Making Sense of Board Goals and Assessing College Efforts to Achieve Them … and doing it quickly before they change! Brynn Pierce, Institutional Researcher Chris Egertson, Research Analyst

Overview  Understanding Board Direction  Mapping College Efforts to Board Priorities  Creating “Simple” and Concise Reports  Sharing Reports with Board and College  Are the Reports Working?  Next Steps / Lessons Learned

 Oldest Oregon community college (est. 1949)  Two campuses  Branch campus – OSU Cascades Campus  Enrollment ( ) → 5,175 FTE - 88% generated by credit students → 17,487 students - 52% credit students (9,075)  Two-year growth in FTE: 40%

10,000 mi 2 district (larger than eight US states)

Understanding Board Direction  Board Goals defined in early 90’s – externally focused “Because of COCC, the community will work collaboratively to achieve shared purposes.” – difficult to connect to College activities  No systematic assessment of goals —No established benchmarks —No method to measure progress/improvement  In as part of assessment efforts – IR made first attempt at assessing Board Goals through the development of a first generation Institutional Effectiveness report

Understanding Board Direction the beginning  2003 to years of annual Institutional Effectiveness reports (Board developed Vision Concept Paper during this time to clarify Board Goals)  Institutional Research the driving force behind collecting baseline information – very few were asking for it  The product had to be good, but developing the capacity to generate the data and promoting the availability of the information was primary.  STILL… annual reports were hard to “digest” and analyze  … still very little evidence of connecting data to planning/decision making/goal setting

Understanding Board Direction  Board’s establishment of Board Priorities lending more insight to established Board Goals  Connie Lee – Board Member, Business Consultant Assessment of Board goals Development of Board priorities

Mapping College Efforts to Board Priorities Based on: National Alliance of Community and Technical Colleges Mission/Vision Statement Board Goals Board Priorities Data & Analysis Inst. Effectiveness Report Defines Determine Yield Measures Progress Towards Achievement Allows for Adaption Redefines Institutional Initiatives Planning/Activities

Mapping College Efforts to Board Priorities Board Priority Example: Access and Success “Continue to strengthen strategic partnerships with K-12”  Fall 2007 revised IE reporting to measure achievement of Board Priorities  Created a MAP connecting data points to new priorities – Historical baseline data – New information – Data points we WISHED we had or hoped to have in the future  March 2008 Board endorsed plan

Creating “Simple” and Concise Reports  Dense annual report became smaller 4-6 page information items provided to Board every other month  Developed reports to include an analysis component and be succinct and easy to read – not an easy task! – Created a draft report based on map – Used basic Excel, Word and Adobe… nothing fancy – Circulated drafts to key personnel (getting input the most difficult piece)  IR office performed final edits and disseminated to Board

Sharing Reports with Board and College  IE Reports are provided as Information Items on the Board Agenda – they are not presentations but may be pulled out for discussion by a Board member  Reports used occasionally by campus community (grants, press releases, etc) but not to the level we would like them to be used  IE reports are shared online:

Are the reports working? … Board Member… Rolled out at March 2008 Board Meeting… Joyce Garrett, board member and a retired college dean, noted that the “enormity of this is amazing,” calling it among the best data for a college she has seen. Usefulness of information Value to Board decision making

Are the reports working? … President… DR. JIM MIDDLETON President since July 2004 Value to COCC More informed decision making

Next Steps  Prepare for possible changes for  Continue to improve information and analysis  Support the Board in setting targets and using info for planning  Help tighten link between Board priorities, institutional strategic planning, and operational measurement and decision making  Increase awareness/use of information beyond the Board and executive levels

Lessons Learned We still have ongoing challenges…  Fear of results - perfect in the way of the good  Resources (time, data sources, etc) We have experienced great success…  Better data  Better buy-in for data-based decisions  Increased accountability  Awareness of how the “pieces” fit together

Brynn Pierce, Institutional Researcher Chris Egertson, Research Analyst Questions?