Columbia Basin CollegePlenary I: Mission and Mission Fulfillment

Rich CumminsMelissa McBurney

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• Columbia Basin College (CBC) is a rural, public, two-year Washington State community college.

• CBC serves the Tri-Cities area (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland) and some outlying communities with a metropolitan base of approximately 250,000.

• The college served 6036 annualized FTEs in 2008-09. 3035 in Academic programs, 1400 Workforce, 600 Developmental, and 992 in Basic Skills.   Overall, enrollments reflected a 22.7% growth over the previous 5-year period.

• Serves Benton County, which has among the state’s highest per-capita income and education level

• Also serves Franklin County, which has among the state’s lowest per-capita income and education level

• Has a rapidly changing community demographic and is a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) 2

Institutional Characteristics

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Governance at CBC

• The Carver Policy Governance model utilizes an institution’s board to determine the outcomes and results expected of the college (“Ends”) and then to monitor the Ends of the institution while delegating the “Means” to the president.

• In 1997 the CBC Board of Trustees identified six End States for the college.

• The CBC Board monitors performance on each of the End States through a detailed set of indicators and measures.

• Monitoring Reports on each End State are prepared for the Board at least annually.

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Mission Statement

CBC exists in an environment of diversity, fairness, equity, and sustainability to ensure that the people of Benton and Franklin counties have access to educational programs providing sufficient knowledge for higher educational achievement, meaningful employment, basic skills development, cultural enrichment, andphysical and emotional well-being.

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End States / Core Themes

Access: CBC exists to provide people of the service district with access to educational programs.

Academic: CBC exists to enable students to complete requirements that would allow them to obtain academic degrees, transfer to upper division colleges and universities, and pursue life-long learning and enrichment.

Workforce Development: CBC exists to enable students to complete requirements that would allow them to earn degrees/certificates to assist them to gain employment and pursue life-long learning opportunities.

Basic Skills: CBC exists to enable students to prepare for success in college-level skills courses.

Cultural Enrichment: CBC will provide the college and the community with diverse and multiculturally rich programs designed to improve our quality of life, life-long learning and enhance educational programs.

Physical and Emotional Well-Being: CBC will contribute to the physical and emotional well-being of its students and the community.

Mission Fulfillment

CBC defines mission fulfillment both in terms of performance demonstrated in each core theme area as well as overall fulfillment of the mission.

Minimum accepted performance for each core theme is defined as achieving at least 70% of the possible performance points for each theme (described later).

The target performance level, however, is set at attaining at least 90% of the possible performance points, indicating outstanding performance in each area.

Minimum accepted performance for overall mission fulfillment is to obtain a mean performance value of 70% across all six core themes, with a targeted performance at a mean of 90%.

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Mission Fulfillment Assessment

• Data is collected for each indicator for each core theme.

• Performance on each indicator is classified as Good, Neutral, or Poor.

• The assessment for each indicator is converted to a point value: Good= 2 points, Neutral= 1 point, and Poor= 0 points.

• The total possible points for each theme is computed by summing indicator points.

• The percentage of points achieved is computed in order to compare across the themes. This is equal to points awarded divided by possible points.

• This ratio is plotted on a performance curve in order to evaluate performance across themes. The Productivity Measurement and Enhancement System (ProMES) was used to determine the performance curve used.

Using the performance curve on the next slide, performance for the Academic Core Theme placed at 89 performance points, a “B+” level of performance.

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Measuring Mission Fulfillment

Goal A: Students from CBC transfer to baccalaureate institutions and succeed after the transfer

Indicators Results Improvement Actions A1: % of students who transfer to other WA community colleges

CBC ranks 2nd in State in transfers/ headcount ratioGood: (2)

None

A2: CBC transfer student performance (GPA) at baccalaureate institutions

Quarter and Cum GPAs generally > 3.0 for UW, CWU, WSU Good: (2)

None

A3: Graduation rates from four-year institutions

NA Set up collaborative study of CBC transfer student academic performance and completion rates

Academic Core Theme ExampleOf the 16 indicators for this theme, 10 received a rating of good (2 points each), five received a rating of neutral (1 point each), and one received a poor rating (0 points), for a total of 25 out of a possible 32 points (78.1%).

Academic Core Theme Performance Curve

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Measuring Mission Fulfillment

Percentage of Total Possible Points

Perf

orm

ance

Poi

nts/

”Gra

de”

A

B

C

D

F

Acad

emic

Overall Academic End State Performance: 89 points= B+

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Overall Mission FulfillmentAll Core Themes

Percentage of Total Possible Points

Perf

orm

ance

Poi

nts

A

B

C

D

F

• Overall Mission Fulfillment = 84.0 Performance Points• 84.0 Points = 3.0(B)

Overall Mission

Physical & Em

otional Well-Being

Cultural Enrichment

Basic Skills

Workforce

Academic

Access

Engagement in Mission Fulfillment

• The Board of Trustees reviewed the mission in 2008 and the word sustainability was added to it.

• The Board has been very engaged in the process through the development of the original end states. These end states were reviewed and reapproved by the Board in 2008.

• This year a mission fulfillment policy was approved by the Board.

• The Board reviews each aspect of the mission through annual End State monitoring reports.

• Much of the business of the college is framed in terms of core themes (end states) so the entire campus is made aware of the mission and how each person supports it.

• A full cycle of core theme assessments will be completed by Summer 2010 and distributed widely among constituencies

Resources, Infrastructure and Capacity

• Assignments to analyze resources and capacity given to appropriate staff

• Writing to the standards done at the resource level

• Core accreditation team edited sections for consistency

• Utilizing the table structure for core theme goal / indicator assessment, improvements are noted in areas scoring average or low

• Improvements will be the focus of administration, faculty, and staff

• Continual modification to goals and indicators will be conducted as needed to support improved assessment and mission effectiveness

Sustained Quality / Effectiveness

Benefits / Implications• The process provides a clear opportunity for identification of areas

needing improvement

• A well aligned data collection method has been developed to support core theme assessment and mission effectiveness

• This has been a good tool for management to help focus efforts

• Through the discussions of core theme and resource alignment, every area of the college sees its impact on the mission.

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