Students will serve on committee on student services.
By Bleah B. Patterson
bpatterson13@student.alamo.edu
Results of the Quality Enhancement Plan survey that closed Feb. 14 provided Dr. David Wood, dean of performance excellence, with information necessary to improve this college’s ability to serve students.
The survey revealed faculty, staff and students identified technology needs as the most pressing need. “Now that we have our theme, we can begin to narrow down our focus to particular areas that need our attention the most,” Wood said.
Tuesday, he met with the college executive team — deans, chairs, president and vice presidents here — to discuss results. “The executives felt that it was such a close tie between technology and the other themes that once we find our focus on the former, we can begin to incorporate the latter into our enhancement plant,” he said.
Next, the executive team conducts research and data analysis to decide what that focus should be. Wood hopes a definite decision is made after spring break.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges certifies this college’s 2016 reaccreditation.
SACS/COC requires that colleges implement a Quality Enhancement Plan and report the results.
“We will be submitting our final enhancement plan to SAC/COC, giving them our narrowed- down idea. From there, they may decide that it’s not the right approach, or they may have better ideas to implement our plan.”
In the next step, Wood said, a volunteer committee will start immediately planning how to implement the team’s decision and continue through summer and fall.
Wood said he wants a diverse range of student input so he does not intend to leave out students with low GPA’s.
“We haven’t really discussed placing any criteria on those students. We don’t want to prohibit anyone from being involved. If for some reason, we have too many students, we might have to have some sort of threshold,” he said.
“We want to have a good draft compiled by the end of the calendar year,” Wood said, because the final report is due by the end of spring 2015.