Destination 2022

Goal 1: Develop a Mission Minded Culture

Drive accountability by rewarding excellent performance and innovative risk-taking
Conduct leadership training to develop leadership skills & build effective teams
Ask excellent performers to teach their peers
Expose faculty and staff to exciting student experiences to keep them connected to the impact PPSC has on students Pathways
Empower mid-level leaders to recognize and reward innovative risk-taking among their teams and communicate success stories with the rest of the institution.

For example, HR practices of recruiting, minimum job requirements, instructional practices, guided pathways, CTE programming, etc.

Identify the formats in which PPSC stakeholders will pay attention to information
Share success stories

Give members of the innovation incubator real problems to solve (e.g., what are the best ways to communicate with PPSC stakeholders so they attend to the info and feel engaged?)
Provide a mechanism where ideas can be tested

Goal 2: Assure that students set and achieve their academic and career goals.

Understand a student's goals at the point of enrollment and track and advise accordingly
Every student has an academic plan by the end of their first semester
Expand student success courses (For example, college ready students and/or programmatic areas)
Explore meta-majors and Guided Pathways
Each degree seeking student completes his/her math in their first year

Design a process tailored to identify and address the diverse needs of an entering student (i.e. support tactics would vary by student needs)
Increase engagement through student life programming
Create social connections for students within the College community so that they stay on campus, know people, and be involved
Design student support and resources to increase graduation and transfer rates

Promote high impact learning practices, including service learning, experiential learning, learning communities, writing intensive courses, collaborative projects, global studies, internships, and capstones projects
Use data to drive best practices in developmental education
Invest in professional development to support high impact learning practices

Promote a culture of assessment leading to continuous improvement in every academic program
Promote a culture of assessment leading to continuous improvement in student support services including co-curricular experiences

Goal 3: Deliberately drive enrollment to ensure a strong future for PPSC

Provide clear communication about the path to enrollment
Minimize high stakes testing for placement
Develop pre-enrollment orientation and advisement appropriate for a variety of student populations
Provide for early financial aid and scholarship award notifications
Connect students to their academic program plan in their rst semester (a course or activity in their academic program)

Analyze evening, weekend, and online options to ensure students can complete degrees
Use guided pathways principles to help students navigate the alternative scheduling options
Launch targeted marketing for online, weekend, and evening students
Use AdAstra Analytics, Institutional Effectiveness and other available resources to determine which sections need to be added, considering location, time, and demand

Target participation at community- based events that connects us to potential students
Develop universal PPSC messaging and talking points
Showcase student and alumni success stories
Highlight notable faculty and staff and their accomplishments

Convert concurrent students to transfer students Increase scholarship funds available for incoming students
Appeal to non-traditional students by increasing offerings and organization of evening, weekend and online programming to meet the diverse needs of students. Aggressively market scholarship opportunities to appropriate segments
Develop recruitment strategies for Latino/Hispanic students and diverse populations that are underrepresented in a particular academic program (Nursing, Cyber Security, STEM, etc.)

Maintain updated PPSC Master Facilities Plan
Maximize returns on IT infrastructure investments by providing relevant and responsive training

Goal 4: Anticipate and respond to emerging workforce needs and demographic shifts

During programming development and academic review, use the Workforce Development Division as a resource to understand and analyze workforce demand
Secure adequate resources for high- demand programs

Evaluate educational trend data to understand the difference between the needs of highly educated newcomers and those of up-and- coming locals so we can advocate effectively for all learners
Use demographic trend data to determine delivery of services and programs
Identify and promote the diverse educational needs of our service area

Develop a systematic plan to educate partners about PPSC and its mission/programming
Create a point of contact to coordinate student/employer connections
Pilot academic cluster navigators to build a pipeline that starts with potential students and ends with employment

Monitor and evaluate current and potential credentialing opportunities in the market place
Effectively communicate student knowledge, skills and abilities to employers
Based on data and employer needs, provide applicable student evaluation and testing

