Near the end of 2012, the Budget Resource Committee (BRC) presented its recommendations to President’s Staff in advance of budget preparation. The charge of the BRC is to consider how to align resource allocation with college directions, with a focus on discretionary spending. At this point, you may be asking yourself, “In plain English, what does that mean?” Well, most of MCC’s annual budget is off the table before the budgeting process even starts: about 83% goes to personnel costs; about 3% goes to utilities. So, the BRC is asked to think – strategically -- about what remains, 14%, and about how to most effectively allocate our most important resource: our people.
Given that we just launched our new strategic plan, the BRC was charged with focusing on resource allocation in that context. Here’s a quick overview of the BRC’s recommendations by strategic direction:
1) Learning First: Expand E-Advising and enhance Banner Self-Service to meet needs of students with enhanced technology
2) Workforce Education & Career Pathways: Examine placement testing to improve CTE (career technical education) placements and eliminate obstacles to student completion
3) Partnerships: Expand High School Dual Enrollment and align Pre-Collegiate Pipeline programs to promote strategic enrollment growth
4) Effectiveness, Efficiency, Accountability: Expand department cross-training programs within Student Services to serve students more effectively and efficiently and focus staff professional development
As President’s Staff debriefed the recommendations with the BRC, we first noted how important the group has become to our budget process; in fact, it was easy to trace the impact of the BRC recommendations throughout the College. The service of this committee has become central.
But, we also noticed that several of this year’s offered ideas described potential projects that were, in fact, already well underway at MCC. It became clear this information was not known to the College at-large. So, in the end, the BRC played another important role: it led us to focus on how we could work together to improve internal communications at MCC.
Everyone in the room agreed that MCC has multiple ways of sharing information internally and makes great use of all of these channels, but as someone that day observed, “Sometimes it seems like we communicate not enough and too much all at the same time.” So I turn to you to get your thoughts on how we can improve internal communications at MCC, so that we communicate just enough and in the right ways.
At the BRC meeting in December, I tasked Cynthia Cooper and College and Community Relations/ Marketing Communications with creating a stronger internal communications plan. Your input to this process is key. So I invite you to share your ideas for improving existing vehicles (e.g., the MCC Daily Tribune, the myMCC portal) or thoughts about completely new approaches. I look forward to getting your input either in the comments section of the blog or through your emails to Cynthia (<mailto:ccooper@monroecc.edu>).
Anne M. Kress
President's Office
01/30/2013 |