Hayley Vawter| Editor
Since August 2018, ECC and CampusWorks– a company designed to help create strategic plans for higher education– have been working hard to create a five-year strategic plan for the college. After ECC received an accreditation status of “on notice” from the Higher Learning Commission in Oct. 2017, the college hired CampusWorks to help create a new strategic plan.
The plan is called “SOAR to 2024” and is dedicated to getting input from faculty, staff, students and community members to improve ECC over the next five years.
Three events have been held for SOAR to 2024; in August, CampusWorks held a strategic planning workshop and invited students, faculty and staff, administration and board members to participate. The workshop was designed to create a student experience statement for the college.
In January, a Future Summit was held to gain community input and create impact statements which would be used in the future of the strategic plan.
The latest events have been Student Focus Groups, held in three different sessions; two on the Union ECC campus and one at the Rolla ECC campus. Dr. Kevin David, along with the tri-chairs of the Strategic Planning Committee were present during the event.
The student focus groups were dedicated to finding out more from students and gaining their input about a variety of topics. Students were asked what characteristics are important to them when it came to quality of instruction at ECC in class and online, what students thought about the way course materials were handled at the college and also students’ feedback on grades and the grading system at ECC.
Attendees of the focus groups were given Planet Sub for lunch, as well as free ECC gear.
ECC Cornerstone 