January 20, 2010
PART II: BACK TO THE FUTURE
We are re-inventing DVC by restructuring and renewing what we do best --- providing learning opportunities for our students to reach their educational goals. Many thanks to those of you who were able to attend our all-college focus group Flex activity today, Part II: Back to the Future. We had about 160 faculty, staff, and administrators in attendance. The information gathered today will be very helpful as we move through the 2010-11 budget process. We will NOT have a projected budget until the end of February and we will have a very short three – four week time period to come up with our budget reductions. Therefore, it was important that we get some initial information to help in budget planning.
All the ideas and values presented today will be forwarded to our Integration Council, our college-wide “think-tank,” as it addresses the following question: “What kinds of consolidations of responsibilities and functions, changes in our services, restructuring in how we do business, or changes to other functional areas, should DVC consider in order to maintain our values and fulfill our Mission?”
For those who were not able to come, we asked this all-college focus group two questions:
- During a past difficult budget reduction time, what were the experiences that were important to you as an individual? Describe them. Who was involved? What happened? If you don’t have a past experience you wish to share, answer the question, “What values do you want to identify as being important in a budget reduction process.” (Note: these important experiences will be translated into values. Take down any quotable quote, the most compelling idea or experience (value) to emerge. (Remember that values are ideals, beliefs, or guiding principles that are shared among the stakeholders of an organization.) Values drive our culture and priorities in any given task.)
- “How will DVC fulfill our mission to our students and our community under the current budget realities?” or “How can we restructure differently to provide our instruction and services under the current budget realities? (Please write down all answers. This is a creative-storming session, all ideas are worth recording.)
