MATC Matters

Looking at AQIP
Category 9: Building Collaborative Relationships

AQIP has identified nine categories of related key processes that provide a framework for the assessment and improvement of higher education institutions. The ninth category, AQIP Category 9—”Building Collaborative Relationships,” examines how the College’s current and potential relationships contribute to accomplishing its mission and how processes and systems are used to identify key internal and external relationships. Other areas of examination include the alignment of these relationships with the College’s mission, how these key relationships are created and developed, the measures used to monitor relationships and how the results of these measures are used as a part of the college’s continuous improvement efforts.

Key College characteristics relevant to Category 9, “Building Collaborative Relationships” include:

• MATC’s relationships with other post-secondary institutions through our membership in the League for Innovation in the Community College and serving as a Vanguard Learning College.
• The relationships inherent in our mission statement to provide “accessible, high quality learning experiences that serve the community,” our vision of “Transforming Lives, One at a Time” and our stated values of excellence, respect and integrity.
• The College’s strong connection to the communities served by its five campuses and bringing the College into the community through the leasing and use of space in local schools, community centers, senior centers, churches and businesses.
• Strong relationships with other educational institutions resulting in school-to-career articulation agreements with all 44 public high schools in the District and through college transfer agreements with 18 separate four-year colleges and universities.

The College has a wide variety of collaborative relationships, occurring at all levels of the organization, which increases the difficulty in creating effective measures. However, the College does monitor and measure several key relationships, especially those that relate to student success but also those with business and industry. Below is a sampling of the measures that the College monitors:

• Percentage of in-District high school graduates directly enrolling at MATC
• Number of transfer agreements in place and number of student transfers
• Value of equipment and material donations in support of learning programs
• WTCS funds lost due to faculty certification issues
• Number of businesses served annually by the Business, Industry, and Community Services office
• Number of jobs created or retained due to assistance provided by the Business Procurement Assistance Center

While the College may have strengths related to “Building Collaborative Relationships,” the Systems Appraisal Team concentrated on improvement opportunities to make the relationships and the process stronger by:

• Segmenting the collaborative relationship-building process into its component parts in order to support the College’s development of a formal process that would, among other things, prioritize relationships.
• Fostering internal relationships, beyond the current cross-functional work team model, through the provision of college-wide professional growth opportunities in skills related to creating internal collaboration.
• Developing more effective measures that would gauge internal collaboration as well as measures for external partnerships with regional business and industry.

Overall, the Systems Appraisal Team felt MATC was just beginning to develop processes, systems and measures for relationships that contribute to our efforts at continuous improvement.

In recognition of the continuing opportunities surrounding external collaborative relationships, the College is currently determining the most effective course of actions to improve the situation. Among the actions identified as potential remedies are:

• The creation of a college-wide database identifying each collaborative relationship along with key internal contacts and the reason the relationship exists.
• Developing and providing training in skills that support the creation and strengthening of internal and external relationships.
• The development of policies or guidelines that outline roles, responsibilities and decision-making authority related to collaborative relationships.

This work is in its preliminary stages, with the Systems Portfolio Data Collection Team for Category 9 acting as the foundation for a larger, more inclusive project team. Those interested in supporting this work should contact Maria Banuelos, associate vice president for Diversity and Community Relations.

At the March 2007 Vital Focus meeting, the employees identified two issues necessary for the creation and strengthening of internal collaborations. These two issues were developed into two separate Action Projects that are currently in process. These two Action Projects, which are closely related to Category 9, are:

• Communication—improving College communication processes and perceptions.
• Culture—fostering an atmosphere of cooperation across the college.

MATC can not sustain its continuous improvement efforts without building strong collaborative relationships, both internal and external. By focusing the College’s relationship-building efforts on creating a formal process or system to include the identification of collaborative opportunities, prioritizing relationships, developing measures to monitor progress made, and using comparative benchmarks, all current and future collaborative relationships, both internal and external, will be improved. The College continues to work toward a goal of moving beyond the consultative level of relationships, as defined by the PACE survey, and creating an environment where collaborative relationships flourish.