June 27, 2017
Story and photo by Brandon Steinert
The Barton Community College Board of Trustees gathered Tuesday evening for its regular meeting and discussed one of its eight overarching goals, known as ENDs. This month’s focus was on “Strategic Planning,” which deals primarily with ensuring the college operations and budget are in line with the priorities identified by the board, which are to Drive Student Success, Cultivate Community Engagement, Optimize Employee Experience and Emphasize Institutional Effectiveness.
This END states, "The college mission will be supported by strategic planning emphasis.” That statement is measureable by three indicators: “The institutional mission of the college will be supported by strategic planning goals and objectives. Accreditation requirements of the Higher Learning Commission will be satisfied through the development and implementation of strategic planning goals and objectives. Kansas Board of Regents policies and mission will be satisfied through the development and implementation of strategic planning goals and objectives. Strategic planning goals and objectives shall be measurable in order to demonstrate their effectiveness and to provide accountability to the public.”
Most recently, administration has been including students in the planning process.
Devon Nelson, who will graduate with an associate degree in business, management and leadership in the spring of 2018, attended a strategic planning meeting less than a month prior and shared some comments with the Board during its regular meeting Tuesday evening.
“It was interesting as a student to peek behind the curtain and see how the institution is planned out two years in advance,” he said. “I learned a lot. It was eye opening to see that how I perform affects the college directly.”
Nelson runs his own device repair business, Nelson Tech Repair, and is one of the founding members of SPARK, Barton’s entrepreneur mentorship group.
For more information or to view the board report directly, visit trustees.bartonccc.edu and select Board Monitoring Reports in the left navigation menu.