2012 STRATEGIC PLANNING
RETREAT REPORT
Prepared by SPPE
Strategic Planning and Performance Excellence
(210) 485-0750
www.alamo.edu/planning
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ALAMO COLLEGES
2012 STRATEGIC PLANNING RETREAT REPORT
This report includes the background, methodology, recommendations, next steps, and evaluation results
from the 2012 Alamo Colleges strategic planning retreat*.
BACKGROUND
The Alamo Colleges organize periodic strategic planning retreats to ensure the participation of all
stakeholders in strategy development and deployment.
The 2012 Alamo Colleges strategic planning retreat was held at the Rosenberg Sky Room at the
University of the Incarnate Word on February 6, 2012. There were 150 participants from the colleges and
the district, including students, community members, faculty members, staff, and administrators. This
broad stakeholder representation ensured the participatory aspect of strategic planning at the Alamo
Colleges.
The information provided to retreat participants prior to the event included an online environmental scan
report, a SWOT analysis report, including Alamo Colleges priorities and competitive factors, and a copy of
the Alamo Colleges strategic plan. This information was provided to ensure realistic, fact-based retreat
discussions.
METHODOLOGY
The Alamo Colleges strategic planning retreat’s purpose was to collect feedback from all Alamo Colleges
stakeholders to review and update the mission, vision, values, goals, and strategies of the Alamo Colleges
strategic plan.
The retreat started with an opening presentation by the Chancellor on the state of the Alamo Colleges.
This was followed by four progress reports from the organizational action plans formulated at last year’s
strategic planning retreat.
All retreat presentations are available at http://legacy.alamo.edu/planning/strategic-planning-retreat.html
Two retreat working sessions were conducted during the retreat to gather feedback on mission-visionvalues and goals-strategies. The working sessions were facilitated by selected table leaders at each of the
twenty retreat tables.
After the working sessions were completed, college representatives presented highlights of the collected
feedback on the five goals and strategies.
RESULTS
Below is the collected feedback and recommendations on the Alamo Colleges mission, vision, values,
goals, and strategies.
Summary of Feedback on Mission, Vision, and Values (Page 4)
Summary of Feedback on Goal I – Access to Higher Education (Page 10)
Summary of Feedback on Goal II – Student Support (Page 14)
Summary of Feedback on Goal III – Workforce Development (Page 16)
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Summary of Feedback on Goal IV – Capacity to Serve (Page 22)
Summary of Feedback on Goal V – Organizational Communication (Page 27)
The information presented below is the summary of all table-leader notes on recommendations and
comments made by retreat participants. It appears in random order and does not represent frequency
distributions, majority vote, or consensus. This information represents the collective thinking of Alamo
Colleges stakeholders to be used by Alamo Colleges senior leaders, along with the environmental scan,
SWOT analysis, strategic priorities, and competitive factors, as a basis to draw conclusions about how to
review/update the strategic plan (i.e., what to keep, delete, rephrase, or add to the plan).
Retreat evaluation results appear at the end of this report (Page 31).
NEXT STEPS
The Alamo Colleges PVC (Chancellor, five college Presidents, and five district Vice Chancellors) will
review and update the strategic plan and present their update recommendations for approval by the Board
of Trustees. Once the updated strategic plan is approved, the PVC will create aligned organizational action
plans that the colleges and district divisions/units will use to create their own departmental strategic plans
and action plans per the Alamo Way.
Progress reports on strategic planning and action plans will be presented by the district and the colleges at
the 2013 Alamo Colleges strategic planning retreat.
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* Made possible with the support of all Alamo Colleges stakeholders, including the University of the Incarnate Word’s Extended
Academic Programs, the Alamo Colleges Information Technology Services department, and the Institutional Research and
Effectiveness Services department.
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Summary of Feedback on Mission, Vision, and Values
2012 Alamo Colleges Strategic Planning Retreat
Alamo Colleges Mission: Empowering Our Diverse Communities for Success
General wording comments:
 Empowering through education and training our diverse communities for success
 Empowering? Empower? To Empower?
 We don’t like the word “empowering”
 “Educating” instead of “empowering”
 The word “betterment” could be in this statement
 Should put “education” in it? i.e. model for best practices in education? High quality education for student
success; could tie in access, affordability… from our goals
 “Communities” is not clear… is it Bexar county? Or internal or external communities?
 Educating our diverse communities for personal, academic, and career success.
 Is it for success, or educational success? Could it be more specific?
 Providing the tools that empower our diverse communities for educational success
 Include partnership. Need something more action-oriented and data-driven. We’ve been empowering, now
how about partnering with our diverse…
 Include word “student.” Educating the diversity of students and organizations for success.
 Change statement to where if someone read it without knowing the company name, they would at least
know we are an educational institution
Advantage/likes:
 There are various communities
represented in the statement (students,
partners, ISDs, Universities, etc.)
 This is what we’re here for.
 Could align with Alamo Way
 Like because it’s general.
 Mission is a good statement. Keep as is
encompasses everyone; has no
disadvantages.
 Collaboratively represents all colleges
 You can always remember what it says.
It’s a one-liner. Short, sweet, and easy to
remember
Disadvantage/dislikes:
 There is nothing specific about education or serving
in the mission statement; it is generic/vague and does
not identify us as an institution of higher learning
 It doesn’t define what success is, since it is different
for each individual
 Kind of ho hum/boring
 Too general or broad, needs to be more specific
about what our mission really is with target and
measures; how do we know when we’ve attained it?
 Doesn’t talk about the entire service area
 Empowering – how are we doing this? For transfer
students? For CE students? For workforce students?
 Does the word diverse add any value to the mission
statement as it is currently written?
 It’s more important to be inclusive than politically
correct and to say what you mean. This mission
statement doesn’t say anything
 Should speak to fact that we have 5 colleges,
acknowledge multi-college environment
Alamo Colleges Vision: The Alamo Colleges will be the Best in the Nation
General wording comments:
 The Alamo Colleges will be the best at student success in the nation
 The Alamo Colleges will be the best community college system in the nation among our peers
 The Alamo Colleges will continue our commitment to national excellence and student success.
 Incorporate The Alamo Way: The Alamo Colleges will be the best community college in the nation by
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modeling the Alamo Way.
Suggestion to rephrase: “Be the best in the delivery of higher education, workforce development, and
student support.”
Incorporate the community we serve. Our community should be better for what we have done
Needs to include something about our students and how our graduates are prepared, competitive, and
strong leaders.
Something that speaks to affordability, access, fabulous instruction well educated/well trained individuals
A reference to quality and student success
Should involve the improvement in the quality life; pathways for lifelong learning
Mission and Vision are “moving targets” and should be addressed each year
World class
Developing tomorrow’s leaders
Geographically limiting what we are doing is a disadvantage; should state we are the leader nationally and
globally
Updated. The AC are far reaching (global), go to organization, for success in education.
Does not operationalize the terms?
Advantage/likes:
 Simple; to the point; like the simplicity
 Keeping the statement big and open allows
for discussion around “the best in what” –
in all we do
 Best in peer group, state; nation, etc. Build
in evidences such as the Bellwether
 Aiming high, all inclusive
 Good to shoot for the best
 A lofty and ambitious vision statement
Disadvantage/dislikes:
 The best in the nation at what?
 How do we define the best? This is not defined
anywhere. “Best” is distracting, best compared to who
or what, focus rather on those things we need to be
good at. Best to those we serve? Specify for what?
 Does not connect directly with the mission
 Not realistic. It is not what we are about
 Too broad. Change to be more specific
 There needs to be some statement about education in
the vision statement
 Too ambiguous; what are we aiming to be the best in
the nation about? Are we to be the best in the nation
in student success? The best community college
system or what?
 Are we setting ourselves up for failure
 Not inclusive – measures of KPIs conflict with each
other
 Perhaps the community doesn’t know how that can be
measured
 Does not identify measures. Who are we comparing
to?
Value 1: Integrity
We have the courage to act ethically, building a culture of trust and respect.
General wording comments:
 Should perhaps include the reporting of unethical behavior
 Add a statement at the end that reads “…and personal responsibility”
 We have the courage to act ethically, building a culture of trust and respect. The word courage is strong and
positive.
 We will act ethically, building a culture of trust and respect.
 Includes ethics so no need to add ethics in the description statement
 Respect is included here. Respect is part of integrity. Integrity means wholeness.
 Courage to act ethically? Why do you need courage to act ethically?
 Rephrase: We will act ethically, building a culture of trust and respect
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With the intent to drive toward: We are ethical, building a culture of trust and respect.
Responsibility should also be included.
Regrettable that our behavior does not bring about trust and respect
Develop culture of trust and respect to promote open communication
Advantage/likes:
 We are working towards full trust
between colleges themselves and
between colleges and District. Still
have more work to do.
 Generally a good value to espouse
 Must have.
Disadvantage/dislikes:
 When the word transparency is used, it is likely
that things are NOT transparent
 Weak as is. “We demonstrate the courage to act
ethically, building an environment of trust.
Value 2: Communication
We engage in open and transparent communication, information sharing, and
collaboration.
General wording comments:
 We engage in open and transparent communication, and information sharing among internal and external
constituencies
 We collaboratively engage in open, consistent and transparent communication and information sharing.
 Change the value to “Collaboration,” with the same support statement.
 Collaboration should come before information sharing.
 Change to Transparency. Focus should be on transparency/openness
 Maybe we should add the word “two way communication”
 Possibly incorporate academic freedom into this value
 We are reactive in communication not necessarily proactive – should consider adding the word proactive
before the word open
 Students like the access to information and being able to talk to leaders and others about anything
 Could combine 2 and 3 collaborate through communication
Advantage/likes:
 Builds on collaboration.
