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Planning Documents

Strategic Goals

Below is the prologue and strategic goals from the College's 2019/20-2021/22 Strategic Plan. While the document is still going through editorial review, the prologue and goals serve to guide the work of the College and are aligned with the mission of Canyons Completes.

Focus: We are so committed to our students and to a healthy environment that every decision we make will be through the lens of student success and fostering well-being for all who come to College of the Canyons.

Philosophy of the Strategic Plan

College of the Canyons is committed to ensuring learning. We honor and value exemplary teaching and learning, which is best accomplished if the entire campus community is working to support this important focus. COC ensures that its Strategic Goals are guided by the following philosophies:

Equity-Minded:

College of the Canyons will approach its strategic goals with an equity-minded lens by:

  • acknowledging and empathizing with disparate life-experiences contributing to inequalities/gaps in educational outcomes;
  • attributing inequalities/gaps to unfair structural, political, environmental, social, cultural, and/or historical practices and policies that have created barriers (deliberately or unintentionally) for individuals to improve their life opportunities through educational achievement;
  • responding to barriers with deliberate efforts to eliminate them; and
  • co-creating more fair and just higher education institutional policies and practices that account for disparate life-experiences.

Equitable Student Success:

College of the Canyons will provide support to facilitate equitable student success and maximize opportunity for all students with intentional efforts to address inequities among student groups, including minoritized student populations.

Inclusion and Collegiality:

College of the Canyons will foster healthy inclusion through inquiry, shared dialogue, and reflection to ensure that we promote a sense of community, collegiality and cooperation among student, faculty, staff, and administrators.

Mutual Respect:

To ensure that we have the foundation for inclusion and collegiality, College of the Canyons will promote an environment of mutual respect, valuing all members of the campus community and promoting a climate that nurtures open, honest, and direct sharing of diverse viewpoints.

 

Partnership with the Community:

We create relationships providing the foundation of success for chosen current and future partnerships with local schools, colleges and universities, businesses, government and social agencies. These partnerships advance the educational, artistic, civic, cultural and economic aspirations of our community. They also are reflected in our civic and community engagement efforts. Civic and community engagement is part of a larger curricular and co-curricular initiative aimed at creating a “civic-minded” campus culture by infusing civic ethos, civic literacy, civic inquiry, and civic action throughout all aspects of the College.

Experiential Learning:

College of the Canyons will provide opportunities or the entire campus community to engage in experiential learning with active learners reflecting and doing, rather than more passive approaches to learning.

Data-Driven:

College of the Canyons will utilize quality data to inform and drive decision-making and planning processes.

Creativity and Innovation:

College of the Canyons embraces a spirit of innovation and encourages faculty, staff, administrators, and students to develop innovative solutions to help the District achieve its strategic goals.

Financial Resources:

College of the Canyons will pursue financial resources to help us advance our efforts and goals.

Safety/Welcoming Environment:

College of the Canyons will provide an environment where people not only feel safe, but one in which all members of the campus community feel welcome.

 

Prologue

The California Community Colleges are experiencing disruptive structural change due to system-wide initiatives like Guided Pathways, the new funding formula based on student completion, as well as the aspirational goals of the CCCCO’s Vision for Success. With external pressures such as these and funding metrics tied to new success measures, there is an urgency related to dramatically shifting College of the Canyons’ focus of its planning documents and double down on our commitment to student success. In response, the district could not simply revise the prior 12 goals we strove for in the past ten to twenty years. The 2019-21 Strategic Goals are S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely) goals, carefully designed to put the student experience first. To do this the college must prioritize its activities under three overarching principles: access, engagement, and success.

We recognize that this plan is a significant shift from what the College has done for decades, and that this plan may be met with some anxiety or concern. However, this plan incorporates disruptive innovation to reengineer how we serve students and our community, and to challenge how we operate and plan for the College in fundamental ways. It is important to engage in dialogue about this shift if we are to be more successful in how we serve students.

