Planning Summary
The Self Study completed by the faculty, classified staff, administrators, and students of Las Positas College represents a broad-based effort to describe institutional practices and to define overall levels of effectiveness. Planning Agenda items resulting from these efforts present several recurring themes. Each of these issues and others identified in the Self Study have significant impact upon student success and the fulfillment of the College mission. In completing the Self Study and seeking to qualify for re-affirmation of accreditation, Las Positas College accepts responsibility for addressing each of the Planning Agenda items.
Planning
While great progress has been made since the last accreditation, the College will continue to improve integration of planning and budget processes throughout the institution. The following plans will support these goals:
- Ensure that the Mission Statement is used in the planning and decision-making process of the College. Complete necessary revisions to the LPC Mission Statement. Clarify the role of LPC in terms of the mission and goals of economic development.
- Develop a consistent and informed process for integrating the results of program review into the College planning and decision-making process and tie budget appropriations for various departments to their creation of goals and their work in trying to achieve them. Integrate the work of the Director of Research and Planning more fully into the planning processes of the divisions and of the College.
- Review membership and time commitment of the Institutional Planning Committee(IPC). Ensure the budget development process is completely integrated with overall institutional planning efforts. Use the newly developed Strategic Plan as the basic foundation for future institutional planning and budget allocations. Develop a process for decentralizing budgets and fiscal accountability that will allow College divisions to be responsible for management of assigned fiscal resources within the limits of specified allocations. Institutionalize the current plan to establish a separate College foundation and ensure that the new foundation supports College services, missions, and goals.
- Finalize a technology plan responsive to change, based on a collegial, inclusive campus-wide review to be coordinated by the Dean of Technology. Integrate the campus plan with District level technology planning.
Communication
Effective communication between all the constituencies in the College
is necessary to fulfill the mission and assure student success. New technology
provides enhanced avenues of communication both within the College and
in outreach to the community.
The following Planning Agenda items are supportive of improved communication:
- Review and strengthen communication on shared expectations concerning the principles of academic honesty and the sanctions for violations by adding a statement regarding policies and principles of academic honesty and sanctions for violation. Recommend that faculty include at least minimal notice of these policies and principles in each class syllabus, including references to where to find the complete policy.
- Adopt a process for coordination of review and update of all College publications in print or online. Develop an improved means of distributing information from Institutional Planning Committee meetings to the college community. Establish better lines of communication, integration and coordination among the various entities doing planning and find better ways to keep the campus community informed of updates and changes to the major LPC planning documents. Facilitate more communication between the faculty and the District Public Information Officer.
- Review the General Education Philosophy statement to ensure that it is consistent in the various publications in which it occurs. Include the General Education Philosophy statement in both the Adjunct Faculty Handbook and in the curriculum proposal packet.
- Ensure that the addendum to the catalog is readily accessible to students. Identify and implement additional distribution methods to increase student access to the catalog addendum. Ensure that the links to Assessment/Tutorial Center are easily located in both Student and Academic Services locations on the LPC website and update Assessment and Tutorial Center schedules and information regularly.
- Identify ways to increase student participation in student government, student led clubs, the campus decision-making process, and community-related activities by working closely with Associated Students of Las Positas College (ASLPC) to advertise the benefits to students of participating in college and student committees and organizations.
- Develop an effective reporting mechanism that will ensure clear communication of College budgets and expenditures to all elements of the college community. Develop strategies for increasing administrator, faculty, classified staff and student understanding of financial planning and budget development guidelines and improve communication processes with faculty and classified staff concerning budget development progress so that specific faculty concerns can be addressed at the appropriate time. Publicize the role of staff in institutional governance and communicate that role to the larger campus community. Encourage and support the availability of more District-related information in electronic form through the campus network or via the internet.
Technology and Instructional Equipment
Emerging new technologies have presented challenges as well as opportunities for the College in the last several years. Processes for planning, purchasing and maintaining new equipment have had to be created and evaluated, and faculty and staff trained in its use. Issues regarding technology emerged in many areas. The College plans to:
- Develop consistent and timely procedures, ensuring faculty participation, for acquiring and maintaining equipment, materials, and software in all resource and multipurpose areas. Adopt formal procedures to review and replace equipment in classrooms and instructional labs, and to identify and replace obsolete or inadequate software, including a system for prioritizing need. Identify the types of college equipment that may not be adequately scheduled for timely replacement. Examine cost-effective options for future technology acquisition and seek alternative funding sources for technology.
- Adopt website policies. Provide stable and continuous financial support for equipment and software to maintain the LPC website and the instructional and faculty webpages.
