College Planning Council

The College Planning Council welcomes you to our site, designed to keep you informed about Strategic Planning at Valencia College!

The College Planning Council (CPC) is one of Valencia’s four governing councils. Among the Council’s responsibilities are designing and conducting 1) a collaborative strategic planning process, and 2) a collaborative budgeting process that links the annual budget to the strategic plan.  The Strategic Plan for 2008-13 was approved by the District Board of Trustees on June 17, 2008. On September 9, 2011, the Board approved extending the Strategic Plan until 2015. You can access the summary Strategic Plan brochure here.

The Council works closely with and consults the Senior Leadership Team as it designs and conducts these processes. The CPC created Task Forces to carry out the phases of the planning process, and the charges, agendas, and minutes of those task forces may be accessed through the strategic planning web page. Volunteers were recruited collegewide for the various task forces. The task forces include: Vision, Values, and Mission; Data and Situational/Needs Analysis; Communications; Evaluation; and Strategies, Goals, and Objectives.

CPC is committed to a collaborative process with many opportunities for involvement of those within the college and in the community that we serve. Throughout the planning cycle, we will schedule big and small group meetings, community meetings, consultations with key constituencies, and discussions by the governing councils and the senior leadership team, all of which combine to enable broad based participation in the various phases of creating, updating, and evaluating the Strategic Plan.

During the 2012-13 period, the Council is scheduled to meet on September 27, October 25, November 29, January 24, February 28, March 28, and April 25.

To request additional information or for questions about the College Planning Council, please contact its co-chairs: Kurt Ewen, Jean Marie Führman, or Susan Ledlow.

2012-13 Council Membership

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College Planning Council Staff

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College Planning Council Charge

• Coordinate the development and revision of the Strategic Learning Plan
• Coordinate the development of the annual budget
• Recommend multi-year budget and staffing plans
• Oversee the measurement of institutional effectiveness
• Function as Steering Committee for institutional accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS)
• Oversee the College's Diversity Plan

Design Principles for the Strategic Planning Process

The College Planning Council established the following principles to guide the strategic planning work:
(These are numbered for ease of reference, but are not listed in any priority order.)

1. The planning process and the plan that it yields will be learning-centered, will be grounded in the College’s history of excellence, innovation, and community, and will support the quality and aspiration that bequeath the College with its distinctive place in higher education.
   
2. The process will be strategic by impacting the results the college aims to provide to society and to students as they progress in their programs of learning.
   
3. The planning process will be collaborative by operating within our shared governance structure that ensures broad-based participation and by providing a means for stakeholder groups to be heard and to influence the plan.
   
4. The process will build trust through effective communication and negotiation, by making it safe to identify and challenge assumptions, and by supporting agreements on shared values and the making of mutual commitments that are the basis for the strategic plan, and that are honored as the plan is implemented.
   
5. The process will be meaningful in that it will help the College to establish a vision of the future that shapes, defines, and gives meaning to its strategic purpose, and in that it will help to shape strategic decisions, some of which are identified in advance.
   
6. The process will be data-driven, using qualitative and quantitative data, routinely reviewed as the plan is implemented, with the aim of continuous improvement.
   
7. The plan will include formative and summative evaluation components that evaluate the planning process itself, as well as the implementation of the plan, using agreed upon performance indicators.
   
8. The process will have a clear cycle of activities, with a beginning and an end, and timed and structured to coordinate well with SACS accreditation requirements.
   
9. The process will be as simple as possible while yielding a viable plan, avoiding the trap of imposing more order than the College can tolerate, and integrating planning into permanent governing structures and collegewide meetings, rather than creating a separate set of activities removed from the governance and life of the College.
   
10. The process will support the integration of fiscal, learning, and facilities plans with the strategic plan of the college, through careful timing and by clearly connecting each of these plans to the College’s revised Vision, Mission, and Values.
    
11. The strategic plan will be useful to and therefore used by councils, campuses and departments as they prepare their plans, and will encourage a future orientation to their work.
    
12. The process, its language, its products, and the results of the plan will be communicated to all employees internally.
    
13. The plan will be expressed clearly, with language that is understood by stakeholders and with clear means of measuring progress.
    
14. The process will be truly comprehensive, and will have clearly assigned roles for individuals and groups, including students.

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Work Products of the Planning Process

The College Planning Council has named the following as the products of the planning process:

• needs assessment/situational analysis/environmental scan, providing a common understanding of the present and the anticipated future, including information about our competitors and clearly defined gaps in results at the mega, macro, and micro levels, as defined by Roger Kaufman’s planning model
• reviewed/revised mission (the role we will play), vision, and values statements
• a set of college strategies (the ways in which we will play our role and get results), goals (what results we want to accomplish within our role), measurable outcomes objectives (how much will we change specific results at the mega, macro, and micro levels as used in Kaufman’s model), and related activities to achieve the objectives within an agreed upon timeframe
• an evaluation plan, including indicators/measures of institutional effectiveness, revised as needed, and a means of assessing the extent to which College decisions are consistent with the plan
• a recommended assignment of responsibilities for objectives to the governing councils
• list of major decisions to be impacted by the plan, which could include decisions such as:
  
  • academic program plans for new campus(es) and evolution of programs on existing campuses
  • the goals in the College enrollment plan
  • Future Valencia Foundation fund raising goals
  • Focus of the Quality Enhancement Plan for SACS in 2010-2012
  • Professional development multi-year plan
  • Multi-year financial plan and annual budgets
  • Major external funding requests with collegewide impact, such as Title III and Title V
  • Community relations priorities and programs
  • Efforts designed to support student learning and to maintain academic excellence
  • Strategic facilities plans
  • Final proposed planning document for submission to the president and trustee

For more information, visit the Learning-Centered Initiative site.

For more information about the College Budget, which is the fiscal expression of our plans, visit the Budget Process site.

View the Council's meeting agendas and minutes.

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Organizational Overview

The College Planning Council will work closely with and consult the Senior Leadership Team as it designs and conducts the planning process. The CPC will charge Task Forces with designing and carrying out the phases of the process, ensuring that decisions are made in a collaborative fashion, using Big and Small Group meetings, consulting with key constituencies, and working through the governing councils and the Senior Leadership Team.

The Planning Steering Committee will be composed of the President (1), the council co-chairs (6), a Trustee (1), and a representative of Career Service and Professional staff (2). The Steering Committee will make final recommenda- tions regarding strategy and the content of the plan.

The full Committee will include 20 additional members: 9 senior staff not serving as co-chairs, 2 deans;, 3 additional faculty, 3 additional professional staff, and 3 additional career service staff. This group of 30 will review work products, note any additional information or consultation needed, and make needed adjustments to ensure a clear, consistent, and logical document.

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