 We have open communication with
information posted on the website
 We do a good job, but maybe not an
excellent job. There is always room for
improvement.
 Collaborations like this retreat give us a
chance to gain the perspectives of all
stakeholders
 Must keep.
Disadvantage/dislikes:
 So many layers that communication must go through
that the message is often garbled or lost between
source and receiver
 This is an activity not a value
 Not really a value, honesty or trust better represent
 Just because you get to have a say doesn’t always
mean you get to have your way. You have to accept
that sometimes your say may or may not be the best
“say.”
 Need to work on more direct avenues of
communication across all levels of the District.
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Value 3: Community
We commit to a joyful culture of learning and service where unity in diversity
occurs through mutual respect, cooperation, and accessibility.
General wording comments:
 We commit to a culture of learning and service where our diverse communities are empowered for success
through mutual respect, cooperation, and accessibility.
 We commit to a joyful culture of learning and service where unity in diversity occurs through mutual
respect, collaboration, cooperation, and accessibility.
 Change the word “joyful” to “collegial”. Joyful masks the underlying tensions that must always exist in an
effective organization; but collegiality can exist even when tensions are present.
 Perhaps re-label this as “culture” and use commit to a joyful community
 Definition does not match word (community)
 Mutual respect could go into Integrity
 Reword “unity in diversity”; add diversity to list at end
 We commit to a culture of learning and service.
 Focus and change to respect
 Add something about our commitment to environmental sustainability to the support statement
 Instead of community, service.
 Service to individual success and the community prosperity/enrichment, etc.
 Keep community, but focus the words on how we go about building a community.
 We commit to a culture of learning service to the individuals we touch and the communities we live in.
 A college-going culture, that mindset. That is what we can provide to the community.
 Maybe the word “commitment” is better than “community”?
 Follow the master’s teachers certification’s focus on the classroom in building a community.
 Add mutual purpose
 Name it diversity; it seems to be more about diversity in broad definition
 Conversely, remove diversity and focus on unity
Advantage/likes:
 Learning is also included here.
 Strong partnerships being built with
external community.
 Internal collaborations are helping to build
bridges in our internal community.
Disadvantage/dislikes:
 Building a community is a strategy, not a value.
 Too wordy, not concise
 Joyful can be removed, not necessary to exhibit
community. Joyful is hard to get your arms around; If
it’s not true, it creates cynicism. How would you
measure “joyful” culture?
 Something about this just doesn’t fit
 Is this really a value?
 Not realistic, modifications desired
 Accessibility not necessary, assumed
Value 4: Academic Freedom
We value creativity, growth, and transformation through vigorous inquiry and a free
exchange of ideas for all.
General wording comments:
 Team did not reach consensus on whether “academic freedom” is too faculty specific and could be changed,
but all seemed to agree on the value’s definition
 Make this value more applicable to all stakeholders, change title but still include the words “academic
freedom” in the description.
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We value creativity, innovation, growth, and transformation through vigorous inquiry and a free
exchange of ideas for all.
We value individual creativity, growth and transformation through a free exchange of ideas for all.
We encourage creativity, growth and transformation through vigorous inquiry and free exchange of ideas.
Change to Academic Freedom and Exchange Ideas in heading (remove “and a free exchange of ideas for
all”)
Consider changing this value to Innovation and/or Creativity; Consider naming innovation or creativity;
Change to Innovation or Inclusion.
Respect and is really the value; Value should be respect.
Advantage/likes:
 Does not just mean faculty –it means ALL. This strategic planning
meeting is academic freedom – people are giving ideas and others
are listening
 Learning is incorporated in this – growth and transformation.
 Relates to each campus having its own unique culture
Disadvantage/dislikes:
 Protects freedom to
disseminate radical ideas,
but sometimes overused by
faculty as an excuse to limit
curriculum oversight.
 Vigorous implies “yelling
and screaming”
 Creativity could be a value.
Does not fit neatly here.
 You get buy-in from faculty
on this value, but it seems
the focus should be
creativity, innovation or
learning – not academic
freedom
Value 5: Accountability
We take responsibility for our actions and strive for continuous learning and
improvement.
General wording comments:
 We are responsible for our actions and strive for continuous improvement. Do the right thing. We are
responsible for our actions.
 We take responsibility, with our students, for our actions and strive for continuous learning and quality
improvement.
 We take responsibility for our actions and strive for continuous improvement.
 Measurement and evaluation is critical to “knowing” you are the best. It could fit under accountability as long
as the spirit of it is captured.
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“Strive for continuous learning and improvement” is more relevant to Innovation than Accountability;
consider replacing or separating
 Need to enforce
Advantage/likes:
 This value is well supported and liked; Like the notion of continuous
learning and improvement; That phrase should definitely remain in
the description.
 Measures, evaluation, OFIs, internal process improvements. A
dynamic living thing
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Disadvantage/dislikes:
 None mentioned
Other Suggested Values/Comments
There was widespread support for the five values throughout the tables.
Other Suggested Values:
 Social responsibility/sustainability is not addressed in our values
 Learning - Responsibility to grow and develop self and others,
personal learning and organizational learning. Then possibly move
the focus on learning out of Accountability and add
measurements/evaluation into Accountability. Learning - mentioned
many times
 Innovation – mentioned many times
 Add achievement/accomplishment (seems very important).
 Stewardship…being good stewards of taxpayer money.
 Promoting organizational efficiency.
 Shared governance
 Service
 Celebration
 Student-centered
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Other Comments:
 Take responsibility in using
the values to learn and
improve and make the
institution better. Use the
values in decision making.
 We need constant
monitoring of how we are
doing as an organization.
 Kaizen – to make better
and/or improve - 1951
 Students like being able to
be involved in making
decisions – that is
appreciated.
 NVC has 9 values:
diversity, shared
governance, creativity, joy,
learning, caring…
 Providing customer service
in a positive, friendly, open
environment.
 This seems like a wish list –
“I wish we had a culture of
trust and a culture that
values trust”
Summary of Feedback on Goal I – Access to Higher Education
2012 Alamo Colleges Strategic Planning Retreat
GOAL I STATEMENT
ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION: Maintain and extend an open door and
affordable access to quality higher education for citizens of Bexar County and
surrounding service area.
IS THIS GOAL STATEMENT STILL A PRIORITY FOR THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 A great majority of retreat participants indicated that goal I was a priority and should be kept.
 Many participants suggested that this goal could be combined with goal II and/or goal III.
 Some suggested the creation of a new goal (not to replace this one) that would address completion
and refocus goal II to incorporate student support services.
 Collapse goals I, II and III into one goal titled Completion. This was a recurring theme from various
table conversations
Comments
 Goal I is a priority, but it’s interesting that none of the strategies deals with “affordable access.”
 Providing access is who we are as a community college.
 Keep this goal – access continues to be important to reaching our diverse populations.
 Still necessary (not achieved yet).
 Things stop being a priority once they are off the list.
 In order to support lifelong learning – build a culture of learning, be a conduit to it.
 Not just initial access, but consistent, lifelong access.
 Supports the mission, vision, values.
 Isn’t “increasing academic support of all students” part of goal II?
 List of priorities, it perhaps isn’t number one anymore. It’s about quality, not just access.
 We can’t ignore access. I don’t see how we can ever hold back. Can’t do that with our current mission.
 When do we say “access accomplished”? What is the metric?
 Latest data shows that SAC has increased Hispanic and African American participation. Maintain
affordable education because of economic situation.
 Access is part of our fundamental reason for existence.
 When the BOT said to limit your numbers (changes our focus), it became unfunded.
 Should we have a separate goal for Access and Completion? Recommend Access and Completion;
Access has to include completion; Completion might need to be a goal by itself; Access without
completion might not work; Access through completion of higher education; Access is easy,
completion is the hard part; Need to establish completion as the expectation.
 Is it access if the student is allowed in but then does not receive the support necessary to be
successful?
 How it is framed makes a difference to the students; reframe in the context of how it relates to the
needs of the community Student responsibility, SDEV, somehow tie to either access or student
support.
 “Access’ – board limited enrollment (“stabilize enrollment”), yet access is a goal.
 Focus more on student engagement and relationships…connections
 Strategies don’t reflect goal of access
 “Surrounding service area” is valued, yet tuition was increased
 Seeing a way to the end – people should be incentivized to complete.
 Knowing/communicating the value of a 2 year degree. What happens that the end of 2 years?
 What are the benefits of graduating/transferring? What is the difference?
 Expectation that you graduate, how do we measure student success?
 Two-year graduation is a benchmark; helps with students who have barriers to education
 Do people know what “best in the nation” means?
 We have to maintain an open program. That’s our challenge though, keep it open and keep them
moving through.
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Do we need to focus on completion as a separate goal VI?
Use 21st century tools to help students be successful.
Different set of support services for adult learners.
Partner with community leaders.
SUGGESTIONS TO STATE THIS GOAL STATEMENT IN A CLEARER WAY
 Maintain and extend open door admissions and provide affordable quality higher education for citizens
within our service area.
 Maintain and promote affordable access to quality higher education for citizens of Bexar Co…
 Include completion as a definition of access and narrow enough to measure; Define completion;
Completion should be a separate goal because we have many exit points; Keep the goal, but include
Completion; Keep it, but keep Access separate from Completion.
 Combine Success and Completion
 Graduation instead of Completion
 Optimize academic support instead of increase academic support
 …”citizens in our service areas.” Instead of Bexar County and surrounding service area
 “Access and Support” take out higher education (it’s a given)
 Remove “Increase academic support of all students”
 Add an action verb to Access to Higher Education – Such as Maximize
 Remove the term “open door” (some suggested) due to the many requirements that must be satisfied
for student intake/enrollment. Comments such as there is a finite amount of resources so how can we
support this concept?
