Get Your Students Hired
No matter if you call it a Institutional Improvement Plan, Institutional Assessment and Improvement Plan or even just Plan, this document MUST be a living document. You should have a committee (elected officials) within your company that have the ability to review and understand the standards for which your school must comply with to ensure you are meeting internal and external standards. This 'Plan' needs to be reviewed on a consistent basis for implementation and execution of specific benchmarks. If your plan is one or two pages long (and I have seen plans of this magnitude) my guess is that you have done the bare minimum and are not using it as a development and compliance tool.
I agree with this, but it is hard, at times, to have all employees follow the same guidelines.
I do agree that the IEP needs to be a living document. Updates are integral components of the IEP and are best when provided within a well-defined reporting timeframe that supports transparency and understanding of progress toward goals.
Yes, this is a living document and all procedures and policies should line up with the college standards of practice.
denise,
That's great to hear! I think it is so important for institutions to "walk the talk" on their IEP and your holistic approach and faculty involvement reflect the true intent of these plans.
Traci Lee
Our campus Institutional Effectiveness Plan (IEP) is reviewed annually by the committee of our ED, Deans and Department Directors. The department directors take a summary of the report back to department meetings. Instructors do like to know they are part of a team and that other employees (in admissions or student services) are doing things that support their students. This is a holistic approach for students. The instructors here also come up with some great questions and ideas for me to take back to the ED or next directors meeting. The instructors are sometimes the ones that help us keep it real. Reports on the IEP can be used to thank staff for being part of our successes and alerting them to challenges that we are having as a team. I think we really have seen improved effort in retention in past two years when more staff understood the reports and what the numbers meant.
I agree with you totally. It is so important to have the entire faculty and staff of your campus to assist in creating, updating, and carrying out the goals in the IAIP.
I don't know who said that, but, "Rome wasn't built in a day". The fact that you ARE doing it is important, not that it has taken you 5 years. Congratulations!
I can't remember which businessman promotes this, but he mentioned PDCA.
PDCA stands for: Plan, Do, Check, Action.
My school does PDCA often, so that we can find small errors and correct them, as well as target the larger issues and resolve them.
The businessman who utilized PDCA ran a very successful company (contrary to my not recalling either at the moment).
When you do PDCA, the Plan document does become real. You always need to go back to your original plan, do it for daily business running, check the results of the action, and then re-evaluate the plan to see where it needs to improve and what is strong.
Through this, we were able to stop a few problems before they became serious issues.
I agree. This identifies rights, wrongs, improvements. We should always strive to do more than the bare minimum.
We are in a similar situation. Although the school has been around for a little longer we've added additional programs and have had a great increase in the number of students all at the same time. I think the IAIP is an ever changing process based on the schools size and needs.
Internal procedures should be a paet of every day operations to be sure you are in compliance
A plan must be put in place and used with all duties to work. The plan must be used by all departments daily.
This is so true. There are reasons for practice and procedure so we need to remember that when changes are made it is important that they are followed.
I agree with you. When a plan is put together, departments should start adhering to them immediately. This way policies will become second nature to the department.
I believe in order to make this a living, breathing document, schools should have a check list that must be completed for every student under all circumstances. This will ensure that all requirements are met and will lead to the discovery of any internal and or external problems
Traci and Theodora,
I agree and both of you have valid points. Unfortunately in our business/world of education, we become very specialized in our fields and of course that translates over to accountability. Theoretically, the whole management team is held accountable but only the ones who have had previous auditing experience are given the direct responsibility for coordinating the appropriate responses. While this might seem to be a little awkward or biased, it proves to be more effective than the alternatives. The down side is that this effectiveness is a corrective action in itself.
Theodora,
Great question - I'll be interested in following this discussion thread. I have seen some campuses make sure all participate in establishing and implementing the plan, going beyond getting the word out and even going so far as to have some of the plan elements tied to every employee's performance reviews or key result areas. Continuous monitoring and accountability for ensuring the plan is deployed keeps focus and awareness high. Sadly, I have also seen some campuses where many employees are unaware of how their specific role contributes to the effectiveness plan or even what is contained in the plan. I think it really ties to the school's culture and how the leadership team chooses to include employees.
Traci Lee
Our institutional improvement or effectiveness plan committee is staffed by the campus leadership team and other members based upon job title, such as the librarian and the IT specialist. However, I find that most of our staff members have no real clue what this institutional improvement plan is intended to do. How does your campus get the word out?