Strategic Plan Draft

The College of Micronesia-FSM

Strategic Plan 2013-2017

March 14, 2013

Vision

Existing:  The College of Micronesia-FSM will assist the citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia to be well-educated, prosperous, globally connected, accountable, healthy and able to live in harmony with the environment and the world community.

Proposed:  

The College of Micronesia-FSM has focused on six strategic institutional outcomes (SIOs) for the COM-FSM vision of where we want to go as an organization over the next five years.

Focus on student success
The College of Micronesia-FSM will pursue excellence in student success and will develop a balance between “access and success” with appropriate career pathways for FSM students.

Emphasize academic offerings in service to national needs
The College of Micronesia-FSM will increase the number of 4-year program opportunities while also strengthening the career and technical educational opportunities for non-college-bound students.

Be financially sound, fiscally responsible, and build resources in anticipation of future needs
The College of Micronesia-FSM will generate diversified revenue sources, create an allied foundation, and accumulate reserves and endowment assets.

Invest in and build a strong capacity in human capital
The College of Micronesia-FSM will support and strengthen faculty, staff, and administrators through establishment of aspirational goals for credentialing and funding professional development and building upon organizational and leadership capacity.

Become a learning organization through development of a learning culture guided by learning leaders
The College of Micronesia-FSM will operate under the assumptions that learning is a skill and is worthy of investment and mastery, and that the communication of information and shared, participatory governance are pivotal to organizational success.  There will be support of the time, energy, and resources necessary to foster critical reflection and experimentation towards institutional improvement through double-loop learning and systematic thinking.

Evoke an image of quality
The College of Micronesia-FSM will be viewed as a model institution for best practices exhibited through quality, excellence, and integrity of both employees and graduates.  The college will maintain regional accreditation without sanction for the maximum six-year cycle allowed by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges: Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Mission

Existing:  Historically diverse, uniquely Micronesian and globally connected, the College of Micronesia-FSM is a continuously improving and student-centered institute of higher education.  The college is committed to assisting in the development of the Federated States of Micronesia by providing academic, career and technical educational opportunities for student learning.

Identified problematic terms:  “uniquely,” “committed,” “assisting,” and “development.







Proposed:  

Option 1
The College of Micronesia-FSM is a community college located in the culturally diverse nation of the Federated States of Micronesia.  College of Micronesia-FSM is a continuously improving, student-centered institution of higher education delivering pertinent programs and services that maximize national, student, and stakeholder opportunities.  

Option 2
Historically diverse, Micronesian, and globally connected, the College of Micronesia-FSM is a continuously improving and student-centered institute of higher education.  The college is committed to delivering pertinent programs and services that support national development priorities and student opportunities.

Option 3
Historically diverse, Micronesian, and globally connected, the College of Micronesia-FSM is a continuously improving and student-centered institute of higher education.  The college is committed to assisting in the development of the Federated States of Micronesia by providing academic, career and technical educational opportunities for student learning.

Option 4
Historically diverse, Micronesian, and globally connected, the College of Micronesia-FSM is a continuously improving and student-centered institution of higher education delivering pertinent programs and services to maximize student and stakeholder opportunities and national development priorities.

Option 5
Combination of something above?

Option 6 (Based on Mariana’s Input regarding Option 1)

The College of Micronesia-FSM is a community college located in the culturally diverse nation of the Federated States of Micronesia.  College of Micronesia-FSM’s mission is to be a continuously improving, student-centered institution of higher education delivering pertinent programs and services that maximize national, student, and stakeholder opportunities.


Values

Existing:  

Learner-centeredness  Learners are our primary focus and we provide quality instruction and services in a nurturing and safe environment.

Professional behavior  We are competent, service-oriented professionals with a commitment to life-long learning and a commitment to provide excellent and exemplary service to students, colleagues and the community.

Innovation  We provide a dynamic, creative, up-to-date, and innovative environment to allow the college community to function effectively in a global economy.

Honesty and Ethical Behavior  We are honest and abide by the COM-FSM Code of Ethics in all our personal and professional interactions to create and maintain trust and unity among ourselves and with our community.

Commitment and Hard Work  We commit and invest our time, energy and resources to create a rigorous, high-quality learning environment.

Teamwork  We live in a community where collaboration, open-mindedness, respect and support for each other help up achieve our mission.

Accountability  We are responsible for and accountable in our daily activities to our partners and the community we serve.  We comply with all applicable regulations and use our resources efficiently and effectively to maintain a high level of trust and confidence.
Proposed:  

Core Values

We believe in:

• The College of Micronesia-FSM
• Being a collaborative, open-minded, respectful, and supportive community
• Promoting life-long learning
• Continuous quality improvement (Collective responsibility towards continuous quality improvement)
• Effective communication and purposeful dialogue
• Recognizing and celebrating the diverse cultures and traditions of the FSM
• Acknowledging and rewarding merit, innovation, and creativity
• Shared, participatory governance
• COM-FSM’s role in FSM social transformation
• Respecting diverse points of view
•  

Institutional Student Learning Outcomes
   
Existing:

COM-FSM graduates will demonstrate that they can:

1. Communicate effectively
2. Employ critical thinking [& problem solving]
3. Possess specific knowledge and skills in a major discipline or professional program of study
4. Take responsibility and develop skills for learning
5. Interact responsibly with people, cultures, and their environment

Proposed:  

COM-FSM graduates will demonstrate:

1. Effective oral communication: capacity to deliver prepared, purposeful presentations designed to increase knowledge, to foster understanding, or to promote change in the listeners’ attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors.
2. Effective written communication: development and expression of ideas in writing through work in many genres and styles, utilizing different writing technologies, and mixing texts, data, and images through iterative experiences across the curriculum.
3. Critical thinking: a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion.
4. Problem solving: capacity to design, evaluate, and implement a strategy to answer an open-ended question or achieve a desired goal.
5. Intercultural knowledge and competence: a set of cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills and characteristics that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts.
6. Information literacy:  the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand.
7. Foundations and skills for life-long learning: purposeful learning activity, undertaken on an ongoing basis with the aim of improving knowledge, skills, and competence.

Note to credit AAC&U
"Reprinted [or Excerpted] with permission from Assessing Outcomes and Improving Achievement: Tips and tools for Using Rubrics, edited by Terrel L. Rhodes. Copyright 2010 by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.”  (ILOs and VALUE Rubric permission)





Strategic Goals

Existing:  

1. Promote learning and teaching for knowledge, skills, creativity, intellect, and the ability to seek and analyze information and to communicate effectively.
2. Provide institutional support to foster student success and satisfaction.
3. Create an adequate, healthy and functional learning and working environment.
4. Foster effective communication.
5. Invest in sufficient, qualified, and effective human resources.
6. Ensure sufficient and well-managed fiscal resources that maintain financial stability.
7. Build a partnering and service network for community, workforce and economic development.
8. Promote the uniqueness of our community, cultivate respect for individual differences and champion diversity.
9. Provide for continuous improvement of programs, services and college environment.

Proposed:  

1. Promote/Promoting learning for knowledge, skills, creativity, intellect, and the ability to seek and analyze information and to communicate effectively.  Can I get rid of this one and marry to student success as done below in SPG 2?
2. Provide/Providing collaborative institutional support to advance student success by promoting student engagement and Institutional Student Learning Outcomes.
3. Maximize educational opportunities to meet student and national needs.
4. Diversify revenue sources, create an allied foundation, and accumulate reserves and endowment assessts.
5. Demonstrate/Demonstrating effective and purposeful communication across the college and the college community.
6. Invest/Investing in and build/building the institution’s human capital.
7. Promote organizational learning and learning leaders to strengthen continuous quality improvement.
8. Achieve recognition as a model institution by promoting quality, excellence, and integrity.

Other options are to use the SIOs as the SP goals as written under the vision.  Thoughts????


Measures of Success


Proposed in our 18DEC13 meeting (I’ll work these under relevant SP goals as I put them in for your review - but also feel free to begin adding other ideas).

• We should be conducting assessments regularly to identify gaps and setting targets for improvement/resolution.  We should be able to demonstrate evidence we are continuously improving.  And, we set targets and report against them to show whether or not we are successful.
• We need to monitor our graduates.  We need data to show success.  Our students and graduates are a reflection of our college and in effectively help to promote the college and the college image.  We should be tracking employment, transfer, and graduation rates.  Alumni efforts should start early on -- we should create supporting alumni in our students before they even graduate.  What do we do to incentivize our students to be dedicated alumni?
• We will be accredited without sanctions.
• We will exhibit student-centeredness.  Students will confirm through positive institutional feedback (through college evaluations/surveys/focus groups).  There will be intentionally designed physical space for student use to meet their needs.  Wifi at all campuses.  There will be opportunities in place for students via student organizations and an enhanced student life experience.  The dorms will be operating effectively and in order at all times.  We go out of our way to serve students (and colleagues as noted earlier) -- we won’t “fob” them off and/or dismiss them, and we won’t direct students to someone else when we might take the time to assist them ourselves.  Good customer service should be evidenced.  
• High CCSSE & CCFSSE scores.  
• WASC recognition we are a model college in the Western Pacific.
• Government will recruit and hire our graduates.
• Employer satisfaction surveys will demonstrate evidence employers are pleased with the quality and capacity of our graduates.
• Transfer students perform successfully-- the students feel prepared for transfer and the receiving university feels the transfer students were prepared.
• We have evidence of higher levels of community engagement with the college.  The number of advisory councils should correspond with the number of programs we offer.  There should be many opportunities for students to participate in internships/experiential learning.  We might want to consider a service learning requirement for graduation (for all graduates).
• We will stick with a cap on enrollment -- the number of students with can serve and support effectively and with the highest quality.

Organization I will use will be to list the SPG and then offer bullets on the measures of success.  For example:

2.   Provide/Providing collaborative institutional support to advance student success by promoting student engagement and Institutional Student Learning Outcomes.

• Evidence of new pedagogy
• Evidence of new curriculua
• Retention/persistence rates (year by year enrollment)
• Graduation rates
• Number of students who transfer to four-year degree programs
• Internship experiences
• Exit interview assessments
• Job placement of graduates
• CCSSEE survey results