Our Strategic Plan
Strategic Planning evolves from collaborative engagement with the campus, local, and regional communities to articulate a shared mission, vision, and set of values that drive all decision-making at Arizona Western College. The Strategic Plan that develops out of this process is dynamic and provides a flexible but focused framework for our future.
Executive Summary of the
Horizon SymposiumStrategic Plan & Excelencia Roster
Strategic Planning
Faculty
Classified
PA
Tri-Chairs
Sarah Snyder
Professor of English
Silvia Kempton
Testing Services Technician II
Lori Stofft
VP for Advancement
AWC Excelencia In Education
Federal Program Rep
Data Position
Student Services
Faculty/ Academics
Advancement
Leadership / Career Tech
Faculty/ Career Tech
Faculty / Academics
AWC Strategic Plan Pillars
As selected in May by AWC President Dr. Daniel Corr, the three pillars for the AWC Strategic Plan 2028 are:
Excelencia
The word is in Spanish as a nod to our desire to meet our responsibilities as an HSI by creating excellent learning opportunities and outcomes for all students through a persistent use of data. 77% of our students are Latinx and many of those are first generation students. We are striving to reduce the achievement gap for these students, particularly but not exclusively. There will be a halo effect on all AWC students as we:
- Level up how we use data to improve learning outcomes, like course-level success, retention, degree completion or transfer
- Make data available more equitably and on-demand to teams working across the district to serve both students and each other
- Use data to measure our effectiveness across all areas and then execute a plan to improve
Access
Removing barriers to awareness of college offerings, enrollment, retention and completion and strengthening the ways community partners utilize college offerings. This could include dual credit, corporate training, new markets, or any number of things. Access will be improved for all our communities and students when we:
- Closely consider how do we serve distinct populations, from Dual Enrollment/ Concurrent to non-traditional students, including returning students with some college but no degree.
- Examine how we leverage multilingual and multicultural resources to serve our students.
- Increase access to wrap-around services to increase enrollment, successful outcomes, and partnership.
Disruption
Disruptive change management is innovation elevated. It responds to disruptive trends in the industry, even supply-side disruptive trends (i.e. what are our students and industry partners requiring of us that our current systems / processes can’t supply?). Disruption will serve our students and communities partners when:
- We prepare ourselves for what is just over the horizon from the way we operate today.
- We closely examine what firmly held practices would yield better results for our students, employees, or community if we modified them.
- We take lessons from the innovative ‘laboratory environment’ created by the Arizona Western Entrepreneurial College.
Revised July 2024 by tri-chairs Lorraine Stofft, Dr. Sarah Snyder, Silvia Kempton.
Steering Committee Timeline & Workflow
March 2024
Leadership sets parameters
April 2024
All call for steering committee
- Plan structure with Liz, Dr. Corr
- kick off planning process
May 2024
Initial meeting of Steering Committee, initial meeting of tri-chairs
- College Town Hall: Parameters, establish pillars (take reaction?), what to expect, timeline
- Survey to current college leadership: committees, councils, LAB, Cabinet about what went well and what could have been better in planning and executing previous SP
- Liz run a session with Cabinet on expectations
- Liz run a session with DGB on setting the stage and parameters
- Plan Survey to students / constituents
- First convening of Steering Committee
- Create Focused Scan teams
- Future Look article assignments for summer
June 2024
- Stakeholder (External Constituent) Surveys – Liz , Steering Committe to review
- Use Previous Invitation List
- Include Save the Date for November Horizon Event
August 2024
Steering Committee work
- Review of Future Look articles
- Review timeline and flesh out activities
- Organize ourselves into Scan Teams (incl. Values)
- Update at All-Fall Town Hall August 5
- Feedback Cycle and Objective Rubric
(AWC login required)
September 2024
Steering Committee work
- Scan Teams complete early-mid September, Share out in workshop style
- Disaggregated Data Party
- Student Focus Groups – Mobile Pizza Party
- Update at September College Governance Council (CGC) - tentative share out measurement goals
October 2024
Steering Committee work
- Discovery: Develop potential projects within each theme
- Staff Survey – testing our early discoveries
- Update at October College Governance Council (CGC) - tentative share out measurement goals, updated
November 2024
Steering Committee work
- Update to DGB
- Update at October College Governance Council (CGC) - pace of the work, updates
- Horizon Symposium to test concepts with wider public, host speaking event
- Start writing the plan
December 2024
Draft test with Student Intercept surveys at all sites
January 2025
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February 2025
Present plan to DGB, college and students (bring to multiple campus locations?)
March 2025
Steering Committee develops Action Plan & KPI
Feedback Cycle
Discover all the opportunities for input during the year.