Says that there will be an organizational shift where innovation, accountability, collaboration, equity, transparency, and engagement will become the essence of the Community College’s normal culture
Community College President Dr. Lisa Rhine explained in a written message to the faculty that she is going to address the culture, health and strategic direction of the College in the coming months. To help her accomplish those objectives, she is searching for a Vice President of Strategic Initiatives. This person will be responsible for improving and enhancing the online experience, improving enrollment management, expanding an Open Education Resources initiative, developing the learning core, and for leading the College’s Organizational Health strategies.
All of the message from Dr. Rhine to the faculty is included below.
“Yavapai College Family — over the past 90 days, I have met with many faculty and staff. I know I haven’t gotten a chance to speak to everyone yet, but I promise you I will soon. I also wanted to release this message before faculty left for break. It is clear to me that we need to address our culture, the health of our institution, and our strategic direction.
Healthy organizations have several similar characteristics including low turn-over, minimal politics, high productivity, high morale, and a structure that is conducive to high performance for faculty, staff, and students.
“That’s the kind of organization I want us to strive to become. Over the summer and together with our Executive Leadership Team, I need everyone’s help to putting us on that new path. A path where we all understand and believe in our purpose. We will establish a set of principles that will guide our behavior and decisions, making sure that the entire Yavapai College Family understands what we do and why we do it.
“We will do this by defining what I call, the “Yavapai College Way (YC WAY).” The overarching goal of the “YC Way” is to improve the health of our institution by adopting an outward mindset. This will be an organizational shift where innovation, accountability, collaboration, equity, transparency, and engagement will become the essence of our normal culture. Our inclusive approach will outline a new and intuitive way to teach our people how to implement mindset change in themselves and scale it across our institution with unprecedented results. “We will make changes in a way that ensures every action and effort throughout the institution directly or indirectly supports student learning and success.
“The “YC Way” will include three core principles; an integrated learning core seeking learning excellence through a holistic student experience, service excellence which includes improving the way we interact with our students, and establishing relationship excellence, where we will strive to build our Organizational Health.
“We will take a phased approach to this process. I will outline this in its entirety at our Fall Convocation, but I do want to provide some highlights and let you know what we will be working on during the summer.
“We will develop a plan that aims to create a learning core, integrating academic and student affairs that can be easily accessed and navigated by students and understands their true needs with tighter integration among programs.
“To lead this effort, I will be searching for a Vice President of Strategic Initiatives. This person will be responsible for improving and enhancing the online experience, improving enrollment management, and expanding an Open Education Resources initiative, developing the learning core, and to leading our Organizational Health strategies.”