The Bakersfield College 2012 plan committee gathered for the first time on Sept. 17 to start the process of organizing and implementing the five-year plan.
In 2007, former BC President William Andrews, Academic Senate President John Gerhold and others set the 2012 Plan in motion by first rewriting a new mission statement for BC, followed by stating values, or what the school believes to be important.
And, finally, the 2012 Planning Committee listed initiatives, a mode of action if you will, which includes communication, student excellence, facilities and more.
The 2012 Plan came into existence from a “desire to do comprehensive long-range planning,” as Tom Moran, a member of the 2012 Task Force and an American Sign Language instructor at BC, put it.
“Because you can be either reactive or proactive, and in an institution and bureaucracy of this size, it is disastrous to wait and react to stuff,” he said.
Moran, among others, played the role of facilitator in getting The Plan off the ground. In the events leading up to the completion of the 2012 Plan, Moran and company met with groups from different departments in order to determine what was needed to achieve the goals desired from the 2012 Plan. In these meetings communication was a major theme.
With five years as the stated goal, the 2012 plan committee is now faced with the task of determining which initiative to begin with.
“Now that the list of things that need to be focused on is prepared, we must decide which to do first,” Gerhold said. “For me, communication is the number-one priority. That is the key piece in all of this because that is going to help us get the job done.”
As far as the initiative of student excellence, test scores and student success are not the only aspects that will be addressed.
“We also want to focus on services provided to the students,” Gerhold said. Strategies for improving student excellence will include maintaining adequate staffing levels to ensure student success, informing students about proven strategies to overcome barriers to success and providing opportunities for dialogue.
As for facilities, work is already under way. “Everyone is very excited because we have new signs and maps,” Gerhold said. “But I see the paint chipping on the buildings and would like to do something about that. I don’t know when they were last painted.”
Both Gerhold and Moran are not worried, though. “I am very optimistic that the effort of this plan is going to bear fruit,” Moran said.