The 2019-21 Strategic goals are measurable and obtainable in three years or less. All college stakeholders should pay close attention to the district’s philosophy statement and use it to frame their objectives. Equity, inclusion, and diversity are not goals in themselves but ideologies embedded in all actions and planning at the college.

The following are specific measurable objectives related to the Access, Engagement, and Success goals. It is important to emphasize that these objectives are intended to be used to promote dialogue about improving results for our students. The specific objectives should also be considered to be “living” objectives and updated as the campus community finds helpful, especially given the ever-changing context of the state.

Access

With an equity-minded lens, promote student access so that every student is able to enter an informed path.

  • Increase the adult participation (25+) rate by one percent each year from 2018/19 to 2021/22.
  • Increase dual-enrolled full-time equivalent students (FTES) from 921 in 2017/18 to between 1,050-1,150 by 2021/22.
  • Increase incarcerated FTES from 20 in 2017/18 to between 30-40 by 2021/22.
  • Increase noncredit CDCP FTES from 167 in 2017/18 to between 205-215 by 2021/22.
  • Increase overall enrollments for all CTE programs by 4 percent by 2021/22.
  • Maintain capture rate from application to enrollment from 2019 to 2022.
  • Set additional targets including those for high school transition by high school, education plan completion, Canyon Country Campus FTES, and noncredit to credit transition.

Engagement

Cultivate an equitable, inclusive, and welcoming environment that supports teaching and learning, fosters engagement, promotes belonging, values diversity, and sustains well-being at our campuses.

  • Set numerical goals for the following:
    • Increase diversity of hiring.
    • Increase student participation in civic, social, global, and cultural engagement.
    • Increase faculty, staff, and administrator participation in civic, social, and cultural engagement.
    • Increase the percent of students who participate in campus life.
    • Increase the percent of faculty, staff, and administrators who participate in campus life.
    • Decrease the number of students who are food and housing insecure.
    • Increase the number of students who engage with mental health services at VLC/CCC/OLC.
    • Increase employee well-being and satisfaction.
    • Increase interconnectedness through dialogue and collaboration.
    • Increase participation in student support services.

Success

Promote equitable student success, attainment of students’ goals, and intentionally maximize opportunities for all students.

  • Increase number of students earning non ADT awards from 1,210 in 2017/18 to 1,452 in 2021/22.
  • Increase number of students earning ADT awards from 905 in 2017-2018 to 1177 in 2021-2022.
  • Increase number of certificates (12+ units) awarded from 1,187 in 2017/18 to 1,246 by 2021/2022.
  • Increase number of noncredit certificates awarded from 306 in 2016/17 to 367 by 2021/2022.
  • Increase percent of exiting CTE students employed in field of study from 62 percent (2014/15 cohort) to 70 percent by 2021/2022.
  • Increase number of students completing nine credit CTE units from 755 in 2016/17 to 868 by 2021/2022.
  • Increase number of students who transfer from 2,255 in 2016/2017 to 2,300 by 2021/2022.
  • Increase completion of Transfer-Level Math and English in Year 1 for first-time-ever-in-college students by 10% from 434 in 2017/18 to 868 by 2021/22.
  • Increase student persistence, term-to-term, from 63% in 2017-2018 to 70% by 2021/2022.
  • Decrease the average number of units for degree completers from 90 in 2017/18 to 79 by 2021/22.
  • Reduce equity gaps by 40% in 5 years for areas of disproportionate impact identified through the College’s Student Equity Map and other internal analyses:
    • Lower disproportionate impact by 20% for all populations who earned high school equivalency, noncredit certificate, CO approved credit certificate, associate degree, CCC bachelor’s degree.
    • Lower disproportionate impact by 30% for all populations who complete transfer-level math and English.
    • Lower disproportionate impact by 10% for all populations who transfer to a four-year institution.
    • Lower disproportionate impact by 30% for all populations who have retention fall to spring.
    • Lower disproportionate impact by 20% for all populations who have successful enrollment.
  • Develop metrics and goals for “on path” education plans, wage gains by skills builders, and experiential learning.


Final edits to the Strategic Goals are currently being made by the Public Information Office (PIO).