REDWOODS COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT
Facilities Planning Committee (FPC) meeting notes
November 9, 2007
In attendance: Tim Flanagan, Frank Martinez, Ray Kingsbury, Mark Winter, Todd
Olsen, Paul Agpawa, Bill Connors, Michael Bailey, Stephen McCollum (by phone
CRDN), David Maki (by phone CRMC), Tricia Hawkins, Erik Sorensen, Steve Brown,
Ron Katz, Barbara Morrison, Leslie Haddock, Scott Thomason, Ginger Felt (meeting
notes)
Cathy Dickerson distributed copies of the Strategic Plan – 2007-08 Provisional and
Accreditation Standard III: Resources, and shared with the group information about
where we are in strategic planning for the district, and how facilities planning is
envisioned to connect to that process. The provisional planning work that the committee
has done for the current year can be found online at www.redwoods.edu/district/
accreditation, under the planning section. For year 2008 and beyond, an ad hoc group,
the Coordinated Planning Team, has already begun meeting to plan for 2008 and beyond
at least one year, hopefully several years, to allow us to connect some of our
disconnected planning processes to achieve our plan for the District.
The main components of the plan are goals that emerged from our vision/mission
statement and objectives that are seen as college wide that are formulated by a group, in
this case, the Coordinated Planning Team, as they look at gaps between our current
performance, and what would be a desired state of performance. The place where those
gaps get identified is in learning that data and information through what is called a
SWOT analysis; strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. In looking at a scan of
internal conditions to the college similar to the resources that we have in our facilities
master planning documents, and with additional information that is external to the
college, such as what is happening in our work force, local businesses, and community,
what a planning group does is to try to envision where are our opportunities, where are
our gaps between where we would like to be and where we believe we are, where our
data says we are, and what can we do to close those gaps.
In the provisional plan, there are four goal statements to assist in learning how to do
ongoing strategic planning for the district. These goals are intended to last for three to
five years, are very broad, and can help employees see a role for themselves in their work
for the college. These goals are designed to allow the college to identify objectives that
they will be working on with measurable ways to determine that an objective is met.
Critical to goals and objectives are performance indicators, and at the bottom of the cover
page on the provisional plan are nine items that are considered to be key performance
indicators for which college wide we would want to pay attention. Our IR Department
intends to keep this information up to date. Cathy shared an overhead of a graphic which
is available on the accreditation information and evidence site.
FPC meeting notes
November 9, 2007
Page Two
Todd expressed concern about how we are going to meet accreditation standards, and
integrate the Strategic Plan and Facilities Master Plan, when we have these major projects
happening concurrently. Cathy said that the process Tom Harris is putting into place by
holding the town hall meeting next Wednesday, November 14, is a good forum to get
people together to exchange information. She also stressed that planning needs to be
continuous.
Michael said that from his prospective as a community member, one of the biggest
threats to the college is public opinion. Exhibit 1 in our facilities manual lists 11 items
that were specifically mentioned in the bond measure. Of those items, three through six
and 11 are not on the schedule of public funding. If this is brought up to the public, it
may cause a loss of faith in the public in our ability to spend money the way it was
appropriated. He sees this as a threat to the college, and something needs to be done to
address that threat. The fact that we are going to build a Student Union that has no
teaching function at all, with bond money, is another issue that needs to be addressed.
Michael suggested changing it to include a teaching facility for our culinary arts program.
Scott said we have always known that the 40 million dollars wouldn’t pay for everything
on the list; but the funds can only be spent on things that are on the list.
Cathy will send the committee members a connection that will allow us access to the
strategic planning blackboard site, and suggested that one of the things this committee do
next is begin a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats exercise in our next meeting,
and look for gaps we might identify as objectives for a facilities plan to try to close some
of those gaps during this next year. Scott said this is our expectation for the next meeting
which will be held next Friday November 16, 9:00-10:00 a.m. in the Lakeview Room.