Reinvention7 Update for May 10th

In early April  Reinvention⁷ kicked-off, with faculty, staff and students from each of the seven colleges forming teams charged with nothing less than planning and executing the work required to ensure that all CCC students embark upon academic pathways that 1) reflect learning and growth required to meet life, career and academic goals 2) are relevant to both employers and to four-year institutions 3) meet students where they are, both in terms of their college readiness levels upon admission as well as their anticipated schedule and other life needs.

Recent Accomplishments

This week the teams completed initial drafts of semester-by-semester program maps that reflect the requirements and sequential steps needed to attain a certificate or degree, as indicated in the most recent course catalog. They also shared these maps with the owners of the curricula, the faculty, to make changes required to ensure the paths reflect the best advisable routes towards completion and learning. After faculty validation, these semester maps will represent an advising tool CCC can use to help students chart clear educational plans towards a degree. We have also begun baking-in developmental education pathways and requirements into these maps so we can meet students at their variable college readiness levels.

Upcoming events

In the coming weeks the teams will garner more faculty feedback on the semester maps and integrate it before sharing with our transfer directors, deans of instruction, vice presidents and others. We will also look towards faculty leadership to help define what new pathways will look like, how they can lead to credentials that reflect learning, match skills required for entering the workforce and align with the expectations of four-year institutions for transfer purposes.

As we proceed, please keep following us here and do not hesitate to e-mail me directly with any questions or concerns about Reinvention⁷ or, better yet, contact your college’s Director of Strategic Initiatives.

     – Charles Ansell, Center for Operational Excellence

Increasing the full-time faculty hiring timeline

City Colleges is allowing for full-time faculty hires for Fall 2013 now. In the past, departments would rush to hire for full-time faculty in the summer or spring semesters prior to the pending school year – a much later recruitment and hiring process relative to other local colleges and universities, let alone community colleges nationwide.

We know that, at present, City Colleges hires many quality faculty – often via national searches. According to a survey of full-time faculty conducted by Reinvention last Fall, however, we learned that a majority wanted to move to a full-time hiring process that mirrored those of other community colleges so we could increase our applicant pools. Indeed, out of the 59 members who responded to the survey, 57% agreed we must elongate the hiring timeline, with only 14% disagreeing (the remainder were neutral on the topic).

Allowing for a longer timeline will provide the following benefits:

• A hiring process tied directly to the annual planning and budgeting processes
• More time for regional and national searches
• Greater involvement from faculty in the hiring process
• More time for recruitment and hiring planning
• Improved candidate pool
• Less stress upon search committees
• As a result of this change in process, in following years we hope to move away from the off-cycle Spring hiring process for full-time faculty.

In prior posts on this blog – and in myriad other meetings with local faculty council and District Faculty Council and other stakeholders – we received – and integrated – lots of feedback into this recommendation. Do you have thoughts on this process change? We welcome and want your feedback!

     - Charles Ansell, Senior Team Leader, Center for Operational Excellence

Coming Soon: City Colleges and Taleo Hiring and Recruitment Module

For years, one of the largest pain points for hiring managers at City Colleges of Chicago has been the hiring and recruitment process.  A long, arduous job posting process, an uncoordinated and sometimes fractured hiring process and a lack of screening and recruitment tools all have contributed to hiring times of up to 240 days for a single position.

Now, through the collaborated efforts of Reinvention, Human Resources, the Office of the Chief Operating Officer and approval by the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees, a new and exciting Hiring and Recruitment module by Taleo Corporation is being purchased and implemented to transform the hiring process and bring tremendous recruiting, screening, evaluating, hiring and onboarding tools to the hiring and recruitment process at CCC.

The Taleo Hiring and Recruitment tool is widely used by several community colleges, universities, businesses, non-profits and governmental agencies including the City of Chicago. Touted for being intuitive, user-friendly and functional, the Taleo module will allow recruiters, faculty & staff hiring managers and administrators to:

• Reduce time to fill positions by up to 90%; and
• Attract and recruit candidates from proven sources and align job postings with screening questions to narrow respondents to the most qualified candidates for the position; and
• More readily align internal candidates with job postings; and
• Provide an internal profile for all job candidates, making it easier for internal and external job applicants to apply for positions, track jobs applied for and update information; and
• Coordinate hiring activities with all stakeholders; and
• Electronically approve job postings, tentatively approve job hires and coordinate pre-employment activities with all affected departments and parties; and
• Retain our talent through coordinated onboarding activities to ensure all new hires are provided with essential equipment, systems access, tools and training necessary to perform their duties from day 1; and
• Review analytical data to determine the effectiveness of our hiring and recruitment program, monitor our time to hire metrics and evaluate potential steps to improve our hiring efforts.

