Kaua‘i community college

Descriptive Summary

Through a collective, collaborative process, KCC has established its Strategic Plan (SP) with clearly articulated goals (KCC Strategic Plan). The SP was developed with extensive involvement of all parts of the campus community. Faculty, staff, students, and administrators, with input from community, county, and business advisory groups, took part in the development and revision of the plan. Specific goals were then developed for each of the areas described in the SP, and the College Council selected four of the college’s goals for

priority budget consideration. Goal selection was based on data such as declining enrollments, workforce demands, faculty demographics, as well as feedback from UHCC systemwide budget discussions (College Council Notes).
The four priority goals are as follows:
1. Access: To provide open access to educational excellence for a diverse student population with particular focus on improving enrollment and retention.

a. Outreach: Increase access to and participation in college programs through coordinated and continually improving marketing and recruitment activities.

b. Enrollment: Enhance educational success through retention initiatives.

Performance indicators: Enrollment increate to a headcount of 1350 by 2007. Increase FTE by 127 by the year 2010 and SSH by 3,048 by the year 2010.

2. Learning and Teaching:

a. Remediation/Developmental: Review the college’s current strategies for dealing with remedial students and, based on the findings, modify offerings to meet their needs.

b. Student Learning Outcomes: Develop, implement, and sustain an assessment process that fosters innovative and continuous improvement of Student Learning Outcomes at the college, program, and course level.

Performance indicators: Improve retention rate, fall to fall and semester to semester, to 75 percent by 2010. Improve graduation rate to 40 percent by 2010 (4 year period for cohort).

3. Workforce development: To provide a trained workforce by offering programs that prepare students for both employment and future career development. Particular emphasis on identified community workforce needs include:

a. Teaching and teaching related (statewide)

b. High technology [Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF)]

c. Healthcare

d. Construction (statewide)

e. Visitor industry

Performance indicators: Improve transfer rate to relevant baccalaureate programs, e.g., teaching, engineering, nursing. Improve employer satisfaction as demonstrated in focus groups.

4. Foster faculty and staff currency of expertise in their areas of responsibility through support of professional development activities.

a. Emphasis on faculty and staff retention and "succession planning."

Performance indicators: Program Reviews and APRUs will show evidence of succession planning through faculty replacement requests.

Self Evaluation

Program reviews and program action plans indicate that there is a broad-based understanding of the program or department goals and the college goals. All programs and departments on campus go through the program review process. Each program or department develops goals that are aligned with the campus goals and within the program review process the Annual Program Review Update of action plans links data analysis and decision making to resource allocation. The program review cycle is five years with an Annual Program Review Update (APRU) during the intervening years. Every program completes either a program review or an APRU annually. Based upon the analysis of data on such factors as enrollment, workforce needs, transfer rates, program efficiency, student achievement, and, eventually, Student Learning Outcomes, programs develop a set of action plans in their program reviews. These action plans then become the basis of the annual status reports embodied in the APRUs. Program goals are aligned with and support the college's goals and each goal is connected to an action plan and timeline (Program Reviews and Program action plans).

The administration has demonstrated its commitment to the review process by supporting the priority goals established by the College Council. Individual program action plans also indicate strategies for achieving these goals.
Listed below are examples of the initiatives that indicate how the college is moving toward meeting its goals.

Goal I: Access

1. To meet the goal of increasing enrollment by improving access, the college has been actively marketing various programs and courses. For example, faculty representatives and counselors have attended career fairs at the high schools on Kaua‘i as well as special career-related events. Also, marketing dollars have been spent for promoting the college, using radio ads, promoting various college programs on the local TV station and also during UH football

games. One APT position has been funded to include a partial workload of marketing the college. The emphasis this past year was on improving efforts to recruit high school students. This was accomplished using radio ads, flyers, and video slots on MTV that appeal to the younger audience.

2. To improve retention, the Auto Body program has modularized its seven-credit semester length courses into smaller two and three credit modules over the last year. This change allows students more opportunities to pursue different Certificates of Competence by successfully completing a series of courses in a variety of sequences. In the old system, students were locked into a three-semester Certificate of Achievement or a two-year associate’s degree.

In addition, moving to modular courses may have contributed to the substantial increase in first-year students. For example, the enrollment for 2000 was 10; 2001 was 16; 2002 was 22; 2003 was 27; 2004 was 25; and 2005 was 33.
The Auto Body and Automotive programs are developing a pre-program consisting of remedial math and English as well as special courses in Auto Body and Automotive subjects to better prepare potential majors in the programs.