A Strategic Model to Address Issues of Student Achievement

This article describes an interactive and collaborative strategic planning process by a community college in which student retention and success became a focus of a re-accreditation endeavor. The underlying assumption of this strategic planning effort was that engaging all groups that have a stake in student retention at the beginning of the planning process would make it more likely that recommendations that came out of the planning effort would be comprehensive, and have the support of all stakeholders on the college campus. As a result of the involvement of faculty, students, academic and support staff, as well as persons from student affairs, a comprehensive approach rather than a piece-meal approach to student success was the result of the planning process. The holistic nature of the institutional changes that emanated from the planning process is linked to the collaborative and interactive model that was used in approaching the problem of student success.