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| Dr. Priscilla Bell |
A plan to take NIC where it needs to go
Would you drive into a new city and try to find a place without a map or directions?
If you're very adventurous, you might ... but I think most agree, it wouldn't be the best, quickest or most efficient way to reach your destination.
North Idaho College, with the help of many friends outside of the organization, is busily engaged charting its own roadmap to the future. There is no final destination, but the goal is clear: to develop a plan the college will follow for years to come and will make us the best, most responsive and most efficient organization we can be.
The initiative is called Strategic Planning. Most large organizations do it; some get little from the process, while others embrace it robustly and use it as a roadmap to success. We are determined to be in the latter category.
I have asked Eric Murray, our very able and energetic vice president for student services, to lead the charge. We are working with our employees, the state Department of Labor, and a couple of local firms to conduct research, compile information, and to meet with businesses and individuals across the five northern counties, to get input with an eye toward the future.
My charge to Eric, the Strategic Planning Committee, and others, is to achieve a plan that is data-driven, that has a strong focus on meeting the needs of area employers and residents of our region, and that will help drive NIC decisions regarding program development, budgeting, facilities and personnel.
A substantial amount of information has been acquired, and the committee will soon begin analyzing it. We will share the data with both external and internal "stakeholder" groups in the weeks ahead, with an aim to develop a solid set of goals.
Action plans will be designed around the goals, and will include measurable outcomes. This plan will not sit on a shelf gathering dust, or be reviewed annually to see if perchance, by luck, we actually achieved some of the goals. We will use it, in whole and in part, regularly.
The full plan will be reviewed each year. It will be updated as necessary and appropriate so new action plans might be developed or existing ones modified. We cannot know what fresh challenges and opportunities will be facing our region in 2013, so the plan must be dynamic and able to evolve.
To some, this may sound like a bunch of blah, blah, blah. The fact is, many organizations -- public and private -- engage in strategic planning with no real intention of using it as a beacon toward which one moves.
Yet a strong plan, with quality information and participation from people with diverse interests and needs, can also be the foundation from which great things happen.
I know this: North Idaho College, and the region it supports, is not served best if we wander without focus, hoping to stumble upon our destination by little more than luck and intuition.
The NIC Strategic Plan for 2008-13 is scheduled to be rolled out by mid-May at a public forum, so be watching for news of that event. It is a formidable task and we have so many to thank for their involvement in this process.
I could not be more optimistic and enthusiastic about where this will take us.
Priscilla Bell, Ph.D., is President of North Idaho College. She can be reached by writing her at North Idaho College, 1000 W. Garden Ave., Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814.
Enough! wrote on Apr 2, 2008 11:55 AM:
The taxpayer has endured enough. Time for Christie Wood to get a grip on reality! NO NEW TAXES! Is that clear enough? That means no new schools and no new land purchases!
Christie Wood isn't qualified to be the dog catcher, let alone a trustee of my tax dollars. Everyone was asleep at the switch when she got elected. A recall is in order! "