 Keep the word Affordable; Maintain affordable access to…
 Revise to read: Improve Access to Higher Education
 Revise to read: “…and affordable access to quality education…” rather than “higher education.”
Quality education is more inclusive.
 Revise to read: Access to Completion (because it should be about achievement of individual goals
and support of the process).
 Revise to read: Access and completion of a life transforming educational experience.
 Increase academic support for each student, not all students (to recognize the individuality of the
student)
 Delete maintaining an open door, but maintain affordable access.
 Don’t say extend, say maintain (since we already provide an open door).
 End it at access to higher education.
 Define underserved.
 Support for all students, should there be a preference for those pursuing an academic degree.
 Include something that includes the quality of education.
 Be clearer that we have two priorities, and documents need to address reality of the situation (not just
access, but completion).
 Have student support #1, and Access as #2
 Preserve the open door at all costs – finesse it somehow so that people get put in the right directions.
 Setting of expectations – be clearer about them from the start.
 Create roadmaps, optional plans beyond a degree plan. Keep students on track the way technical
students are kept on track.
 Articulation of the goal for students from the very beginning.
 With the focus on Global/Distance education should Bexar County and surrounding areas be dropped
from the strategy to add a more global service area?
 Performance measures need to be very clear. What are we looking for? Explain how we measure
“extend an open door;” Create milestones to hold people accountable.
GOAL I STRATEGIES
Strategy A. Recruit/Enroll to Reflect the Diversity of Our Communities
Strategy B. Recruit/Enroll from Low Educational Participation Areas
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WHICH OF THESE STRATEGIES ARE RELEVANT TO THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 Most participants thought that strategies A and B are important and should not be eliminated. Both
strategies are important to keep; Keep Strategy A; Keep A; Keep B; You have to keep both.
 A few suggested that the strategies could be combined.
 Some suggested removing strategy B: Eliminate strategy B; Remove strategy B because it sets low
expectations, places a stigma on students from the low educational participation areas; Remove
strategy B because “communities” in strategy A encompasses everyone; Delete strategy B and have
strategy A read: “Recruit from all segments of our community.”
Comments
 Focus on both traditional incoming students from High Schools.
 Focus on adult learners who come in from a different track.
 School districts services area; churches; community leadership, and institutions.
 Student responsibilities.
 Begin with the end in mind (at entry we need to be thinking progression and completion).
 Being the best in the nation
 Ties in to open door
SUGGESTIONS FOR STATING THE STRATEGIES IN A CLEARER WAY
 Recruit/Enroll/Retain – Add the word Retain; Change strategies to include Retention; Could be “enroll
and retain”
 Affordable Access and Completion
 Of our communities and…Our Local and Surrounding Communities – consider changing the
description of service area.
 Superior academic programs at an affordable rate.
 Clear, but if we want to add completion; incentivize and how to navigate to meet those
goals/measures.
 Provide toots/discounts, recognition, equipment, etc. for students who meet completion goals.
 Reiterate, offering affordable access to all students, not just low education, and diversity.
 Broaden strategies A and B to include more students and services.
 For both strategies A and B, add retention and add completion/earning and/or earning a credential.
 Strategy A is good, so I wouldn’t rewrite it.
 Keep concept of A, reflect diversity, but maybe re-word it.
 Strategy B: traditionally underserved/underrepresented populations.
 Turn strategy B to more student-oriented, not just addressing an area. Traditionally underserved
populations.
 Revise strategy B: from “low educational participation areas” to “areas with high dropout rates.”
 Strategy B almost implies that the only way to increase enrollment is to recruit from low access areas.
 Combine strategies A and B to read “Recruit/Enroll to Reflect the Educational and Demographic
Diversity of Our Communities;” Combine strategies A and B; Combine and rephrase to read
Recruit/enroll from all aspects of our various communities.
 Define access more clearly, what does it mean? Where does it mean? (access under our noses).
 How do we know when we’ve accomplished access? (measurement)
PROPOSED NEW STRATEGIES TO ADD TO THIS GOAL
 Add a strategy that reads Recruit/enroll to promote career pathways that reflect community needs.
 Add a strategy that reads Recruit/enroll promote awareness of assessment readiness and the
enrollment process.
 Add a strategy about affordability to read Maintain fiscal responsibility and efficiency to ensure
affordability
 Add a strategy that reads Increase community awareness on the value of an Alamo Colleges
education
 Add a strategy to address the affordability portion of the goal that reads Recruit/Enroll Promote
Affordability of Programs and Availability of Financial Assistance
 Add a Strategy on How to Maintain our Affordability.
 Add Retention Strategy to Goal 1 but preferably in Goal II.
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Add a strategy: Define, measure, and improve student support services.
Add a strategy: addressing the Alamo Colleges as a college of choice
Add a strategy to measure affordable access, not addressed in overall statement of this goal.
Completion should have its own goal.
Partnerships – partner with communities, schools, nonprofits, create and develop partnerships;
(perhaps partnerships to enhance affordability)
Strategy to educate students on Financial Aid, Scholarships, etc.
Strategy on Every Student on a Plan (pathways, etc.). Alamo GPS should be mentioned.
In the strategic plan we need to have a Strategy for Affordability – Capacity to Serve
Wrap around national skills standards
Meet the community career needs
Low participation areas, not just low educational participation areas.
Cultural influences
More involvement when students are in the application process (applying for college)
Make sure establish relationships that students can count on, earlier than the senior year.
Affordability is not included in Strategy A or B (but it is a big part of Goal I); Affordability – define and
assess a measure for affordable access; Affordable Access and Completion; How is “affordability”
defined?
How is “diversity” defined?
How do we align with the goals of the students?
How do we know when an area is a low educational participation area? (measurements)
Get a university-type education at a community college price
In the high school career.
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Summary of Feedback on Goal II – Student Support
2012 Alamo Colleges Strategic Planning Retreat
GOAL II STATEMENT
STUDENT SUPPORT: Increase academic support of all students.
IS THIS GOAL STATEMENT STILL A PRIORITY FOR THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 A great majority of retreat participants felt that goal II was a priority and should be kept.
 There were a few suggestions to move this to Goal I.
 Most participants agreed that this goal should not be deleted.
SUGGESTIONS TO STATE THIS GOAL STATEMENT IN A CLEARER WAY
 Some recommend splitting this goal into two with Student Support before Student Success; Some
recommended to call it Student Success and perhaps create a separate Student Support goal;
Change Student Support to Student Academic Success; Change Student Support to Student Success;
Student Success and/or High Completion Rates; Change goal itself to “”Student Success” as
evidenced by…then list strategies; If not split into two goals, then rephrase goal as “Quality Student
Support and Success;” The word “Success” must be part of the goal; Subtitle must change if Success
is included; Add: advising support or student services; Change Student Support to Student Academic
Success; Change to “enhance” student success; Change Student Support to Student Success.
 Enhance student success through innovative academic support programs and effective student
engagement efforts
 Goal is weakly worded…”Provide a Comprehensive Support System from Connection to Completion
that Ensures Success”
 There is a nurturing component missing from the goal that includes all faculty and staff
 Add “advising support, student services;” More emphasis on student support services
 Need to redefine “success”
 Need to address quality in the goal statement.
GOAL II STRATEGIES
Strategy A. Achieve High Completion Rates
Strategy B. Maximize P-16 Partnerships
Strategy C. Achieve the Dream
Strategy D. Measure and Increase Student Success
Strategy E. Maximize Employee Accountability for Student Success
Strategy F. Enable Students to Become Responsible Local and Global Citizens
Strategy G. Achieve Outstanding Student Learning and Support Programs
WHICH OF THESE STRATEGIES ARE RELEVANT TO THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 All
 Many retreat participants were opposed to the elimination of strategies.
 Roll Strategy A into the definition of the goal so it reads “Student Success as Evidenced by
Completion and Graduation”
 Strategies A and D go hand-in-hand
 Strategy A should be at the top followed by strategy D
 Strategy B is important because we capture students before they get to us.
 Eliminate strategy C: ATD; Delete Strategy C because it is embedded within the other pieces
 Strategy E: There has been some loss of Employee Accountability. How do we incorporate qualitative
measures in a quantitative environment?
 No systems in place to measure Strategy E; Realign Strategy E with other goals
 Eliminate strategy F; The idea we work on least is Strategy F: Enable Students to Become
Responsible Local and Global Citizens. Is it really important if we are not doing much or anything?;
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Strategy F can probably be deleted since it is implied in Student Success; Delete Strategy F…it is too
broad and not easy to measure.
Strategy G: Support Programs; Prioritize so that G becomes the first strategy; If a separate support
goal is created, then strategy G needs to move.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STATING THE STRATEGIES IN A CLEARER WAY
 Need clearer definitions for each strategy
 Need to measure results by student intent
 Add: Productive grade rates
 Follow-up with students who left, ask why
 Add: Achieve high success rates as separate goal
 Is strategy A really a strategy or is it an outcome? Maybe rephrase A as: “Promote a Culture of
Completion”
 Rephrase strategy A to continuously improve completion rates
 Strategy C – Not clear if it is referring to “Achieving the Dream” initiative or if it has a broader, less
clear meaning. It seems out of place.