Finally, the Taleo Hiring and Recruitment tool will allow our administrators the ability to audit our hiring decisions to ensure they remain compliant with internal policy and procedure as well as external laws, ordinances and statutes.

The basic components of the tool are expected to be in operation by November 2012 after extensive testing and training is conducted with all pertinent stakeholders.  Additional tools will be added shortly thereafter to further strengthen, streamline and enhance the hiring process.

All and all, the implementation of the Taleo Hiring and Recruitment module is a step in the right direction as City Colleges continue to improve operations with the ultimate goal of improving what we offer to our most important constituent, our students.

     - David Sanders, Process, Operations and Governance Task Force

Adult Educators Go High Tech with Attendance

The first week of summer Adult Education classes saw a major change for teachers of ESL, GED and ABE students district-wide.  Beginning this term, teachers have begun entering class attendance online, directly into the CCC student administration database from which it is uploaded to DAIS-I, the state-wide reporting system used by ICCB.  This one change will save an enormous amount of time and manual, repetitive data entry for both teachers and support staff.  Beyond this – and for the first time in CCC history – attendance, enrollment and retention information will be available to program managers, deans, researchers and administrators in real time.

Those who know adult education understand how vital accurate attendance collection is. Classes are offered free of charge to students to learn English, improve  basic math and reading skills, prepare for the GED test or acquire job skills, because state and federal funds have been allocated to assist them in these endeavors based on their hours of attendance in class.  So getting attendance right is even more important than getting it done efficiently.

Beyond these practical benefits, online recording will also help make the Adult Ed program a more technology-oriented environment.  Adult Ed instructors are accustomed to “getting the job done” with whatever materials and resources they have available.  By plugging into technology as part of their daily routine, the awareness of – and in some cases the need for – 21^st century technology access will spill over into teaching and organizational tools.  By the end of the first week of summer term, it was even reported that teachers at one college had begun entering attendance on their smart phones!

As members of the Process, Operations and Governance (POG) Task Force at Reinvention visited Adult Ed programs to support the new attendance process, we heard overwhelmingly enthusiastic responses:

“I’m so glad this is happening now!” – Adult Ed Manager

“I’ve been asking for this for years.”  - College Registrar

“That’s it? I’m done? I can go now? Easy!” – Adult Ed Teacher

To get to this point, POG depended on the ideas, commitment and collaboration of many.  We would especially like to thank the hard work and flexibility of the district OIT team: Valerie Davis, Bill Beckner and Corie Jimenez.  Also, thanks to all of the Adult Ed deans, managers and coordinators who made the summer implementation possible.  And finally, thank you teachers for your openness and feedback and for taking up the front lines of an exciting – yet difficult – change.

     – Kimberly Swise, Process, Operations and Governance Task Force

Revised Hiring and Credentialing Process

Reinvention, Human Resources and Academic Affairs have developed guidelines regarding credentialing that definitely puts the execution of credentialing decisions in the hands of the colleges.

Highlights of the new credentialing governance policy include:

• The President or designee uses Academic Affairs credentialing guidelines to make the best credentialing decision for their college and hiring needs, relying heavily on department chairs and instructional deans for decision-making input.
• Academic Affairs audits and monitors the process and its outcomes; when a college hires a faculty member outside of District-based credentialing guidelines, an exception report is created as basis for discussion between Academic Affairs / Provost’s Office and college administration / President’s Office.
• The colleges are responsible for recruiting, reviewing and credentialing their faculty, and inputting them into PeopleSoft. All hires are provisionally approved on their campuses for individual classes, as opposed to entire disciplines, for one semester.

