The mission statement is current and comprehensive, accurately guides the institution's operations, is periodically reviewed and updated, is approved by the governing board, and is communicated to the institution's constituencies.
Judgment
Compliant Non-Compliant Not Applicable
Narrative
Overview
The Southwest Georgia Technical College (SWGTC) Mission Statement, which guides the College's operations, is current and comprehensive. The College annually reviews the Mission Statement and updates it if the review process culminates in a recommendation. Ultimately the governing board, the State Board of Technical and Adult Education (State Board), approves any changes; then the College communicates the SWGTC Mission Statement to constituencies.
Mission Statement is Current
At its meeting on April 1, 2010, the State Board approved the latest revision of the SWGTC Mission Statement, as indicated in State Board Meeting Minutes: April 1, 2010, p. 22. This approval was the culmination of the FY 2010 Mission Statement annual review process. Since a critical component of the Mission Statement is to guide the College's operations and direction, the revisions to the SWGTC Mission Statement ensure that the statement reflects current college-wide operations. The new SWGTC Mission Statement replaced the old SWGTC Mission Statement approved by the State Board at its meeting on March 1, 2007, (to be effective April 5, 2007), as indicated in State Board Meeting Minutes: March 1, 2007, pp. 4-5. The current SWGTC Mission Statement follows:
SWGTC, a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia, is a public two-year technical college with the mission to provide learner-centered and high-quality services, courses, and programs through traditional and distance delivery methods, at both on-campus and off- campus locations, serving primarily the citizens of Thomas, Grady, and Mitchell Counties. This mission is accomplished through college-wide services; credit courses leading to associate degree, diploma, and technical certificate of credit programs; adult education services; continuing education; customized business and organizational training; and
economic development services. These services, courses, and programs develop individual skills and abilities; provide for intellectual, career, personal, and professional development; and meet the needs of business and industry. Achievement of this mission promotes
economic growth and development and improves the quality of life for individuals and the community.
Mission Statement is Comprehensive
The SWGTC Mission Statement is comprehensive, as demonstrated below by language specific to the College’s role:
• It defines the College status as a public institution.
• It defines the College level as a two-year institution.
• It defines the College type as a technical college.
• It defines the scope of the College’s business as providing services, courses, and programs.
• It identifies the College's delivery methods for services, courses, and programs as both traditional and distance.
• It identifies the College's locations for services, courses, and programs as both on-campus and off-campus locations.
• It specifically identifies the primary counties that the College serves as Thomas, Grady, and Mitchell Counties.
• It describes how the College, through all units and programs, accomplishes its mission through college-wide services; credit courses leading to associate degree, diploma, and technical certificate of credit programs; adult education
services; continuing education; customized business and organizational training; and economic development services.
• It states its goals to develop individual skills and abilities; provide for intellectual, career, personal, and professional development; and meet the needs of business and industry.
Additionally, the Mission Statement is comprehensive as it includes key words and/or phrases that units of the College use to derive specific unit functions and purpose statements for programs and administrative units such as the following: Administrative Services/Vice President, Facilities, Academic Affairs/Vice President, Admissions,
Recruitment, Career Placement and Development, Counseling Services, Tutoring Center, Financial Aid, High School Coordination, Registrar/Student Records, Library/Media Services, Distance Education, and Economic Development/Vice President. Unit purpose statements are published in documents such as Annual Plans and Budgets and Outcome Assessments.
Mission Statement Guides SWGTC Operations
The SWGTC Mission Statement accurately guides the College's core operations, which are to provide college-wide services, credit instruction, adult education, non-credit continuing education, business training, and economic development services as evidenced in the published Role and Scope included in the SWGTC Institutional Documents, pp. 6-7. An excerpt of the current SWGTC Mission Statement relevant to College operations follows:
This mission is accomplished through college-wide services; credit courses leading to
associate degree, diploma, and technical certificate of credit programs; adult education services; continuing education; customized business and organizational training; and economic development services.
Another demonstration that the SWGTC Mission Statement guides the institution’s operations involves the annual review by all units of the College during Outcome
Assessment activities when unit heads identify the specific section(s) of the current Mission Statement that the unit supports. This process assists the College in ensuring that unit stakeholders recognize the part their unit plays in the College overall and in ensuring that unit stakeholders make sure that the College remains true to its mission. An example is included in the FY 2011 Institutional Effectiveness Outcome Assessment template prepared to assess the Institutional Effectiveness unit as data and results are available with the closeout of FY 2011, scheduled to begin in December 2011. The SWGTC Mission
Statement, approved April 1, 2010, was integrated in unit outcome assessment templates for FY 2011. Prior to that, the SWGTC Mission Statement, approved March 1, 2007, was included in unit outcome assessment templates.