 Strategy D: Add “define”
 Strategy D: Perhaps change “Measure and Increase Student Success” to “Measure Student Success”
 Move Strategy D to goal I
 Strategy E: Maximize Employee Accountability…not exactly sure what it means
 Combine E and G and measure impact of student success
 Rephrase Strategy F to emphasize Student Accountability
 Strategy G: change to “provide” outstanding
 Strategy G: Add “student centered” learning…
 Change Strategy G to read: “Increase support services for our students to be academically successful”
 Redefine Strategy G to cover support areas by stating: “Provide student support services”
PROPOSED NEW STRATEGIES TO ADD TO THIS GOAL
 Nothing in here about the support services (student affairs side). Needs to be a stronger tie between
academic success and support services.
 How do we listen to students to understand what they need? Two-way relationship.
 Promote Graduation before Transfer
 Create a nurturing environment
 Every one of these strategies needs action plans
 Nothing related to developmental education. “Improve the Quality and Delivery of Developmental
Education”. Perhaps replace strategy C with this.
 Nothing about Advising and Support Services
 Add: Achieve high success rates as separate goal
 Add: Completion by Design
 Add: Measure class-based success measures
 Add: Something on College Readiness / Developmental Ed Initiatives
 Add: Mandatory Orientation as a strategy
 Add: Something on comprehensive student advising
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Summary of Feedback on Goal III – Workforce Development
2012 Alamo Colleges Strategic Planning Retreat
GOAL III STATEMENT
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT: Build a world-class workforce education and
training capacity in partnership with businesses and community-based
organizations.
IS THIS GOAL STATEMENT STILL A PRIORITY FOR THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 Most felt it important to keep this goal; numerous tables suggested incorporating this goal as a subset
of Goal II
 The colleges are doing a good job – it’s important to keep this goal.
 We serve transfers and students who want a job. This is about jobs. Keep this goal but keep as a
strategy under access/completion – workforce students are a subset of our larger student population.
 Communities still in need of workforce training; Alamo Colleges meets less than 10% of annual labor
force needs.
 Workforce development path requires mastery of some math and reading comprehension – the
degree requires the completion of rigorous curriculum. Let’s get rid of the notion that these programs
are a home for students who cannot succeed in math, reading, and English.
 Skilled workforce is necessary to improve quality of life for the community; Workforce looking for
national skill certifications.
 We need to do a better job of articulating current technical credits For example, articulating technical
credits with four year universities. While Texas State has a BAAS, it would be nice to work with UTSA
or A&M to develop this degree locally; Value of industry recognized certifications
 Recognize the role of CE programs as an incubator of credit programs
 Recognition that there is renewed interest in workforce programs/certifications as being at least as
valuable as a bachelor’s degree; Shift from bachelor’s to skills and certification.
 Lack of clarity on what customers we serve (i.e. regional, global, county, city?)
 As a community member representing the Northeast quadrant of the city, I don’t necessarily know
what’s going on at the other colleges that could benefit our businesses in the community. It would
really be helpful to have a full picture of what’s available at all colleges, not just the one we work with.
 Increasing level of sophistication needed in the workforce; More of what used to be low tech business
has become high-tech.
 It applies and that’s why we are here. Means different things to different people. Whether CE or Credit,
everyone wants to get a job at some point. Workforce education is a part of it all.
 Provides access to allied health and other workforce programs to get them better paying jobs
 Need to provide opportunities for students to gain viable employment to become competitive in a
viable jobs market; Need to address workforce training needs of those students who choose not to
follow traditional college pipelines; With more comprehensive advising, provide options for students
more in line with interests; With the recession, students are needing to improvement skills and are
coming back; Build community support to take students as interns to build trust; With open access,
must be ready to meet the needs of all students; Baccalaureate program not the goal of most
students; More emphasis on certificates, vocational, not all students are going down a traditional
college approach; Not all students are made for academic programs; Not everyone in SA wants a
college degree; People want skills.
 Changing economic landscape in San Antonio: demand for specialized training.
 Maintain professional certifications more and more required by business and industry
 Baby-boomer retiring, population growth, military, creating a greater workforce need plus population
growing.
 Minority males falling out of the community college pipeline and we need to find ways to build
workforce skills in this population
 Technological advances require workforce improvements on an ongoing basis
 Businesses have an expectation that community college deliver training
 Level and quantity of SA technicians are not adequate in San Antonio.
 Helps the community, with employees with higher skills
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Certification and other employer needs; Disconnect between skills in workforce and those required by
employers; Meet employer needs; Workforce development is the fabric of this city. We can do it better
and cheaper. The goal of workforce development is to prepare the workforce for corporate needs.
Goes hand in hand with the growth of the city, brings in business and industry. The community needs
an educated workforce. End result is a better community.
Meet individual needs and professional development needs
Part of our state mandated mission
One-third of students enrolled in workforce education programs
New innovations in workforce development and training, so we can place the right skilled workers in
business.
Meeting needs of community; Need a better educated and skilled workforce
Pendulum swinging back to college for workforce as much as academics
Needs to remain a top goal, for all of the reasons above. Always needs to be continuing process
improvement.
We have a moral obligation to community to deliver to them what they need to be successful.
Aggressively identify opportunities in the community for more credentialing. For example: project
management, accounting technician – this could be a way to meet community need and generate
more revenue
Foster better communication between the credit and non-credit sides of the house. How can we make
this a little more seamless?
Great potential for growth and revenue generation; Need to generate a revenue screen.
A really good connection with the business community would be to host an event to hear about all of
the offerings of the Alamo Colleges like the lunch and learn program at the Metrocom Chamber
Strategies or action plans need to include assessment and measurement
Banner tags about accomplishments seem targeted internally – we need to turn our focus externally.
SUGGESTIONS TO STATE THIS GOAL STATEMENT IN A CLEARER WAY
 Amend “Workforce Development” to “Economic and Workforce Development”
 Change “In partnership with businesses and community-based organizations” to “through workforce
education and training”
 Build a world-class workforce education and training capacity in partnership with businesses and
community-based organizations (add “stakeholders”).
 “Build and maintain a world-class….”
 Build a world-class workforce education and training capacity in partnership with and responsive too
businesses and community-based agencies and organizations.
 Build a world-class workforce education and training capacity in partnership with businesses and
community-based organizations.
 “In collaborative partnership with all stakeholders”
 To increase the economic vitality.
 Add “workforce leaders” after businesses
 Add “collaborative” in front of partnership. “Education and workforce stakeholders”
 Add a focus on delivering an outcome; Add a focus on local needs being addressed.
 Add “industry leaders”
 May need to incorporate “to meet the changing needs of the area”
 May need to incorporate “regional” in the goal.
 Amend “community-based agencies”
 Change word “build” and change to improve, expand, enhance, “maximize” workforce.
 Expand partners to add educational and workforce partners as well as military, perhaps “stakeholders
in our community”.
 Deliver the business community with a world class education and training programs to meet the needs
of our diverse communities to ensure the economic vitality San Antonio.
 To address the needs of our community through specialized programs
 Capacity does include all parts of the system, inclusive; “Capacity” word is problem. “Build a worldclass workforce education and training system”
 There is a disconnect between regional/global focus and “community based”
 Should the term really be workforce or career development?
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Need to be more deliberate in what we say; sounds like we are in our infancy
What does a world class workforce give us? Should be related to health of community, greater San
Antonio. Upgrading talents of workforce is necessary for our community to move forward. The goal
should say something inspirational in that vein; Replace “world class” with “incorporate national skills
standards and competence;” Change word “world class” what does that mean and how do we
measure it; World class? Is that what we are doing? This may be overreaching, World class is “hype”;
We should not be using something like “world class” to describe our programs – whatever we use we
should be consistent- how about aggressively market Alamo Colleges workforce programs. Make
these words actionable – business community needs to know more about the capacity that we have.
Fostering relationships with potential innovative, progressive industry.
Needs to be narrower
Attract targeted business and industry, build the “right” capacity
Alignment with state and local workforce initiatives, (city state and local)
Comments
 This goal should be included as a part of the new goal of Completion. We don’t have a separate goal
for our transfer students. Why do we have one for workforce? This does not make sense. All
students should fall under a single goal of access, support, and completion
 We do not need a new goal, but need to add “completion” as a priority; Add Completion as a strategy
to each of the goals; Add Completion to the language of goal 1 and/or goals 2 and 3.
 We need to be strategic in our outreach efforts; We could cultivate community/business relationships
in a better way – let’s get out of the maintenance mode and into the proactive relationship building –
what new businesses should we be reaching out to? This should definitely be a KPI measure – how
many new businesses are we reaching out to – we need better measures in this area.
 Workforce development arm of the colleges is not as important as it should be. It is an important
revenue generating unit. – starts at the top (presidents need to be sure language and activities are
inclusive of workforce programs, faculty, and staff and recognize achievements on the workforce side.
 With regard to centralization, if we move in this direction with workforce programs, there is less and
less contact with the student requirements. We should be very cautious about moving workforce
programs to the District – the business community is connected to the programs through the colleges.
Need more collaboration between the colleges and the district to ensure that they share same
goals/vision. It would help if the college structures were more parallel – particularly at the dean level–
they could work together in the same way.
GOAL III STRATEGIES
Strategy A. Assert Regional Workforce Leadership
Strategy B. Offer Excellent Programs that Meet Employer Needs
WHICH OF THESE STRATEGIES ARE RELEVANT TO THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 There were divided opinions about strategies A and B.
 Both strategies are relevant: keep A and B; Several groups suggested “starting over” with the
strategies under this goal.
 Strategy A is relevant.
 Strategy B is relevant; Strategy B is clear; If you do B, then you’ve done A; If you do B, A will happen;
One group suggested removing strategy A.
 Strike Strategy A.
 Strike Strategy B.
 Neither strategy A nor strategy B is clearly written or understood; These two strategies are ambiguous.