Develop a dashboard to conduct an annual academic division review to analyze programs
Work with Workforce Development and industry partners to identify which additional degrees are needed to drive the economy with appropriately trained graduates

Goal 5: Better serve a diverse current and prospective student population

Develop recruitment strategies to attract diverse candidate pools
Develop effective candidate selection strategies
Develop effective retention strategies
Evaluate current programming and practices

Develop additional initiatives to create a more inclusive or culturally responsive campus environment (For example, increase designated global study sections, develop sta professional development trainings, and increase cultural experience/ events on campus)
Orientation of employees and students to build cultural competency

Collect and evaluate data that is representative of various student populations
Secure dedicated funding for meaningful scholarships for a diverse student body
Evaluate current programming and practices and identify and pilot new initiatives that promote best practices
Drive greater Hispanic enrollment, getting to 20%, with an eventual goal of 25%, which would make PPSC a Hispanic Serving Institution
Create a staff , faculty, student and community advisory team to devise tactics to make that happen
Grow military (and military family) retention and completion rates

Strategic Planning Process

The Planning Process

All of the planning meetings were prepared and facilitated by a higher educational strategy consultant who could steer the conversation without a personal agenda. The facilitator met with the Steering Committee—a small group of senior leadership—five times over the course of the planning process. Additionally, we invited a 40-member Task Force composed of a representative sampling of students, faculty, staff, and community members to meet for two, half-day workshops to review the Steering Committee’s discussions and conclusions, respond to the research findings, discuss plan priorities, brainstorm possible planning goals and tactics, and raise issues or concerns we might have missed.

The overall PPSC community was kept apprised of progress throughout the process through a dedicated strategic planning web-page on the PPCC.edu website. On the planning webpage, we described the various stages of the process, introduced the members of the committees, solicited input from all of PPSC’s constituents via web-based survey tools before, during, and after the plan was drafted, and posted downloadable copies of all the presentations and documents from each of the planning meetings. PPSC’s internal communications team helped guide people toward the web page and ask for their input.

Over the course of all of these meetings, we worked through a SWOT analyses, reviewed available metrics pertaining to PPSC’s employee climate, looked at student success metrics, and assessed PPSC’s performance relative other similarly sized institutions. We also conducted some original and secondary research reviews of outside sources. These included:

An open-ended survey posed to the PPSC community regarding their hopes and intentions for PPSC’s future
A focus group with a PPSC class
A review of secondary research on demographic trends with a specific look at predictions of likely state, region, and local trends by race and age
Two focus groups with local Hispanic high school students
A thorough review of regional economic indicators for PPCCs service area
Interviews with local economic experts and business leaders

Through the research and discussion of findings, we identified the following contextual realities, challenges, and strengths we felt needed to be addressed in the strategic plan:

Morale and confidence in leadership at PPSC has improved significantly over the past five years. However, additional opportunities remain to develop leadership capacity throughout the ranks and encourage greater creativity and risk-taking at all levels of the College.
While PPSC has managed tremendous growth and worked to remove barriers to entry, there is still work to be done to make it easier to get through the administrative process of application and enrollment and easier and more compelling to stay enrolled to completion.
Southern Colorado’s population is changing significantly: The Hispanic population has grown, and District 11’s percentage of Hispanic high school students is about double the percentage of Hispanic students currently enrolled at PPCC; PPSC’s faculty and staff are predominantly white, non-Hispanic; Colorado’s population will age quickly over the next several decades; and, the northeastern part of PPSC’s service area is predicted to grow rapidly.
The military population of the El Paso region remains very high, which creates the opportunities to better serve military members and their families.
While PPCCs retention rates are on par with those of similar community colleges in the region, they are not as high as we would like—particularly among students of color.
As the only public community college in the region, PPSC has a terrific opportunity to position ourselves as agile and responsive by doing a better job of keeping track of and responding to shifts in local employer needs with appropriate workforce-ready programs and by staying tuned to student needs for more flexible course delivery options in academic programs.