Progress in 21st Century Initiative remolds MCCCD

The 21st Century Initiative, a massive overhaul plan meant to improve MCCCD’s organizational effectiveness and efficiency, has officially begun to implement changes within the district.

MCCCD Chancellor Rufus Glasper created the initiative as a strategy to carry out the recommendations made in 2009 by the third-party consulting team, Alvarez & Marsal (A&M).

“The drive for the study was a belief by the (Governing) Board at that time that we needed to reduce costs and find budget savings,” SCC President Jan Gehler said.  However, Gehler said that the motive of the 21st Century Initiative is to improve student success, with cost savings as a side effect, adding, “I don’t know how much cost savings we are going to find and that is everybody’s big question.”

Thirty-eight work teams have formed in four areas including student success, business systems, human resources and employee development and technology resources.   The teams are responsible for investigating the recommendations and then reporting their findings to a steering team, which is made up of experts from inside and outside of the district.

Employees from across the district are expected to work on the project on a volunteer basis.  “It is a pretty dramatic way of doing business right now in terms of its impact on staff,” Gehler said.

The March Governing Board meeting saw the first updates from the work teams. Among these updates was the controversial end to active retirement throughout the district, which will have a projected savings of $3 million.

The Chancellor reported in the March meeting that the steering team had approved strategies in the areas of student transfer improvements, the creation of a districtwide dual enrollment Web site and the decentralization of budget items in an effort to be more accurate.

Progress was also made in technology resources, which is co-chaired by SCC’s Dustin Fennell, chief information officer.

“We have taken all of the recommendations from the consultants from the IT area and we have rearranged those into five categories and then sequenced all of those initiatives,” Fennell said.

The five categories are financial strategies, operational strategies, organizational strategies, integration of systems and standardization of services and systems.

Fennell said that work teams investigating propositions that directly affect students would incorporate a way for them to give their input.

Carl Couch, vice president of administrative affairs at SCC, is a member of a team investigating the possibility of assessing a student technology fee.

“Our work group is suggesting a fee of no more than $2 per credit hour,” Couch said, which would generate up to $4 million to support technology.

“One of the goals of the fee would be to ensure that all students within the MCCCD have the same suite of technology services available to them,” Couch said, using the example of the MySCC product.

The status of the 21st Century Maricopa Initiative, which is 26.4 percent complete as of April 15, can be checked on the Maricopa Community Colleges Web site.