Comments
 Create early advising/pathways to help students to identify career path – this requires advisors to
understand all of our workforce programs – credit and non-credit
 Career advising is essential with job placement
 Promote technical skills beyond current relationships and into the broader business community
 Most people in the community are not well informed about the extent of our technical programs
 We are leaving so much business on the table – we do not market well
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Faculty leaders and administrators need to be out in the community
Colleges have to have the capacity to meet the needs – is the infrastructure in place to meet the
need?
Colleges should be calling on new organizations every week to hear about their needs and to market
our programs
This is an area where we should be “future-focused”
Maximizing opportunity for internships, jobs, capstone class experiences
How do we encourage innovation in this area both in the development of the curriculum?
We are looking for people who “exceed” employer needs
Action plan around increasing capacity
Research funding sources for technical programs and student tuition
Some type of brochure available to students that explains all of the programs
SUGGESTIONS FOR STATING THE STRATEGIES IN A CLEARER WAY
Strategy A (Workforce Leadership)
 Collaborate to create global workforce leaders
 Collaborate for regional workforce leadership responsiveness
 Achieve workforce development leadership
 Become a regional workforce leader
 Change “assert” to something else; Use the word “build” or “create” rather than “assert;” Remove
“Assert”; Add “cultivate” and “influence” workforce leadership; Replace “Assert” with “Exemplify” / “Be
acknowledged as” / Distinguish ourselves as “Be recognized as”
 Use the words “demonstrate” or “provide”
 Remove “regional;” Replace “Regional,” it is too limiting, emphasize instead the constituents
 “Continue to lead”
 Disconnect between “world class” in goal and “regional”
 Clarify what workforce means
Strategy B (Workforce Programs)
 Suggested: “Offer excellent and timely developed and implemented programs that meet employer
needs”
 Communicate/promote an understanding, value of, and availability of technical programs to community
in general
 Continuously assess and respond to the global needs of our business community
 Develop and deliver innovative and flexible programs that meet stakeholder needs
 Expand beyond employer needs to focus on individual and personal development
 “Offer exemplary career pathways that fulfill industry demands and future expectations”
 Offer innovative, cutting edge programs that anticipate and meet workforce needs
 Offer excellent programs that attract global opportunities and meet employer needs.”
 Collaborate for regional workforce leadership responsiveness
 Offer innovative, cutting edge programs that anticipate and meet workforce needs
 “Excellent” needs to be changed to “best in class”
 Broaden beyond “employer” focus on industry cluster
Comments
 What does the first strategy mean? If we don’t know, who does? We need to be careful about the
language we use in these strategies if people don’t commonly know what they mean.
 We have to be able to respond a lot quicker than we do now (takes 18 months).
 We have a tendency to go after the big companies. We need to spend a little more time on the small
business requirements. Coordinate the outreach to small business. For example, let’s target the folks
who fail the food service assessment to market our food service sanitation certificate – this would be
an example of the partnership.
 How can we do a better job of letting the community know about all of our workforce programs?
 How can we do a better job of letting our colleagues across the colleges know about our workforce
programs?
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There’s a real breakdown in communication about what programs are at the colleges both internally
and externally? – Centralization could make this work depending on how this is structured; Internally,
we don’t realize how large our non-credit offerings are, and externally, these are pipelines for our
credit programs. We need do to a better job of helping all employees and the community to
understand our workforce programs. Whether you are a secretary or a chair, you need to understand
these programs – both credit and non-credit.
Daytime and late night TV and radio are full of competitors’ marketing. We do not have enough presence
here. Good place to market our programs (not our inexpensiveness) – we can help you get a job.
Showcase the important work of the advisory committees – systematic work with these communities
Really taking the time to give the graduates of these programs some baseline competencies, customer
service, interpersonal communication – phone or in person, work ethic, creativity, attitude
People from the community need to be designing the curriculum – more advisory committees.
Clarify what workforce development means – our internal workforce vs. the business requirements of
our service area– we need to rename this at the senior leadership level and align the programs.
Professors increase their understanding of workforce programs when working on common learning
outcomes (writing, critical thinking) that are universal to workforce and transfer education – explain
that these are competencies that all workers need in the workplace
From employer perspective – there is the absence of a clear pipeline on what further opportunities
could be in technical certificates and degrees
We’re not doing enough to recruit and meet capacity in these areas
Reassess programs – ensuring that they are still viable
Use students to market workforce programs; Do a paradigm shift that these programs are not vocational
Workforce is an area that must continually be renewed both in curriculum and learning
outcomes/competencies
National certification standards
Pulling students on certificate or non-credit program and put students into the degree pipeline
Futuring committee – develop personal pathways for students
Have “decided majors” students be advised (both transfer and credit) by faculty in the discipline –
We need to know what the market is for workforce education – anticipate the needs of the community
for workforce skills
More connections between students and employers: internships, capstone courses that put the
student in the workforce
Helping employees at local business and industry do their training at the community colleges
Academies are a great model of the collaboration between high schools, businesses, and the colleges
Advising is so important – students want guidance regarding degree plans; Improving the knowledge
of the advisors.
We have great opportunity because of the economy
Assess community needs
PROPOSED NEW STRATEGIES TO ADD TO THIS GOAL
 Establish, maintain, and nurture relationships with business/industry and government
 Assess and identify employment and workforce needs
 Develop and offer valuable, market-driven programs
 Build capacity to do needs assessments.
 Build relationships, create strong ties in business and industry community, build support
 Sound advising and connecting students to jobs through internships, capstone courses and job
placement is a key area
 Maintain and nurture relationships with business/industry and government
 Anticipate employer needs, proactively meet business and industry needs (immediate and projected) Look at trending to do this.
 Place a focus on the need for revenue generation.
 Assess workforce needs at the global, national, and local level in order to develop workforce programs
for the future.
 Communicate/promote an understanding, value of, and availability of technical programs to community
 Expand access of workforce programs to all students
 We need a strategy focused on how to feed students into workforce.
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We need to ensure alignment with state and local workforce initiatives, (city state and local) – has
anyone done this?
We need to meet employer and individual needs.
We need to say something about entrepreneurial spirit
We need to offer competitive programs
We need to assert ourselves – be proactive, not reactive; we should be going to them, not making
them come to us.
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Summary of Feedback on Goal IV – Capacity to Serve
2012 Alamo Colleges Strategic Planning Retreat
GOAL IV STATEMENT
CAPACITY TO SERVE: Develop the human capital and strengthen the
financial, technological, and physical capacities of the Alamo Colleges for firstrate student and community services.
IS THIS GOAL STATEMENT STILL A PRIORITY FOR THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 There was strong agreement that this goal needed to be preserved.
 This is the mission of a community college; It is a priority and long-term; Need to excel in this goal;
This goal is the core of who we are; Areas in goal IV are capacity building areas and quite relevant;
This goal is critical and organization is only as good as its people and its systems; Students won’t
teach themselves, it’s investment on us to be able to serve students and community; We are here to
serve students.
 There has to be some discussion about operations; Need to keep pace with technology, good
facilities.
 Most retreat participants agreed that this goal should not be deleted.
 No one thought that there should be another goal to replace this goal in the strategic plan.
SUGGESTIONS TO STATE THIS GOAL STATEMENT IN A CLEARER WAY
 In order to ensure student success, delete the community services; the goal statement needs to be
rephrased with emphasis on student success and responding to community needs; Put student
success at the beginning of the goal, state the goal, and then the means to it.
 You serve colleagues, community, students, and groups. Think of a good a description of who we
serve.
 Too wordy…also question what “first-rate student” means; Explain what “first-rate student and
community services” means. Modifier for community services. Define clearly what it means, explain
both “first-rate” and “community services.” Or identify the communities we serve; Change to “first-rate
services to students and community.”
 Delete “first-rate” or revise. Should be “strengthen the human, financial, technological and physical
capital of the Alamo Colleges to serve student and community needs to ensure student completion.”
 Change to “first-rate student, employee, and community services.”
 For first-rate student-success, student engagement, and community services.
 Change to “first-rate services to students and community.”
 Replace services with success. “First rate student and community success” (low unemployment, high
completion rates, high graduation rates).
 Change “first-rate” to “world-class.”
 Emphasize the point of working together to do more things efficiently in all areas – financial,
technology, human resources, and facilities.
 Use best practice or experts to help all of the colleges – the gurus in certain areas. Ex: Argos Report
 Division for faculty and staff. Division is caused by how employees are treated.
 Don’t like “human capital”. Use language that refers to employees as people, not capital.
 Raise private funding.
 Many retreat participants did not have any suggestions to rephrase the goal statement.
GOAL IV STRATEGIES
Strategy A. Attract, Develop, and Retain Employee Talent
Strategy B. Ensure Sound Financial Management
Strategy C. Utilize Technology for Success
Strategy D. Maximize Facilities Stewardship
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WHICH OF THESE STRATEGIES ARE RELEVANT TO THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 Most participants agreed that all four strategies were relevant to goal IV.
 Retreat participants concurred that some strategies could be revised, not eliminated.
Strategy A (Employees)
 We make training and development optional. We need to adopt a professional development map.
 Need to utilize technology for success. We don’t make it mandatory to attend or show proficiency. We
need an assessment to make sure.
 Disincentive for people to move forward. If you leave the faculty, you must give up faculty status to do
that. How supportive of the position as we move forward. We need to grow the individual to be
student-centered.
 Staff doesn’t feed incentive to go to training. It doesn’t get them anywhere.
 Staff council president, they don’t know what is out there if they go to school and improve themselves.
 Our team unanimously wants training to be mandatory. Have to have it to be eligible for promotion. But
promotion should not necessarily be automatic. Faculty should also earn credentials
 Extra education and training for staff do not get bumped to the next level. No promotion for staff. No
raises for performance.
