Education/Workforce Development Meeting

October 13, 2009

ACCREDITATION NOT CONSOLIDATION

• The Board Charges:– Improve Student Success and Access– Increase efficiencies and reduce costs

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Enrollment, which had been flat, has increased over the past three years to record levels of 60,000 credit students and 30,000 non-credit students each semester

• 97% of current students recommend the Alamo colleges to their friends and family, higher than the state and national averages

• Amongst our peer group, the Alamo Colleges expend the highest percentage of operating budget on instruction

• The Alamo Colleges recently had its credit rating increased and ranks amongst the best in Texas reflecting our strong financial health

• Core student success measures (grade productivity, course completion, retention and graduation rates) have increased in each of the last three years

• Millions of dollars in cost-savings have been realized and millions more in specific savings opportunities have been identified

• The Alamo Colleges have partnered with 19 local and service area ISD’s, representing 49 high schools via College Connections resulting in a substantial increase in students attending the Alamo Colleges

• The Alamo Colleges enrolls over 8,000 dual credit students, the largest number in the state

• Over twenty new buildings have been constructed in-time and under budget and are now in use, with 70% of this additional 1.3 million square feet dedicated to academic use

• The new campus for Northeast Lakeview College has been opened to over 5,000 students

• The Alamo Area Council of Governments awarded the Alamo colleges the 2009 Regional Governmental Project of the Year for the establishment of the Alamo College Regional Training Centers in Comal, Guadalupe (New Braunfels), Kerr (Kerrville), and Wilson (Floresville) Counties

• New academic and administrative technology solutions have been introduced, including the new Banner IT software

• Additional partnerships with local, regional and international businesses have been established and/or extended including Toyota, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Rackspace, CPS Energy, AT&T, USAA and others

• Through collaborative efforts, new course and program alignments across the five Alamo colleges, including a new Core Curriculum recently approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, have been implemented

• Strategies to improve success of our developmental education students have been implemented with additional strategies to be added over the next several years

CURRENT STATUSACADEMIC STRUCTURE

• The colleges, not the district, are accredited by SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools)

• Our colleges are individually accredited, not collectively accredited

• Within the SACS region (Virginia to Texas), only Alamo and Dallas are individually accredited

• Accreditation is not about consolidation but about quality• We have widely divergent success rates among our five

colleges

• Accreditation has become the basis upon which the colleges have claimed their “independence” and uniqueness– Every college has its own systems, programs, services and

curriculum– Every college claims that accreditation, because it is

awarded to the college, “requires” that their academics and services are also separate and independent

– SACS makes no such requirement and state systems, with individually accredited colleges, have aligned academic systems

ALAMO COLLEGES’ ACADEMIC STRATEGY

• To maintain the uniqueness of each college• To maintain the unique programs at each college• To ensure that similar programs are aligned in terms of

course descriptions, entry and exit requirements and outcomes

• To ensure that dissimilar programs are clearly described with unique names, entry and exit requirements and outcomes

• To ensure a common core curriculum encourages student success at each college, greater transfer to university and placement into employment

ALAMO COLLEGES’ OPERATING STRATEGY• We may be able to accomplish efficiencies whether we are

multiple or singularly accredited - what the study is to help determine

• Ensure operations are as efficient and effective as possible• To remove the barriers established by “independent” colleges• To improve student access and transition among the colleges• To reduce unnecessary operating duplication by strengthening

campus based services necessary at each college and operating at the district those services that can be handled more efficiently

• Many changes are being driven by our new IT system

SUMMARY• What will change?

– We will “clean-up” the unnecessary academic program confusion that currently exists

– We will ensure greater student access across colleges and success

– We will provide a student the same high quality education regardless of which college he/she attends

– We will promote greater collaboration among our colleges so the synergy benefits our colleges, students and community

– We will ensure greater efficiencies of operations and remove the unnecessary duplications inherent in our current structure

GENERAL QUESTIONS

• Will consolidation improve the colleges’ ability to better serve industry.– A change in accreditation by itself will have no

effect; we are not consolidating– We are already making changes that take better

advantage of each colleges’ assets to offer enhanced service to industry

• Will the colleges preserve their unique assets?– Accreditation is about quality, not uniqueness– Yes, special programs, equipment and facilities have

been developed over the years. Nothing will change what has already been invested and developed.

– Streamlining, implementing operational improvements will not affect a college’s unique assets other than to make them more integrated into the system. • For example, advertise the unique program throughout our

region, not just in the offering college’s local service area.

• How is communication being handled to earn support for consolidation?– The issue is not about consolidation but about accreditation– There is greater support than opposition for effectiveness

and efficiencies– We have, under the board’s direction, established a

committee broadly constituted to assess the facts, advantages and disadvantages and costs of both models of accreditation

– Once the committee’s report is filed, there will be further hearings with student and community participation

• How does consolidation impact the system’s ability to retain/attract top talent, does it change the president’s role?– The accreditation model, if changed, would not affect the

presidents’ role– The colleges are too large and complex not to have

presidents that fulfill the responsibilities currently assigned to them including student success, community development, fund raising, academic administration, facility maintenance, budget development and management and many other duties

• How much have costs increased in the central office to manage consolidation and how does that measure against cost savings?– We have upgraded several positions to establish a

senior leadership team to improve the operating systems of the district. No new positions were added.

– Cost savings have been led by both the college presidents and vice chancellors

– We are also growing rapidly and have had to integrate the additional 24 new buildings into our operations.

• Could consolidation lead to the changing of the names of each campus?– We already made that change referring now to the Alamo

Colleges rather than Alamo Community College District – The college names haven’t been changed nor is there any

plans to change the college names– We’ve changed our branding and logo with the new

district name such that there is now only one logo used for the district and colleges rather than numerous logos

– The media has already begun at times to refer to the colleges under the heading of Alamo Colleges

THANK YOU

• QUESTIONS?