Focused Report

for Commission on Colleges
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

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Craven Community has an integrated planning and assessment process that includes systematic strategic planning and evaluation, a services review process and components of program review, which are being further developed. The annual assessment of planning begins with a review of the college's Mission Statement by the Institutional Effectiveness Committee and CCC Board of Trustees. The college's current strategic plan, including long-term goals, biennial priorities, and enhancement goals, supports the mission. Although biennial, the plan is reviewed and accepted each year by the CCC Institutional Effectiveness Committee and Board of Trustees. Minutes of the IEC and Board of Trustees meetings indicate acceptance of the plan.

The college's planning process flows downward from the mission statement and evaluation/assessment occurs at every level and ultimately informs the planning process for the subsequent year. A summary of the Institutional Effectiveness Plan follows.

Institutional Effectiveness Plan

Craven defines Institutional Effectiveness as an institutional perspective that focuses on results and accomplishments. The college's institutional effectiveness plan has three major components: planning, evaluation/assessment, and improvement. Planning is a cyclical process that documents in detail the intended purpose, direction, and expected outcomes of the college and provides a mechanism for periodic review and updating of that purpose, direction and expected outcomes. Assessment is systematic collection of information about programs and services of the college involving stakeholders in those programs and services. Evaluation determines the worth or merit of a program or service. Formal and informal assessment and evaluation lead to continuous improvement of those programs and services.

The Process

The planning and evaluation cycle at Craven Community College is designed to ensure that all college personnel have the opportunity to participate in determining the direction the college will take and those activities necessary to support the learning goals of the college. The process includes components at the administrative operating unit and at departmental/program unit levels. The diagram shows how each activity is interrelated.

Institutional Effectiveness starts with the College's Mission, reviewed annually by the College's Institutional Effectiveness Committee(IEC) and the CCC Board of Trustees. The Mission reflects what Craven Community College is and does for its community (stakeholders). From the mission, strategic direction is established for the college, with long-range goals that grew out of a college-wide process of internal capacity review in 2000. Those goals were established in 2001-02 by the IEC and approved by the Board of Trustees, and they were modified and amended in 2003 to include a tenth goal. They are reviewed annually as part of the college's biennial strategic plan.

That biennial strategic plan is developed each two years and reviewed and adjusted each non-development year by the President's Cabinet with input from all college employees.  The plan is then reviewed and approved by the Institutional Effectiveness Committee and CCC Board of Trustees. The plan forms the basis for the enhancement goal process, in which new initiatives are proposed by each academic and service area of the College. Goals are reviewed at the administrative level and made a part of the budget and assessment process, along with the continual operation of the college from year to year.

After goals have been set and put into place, they, along with general operations of the college are reviewed by a number of assessments/evaluations:

• The college is mandated to report on student success and institutional soundness to several agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System), the North Carolina Community College System (financial reporting as well as Program Review data on 12 Performance Measures/Critical Success Factors identified by the system to track student success), and the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
• Annual services review data inform the college's service areas of progress and need for improvement. Additional survey data is gathered by the Institutional Advancement area to support enhancement goals and other service area needs. Graduate, non-completer, and exit surveys serve as other sources of data about student satisfaction, goal completion and reasons for dropping out or stopping out.
• Demographic, current enrollment and longitudinal information about programs; retention statistics, and other data are provided to departments to help inform program review and decision-making about course and program offerings.
• Goal progress reports (for the 2005-07 cycle, there will be a mid-year report in January 2007 and a final report in May 2007, just prior to actual year-end. In 2003-05, there were three reporting periods) are completed by each unit in response to enhancement goals.
• The 2006-07 plan assigned strategic priorities to division-level leadership. Progress reports on strategic priorities from those individuals on whom primary responsibility has been placed will be included in the January 2007 mid-year reporting.
• Assessment of instruction is undertaken under the direction of the Executive Vice President/Chief Academic Officer, whose office conducts fall and spring Student Opinion of Instruction surveys for face-to-face and distance classes.
• Assessment/evaluation of all college employees is conducted through a process overseen by the Human Resources Office in the spring of each year.

Calendar

The cycle of events described in full in the Institutional Effectiveness Calendar and Annual Reporting Plan details those items coordinated by the Institutional Effectiveness Committee and the Associate Vice President for Institutional Advancement, who, along with the President of the College, is charged with the planning function for the College. The President's Cabinet, which includes the executive and administrative officers of the college through dean-level positions, works with the Institutional Effectiveness Committee in setting the strategic direction for the college.

Highlights of the current planning calendar include assessments conducted by the instructional (Student Opinion of Instruction) and human resources (employee appraisal) areas of the college. Beginning with the 2005-07 enhancement goals process, the calendar, including the new program review and general education outcomes assessment processes, is:

Prior to 2006, the Institutional Effectiveness Committee met at least twice a year to review mission statements and strategic plans for the college. Beginning August 2006, the IEC will meet monthly to develop a new strategic planning process for the college and direct the review of assessment data gathered as part of the Institutional Effectiveness Plan. Minutes of the July 25 meeting outline the new schedule.

Part IIa - Documentation to support change from research-based planning

Part IIb - Institution-wide Planning

Part III - Services and Program Review Processes

Part IV - A history of planning and data-driven decision making

Part V - Future direction of planning and assessment

CRAVEN COMMUNITY COLLEGE
800 College Court | New Bern, NC 28562 | 252-638-4131

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