 The evaluation that we do every year and it must be used for promotion or for training.
 Supervisors don’t allow employees to leave.
 Each month every employee should be able to go to training. Mandate the hours. Better employee.
 Review job descriptions every so often to update requirements and currency of technology, etc.
 Supervisor training should be instituted
 Development should not be mandatory, training in support of policy should be mandatory
 Require development of adjuncts, teaching, technology, basics, culture development
 Pay at the market rate in order to attract
 Education tuition credit is good to attract
 Ability to bring in outside talent – no hiring. What happened to the attracting?
 Doesn’t reflect our current situation. People are being shuffled around, and all we are reaching is a
level of mediocrity which goes against our vision to be the best in the nation.
 Benefits are good but they don’t pay the mortgage – salary scales are not competitive.
 Need new term for human capital (impersonal); perhaps: employees as an asset or employee
capabilities; develop all employees.
 Unleash employees’ talents.
 Expand human capital beyond develop, hiring first-rate employees, competency, knowledge and skills
 Knowledge, skills necessary.
 How does strategy A relate back to the goal? Must have human capital the doers, they are the brain
powers; must have human capital to do all of the components of the goal
 We need to focus to keep, we don’t have adequate number to do the job, Different way to say attract,
develop, retain, and have adequate human resources for capacity to serve
 Need to include “have adequate employees to do the job”
Strategy B (Financial Management)
 Adopt business model that recognizes managers that save money for the district. No recognition for
how much we saved under budget.
 Our resources are limited
 Focus on getting private dollars, named buildings etc. in order to improve capacity to serve.
 Financial management is serious area but should not take over all the other strategies.
 Strategy B needs a way to be measured.
Strategy C (Technology)
 We need to make sure that we teach the employees how to use our technology. Staff development
day can be used to train.
 Access to technology and upgrades are both limited. Smart classrooms but training the faculty has
been difficult.
 We have technology that is great, but we don’t how to use it.
 Leverage technology for success.
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Utilize state-of-the-art technology for success.
Utilize technology for efficiency and success.
Develop capacity to effectively use technology for success. We don’t have people capable of using the
technology.
Puts a lot of emphasis on technology, instead of it being used to assist with student success.
Strategy D (Facilities)
 A unified management of facilities, so that we can reserve rooms locally. Share resources locally and
globally.
 Maximize facilities stewardship and sustainability
 Maximize facilities stewardship and environmental sustainability
 Optimize facilities stewardship
 Replace “physical” with “facilities.”
 Strategy D is only looking at what we have, not forward thinking of what we need. Need to look at
growth needs also
SUGGESTIONS FOR STATING THE STRATEGIES IN A CLEARER WAY
 Need to explain what we mean by each strategy; they could be condensed for the average reader.
 Need to make sure the audience understands the overall message.
 Replace “utilize” with “use”.
 Add “all other operational “systems.” Too limiting – need to cover all systems.
 Add “measures.”
 All strategies should have measurable outcomes (i.e. major maintenance).
 To maintain a family environment to strengthen the financial, technical, and physical…
 Define first-rate; best in the nation; exceptional; peer-best; “to enable measurable success in student
and community services”; exceeding internal and external (community) expectations.
 What does “Capacity to Serve” mean?
 Add “procedural” after technological.
 Split this goal into 2 pieces: Human Resources separate from Finance/Tech/Facilities (mixed
opinions: some tables wanted to keep together but reword).
 Tool of success not as the “success”
Strategy A (Employees)
 Attract, develop, engage and retain employee talent.
 Attract, develop, retain and reward employee talent.
 Attract, develop, retain and assess employee talent.
 Attract should be internal and external.
 Attract, develop, empower, and retain.
 Attract, develop, and retain employee and alumni talent
 Attract, develop, value, and retain employee talent and trust. Maybe talent should be revised, need
something that focuses on the employees’ knowledge, skills and performance.
 Replace develop, add attract, develop, retain, reward, engage, empower, value, and retain, assess,
superior employee talent and trust
 Attract, develop, and retain superior employees
 Possibly switch “talented employees” (some tables disagreed)
 Goal to be recognized as “best place to work in Bexar County”
 Impersonal; wants welcoming, family; warmer word for “retain”/ encourage; go beyond keeping
employee happy; enhance employee talent
 Need to know each other to better collaborate
 Attract , develop, retain – add “reward” (some tables disagreed); replace “attract” with “recruit”
 Get the right people in the chair/remove ineffective people (firing when necessary as detrimental to
culture) – other tables disagreed
 Strategy A should include having the adequate employees to do the job.
 Separate strategy A to hire adequate staffing to do work and identify staffing needs.
 Identify staffing needs before you recruit them; global approach to identify talent needs for the Alamo
Colleges.
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Strategy B (Financial Management)
 Ensure sound and transparent accountability of financial management.
 Change to “Maintain sound financial stability.”
 Promote financial management and growth – Change the language to include bringing in new streams
of revenue.
 Revenue sources, financial environment.
 Responsible financial planning and development.
 “Sound” another way to acknowledge superior performance; effective.
 Good stewardship; optimal; internal controls.
 Sound financial management should discuss how the Alamo Colleges are focusing on going green.
It’s a great message to the community and it should be shared with them.
Strategy C (Technology)
 Utilize technology for organizational effectiveness and student success
 “Use Technology for success”
 “Integrate state of the art technology for student and operational success”
 Strategy C should also include innovate; identify and utilize innovative technology for success.
 Include coordinating technology so that it works in concert.
 Rephrase strategy C; needs to be more descriptive of what it means.
 We need enterprise architecture to make sure items are coordinated.
 How is success defined? Efficient use, leaders in integrated and innovative technology; technology
should be used to accelerate efficiencies, learning and student more success.
 “Utilize” is a weak verb to use; “Implement current technology for success.” Use state of the art technology
for success – it implies cutting edge
 Are we asking the users in the purchasing decisions of technology? The purchase of infrastructure
was a good example of a purchase. Committee to screen IT purchases.
 Make student-centered decision-making to every category.
 Roll out is not well thought out.
 Master calendar to show purchase and deployment timeline of technology.
 Keep tech current.
Strategy D (Facilities)
 Increase facilities stewardship
 Maximize facilities stewardship and continuous review of growth needs
 Maximize facilities utilization
 Maximize resources stewardship and sustainability
 Continue facilities stewardship. Need to also include maintaining the buildings. “Maintain state of the
art facilities and equipment”
 Clarify what that means; fully utilize what we have/maximize classroom utilization to prioritize facilities
improvements; upkeep/good public stewards; enhance productivity, safety/health
 Change “stewardship” to “management”
 Work in “sustainability”
 Strategy D does not include looking at what we have, not forward thinking of what we need.
 Further define Strategy D. Maximize efficient use of facilities and other resources.
 Facilities rental should be included
 Keep updated
PROPOSED NEW STRATEGIES TO ADD TO THIS GOAL
 Leadership Development. A strategy that focuses on leadership. Grow our leaders. Develop leaders,
ensure leadership capacity. Do we train them to become leaders? There isn’t any executive training
program.
 Data/information (Effectively administer information for operational efficiency and success: What data
is important, how to collect the data and how to use it for decision making).
 Succession Planning (nurturing/training the Alamo Colleges future leaders).
 Environment (Ensure a safe and secure environment).
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Customer service (Wear name tags to promote alignment with the institution; Acknowledging the
student as a human – “thank you, Ms. Smith” after a service; Student-Centered Culture – Culture
could be a goal that includes trust; Smile, take time, and acknowledge where they are at until they go
online; Triaging; Simplify language and make it student centered so that they understand).
Fund-raising (Explore and cultivate private fund-raising; Private dollars to build building; Annual
fundraising goal; Seek focused; Includes alumni; Tell story better in order to gain more private
funding).
Quality Initiatives (Have good processes and procedures; Align processes with our efficiency model;
Examples – taking benefits out of paychecks, PARs).
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Summary of Feedback on Goal V – Organizational Communication
2012 Alamo Colleges Strategic Planning Retreat
GOAL V STATEMENT
ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION: Foster integrated organizational
communication to consistently promote the positive impact and value of the
Alamo Colleges to the community of Bexar County and surrounding service
area.
IS THIS GOAL STATEMENT STILL A PRIORITY FOR THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 There was strong agreement in 18 of the 20 retreat tables that this goal is a priority.
 Participants at two tables thought the goal was no longer a priority because Communication is a value,
not a goal, and that it should be replaced with Completion.
Comments:
 Need to measure; Goal V needs to be measurable.
 Make Communication goal number 1; make it a top priority; Really need to work on this goal; Never
Delete -Definitely need, because of all the change we are going through; keep informing community of
value we provide; educational development achievements; and we need each other – community
needs to understand to support bonds and legislation; fosters relationships with the community; sorry
to see Community removed from our Alamo Colleges name. Still needed and critical for telling our
story. Goal must continue with community and the service areas, billboards may be effective but have
to communicate the whole story. Projecting right image, telling community what we do; We need to
keep it in order to keep an integrated support network throughout the organization.
 Focus goal V on cultivating community support and loyalty – move communication strategies under
goal V, Capacity to Serve or as a separate goal
 Need to have it both internal and external. Transparency is necessary for success. What does Alamo
provide and the impact maybe not a goal vs. a strategy. Students need to understand the value of
communication.
 A period after Alamo Colleges
 Lack of a strategic plan, divisiveness, external communication needs to better planned,, pockets of
greatness, internal awareness of the entire ; measure impact of communication
SUGGESTIONS TO STATE THIS GOAL STATEMENT IN A CLEARER WAY
 Retitle: Internal and External communication rather than Organizational Communication; Internal and
External Communication: Foster clear and integrated organizational communication to internal and
external stakeholders.

