Every five years for the last quarter century, Allen Community College President John Masterson has convened a series of meetings with the purpose of creating a five-year strategic plan that will highlight the college’s top goals and identify the best means of achieving them.
Participants, about 50 in all, are drawn from various segments of local civic life: ACC trustees, administration, faculty, students, but also area business owners, economic development leaders, non-profit heads, city government players and others with any stake in the community college.
According to Masterson, most of the objectives set out in the 2012 planning session — to retain an architect to help develop a “facilities master plan,” for example, or efforts toward a comprehensive upgrade of the school’s technology profile — have been met and are proceeding according to or ahead of schedule.
This year’s ACC strategic planning team wrapped up their latest confab last week.
IN AN effort to show the context in which any proposed changes might be enacted, it may be of value to highlight the most recent round of hard data to emerge from what is by now, in terms of enrollment, the largest community college in southeast Kansas.
According to student demographic numbers from the fall of 2015, 18 percent of ACC’s total student body took courses at the Iola campus, 22 percent commute to the Burlingame campus, and 21 percent of its students are current high schoolers. (ACC serves — through its online and video course technology — more than 60 Kansas high schools.) However, the major plurality of the college’s total enrollment — 39 percent — is made up of online students. In the years since ACC launched its first online class, the college has garnered national acclaim for the quality and affordability of its online programs and consistently receives high marks on student-administered surveys.
During the same period, the faculty-to-student ratio at ACC was 16:1. Sixty-three percent of ACC’s students are female and 23 percent of its students are 25 years old or older.
A preoccupation of any community college centers on the preparedness of the graduate or transfer student who advances to a four-year institution. In 2014, the college compared the grade point averages of ACC students who transferred to Washburn University with the GPAs of native WU students. The ACC transfer averaged a 3.10 GPA against the WU native’s 2.88. (Washburn currently receives more transfer students from ACC than from any other community college in the state.)
For the 2016-17 school year, tuition and fees at Allen equaled $95 per credit hour. Book rental was $12 per credit hour. And housing costs averaged $4,830 per year. There were some offsets: During the prior year, the college awarded more than $1.5 million in scholarships and $4.5 million in federal financial aid.
More numbers. The college’s assessed valuation for 2015-16 was $141,103,219. The total expenditures for that year equaled $12,961,872.
In the same year, the college spent $1,011,226 million on goods and services in Allen County.
THE 2017-2022 Strategic Planning committee landed on seven goals upon which to fix their energy and attention over the next five years.
1) BUILD AND/OR RENOVATE AND MAINTAIN FACILITIES
This, the top goal in 2012’s strategic plan as well, sets as its highest priority the renovation of the student center. Next, the college is looking to renovate and make material improvements to the Burlingame campus. An additional focus, as ever, is to develop a housing plan that considers replacing Horton Hall, renovating or replacing Winter Hall and continuing to pursue off-site student housing. (ACC recently signed a lease agreement with Iola’s Parkford Apartments, which will add 28 units to the student housing rolls.) Next, the plan labels as a top priority the upgrading of the Iola campus’s “athletic/activity facilities” — including possibly building “an outdoor learning facility for agriculture and biology.” Finally, the plan is to continue upgrading campus security by increasing the number and sophistication of security cameras and improving the reach of outdoor lighting.
2) SUSTAIN ENROLLMENT THROUGH ADMISSIONS, RETENTION AND COMPLETION
For Masterson, ACC’s bedrock objective is to see each student achieve graduation, both at the community college level and at a four-year institution, should they choose to pursue it. To this end, making the college as “welcoming and caring” an atmosphere as possible is among his top priorities. This means looking into offering on-campus child care, a language interpretation service, a professional development program, etc. Plus, making sure that the curricular agreements with four-year institutions are maximally beneficial to the ACC student. Helping students “understand, apply for and receive” financial aid is a core element of this objective, too.
3) DEVELOP ACADEMIC PROGRAMS THROUGH FORWARD THINKING PROCESSES
This objective, perhaps not immediately evident by its language, involves three features: maintaining and enhancing the college’s online presence, including the marketing of online classes to students outside Kansas; investigating new programs (e.g., developing a “soft skills” curriculum); and, finally, developing mutually beneficial partnerships with local business and industry.
4) MAINTAIN INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY THROUGHOUT THE COLLEGE
This goal, fairly self-evident, ranges from improving student access to technology to sending faculty to conferences to bone up on the latest software to preparing a top-to-bottom security plan in the event of an attempted data breach or cyber attack.
5) ENHANCE PARTNERSHIPS AND COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS
How? Through student internships or service outings or by sponsoring community events and festivals. Conversely, the strategic plan also calls on the college to invite the community to campus by offering, say, fine arts presentations, continuing education classes, theatrical productions, athletic events, etc.
6) MAINTAIN FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH PRUDENT DECISION-MAKING AND PLANNING
Given the Kansas context, one strategy for prudent decision-making listed in this year’s strategic plan encourages the college to “plan for less state funding.” That aside, the plan advocates increasing the role of the endowment, researching new grant opportunities and advocating fruitful partnerships with business and industry.
7) ATTRACT, DEVELOP AND RETAIN WELL-QUALIFIED EMPLOYEES
By providing competitive salaries and benefits, by encouraging educational advancement and by helping new employees with the transition to ACC (e.g., assisting with moving expenses).
A FINAL task of the crew who dedicated their spare time to forging this strategic roadmap was to fine tune the language of ACC’s “vision statement,” which charges the institution with being one “that empowers and educates our students, faculty, and staff to embrace change, become lifelong learners, and take their place as productive members of the global community.”
“I sometimes think that maybe it’s just because I’m so danged partial,” reflected Masterson, “but I’ve heard from several people that have worked for other community colleges — they’ll come in and talk about our student body, what fantastic kids they are. You know, that’s why anybody around here does this work. Really, that’s it.”
