Accreditation - Hartnell College!!

Institutional Self Evaluation – 12-05-12
The Superintendent/President involved everyone in establishing enrollment processes that
integrated academic planning with resource planning to increase enrollments, student access,
and student graduation rates. She arrived at Hartnell at a time when enrollment had been
declining for several years. She implemented a guaranteed schedule, based on three years of
enrollment data, that focused on student and program needs and that could flexibly respond
to student demand for classes. This method of developing and unrolling the schedule also
increased efficiencies, since new sections opened only after the guaranteed sections were
filled (IV.B.86). To increase enrollments, the superintendent/president introduced registration
rallies to attract students to Hartnell (IV.B.87). After the Salinas Valley 2020 report revealed
the needs and priorities of students (IV.B.69), the college offered more classes and services
during evenings and weekends. These efforts were highly successful; not only did
enrollments increase, but Hartnell was also awarded growth funding (IV.B.88).
The college applied its model for integrating program review, resource allocation, and
budgeting during the summer of 2012. A College wide program review was used by the
deans to allocate resources for instructional equipment needs. A fund of $200,000 had been
set aside for this purpose (IV.B.93). The effectiveness of this decision will be evaluated
during the 2012-2013 academic year.
The new Dean will have many tools at his disposal to assist the college in its planning,
assessment, and improvement processes, like its Executive Information System (IV.B.89),
and he has beeen attending the weekly meetings of the Access and Success Research Group.
He will work with a college that is not only deeply respectful of that work, but eager to have
the power of that knowledge to improve its processes.
Self Evaluation
With the appointment of a Dean of Institutional Planning and Effectiveness, the resources
that have been created by the college‘s success in grant writing and implementation, and a
college culture that embraces the continuous improvement process in all of its educational
and administrative programs, the college is poised to continue to improve the teaching and
learning environment.
The college‘s planning documents have guided the last several years of programs, and a new
strategic plan is being developed this year, based on strategic priorities set by the Board.
Administrative support in the instructional areas has been strengthened. Title V grant funding
has underwritten the development of tools for measuring student persistence and retention,
and many training opportunities have been provided at flex activities and division meetings
(IV.B.90). Many faculty have been trained to use these tools and have provided input so that
the tools could be tailored to better suit their needs (IV.B.91). The grant directors have
presented their research using these tools at statewide conferences (IV.B.92).
The college worked as well as it could without an Institutional Research Office for four
years, largely because the one full-time analyst has provided excellent research support for
the college, including its grant activities, but also because the grant activities themselves
filled in some of these gaps. Given the number of innovative projects that are under way at
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