As we move forward with numerous changes in hiring processes for staff – including the deployment of applicant tracking software that will allow for much quicker HR response time for hiring and recruitment requests, and an end to paper-based processes – these and other policy decisions will allow for more expedient, effective decision-making at CCC and better assurance of quality instruction and outcomes in the classroom.

     - Charles Ansell, Process, Operations and Governance Task Force

Revised Tenure Governance Model

We, Michael Maltenfort and Jeni Meresman, have been working at Reinvention this past year on the tenure process, continuing work that was begun by fellow faculty members Franklin Reynolds and Alicia Anzaldo.  One of our goals was to address faculty concerns about perceived inconsistency and lack of transparency in evaluations.

To this end, we have worked with the Office of Academic Affairs to outline a governance structure that seeks to address these concerns.

We have recently agreed with Kojo on specific wording regarding these ideas.  Some highlights of the policy changes to take effect in Fall 2012 include:

• Presidents make tenure and contract renewal recommendations to the Chancellor.
• The Provost’s Office sets the quantitative and qualitative criteria throughout the District for pre-tenure evaluation, in alignment with any specific departmental criteria. All criteria must be given to tenure track faculty members when they are first hired.
• The Provost’s Office determines whether a college is in compliance with the tenure process.
  • If a college is in compliance, Academic Affairs will not question individual decisions made by the President.
  • If Academic Affairs demonstrates that a college is not in compliance, Academic Affairs has the right to question individual decisions, at which point the Chancellor makes the final decision.

We will continue to work with Academic Affairs to incorporate these changes into the Academic Policy Manual as soon as possible.  The work on the tenure process is not finished, and faculty members are still invited to join our “Review Team,” which is the first place we show new processes and documents as they are created.  If you would like to join this team and/or give us other feedback, please e-mail us at mmaltenfort@ccc.edu, jmeresman@ccc.edu, or reinvention@ccc.edu.

     – Michael Maltenfort, Process, Operations and Governance Task Force

     – Jennifer Meresman, Process, Operations and Governance Task Force

Improving Management of Adult Education Off-campus Sites

The City Colleges of Chicago provides adult education instruction at 52 off-campus sites – locations hosted by city partners, including community-based and faith-based organizations. These partnerships help us meet our students where they are, and they help us mitigate capacity issues we face at several campuses.  Recently, Reinvention looked at our off-campus sites in the light of our fourth goal – to increase the number and share of adult education students who transition to postsecondary. From our research we uncovered many opportunities for improvement.

Attached to this blog post is a map. The Reinvention team created it to visualize where we have off-campus instruction. Each off-campus site is represented as a dot, each dot color-coded to indicate college affiliation. You will see immediately that our sites are clustered together in a few places.

Knowing there is a very high need for adult education services in Chicago, we also asked ourselves, do these clusters fully reflect where that need is? We tried to find out which communities in the city have the highest number of people who would use ESL services, and where are the highest numbers of high school drop-outs. We used these to help us learn where our potential GED and English language learner students are.

We have also attached to this post what we’ve found in terms of need. In the top table you see some communities of high-need, according to Census 2010 data, in terms of high densities of non-English speakers and individuals without high school diplomas. The lower table shows the neighborhoods in which we provide the most adult education services. From the data alone, it seems we have an opportunity to serve our high-need communities, such as Brighton Park and Gage Park (where we presently have no sites), better.

Finally, the POG team identified the final adult education instructional level presently offered at each off-campus site, identified the nearest CCC main campus, and will provide off-campus students information on how and why to continue their education at a main campus. This will improve our alignment between off-campus sites and main campus and ease transition to postsecondary, directly impacting the fourth goal.

We are also doing what we can to institute new processes and work in high-demand areas as fast as possible, but also as carefully as possible. We have shared our work with the head of the AFSCME union, Mark Freeman, the Board of Trustees, as well as with many representatives from community collaborator organizations that work with City Colleges, who concur that our work in this area makes sense and will collaborate with us in the future. We look forward to continuing this work, collaborating with adult educators and with community leaders in moving forward with adult education services throughout the City of Chicago.

Adult Education Off-campus Sites Map

Let us know what you think.

    – Charles Ansell, Center for Operational Excellence

Academic Analytics

Have you ever wished that you had the ability to measure and track student outcomes with a few simple clicks? For most, the answer to this question is emphatically “Yes!!”

