A Message from Executive Cabinet

Evolving a ‘Student-Centric’ Culture

On the SLCC Strategic Plan webpage, President Huftalin says:

"By focusing on students, the plan positions the College as a foundational player in the community, a driving factor in the state economy and a leader in the evolving educational landscape."

This focus on students is absolutely essential to fully realizing our vision for Salt Lake Community College: "a model for inclusive and transformative education, strengthening the communities we serve through the success of our students."

The Strategic Plan provides a clear framework to guide our efforts and has already taught us a lot about how we can improve our commitment to student success.

Perhaps the most important lesson learned to-date is that we must intentionally and continually connect our specific areas of responsibility in holistic, integrated and collaborative ways.

This is vital because the SLCC student journey is complex and non-linear.

As students engage with SLCC they 'live' within a complicated matrix of compliance, choices and decisions. They must 'make sense' of our marketing and websites, our admissions processes, our financial aid and scholarships, our orientation and advising, and our academic course, program and transfer requirements. Students do this repeatedly throughout their college career.

It is important to keep in mind that, prior to 2014, we did not have the resources to understand collectively who our students actually are — their diversity, the communities they represent, their challenges as first-generation college students, and their courage, despite financial and family constraints, etc., to believe that college education and training is a sure path to improved lives and strengthened families and communities.

We cannot take this for granted as an institution dedicated to access and completion.

Living our vision means that we must grow in our ability to learn from each other as we share our observations and results that can simplify and improve the quality of the SLCC student journey. How we bring our best thinking and analysis to our work on strategic initiatives, Collaborative Work Teams, teaching, analysis and governance makes all the difference in how we move forward together.

As we work to cultivate our shared values — Collaboration, Community, Inclusivity, Integrity, Innovation, Learning and Trust — for maximum impact, we will realize Student-Centric Culture at its best, with student success the bottom line.