IEPI unit assigned to us a very experienced Partnership Resource Team (PRT) led by the Chancellor at Contra Costa, Mojdeh Mehzidadeh (pictured at right).
This process is requiring us to inclusively draft the process we expect and want to engage in during our Strategic Planning development.
We Created an Interactive Website to Invite Your Feedback During Drafting
We have created a place where everything is public. You can follow our work actively on the District’s Strategic Planning Website. Our intention is to upload everything we are doing and sharing on the site, and when the drafting begins, create shared documents that can be accessed so that anyone can provide live feedback.
The IEPI Team Met with Our Constituent Leaders on October 2 and Captured Feedback and Will Return in November
On October 2, 2024, the PRT team came to the District Office as our District wide constituent leaders met and discussed possibilities for our strategic planning process. The visiting team met with faculty, students, management, and classified representatives. In addition, our Board of Trustees member, Wayne Lee, participated as part of the Board’s Ad Hoc Committee on Strategic Planning. They captured all of the feedback and shared it with me (and Aaron) at the end of the day. They will also write up the feedback and we will publish it on our website. Let me share my reaction to the feedback received throughout the day:
- I felt enormous gratitude for those that participated and provided what seemed like very open, honest, and respectful feedback (without me in the room). Thank you!
- I wasn’t really surprised to hear that this is the first time this District has engaged in a meaningful and inclusive planning process. There was some cautious optimism and some hopefulness expressed that the District is entering a new way of doing things.
- The IEPI process is helpful. It allowed for us to capture real feedback to inform a strategic planning process that will be authentically inclusive. We will be co-creating the process in the next few weeks in preparation for the IEPIs next visit on November 18.
- Communication from me and the District leadership out to our employees and students must be better. We were advised by the visiting team to engage in over-communication during this period of planning. So I am working hard to immediately expand our communication at the District level (more regular blogging, more official communication, and a possible podcast). I suppose we risk you getting sick of us, but that’s better than feeling like you don’t know what’s happening or assuming that we are engaged in decision-making without your input!
- We heard that some of you don’t know what the newly adopted Board Goals are. And, we heard concerns about how the campus Educational Master Plans (EMPs) will be integrated into the new District Strategic Plan. We will address this below.
- Finally, I think we were lucky to be assigned a really good IEPI team with experience that can provide great advice on how to move forward. They are helping us to create a planning environment that is open to feedback from all groups (weighted equally) and to be able to incorporate this feedback as we write the strategic plan.
Eight Board Goals and the Campus EMPs Inform the District Strategic Plan
Part of the Board’s regular duties is to revisit their goals annually. We have hired a consultant to help the board with their regular annual duties. Her name is Cindi Reiss, who is a Trustee in the Peralta district and she is also a full-time faculty member in another District. The board has really taken to her, and she and I have worked very closely to capture the Board’s sentiments and incorporate them into their goals. Last year and this year, the board set long term goals (3-5 years). All of this work has been accomplished publicly in our board meetings.
The board goals are sufficiently broad enough and we feel that the Educational Master Plans (EMPs) that the campuses worked so hard to produce will easily be incorporated into these goals. We will work together to create a cross-walk with each of the EMPs so that the campuses can see how their own goals and strategies can be integrated into the new District Strategic Plan. Having said that, we are open to what you think is missing from the EMPs and the Board Goals that might be included in the Strategic Plan. There will be plenty of opportunity to give us feedback during the drafting phase.
The Board’s Eight (8) Goals:
- Ensure continuous improvement, radical transparency, and accountability in effecting the regular duties of the Board of Trustees.
- Reinforce a thriving and positive-oriented workplace where employees feel supported in professional growth and innovation.
- As stewards of the public trust, ensure prudent fiscal planning for the priorities of the District.
- Encourage and support innovations in outreach, recruitment, retention, and enrollment growth.
- Provide students with clear pathways to completion and support innovative approaches to delivery methods and industry engagement.
- Inspire stronger and more meaningful community partnerships that lead to seamless pathways from cradle to college.
- Establish the SMCCC Foundation as a high-performing fundraising agent for the District.
- As educational leaders in San Mateo County and the State of California, enrich District’s reputation in the community through deeper engagement with stakeholders and comprehensive Countywide awareness-building campaigns.
Each year, the board also sets their priorities for each goal during the public board meetings. They have done this for two years now and you can read this on your own if you are interested in taking a deeper dive: 2023-24 Board Goals/Priorities and 2024-25 Board Goals/Priorities.
Communications during the Strategic Planning Process
We are planning to keep you informed about our strategic planning work in the following ways: Chancellor’s Three Rings blog (with some multimedia), Official Chancellor’s Office e-newsletter, our strategic planning interactive website, and the leaders of constituency groups bringing you updates.