- Evaluate the need for special equipment and purchase assistive software to serve students with visual or learning disabilities in the English Center.
Educational Programs
To demonstrate the College commitment to Teaching and Learning, the following plans will be implemented:
- Establish a deadline for all LPC courses to be rewritten or revised to meet Title V regulations. Define, in writing, the process for handling the elimination of programs or significant changes in program requirements. Develop a formal articulation agreement between LPC and Chabot. Explore the possibility of incorporating service learning activities into curriculum. Redesign and implement a Library curriculum review process that effectively addresses the collection and service needs of new program/course offerings. Evaluate the need to increase funding of the Library in order to provide support for new program and course approvals.
- Institute practices within the institutional program review process to ensure that needed, identified changes to the College's curriculum, degree, or certificates are appropriately completed in a timely manner. Devise and implement a long-term plan for the on-line program.
- Institute practices promoting regular review of grade distribution campus-wide and by instructional department to facilitate discussion of common grading standards and philosophies. Devise and implement additional strategies to improve department faculty use of common grading standards.
Measuring Outcomes
The College is committed to verifying student success in terms of measurable outcomes. The Director of Research and Planning and all areas of the College will work together to achieve these goals:
- Make better use of essential data in institutional planning and evaluation. Use an updated institutional effectiveness report to measure LPC's performance in terms of how well it is meeting its mission and purposes. Survey students at regular intervals to monitor success of the College mission. Develop a more defined role for the Director of Research and Planning, including implementation of follow-up procedures and integrate the Director's work more fully into the planning processes of the divisions and of the college.
Community Connections
Through the Strategic Plan, Las Positas College has identified a need for increased connections to our surrounding community. The College will:
- Create and implement incentives to encourage faculty and staff involvement in the community.
- Conduct regular assessments of community needs.
- Implement activities to accomplish Outreach Task Force goals.
Growth
The College is growing, and because of its location in an area of population growth, will continue to be presented with challenges to fulfill its mission and meet the needs of ever increasing numbers of students. These challenges fall into categories of staffing, facilities and services.
Staffing
- Develop additional methods of assessing staffing needs across the campus, including the need for additional classified staff who directly support instructional programs. . Evaluate the need for clerical and technical support to the Office of Research and Planning. Consider creating open Lab hours and providing instructional assistance in the Math Computer lab. Evaluate the need to hire permanent instructional technology specialists in the Professional Development Center. Investigate options to improve the level of support during non-classroom lab hours in the Computer Information Systems Classroom and the Visual Communications Laboratory.
- Evaluate the need to increase technical support staff to:
- implement a proactive maintenance program. In particular, to insure readiness at the beginning of the school year;
- respond to problems in a timely manner;
- provide dedicated support to lab sites in order to address
problems
during instruction and allow for student use of labs outside of
instructional hours.
- Standardize adjunct faculty evaluations, ensuring that all adjunct faculty evaluations are actually occurring at specified and frequent intervals. Resume discussions between the Faculty Senate, the Classified Senate, and the Administrators about the design of a new Administrator evaluation process and finalize a recommendation for an Administrator evaluation process to be submitted to the District Chancellor and for Board approval.
- Work with the District Human Resources office to clarify and streamline the procedures for hiring of staff.
Facilities
- Re-examine the College use of classroom space and devise strategies to optimize the use of the existing classrooms.
- Educate the community about the needs of the College and the benefits that a building expansion will provide. Create additional sources of funding, including pursuing a bond and organizing a foundation to augment capital funds. Assure that faculty and staff are integrally involved in all phases of facilities remodeling and construction.
- Address the need with the District to provide adequate custodial care, maintenance staffing, and grounds personnel to keep pace with the demands of additional new buildings and the expanding landscaping.
Services
- Design a program for assistance for probation students. Make information about educational alternatives more available to students through the Counseling Program. Develop a procedure for counseling and tracking transfer students. Identify the students who cannot access counselors and develop a plan to meet their needs. Expand tutoring in the English Center. Evaluate the need to increase Library hours during the summer term.
- Develop a plan to address institutional support of student employment services. Expand support to international students to help them access community-based support programs, including transportation, housing and health care. Provide information and encourage participation in co-curricular activities and student government to all students for both day and evening.
- Seek budget priority to maintain the currency of the image scanning system to allow for accurate preservation of student records. Link LPC and Chabot College imaging systems to provide seamless access to all student records.
- Offer all staff additional opportunities to experience the
implementation of the Standardized Emergency Management System in
order for the College to be better prepared for a catastrophic emergency.
Support efforts to discourage smoking by individuals and to enforce
the campus smoking policy.