Business Intelligence or BI — or, in our case, Academic Analytics — is a series of computer-based strategies that synthesize data from various sources (i.e. PeopleSoft) and generates useful information in standardized reports, diagrams and charts based on key performance indicators and other metrics. These reports and charts are then consolidated and displayed in a customized “dashboard,” or they might be displayed in a performance scorecard to examine the same information over time for specific goals. Most BI tool users opt to use both dashboards and performance scorecards. This is all very attractive for CCC because no one wants to waste precious time combing through pages of student transactions in PeopleSoft SA. The alternative, submitting and waiting for data requests, may not provide the information as quickly as you need it.

BI not only sounds like a good option for CCC, it is best practice. CCC will join the City of Chicago and a growing number of higher education institutions, like Houston Community College, Valencia College and Richland College (Dallas) — all of which place a premium on measuring client success and accountability. BI represents one of many deliberate Reinvention efforts aimed at weaving student-centeredness and data transparency into the fabric of CCC’s culture. CCC is currently in the 2nd phase of reviewing BI vendor RFPs, along with the RFP review team comprised of OIT, Research and Evaluation, Procurement, Finance and Human Resources personnel.

Stay tuned for BI updates in the coming months!

   - Julia Wesley, Process, Operations and Governance Task Force

Enhancing our Adult Education Off-campus Sites

City Colleges of Chicago is able to deliver exceptional learning opportunities and educational services in neighborhoods with a high need for adult education classes through its partnerships with community and faith based organizations throughout the city. These “off-site” locations give community residents easy and convenient access to learning opportunities, including GED and English as a Second Language, they might otherwise not pursue; off-sites also provide an entrée to a world of greater educational opportunities.

As a member of Reinvention’s Process, Operations and Governance (POG) task force, I was asked to use the information gathered by my predecessors to develop a check list colleges could use to help choose new “off-site” locations in the 77 neighborhoods City Colleges serves. This check list will ensure that the facilities CCC partners with are able to provide environments that are conducive to learning with adequate classroom space, proper lighting, furniture designed to meet the physical needs of the adult learner,, and have a safe environment. Whenever possible, CCC will endeavor to choose sites that provide additional services including on-site child care, job training or job placement assistance, tutors, and or other social services. Once a site is chosen, a formal agreement is entered into, and a contract is signed. This contract, which I was also instrumental in drafting, clearly articulates the roles and responsibilities of both CCC and the site provider, thus making it easier to avoid potential conflicts that  could result from ambiguous or unrealistic  expectations.  It will also facilitate a positive educational experience for our adult learners.

Through the Reinvention process, CCC aims to achieve multiple goals, one of which is to increase the number and share of ABE, GED and ESL students who advance to and succeed in college-level courses. By developing tools such as the off-site check list and a revamped off-site agreement, the POG task force is working hard to make that goal a reality.

     – Krystina Janus, Process, Operations and Governance Task Force

Powerful Collaboration: Reinventing CCC’s Hiring Process

When I joined the Process, Operations and Governance Reinvention Task Force (POG), I knew there was one major project I wanted to work on; to drastically improve the CCC hiring and recruitment processes for all positions.  Having spent a year as a Department Chair, and having served on at least two other full-time faculty search committees, my personal experience suggests that CCC’s hiring process is slow and inefficient.  Of course, I wasn’t sure if my perception was unique or if it was one shared by others.  After collecting information from over one hundred hiring managers, it is clear that my impression is widely shared.

Though the project is not yet complete, the collaborative work that has been taking place among the various CCC entities has truly allowed us to make great strides towards our mutual visions.  Just two days ago, the Provost presented the preliminary results of our collaboration with Academic Affairs, HR, Finance, college administrations, and faculty members on full-time faculty hiring time-lines, workflow, and credentialing to the Executive Faculty Council.  The kind of momentum and energy I’ve seen this semester speaks to the power of collaboration and shared governance.  This collaborative group encourages everyone to review the recommendations presented below and to provide us with feedback so a more definitive recommendation can be formalized within the next few weeks.

POG_Faculty_Hiring_Workflow_2011_11_03

We look forward to hearing your thoughts.

     – Valerie Pell, Process, Operations and Governance Task Force