President's Message: February 15, 2010

Dear Faculty and Staff,

On Wednesday through Friday of last week, eight representatives of Madison College attended the AQIP Strategy Forum in Chicagoland. Besides me, the team consisted of Scott Beard, Mick Conners, Keith Cornille, Joe Lowndes, Terrie Thorstad, and Terry Webb. The team was led by Becky Baumbach. At today’s Leadership Brown Bag, we will share highlights, plans for next steps, and give leaders the opportunity to make suggestions. 

AQIP, as you probably know, stands for Academic Quality Improvement Program. It is the method of accreditation that the college has employed for the last eight years. AQIP stresses CQI (Continuous Quality Improvement) and an ongoing relationship with the accrediting agency as contrasted with the typical method of accreditation which takes a snapshot and looks back at what a college has done since its last accreditation visit, which is a maximum of ten years.

AQIP has five core processes that play an integral part in the reaffirmation of accreditation of the College - Action Projects, Systems Portfolio, Systems Appraisal, Strategy Forum, and the Quality Checkup Visit, which enables the College to demonstrate its ongoing requirements of the Commission's criteria for accreditation.

As a result of the Strategy Forum, the college will be selecting its next three cross college improvement projects for the next year which are approved by the College Council. The attendees identified potential projects that will be discussed more with employees across the college and finalized into project charters this spring. Watch my message for information on the finalization of these new projects and next steps.

Facilities Master Plan Listening Sessions
Just a reminder, I will be visiting your campus to talk about implementing the Facilities Master Plan. Please think about what part of the plan your community would support, and also how the college can get support from your community. The college needs all the suggestions you can offer in order to make this project successful. 

Here’s the schedule for the president’s listening sessions. (Please note, Watertown has been switched to March 15, and South Madison Campus and Commercial Avenue Campus listening sessions have been added.)

Wednesday, February 17
8:30-9:30 a.m.
Room 116
West Campus

10:30-11:30 a.m.
D240
Downtown Campus

Thursday, February 18
10-11 a.m.
Cafeteria (lower)
Truax Campus

Tuesday, March 2
12:30-1:30 p.m.
S104
South Madison Campus

Wednesday, March 3
3:30-4:30 p.m.
108B
Commercial Avenue Campus

Monday, March 15
10-11 a.m.
Room 157
Fort Atkinson Campus

12-1 p.m.
Room 121
Watertown Campus

4:30-5:30 p.m.
Room 142AB
Truax Campus

Wednesday, March 17
10-11 a.m.
Reedsburg Campus

12:30-1:30 p.m.
Room 102
Portage Campus

College Marvels
Here are the names of faculty mentioned to me recently by students:
Alden Colvin, machine tool
Joel Ryan, history
Guy Thorvaldsen, English
Natasha Kassulke, writing
Bernardo Hoes, English

More Marvels
Madison College has won the Heart of the City “Big Heart Award" for our new 155-foot energy-saving wind turbine at the Fort Atkinson campus. The state-of-the-art turbine is expected to reduce energy needs at the campus by nearly 80 percent! It will also give students a perfect training ground for our new wind energy curriculum. Congratulations to Fred Brechlin, Jeff Dodge, Lynn Forseth, Chad Schuster, Cindy Bowen and everyone at the Fort Atkinson campus for all their hard work on this wonderful project!

Highlights of My Last Week:
• did NOT attend the Association for Community College Trustees (ACCT) Legislative Seminar last week with trustees Jon Bales and Frances Huntley-Cooper, as well as government relations manager Erin Thornley. The trip was cancelled after a blizzard dropped nearly two feet of snow on the Washington, D.C. area. The seminar is now rescheduled for March 10-12.
• attended TEMPO to learn about Islamic Law and Constitutionalism,
• attended a WisPolitics event with Lynn Forseth where senate minority leader Scott Fitzgerald was the guest speaker,
• attended the full time faculty reception for the board where, as always, the appetizers created by the culinary faculty were outstanding,
• participated in the district board meeting, and
• attended the AQIP Strategy Forum.

In closing, here is a quote by Albert Einstein, provided by one of the team members at the AQIP Strategy Forum:

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Bettsey