A Grassroots Approach to Strategic Planning at St. Louis Community College—Meramec

Sponsored by Furniture for the Electronic Classroom

June 2009, Volume 22, Number 6

by Rebecca Winter

 

Like many higher education institutions, St. Louis Community College treats strategic planning as a continuous process that begins with the college’s mission and, through careful planning and reflection, leads to a clearly articulated set of priorities. Because it ultimately calls for action to implement identified goals, strategic planning has the potential to play an integral role in shaping the course of a college. Still, making the move from identifying goals to accomplishing goals is no simple task. In order to be truly successful, strategic planning efforts need more than the recommendation of administrators, leadership teams, and a board of trustees. They need the support and drive of faculty and staff members whose experience in the trenches every day puts them in a position to assess the college’s needs as well as recommend courses of action to effectively carry out strategic planning objectives. In other words, strategic planning efforts may be more successful if they work from the ground up rather than the top down. With that in mind, St. Louis Community College at Meramec is taking a grassroots approach to strategic planning by involving as many faculty and staff members as possible in the process for 2008-2011, particularly in developing plans to meet identified goals.

Context. In the early stages of the strategic planning process, St. Louis Community College (STLCC) promoted collaboration in generating its Strategic Planning Directions and Choices by involving faculty and staff at its four campuses in mission-based assessment activities, encouraging participation in the Higher Learning Commission Self-Study process, and offering brainstorming forums dubbed “Focus on the Future Fridays.” As a result, by the summer of 2008, STLCC had identified three major Strategic Planning Directions. Under each direction there are one or more Strategic Planning Choices describing how the college aims to make improvements in support of that direction:

• Strategic Planning Direction: Growing Enrollment
  • Strategic Planning Choice 1. Increase the STLCC participation rates in all regions of the district for recent high school graduates.
  • Strategic Planning Choice 2. Increase the STLCC participation rates in all regions of the district for adults 26-40 with high school credentials, but no college.
• Strategic Planning Direction: Improving the Academic Achievement and Student Learning Outcomes of Our Students
  • Strategic Planning Choice 1. Increase degree and certificate completion rates, while enhancing the learning outcomes of graduates.
  • Strategic Planning Choice 2. Create an effective developmental education program aimed at the development of skills necessary to complete college-level coursework.
• Strategic Planning Direction: Improving Our Responsiveness to Evolving Workforce Needs
  • Strategic Planning Choice 1. More effectively connect our curriculum programs and instructional delivery modes to the needs of employers in the region.

With its major priorities identified, the college turned its focus to how it could best achieve those directions. Seeking a unique and effective way to build broad support for carrying out strategic planning goals, Dr. Paul Pai, president of STLCC at Meramec, acted on the idea that successful endeavors often work from the ground up. He wanted individuals across the Meramec campus to get involved and invited Associate Professor Pam McElligott to help facilitate the next phase of the process, which entailed asking faculty and staff members to consider what their departments could do to meet the goals of strategic planning.

Brainstorming Ideas for Achieving Strategic Planning Priorities. During Service Week of August 2008, faculty and staff members across campus reviewed the Strategic Planning Directions and Choices during department meetings and thought about how their departments could contribute to each goal. For instance, in response to the goal to increase the STLCC participation rates in all regions of the district for recent high school graduates, one department suggested inviting local high school students to campus to sample St. Louis Community College. Each department compiled its ideas and at the end of Service Week sent a representative to a follow-up session where department spokespersons shared and reported the ideas generated during their meetings earlier in the week. Meramec also offered brainstorming sessions for part-time faculty members and student services staff members. And to ensure that all who were interested had the opportunity to provide meaningful input, a final session was offered for anyone who was unable to attend a meeting the first time around. Finally, an exhaustive list of all the ideas generated during the brainstorming sessions was created, totaling forty to fifty items for each strategic planning choice.

Narrowing the Field Through a Vote. With so many ideas proposed in the brainstorming sessions, the next step was to narrow the field to make the action plan more manageable. Faculty and staff were invited to rank the suggestions for carrying out each Strategic Planning Choice in a campus-wide vote. Voting took place in five separate rooms, with each room representing one choice. For each choice, voters were asked to select five items from the list of proposed ideas, ranking them from five to one according to priority (five points for the top priority, four points for second-highest, and so on). The scores were weighted so that when the votes were compiled, the items for each choice could be ranked from highest to lowest priority.

The polls were open for two hours, with absentee proxy votes available for those who could not attend the scheduled voting hours. In addition, deans were stationed in each of the five rooms to field questions and comments during the voting process. The votes were tabulated and used to rank the top eight items under each choice, with the results distributed campus-wide by email. As part of the goal of having faculty and staff take ownership of the strategic planning process, the eight goals for each choices were listed in their original wording, without revision or interpretation from any individual or member of the leadership team.

Entering the Implementation Phase. Once the voters identified their top selections for carrying out the Strategic Planning Choices, the implementation phase began. Each department was called on to determine how it could help accomplish any of the eight goals for each choice. To that end, individual departments developed operational plans, outlining exactly how they would help the campus achieve specific goals. For instance, in response to the goal to invite local high school students to campus and allow them to sample our college on a number of levels, the Business department suggested developing a three-course schedule for high school seniors that would allow them to experience college classes at Meramec. Though based in a single department, this specific action could expand and help accomplish the campus and college goal of increasing enrollment of recent high school graduates at STLCC.

Reflection. As the 2008-2011 strategic planning process at STLCC moves on, the Meramec campus is optimistic that its grassroots approach has potential for success. Still, it continues with the awareness that strategic planning is an evolving process. As it unfolds, the plan may need to be modified, adapted, or adjusted to deal with flaws and challenges. Perhaps the most significant challenge encountered thus far has been deciding whether to edit the eight selected goals for each choice after the voting process, or accept them in their entirety as an exact reflection of faculty and staff input. Meramec’s leadership team chose not to make changes to the identified goals in order to preserve the integrity of the vote. Of concern, however, is what would happen if the campus later realizes that some goals are not realistically achievable. Perhaps in the future the leadership team could review the selected goals with specific criteria in mind and suggest necessary revisions to ensure that the final objectives are feasible for the campus and college given any limits with budget, resources, and so on. Thus, a type of concurrent ownership may be achieved, in which all parties involved have constructive input regarding the direction of strategic planning.

In the end, Meramec has found that working from the ground up demands a significant amount of cooperation and collaboration; however, it is evident that there is tremendous insight to be gained from those who are in the trenches every day. One notable benefit to having people involved on a departmental level, tackling issues from a number of sides, is that it may make challenging tasks such as increasing enrollment seem more manageable. Furthermore, encouraging a grassroots endeavor shows that the campus values its faculty and staff members’ voices, and reminds us that all college constituencies have the ability to play a role in shaping their institution.

 

This post was provided by Rebecca Winter.

 

Posted by The League for Innovation in the Community College on 06/05/2009 at 4:30 PM | Categories: Leadership Abstracts -