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CBT Case Studies

College of Marin

Educational Master Plan
Strategic Plan
Integrated Planning Manual

SITUATION:

College of Marin had been on probation primarily because of a lack of integrated planning and institutional planning.  As a condition of being removed from probation by the ACCJC in June 2008, the College of Marin was required to create an Educational Master Plan along with an Integrated Planning Model.

CBT Consultants Eva Conrad and Ed Buckley initially assisted College of Marin with the successful creation of an Educational Master Plan.

At President Fran White’s request, Ed and Eva returned shortly thereafter to help the College create a Strategic Plan and an Integrated Planning Manual designed to facilitate the implementation of the Plans by linking resource decisions to relevant aspects of the Strategic Plan and the Educational Master Plan.

CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES

Ed Buckley remembers:  “The challenge at hand was to help the college go beyond creating the Plan to actually implementing lasting change. The opportunity that flowed from that challenge was to collaborate with and support the faculty, staff and management who were committed to developing a good planning process and to overcoming any obstacles.”

According to President White, the advantage of CBT’sfresh, objective outside perspective facilitated the “heavy lifting” associated with the hands-on day-to-day aspects of the project, yet she always felt like she had complete ownership of the project.

“They kept us on task, on time and within budget.”  President White commented. They met with our people and helped align perspectives and formulate thinking on effective integrated planning.  And through it all, they facilitated the editing and review process so that we were crafting the plan ourselves, yet with a better outcome than if we had done it alone.”

STRATEGIC APPROACH

A key part of CBT’s strategy was to collaborate closely and discreetly with faculty leaders throughout the process, to keep the planning process transparent, and to facilitate buy-in to help create the paradigm shift required for implementing the plan after the accreditation issues had been resolved.

President White reflects: “It really was the best of both worlds. The faculty leaders loved working with the consultants, and I appreciated that their process was made transparent to me and that the consultants kept me informed every step of the way.”

OUTCOME & REFLECTIONS

Ed Buckley is currently serving as College of Marin’s Interim Director of Planning and says he notices a sense of hopefulness on campus that wasn’t there before the planning process. Ed says, “College of Marin has moved beyond this problem and gained momentum toward the future.”

As President White looks back, she says she can’t say enough about how positive the experience was for College of Marin.  She encourages other colleges to give CBT a try, as well.  She puts it this way: 

“Calling CBT and retaining their assistance is the best decision I ever made. Working with CBT is just smart business.  It’s money well spent. Even now when I look back, I marvel at how wonderfully it all turned out.  I absolutely recommend CBT to other colleges. When you pay for good advice, you get it—and my best advice to other colleges is to just give it a try.”

Click here for the full College of Marin Accolade.