faf00aa5f4fb5e63bd8425bcfc17cf40.jpg

County college launches 3-year plan for improvements, growth

By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
   WEST WINDSOR — Mercer County Community College’s new three-year strategic plan is a roadmap for success for the college over the next three years, members of the colleges board of trustees say.
   Created by processing the hopes and dreams of the college community into a comprehensive list of 35 goals, the plan is to be tied to future decisions, such as putting together a budget for capital improvements and creating a master plan for facilities upgrades.
   ”It is an overall plan of goals, visions and objectives,” said Board of Trustees member Marvin Gardner, who also serves as Planning Board chairman in West Windsor. “It is a strategy plan with seven different areas of what we hope to achieve in the future.”
   The seven areas include excellence and vitality in teaching and learning; welcoming and nurturing students; research, planning and assessment; resources for new needs; a college culture marked by celebration of diversity, effective communication and institutional pride; community engagement; and marketing.
   With this document the college community has gone where no previous college administration has gone before, according to board Chairman Anthony “Skip” Cimino.
   ”We view it as a very important document,” said Mr. Cimino of the plan, which the board adopted on Dec. 5. “It will be instrumental in helping articulate to the public at large the direction with which the administration will steer the college, and help focus the trustees on the policy necessary to do that.”
   The master plan, and providing funding for the construction it calls for, will probably take more than three years, according to board members, but that does not diminish the value of the plan for them.
   Plans for future facilities upgrades should include further improvements to the college’s classroom and scientific lab facilities, and upgrades to the student center, bookstore, and cafeteria, according to board members.
   ”We need to provide facilities based on the needs of students in 2010,” said Mr. Cimino, who noted that many of the structures at the West Windsor campus — and the James Kearney Campus in Trenton — were decades old.
   An enhanced marketing program meant to showcase all of the opportunities the college provides to Mercer County is also called for in the plan, with increased student and staff involvement in helping market their educational institution.
   The process of putting the plan together included surveying the different groups that make up the community college, including administration, faculty and staff, students, and the Board of Trustees.
   The college even reached out to stakeholders outside the campus for input on what to include, according to Mr. Cimino.
   Also of importance was input from President Patricia Donohue, who will soon have completed one year on the job.
   Reaching out to the county community will continue in the future, according to Mr. Gardner, who said the college would like to increasingly reach out and create partnerships with Mercer County businesses to provide additional opportunities at the college.
   Implementing the strategic plan means the college will have to continue to efficiently utilize financial resources coming from tuition, the county and the state, according to board members.
   But the state’s current financial situation means that the college is relying more heavily on tuition and county resources to implement the changes called for in the strategic plan, according to Mr. Cimino, who applauded Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes for continuing to support the college.
   Also important for board of trustees members and administration staff is that the plan calls for establishing benchmarks to measure progress, as the college strives to implement the 35 goals in the plan.
   ”We are ultimately responsible to measure the progress of the college,” Mr. Cimino said.