Strategic Plan 2028

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.

Horizon Symposium

Strategic Plan & Excelencia Roster 

Strategic Planning

Faculty

  • Dawn Whinnery, Professor of Psychology 
  • Sarah Snyder, Professor of English 
  • Scott Myers, Adjunct Faculty in Science 
  • Eric Lee, Professor of English
  • Hikmet Budat, Professor of Agriculture
  • Michael Murphy, Professor of Automotive

Classified

  • Silvia Kempton, Testing Services Technician II
  • Kaitlyn Kessler, Payroll
  • Elizabeth (Ely) Supley, Enrollment Services 

PA

  • Stuart Gibson, Assoc. Dean of Business, Education, Socials and Behavioral Sciences 
  • Cristina Gonzalez, Associate Dean of Advisement and Student Success 
  • James Larson, Director of Manufacturing
  • Cris Gordon, Assoc. Dean of Instructional Development and Student Learning Experience
  • Jennifer Ericson, Director of Corporate Training
  • Kathy Ocampo, VP of Human Resources
  • Ashley Herrington, Chief of Staff
  • Cris Ayala, Residential Life Manager
  • Nikki Hage, Dean of Students
  • Lori Stofft, VP for Advancement
  • Mandy Heil, Marketing & Communications
  • Tri-chairs or co-leaders

Tri-Chairs

Image
Sarah Snyder

Sarah Snyder

Professor of English

Image
Silvia Kempton

Silvia Kempton

Testing Services Technician II

Image
Lori Stofft

Lori Stofft

VP for Advancement

AWC Excelencia In Education

Federal Program Rep

  • Rosalia Delgado, Director of CAMP

Data Position

  • Betty Lopez, Director of Institutional Advancement 

Student Services

  • Eva Aviles, University Partnership Manager

Faculty/ Academics

  • Cynthia Martinez, Professor of English

Advancement

  • Lori Stofft*, VP Advancement

Leadership / Career Tech

  • Cinthia Alvarez, Executive Director / Dean of Career & Technical Education

Faculty/ Career Tech

  • Stephanie Francis

Faculty / Academics

  • Monica Ketchum
  • Tri-chairs or co-leaders

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


-

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.

Data & Survey Results

Title/Filename File/Link
Student Intercept Survey View
10 Themes of Survey  View
Common Themes Initial Surveys View
Focus Group Schedule View
AWC Strategic Plan 2028: Faculty & Staff Areas of Focus Survey View

Research

District Leaders

Past Strategic Plan Survey to College Leaders

View Data
(must be logged in to view)

External Constituents

AWC Strategic Plan Survey to External Constituents

View Data
(must be logged in to view)