“Communication: Foster integrated organizational communication to consistently promote the internal
and external positive impact and value of the Alamo Colleges to the community of Bexar County and
surrounding service area.”
 “Consistently encourage and demonstrate an integrated internal organizational communication plan
and/to promote the positive impact and value of the Alamo colleges to the community of Bexar
Country and surrounding service area.”
 “Promote internally and externally the positive impact and value of the Alamo Colleges to the
community of Bexar County and surrounding service area.”
 … positive impact and value of the Alamo Colleges to internal stakeholders, the community of Bexar
County and surrounding service area.”
 Organizational Transparency instead
 To promote Alamo College family to communicate the positive impact and value.
 Consistently communicate to promote…
 Continuously improve internal communication.
 Add “integrate internal and external communication” to the statement
 Change community to communities
 Change “area” to “areas”
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Remove “and value”
Shorten statement
Delete “organizational”
Shorten to “Maximize internal and external communication”
Add collaboration to this and ensure we also are able to track the measurement of this goal
Consider removing the community of Bexar County; Remove the limit to Bexar County and
surrounding areas. we have already reached global communities.
Comments:
 Stress internal communication; Include the internal perspective into the goal statement; Need to
communicate more effectively to employees and across the organization to achieve this goal;
Integrated internal communication to communicate to the community does not express the need for
and emphasis on effective internal communication.
 Change the assumption communication is one-way and strengthen it to show two-way communication
 Goal does not reflect strategies. We do poorly on internal communication which is critical for external
communication. What is Alamo Way?
 The current goal reads like “we almost want to talk to each other”
 Clarify what is “integrated organizational communication”?
 ….cultivate/tell the story better regarding “real” numbers and student success rates, complete mission
of students and a better way of FTIC students vs. those not counted in the success rates.
 Clearer on two way communication, getting feedback and input from our customers and service areas.
 We see inconsistency in goal statement and strategies. The intent is to communicate our story, but
also be sure we have internal communication. Advocates for the Alamo Colleges are needed and
need to be communication champions and tell the challenges Alamo has and has overcome; Internal
communication is poor, and reports from the top do not filter down
 Consider customers’ views of their experiences
GOAL V STRATEGIES
Strategy A. Cultivate Community Support and Loyalty
Strategy B. Ensure Effective Internal Communication
WHICH OF THESE STRATEGIES ARE RELEVANT TO THE ALAMO COLLEGES?
 Most participants agreed that the two strategies were relevant to goal V.
 A few suggested that strategy A could be eliminated to show value through the graduates, and that
strategy B could be straightened out so that strategy A would improve.
 Others did not concur with eliminating strategies, but suggested consolidation of both strategies.
Comments:
 Eliminate strategy A because it is the Chancellor’s and Jim Eskin’s job.
 External, read the customer’s views, costs, policies (e.g. meningitis)
 Both are critically important as one seems to apply internal, and the other external
 Better focus on our internal communication and also including our diverse communities, students both
traditional and non-traditional, workforce and community. What does that really mean? We need to
identify what we really value and what value to add; it is not to wait for the state to tell us. Make B the
first strategy. Reverse the order of the strategies. Focus on internal communication and external
support and maybe make priorities for our on internal communication to be top on the list. If we can’t
communicate internally how can we externally?
 Include stakeholders as a way to develop strategies for communicating. If communication is two-way,
A and B are one-way communication. So we need to have a way to get feedback and participate to
express their needs and use the engagement factor to get the community. Understanding is an
emphasis.
 Very important and have to communicate to target audiences. Strategies should definitely be targeted
to the audience we are communicating with.
 Use communication to streamline important messages
 Improve services to students to improve reputation
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SUGGESTIONS FOR STATING THE STRATEGIES IN A CLEARER WAY
Strategy A (External Communication)
 Cultivate mutual support of the community
 Cultivate community partnerships, support and loyalty.
 Cultivate support and loyalty
 “Cultivate community support and loyalty” is a result, not a strategy; need to express how we are going
to do this. First, you inform and communicate then we can grow loyalty and build relationships.
 “Cultivate community support through transparency and collaboration and deliberation.”
 Cultivate community support and collaboration
 Not just “cultivate” but “cultivate and increase’ or ‘continuously improve’
 Loyalty is a result and may not need to be in this strategy
 It is a result of…..change the mindset of community colleges vs. university how our communities see
us and getting all stakeholders to communicate the message. Not just during bond elections.
 Add “community support and respect”

“Communication of value and economic and social impact”—increase awareness, educate the
community –the value of the two-year school, we are providing the economic future, communicate
trust
 Build trust with internal and external stakeholders, cultivate collaboration
Strategy B (Internal Communication)
 Cultivate community support and loyalty through effective, transparent communication.
 Individually embrace responsibility for effective internal communication. Proactively.
 Develop, implement, and sustain an effective external system-wide communication plan to cultivate
and nurture community support loyalty.
 Develop, implement and sustain effective internal communication systems.
 Add “to all stakeholders, within colleges, and across colleges”
 Leave communication in the goal and strategies and take it out of values and make it collaboration.
 Promote, create a culture of good internal communication; Internal communication also means
communicating with students and employees, not reflected.
 Remove “internal”
 “Ensure” is not a very good word.
 Add “timely” communication
 Use “promote”
 Add communication between District and colleges – and vice-versa: “Inter and intra-collegial
communication”
 Ensure effective external two-way communication; Too much one-way communication; Figure out a
better way to foster two-way communication; Recognize that how people communicate is changing –
multi-tasking.
 Look at redefining strategies to ensure we are communicating with all students; Communicate the way
students communicate
 Create a plan for communication to employees and students; Be clear on your target audience and
who you are communicating with.
 We have good communication at the colleges but not across the organization.
 Flip the order of the strategies. Internal has to be first. Effective external communication depends on
effective internal communication (which we don’t really have).
 We need internal and external communication.
 What is effective communication and understanding about?
 Not sure how we do this now as a whole. Lots of different elements: newsletters, ads, each college
has their methods, etc. At district we don’t have a centralized team to go out to the colleges to
communicate what they’re doing.
 It is sometimes as simple to just teach people to be respectful. We tell our students to pay attention in
class and not do email, but we do this ourselves in our meetings. No one is paying attention. Model
the behavior- practice good listening.
 We are getting a lot of good new information but we need new skills to be able to sort through all of it.
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Use community communication to improve our image of a community college vs. a university, and the
quality. Use alumni groups to help communicate and change the image. Communication is not just
the words.
Executive decisions are not well communicated to lower level
Add measures to all strategies
Create listserv—look to best practices
Strategy B is where we need to do a lot of work on ourselves
Get humans to answer the phone
Personal accountability for reading emails
PROPOSED NEW STRATEGIES TO ADD TO THIS GOAL
 Improve change management with customers
 Partner with students to develop effective communication strategies for potential and current students
 Measure awareness and effectiveness of communications (internal and external); Measure success of
internal and external communication
 Promote the positive impact and value of the Alamo Colleges to our students, the community of Bexar
County and surrounding service area.
 Enhance the perception of the educational quality and benefits of the Alamo Colleges
Comments:
 We are not defining success; others are doing it for us; Narrow down and specify what we do the best
– student success. Focus on success and several other things will naturally flow from there. We can
promise completion because we communicated success well.
 Refine and define to add two-way communication and community engagement.
 Create and define and communicate effectively to targeted stakeholders; Include new ways of how we
are reaching our students: new ways of communicating like Facebook and Twitter
 Teach leaders how to communicate downward to get messages out
 Develop more effective communication across disciplines, departments, colleges, and district.
 Improve district-wide communications to the community
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RETREAT EVALUATION RESULTS
2012 Alamo Colleges Strategic Planning Retreat
Very Poor
Deficient
Fair
Good
Excellent
Evaluation
1
2
3
4
5
Good +
Excellent
1. Organization of this retreat
0% 0%
1%
37% 62%
99%
2. SWOT/Priorities/Competitive Factor Analysis report
0% 0%
6%
46% 48%
94%
3. Online environmental scan
0% 0%
7%
53% 40%
93%
4. Opening presentation
0% 1%
8%
40% 52%
92%
0% 2% 10% 48% 41%
88%
6. Methodology used in the working sessions
0% 0%
4%
39% 57%
96%
7. Performance of table leaders
0% 0%
3%
28% 69%
97%
8. Pace/dynamics of retreat
0% 0%
4%
46% 50%
96%
9. Working sessions with colleagues
1% 0%
3%
22% 74%
96%
10. Facilities
0% 1%
2%
40% 57%
97%
11. Food
1% 1% 15% 42% 42%
83%
12. Beverages
1% 2% 21% 38% 38%
76%
13. Overall strategic planning retreat experience
0% 0%
4%
47% 49%
96%
14. Significance (Was it worth your time?)
0% 0%
8%
40% 51%
92%
5. Action plan progress reports
(Fabianke/Morgan/Snyder/Silva)
What did you find most beneficial about this strategic planning retreat?
1 Different groups of professional sharing their strategic ideas.
2 The Chancellor's report was interesting and useful; dialogue with colleagues valuable and enriching.
Also appreciated Diane Snyder's money/budget review.
3 Meeting with colleagues; reviewing the strategic plan finishing major task on time.
4 Collaborating with my colleagues from other colleges and district, great summaries from leaders.
5 Working with employees from throughout the district.
6 Opportunity for critical discussion.
7 We actually worked on the strategic plan.
8 Format and discussion. Not too rushed, not too slow.
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9 Making a contribution to the District.
10 The rotating working groups (with a designated table leader specific to certain goal.) Provided more
forward approach.