Additionally, unit (administrative and program) goals, objectives, and activities in annual plans and budgets align with College Goals and Strategic Objectives anchored by the SWGTC Mission Statement. Therefore, the Mission Statement guides the annual planning and budgeting process at SWGTC. An example of a FY 2011 annual plan and budget follows: FY 2011 Institutional Effectiveness Annual Plan and Budget.
Also, the SWGTC Mission Statement guides the institution's current operations as the College offers services, courses, and programs online and at both on-campus and off- campus locations.
Mission Statement is Reviewed Annually and Updated as Warranted by Review The College conducts the annual review of its Mission Statement from September through mid-December, as illustrated in the Mission Statement Annual Review Process
Flowchart. The Institutional Effectiveness Office, with assistance from the Institutional Effectiveness (IE) Committee, is responsible for coordinating the annual review of the College’s Mission Statement by faculty and staff, Student Council members, and program advisory committee members. Once Mission Statement evaluations are complete, the Institutional Effectiveness (IE) Committee summarizes, considers input, and makes
suggestions regarding the dispensation of input to the President’s Leadership Council (PLC). The PLC then considers IE Committee input and approves revisions (if any) to be forwarded to the local Board of Directors. The local Board of Directors then reviews the College Mission Statement and the PLC recommendations before deciding either to maintain the Mission Statement as is or to approve changes. Should the local Board of Directors approve changes to the College’s Mission Statement, the President forwards the revised Mission Statement to the State Board of Technical and Adult Education for approval.
The FY 2010 review began as the IE Committee, at its October 12, 2009, meeting, reviewed the Mission Statement Evaluation instrument used in FY 2009. The IE Committee approved the evaluation instrument with only a change of the fiscal year, as reflected in the
Institutional Effectiveness Committee Minutes: October 12, 2009. Next, the faculty and staff completed the approved evaluation instrument, the Mission Statement
Evaluation: FY 2010, online. In addition to faculty and staff, Student Council members provided evaluation input through group discussion, as reflected in Student Council Minutes: November 2, 2009; and program advisory committee members provided evaluation input through group discussion at Fall 2009 program advisory committee meetings. The Coordinator of Student Activities and program faculty entered these evaluation results in the online evaluation.
Based on suggestions from the FY 2010 review, the College made significant changes to the College Mission Statement that remained unchanged since April 5, 2007. The suggestions resulted from input received from several sources as follows:
• from the results of the Mission Statement Evaluation: FY 2010, as reported in the Mission Statement Evaluation Results: FY 2010 and summarized in the Summary of FY 2010 Mission Statement Evaluation Results: January 2010; • from the Institutional Effectiveness Committee, as indicated in Institutional
Effectiveness Committee Minutes: January 14, 2010, and Institutional Effectiveness Committee Minutes: February 16, 2010;
• from the President's Leadership Council, as indicated in President's Leadership Council Minutes: February 9, 2010, and President's Leadership Council Minutes: February 23, 2010; and
• from the local Board of Directors, as indicated in Board of Directors' Meeting Minutes: March 2, 2010.
The President forwarded a request for change in the SWGTC Mission Statement to the State Board on March 3, 2010, as indicated in the SWGTC Letter to State Board to Approve Mission Statement: March 3, 2010. The State Board approved the College's request at its meeting held on April 1, 2010, as indicated in the State Board Meeting Minutes: April 1, 2010, p. 22. The following changes made in the SWGTC Mission Statement ensured that the SWGTC Mission Statement included language specific to SWGTC: a reference indicating that the College serves primarily the citizens of Thomas, Grady, and Mitchell Counties; language more specifically communicating the services, programs, and award levels offered by the College; and a reference to off-campus locations.
Additional documentation that the College annually reviews the SWGTC Mission
Statement includes these exhibits: the SWGTC Mission Statement Evaluation Results for the years FY 2008 and FY 2009; Institutional Effectiveness Committee Minutes for February 12, 2008, and February 17, 2009; PLC Minutes for February 26, 2008, and February 24, 2009; and local Board of Directors' Minutes for March 4, 2008, and March 3, 2009.
The FY 2011 review of the College Mission Statement began with the IE Committee's update of the Mission Statement Evaluation instrument, updated to include specific language
contained in SACS: COC Comprehensive Standard 3.1.1. Then the IE Committee deployed The Mission Statement Evaluation: FY 2011 via e-mail to faculty and staff on October 11, 2010.
Mission Statement is Approved by Governing Board
Following the local Board of Directors' approval of the SWGTC Mission Statement, the President of SWGTC forwarded a letter to TCSG staff regarding the revised SWGTC Mission Statement and asked for State Board (Governing Board) approval. This correspondence submitted is the SWGTC Letter to State Board to Approve Mission Statement: March 3, 2010. On April 1, 2010, the State Board approved the revised SWGTC Mission
Statement. The State Board Meeting Minutes: April 1, 2010, p. 22, includes this approval.
