Inside ICC
Blueprint For The Future
The Blueprint for the Future is a living document updated annually to address the emerging challenges facing the College. Each year, an external scan is conducted which includes such areas as community demographics, K-12 education, labor market, regulatory environment, and a competitor analysis. Surveys of staff, students, and community are reviewed to get a better understanding of the needs and expectations of these groups. This year, the feedback reports from the Higher Learning Commission and from the Lincoln Foundation for Performance Excellence were used to identify additional opportunities for improvement. To understand how ICC is doing, ICC's performance is compared against other institutions of higher education.
Using the available data and information, a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is conducted in December or January by a strategic planning team consisting of the cabinet and representatives from the faculty and staff. The list is narrowed to the most significant challenges the College will face in the next three or more years. The team also identifies those strengths and opportunities that can be leveraged as advantages. Then priorities are established. During the spring, action plans are developed so the new plan is ready to go in July.
Below is the list of objectives to be addressed in FY12. In addition to the action plans developed at the institutional level, everyone is asked to review their program plans or their individual performance plans to ensure that everyone is working together to achieve these objectives. It is through everyone's contributions that ICC will achieve the vision of an "an exceptional educational experience."
FY12 STRATEGIC PLAN
Strategic Priority: Outreach
Challenges: The fastest growing jobs will require some college yet the Peoria area has 110,000+ individuals aged 25-55 years with a high school diploma or less than an associate’s. The last two years, ICC has experienced an increase in nontraditional students but in the next few years, the overall student enrollment is projected to remain flat or decline. Attracting nontraditional students to campus will help ICC maintain enrollments and will serve the community’s workforce needs in the years ahead.
Challenges: With enrollment projected to be flat or decline, mechanisms that provide greater access will be needed in order to encourage college attendance. ICC has experienced an increased demand for online courses. This may be an avenue to reach more individuals in the district.
Advantages: ICC is approved to offer online degrees by the Higher Learning Commission. There is the opportunity to market courses nationally through the Online Community College, a consortium of colleges.
Challenges: Businesses are increasingly skill and education dependent. As the baby boomer generation leaves the workforce, there will not be enough college-educated workers to replace the college-educated people leaving the workforce. As a result, it will be necessary for the remaining workforce to upgrade skills through credit and/or noncredit education. ICC has the opportunity to serve the needs of the changing workforce and to provide continued learning for those entering retirement.
Advantages: Hickory Hall provides accessible, high quality space to serve the needs of these groups.
Strategic Priority: Learning
Challenges: President Obama has challenged higher education with a goal that by 2020, the U.S. will have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. Of entering ICC students, 20% test into college level math and 44% test into college level English. Student engagement as measured by the Community College Survey of Student Engagement falls slightly lower than the average for participating colleges.
Challenges: The mean course success rate for African American students was 54.4% in comparison to the mean for all students at 73.27.
Challenge: Only 44% of placement tests taken by incoming ICC students place into college level English and 20% place into college level math courses. The intent is to increase the number of students that succeed in these courses so they can succeed in college level courses.
Strategic Priority: Service
Challenges: Currently, no systematic process exists to collect student feedback and to aggregate it for analysis so that opportunities can be identified to improve programs and services.
Challenges: Students rank academic advisement as a top priority on the Student Satisfaction Inventory. While significant improvements have occurred in this area, additional emphasis is important to the student experience and to their success.
Strategic Priority: Workforce
Challenges: Metrics need to be established to assist in making workforce decisions. Software systems need to be structured to effectively and efficiently extract necessary data. The Affirmative Action Plan needs to be finalized. The performance appraisal process needs to be designed to collect data such as training needs in order to make decisions to support the workforce.
Strategic Priority: Value
- Foundation fundraising net the cost of operations will be maintained at $1,142,072;
- Health care costs per capita will not exceed $12,887 (+15%);
- Operations and maintenance cost per square foot will not exceed $7.79 (+10%); and
- The cumulative net dollar return will increase by $305,000 for these programs/services: child care center, fitness center, food services, tenant services, PAC, athletics, and tuition waivers.
Challenges: ICC has three primary sources of funding: tuition, state support, and the local tax base. State funding has declined over the past decade. Though ICC has experienced record enrollments over the past two years, enrollments are now projected to be flat or decline. The local tax base is projected to be flat or grow at a slow pace over the next three years. With constraints on revenue growth, ICC will need to be efficient, contain costs, and seek alternative sources of funding.