11 Discuss issues facing our colleges.
12 The action reports and the methodology for the working sessions.
13 The work session in the morning!
14 Working session time and experience.
15 Collaboration of ideas; working together towards the same goals; the day was well organized.
16 Educational to an outsider.
17 The morning session very good strategy for engaging in dialogue.
18 The table sessions and feedback.
19 Discussing the actual strategic plan of the college. Reviewing our vision and our mission.
20 Great communication.
21 Meeting people from around colleges.
22 Focus on strategic plan rewrite.
23 The discussion with the diverse individuals that made up the group.
24 Great learning experience across the colleges.
25 Discussion with other colleagues.
26 Bringing the AC family together, to work, think, and reflect together.
27 Much better structure than last year.
28 Engaging all levels, campuses to look at our mission and values. I also liked the pre-work.
29 Well planned event! Moved at a pace that kept us on focus but not too fast.
30 The model of interaction was very successful.
31 Meeting new people from other schools!
32 Sharing with others! Attention to agenda and timelines!
33 Opportunities to get feedback from 160 people efficiently.
34 I liked the rotation of the table leaders. Location and accommodation were good, except for the
temperature.
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Having different team leaders handle different goals was very useful.
Rotating discussion leaders.
Hearing different viewpoints on each topic. The immediate feedback was also a great feature.
Ability to share ideas.
Gaining information about the issues facing the organization and political forces. Excellent display
of information on walls.
40 Meeting new people.
41 Learning all the latest initiatives and strategies.
42 The group activities.
43 A better understanding about the far reaching goals we have as a college toward the global
community.
44 Got to hear ideas and see implementation opportunities.
45 Open dialogue with colleagues.
46 Better understanding of Alamo Colleges.
47 Partnering with others on important topics.
48 It was very good. I think reviewing the goals was very helpful.
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49 Interaction; good review of Strategic Plan. Including business community in this process.
50 How everyone's ideas will be seen/heard.
51 Hearing/giving feedback. Listening to the needs and thoughts of colleagues throughout the district
(and external/internal stakeholders.)
52 How close we all were concerning the issues.
53 Updates on the process, information from Vice Chancellors and leadership team.
54 Meeting other people from District or colleges and the level and depth of conversation.
55 Opportunity to review and provide input in our organizational success.
56 Participation by table leaders.
57 The brainstorming sessions with other members of the colleges.
58 Meeting new people, being able to implement ideas and changes through feedback.
59 Participation of process.
60 Good discussion at the tables. Good direction and control by table leaders.
61 Time with everyone.
62 Preparation of organizers. Good time of year to hold it.
63 Learning about political aspects of our colleges and meeting employees of Alamo Colleges.
64 It felt very focused. Not a lot of idle time.
65 Well done! Kept things going in the morning.
66 Big picture, facts about where we are. Financial picture.
67 Facilitators were good at keeping participants "on topic."
68 The engagement.
69 This allowed me to have a different view of what I currently see. As a student I am able to see the
inside of the colleges and what occurs.
70 The rotation of table leaders instead of participants - saved so much time!
71 Delving into strategic goals, reconnecting with colleagues.
72 As part of the community service, I liked the process approach used for this retreat.
73 Opportunity to have input into mission, vision, etc.
74 Best format yet.
75 As we mature in this process as an organization, impact and understanding improves each time.
76 Student participation.
77 Insightful as to the inner workings of the school.
78 Interaction with table group.
79 The statement that the leadership was interested in our feedback.
80 Sharing ideas with colleagues. Asking questions for clarity on goals/strategies.
81 Liked the idea of table leaders moving around to gather input.
82 Sharing different perspectives and experiences.
What Should have been better?
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2
3
4
5
6
Well organized.
Could have "primed" the participants to think critically. Use technology (not paper)
Plan needs action plans and measurable.
Provide results of environmental scan to participants at beginning of session.
To ensure information is used.
Have more student representation (maybe a student per table). I would love to hear their input.
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7
8
9
10
N/A - Ran smoothly.
Use clickers for instant voting.
Clearer expectations.
Ensuring that all facilitators are equally prepared - XXXX was not prepared. We could have also used
the clickers to prioritize and vote in addition to information gathered from table leaders.
All was done well. Would like to see how the process is complete.
Smaller group.
Too cold.
Map to retreat site.
I don't know. It was a touchdown!
Balance of college and district participants - Not enough college participants.
It was cold in the room which made it uncomfortable.
Heat!
Timing of presentations and a bit more time for feedback at tables.
20 minutes for each session is too long. Presentations were too long.
Lunch - Good that it wasn't sandwiches, portions too small.
Great efforts.
More K-12, political leadership involvement.
It's cold in here.
Need to address systems, procedural issues between district/colleges.
Food and coffee.
Timing of afternoon presentation.
More context review before we proceeded.
Organized introductions at round table.
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25
26
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30 Hearing the back-story/background on current MVV and Goals. This can help with context because
that took up a lot of time in group discussions.
31 I had a hard time hearing when everyone was speaking during the work sessions.
32 Lunch.
33 Was an excellent and successful day. No complaints.
34 Internet access, acoustics, temperature.
35 More time on reporting out.
36 Faster pace.
37 Too cold.
38 Everything was great.
39 No time to discuss work session #2.
40 Only the cold coffee.
41 Hydration (water) at tables. More water for break, lunch. The brain needs to be hydrated to work
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43
44
45
46
47
48
well.
Room Temperature was too cold. More bottled water.
Shorter.
The retreat was wonderful and I enjoyed participating.
N/A. Maybe not the wall hangings.
Shorter presentations in afternoon. More activities needed for afternoon.
Could have kept same table leader.
Room temperature too cold for many folks.
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49
50
51
52
53
54
Too cold temperature.
More discussion on practical application.
Making presentation stay on task and time.
I could have been warmer in the room!
Break fun presentation - messy - poor - unappetizing.
Keywords should have been defined i.e. "best", "value", etc.
What suggestions do you have for the next planning retreat?
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3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
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13
14
15
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Better food, keep the location, and offer water in pitchers at the tables.
Plan needs action plans and measurable outcomes for each strategy work on this.
Make better use of clickers.
Please have more water bottles to drink during the entire day. Have available a wireless network to
check emails during the breaks.
Not so cold!
Invite more students (academic and continuing education), community members and frontline staff.
We must address the outcomes of this retreat as well as milestones and improvements over past
years.
Great facility and location.
Smaller groups.
Need more water.
More teambuilding exercises to get people to know each other better.
Use clickers for trivia questions.
It's so productive. Can we think about a twice a year format?
Please make sure to use the information that came out of the work session.
Just need some tweaks in timing.
Have a vegetarian option for food and please buy enough water!
Allow every Alamo president to speak to on 1 goal each on strategic plan for max of 5 minutes each.
More visual aids.
None. Good organization of day.
A student report and prospects presented to the group.
Review of words done at previous retreat and changes made.
Use the same approach.
Excellent job.
Offer hot coffee throughout the day.
Want to come back looking forward to it.
Felt rushed smaller groups (6 or less).
It worked!
Communication - do not waste opportunity to update on District-wide initiatives.
Include more P-16 partners in retreat.
Keep format for Table Leaders to keep things moving and on schedule.
Two shorter sessions instead of one long one.
Use of polling with instant voting.
Invite more students.
Great idea to involve a Team!
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35 Hydration (water) at tables. More water for break, lunch. The brain needs to be hydrated to work
well.
36 Don't have Vice Chancellors as table leaders on a topic that is directly in their area. Proved to be
intimidating and limited the input from many at the table.
37 Possible more student participation.
38 The books created previously were so helpful. Create those and place on thumb drives.
39 More water - warmer environment.
40 Getting better every time. Well done session.
41 GPA good tool - wrong audience.
42 Concise budget presentation.
43 This was a productive format. Three times better than last year. Allow less senior employees to
present and serve as facilitators.
44 I feel it all went very well.
45 Allow for more conversation re: mission, vision and values. Allow for Q&A re: MVV
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ALAMO COLLEGES STRATEGIC PLAN
Mission
Vision
Empowering our diverse communities for success.
The Alamo Colleges will be the best in the nation.
Goals and Strategies
Goal I. Access to Higher Education
A. Recruit/Enroll to Reflect the Diversity of Our Communities
B. Recruit/Enroll from Low Educational Participation Areas
Goal II. Student Support
A. Achieve High Completion Rates
B. Maximize P-16 Partnerships
C. Achieve the Dream
D. Measure and Increase Student Success
E. Maximize Employee Accountability for Student Success
F. Enable Students to Become Responsible Local and Global Citizens
G. Achieve Outstanding Student Learning and Support Programs
Goal III. Workforce Development
A. Assert Regional Workforce Leadership
B. Offer Excellent Programs that Meet Employer Needs
Goal IV. Capacity to Serve
A. Attract, Develop, and Retain Employee Talent
B. Ensure Sound Financial Management
C. Utilize Technology for Success
D. Maximize Facilities Stewardship
Goal V. Organizational Communication
A. Cultivate Community Support and Loyalty
B. Ensure Effective Internal Communication
Values (how we behave)
INTEGRITY: We have the courage to act ethically, building a culture of trust and respect.
COMMUNICATION: We engage in open and transparent communication, information sharing, and
collaboration.
COMMUNITY: We commit to a joyful culture of learning and service where unity in diversity occurs
through mutual respect, cooperation, and accessibility.
ACADEMIC FREEDOM: We value creativity, growth, and transformation through vigorous inquiry
and a free exchange of ideas for all.
ACCOUNTABILITY: We take responsibility for our actions and strive for continuous learning and
improvement.
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