Mission Statement is Communicated to College Constituencies
By consistently publishing the Mission Statement in College publications and on the
College's Web site, SWGTC communicates it to the institution’s constituencies. The College publishes the Mission in the 2010-2011 SWGTC Catalog and Student Handbook, p. 9, and maintains it on the College’s Web site under “About SWGTC.” Other publications, such as the SWGTC Institutional Documents, p. 2; the SWGTC Strategic Plan FY 2008-FY 2012: FY 2011 Update, p. 4; and the SWGTC Personnel Handbook, p. 7, also include
the SWGTC Mission Statement, further demonstrating that it appears in other appropriate publications for various constituencies.
Off-Campus Sites
The SWGTC Mission Statement, as approved by the State Board, as indicated in State Board Meeting Minutes: April 1, 2010, p. 22, includes language recognizing the
College's intent to make services, courses, and programs available at off-campus locations. An excerpt of the current SWGTC Mission Statement relevant to off-campus locations follows:
SWGTC, a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia, is a public two-year technical college with the mission to provide learner-centered and high-quality services, courses, and programs through traditional and distance delivery methods, at both on-campus and off-
campus locations, serving primarily the citizens of Thomas, Grady, and Mitchell Counties. The current SWGTC Mission Statement accurately guides the College's operations. SWGTC is approved from SACS: COC to offer programs at 11 off-campus instructional sites and to offer courses at an additional two off-campus sites, as reflected in the document SACS COC: Approved Off-Campus Sites for Programs and Courses and Active for Fall Quarter 2011-02. For FY 2011, Fall 2010, the College is active at seven off-campus sites, including SWGTC of Mitchell County, SWGTC of Grady County, Baconton Community Charter School, Mitchell County High School (was Mitchell-Baker High School), Pelham High School, Thomasville High School, and Wiregrass Georgia Technical College (was Valdosta Technical College). The College owns the facilities and property at two of the off-campus sites: SWGTC of Mitchell County and SWGTC of Grady County.
Distance Education
The current SWGTC Mission Statement includes language recognizing the College's intent to make services, courses, and programs available through distance education. The following excerpt of the current SWGTC Mission Statement demonstrates this:
SWGTC, a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia, is a public two-year technical college with the mission to provide learner-centered and high-quality services,
courses, and programs through traditional and distance delivery methods, at both on-
campus and off-campus locations, serving primarily the citizens of Thomas, Grady, and Mitchell Counties.
The current SWGTC Mission Statement accurately guides the College's operations. The total number of online course sections for FY 2010 was 151 representing 2,467 duplicated and 1,197 unduplicated student enrollments.
Sources
• 2010-2011 SWGTC Catalog and Student Handbook (Page 10) • About SWGTC
• Board of Directors Minutes: March 3, 2009 (Page 3) • Board of Directors Minutes: March 4, 2008 (Page 4)
• FY 2011 Institutional Effectiveness Annual Plan and Budget • FY 2011 Institutional Effectiveness Outcome Assessment • IE Committee Meeting Minutes: February 16, 2010
• IE Committee Meeting Minutes: January 14, 2010 • IE Committee Meeting Minutes: October 12, 2009
• Institutional Effectiveness Committee Minutes: February 12, 2008 (Page 3)
• Institutional Effectiveness Committee Minutes: February 16, 2010 (Page 1)
• Institutional Effectiveness Committee Minutes: February 17, 2009 (Page 5)
• Local Board of Directors Meeting Minutes: March 2, 1010 • Mission Statement Annual Review Process Flowchart • Mission Statement Evaluation Results: FY 2008 • Mission Statement Evaluation Results: FY 2009 • Mission Statement Evaluation Results: FY 2010 • Mission Statement Evaluation: FY 2010
• Mission Statement Evaluation: FY 2011 • PLC Minutes: February 23, 2010 (Page 3) • PLC Minutes: February 24, 2009 (Page 6) • PLC Minutes: February 26, 2008 (Page 8) • PLC Minutes: February 9, 2010 (Page 4)
• SACS COC: Approved Off-Campus Sites for Programs and Courses and Active for Fall Quarter 2011-02
• Southwest Georgia Technical College Institutional Documents (Page 6) • Southwest Georgia Technical College Strategic Plan FY 2008-FY 2012: FY
2011 Update (Page 4)
• State Board Meeting Minutes: April 1, 2010 (Page 22) • Student Council Minutes: November 2, 2009
• Summary of FY 2010 Mission Statement Evaluation Results: January 2010 • SWGTC Letter to State Board to Approve Mission Statement: March 3,
2010