May 20, 2021

Committee Members Present:

  • Annette Bigham
  • Bradley Christian
  • Celina Brown
  • Gary Myles
  • Glynnis Gaines
  • Joe Arrington, Co-chair
  • Lizette LaStrape
  • Matt Porter
  • Sharon Kenan, Co-chair
  • Steven Wenzel 

Committee Members Absent

  • Bryant Windham
  • David Davenport
  • Sally Frazier 

The fifth meeting of the Research and Growth Opportunities Subcommittee was called to order in Zoom by Co-chair Joe Arrington at 1:03 p.m. on May 20, 2021. The meeting ended at 2:28

p.m. The next meeting is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on June 17, 2021. 

Minutes from the meeting on April 15, 2021, were unanimously approved. 

Agenda Topics: 

Guest Speaker (Lisa Elliott) 

  • Lisa said that the Marketing and Communication Dept. includes three areas: advertising, media relations, and public relations (which is free and the college has no control over it).
  • Lisa went over a recent spreadsheet that showed where MCC’s advertising money was spent and how much was spent for each type of advertising. After the meeting, the spreadsheet was sent as an attachment to committee members.
  • Lisa said most of the advertising budget is spent for the “global college” and not for specific programs, unless there is a new program that is being “pushed” out to the public.
  • The target audience for the college’s advertising is the local 18 to 24 yr. age group, including all genders and races, and covering McLennan and Falls Counties.
  • If individual departments ask for any kind of advertising, MARCOM will work with the departments to determine 1) the department’s goal, 2) the target audience, 3) what information the department wants to advertise, and 4) what kind of budget the department has. MARCOM will fund the advertising for new programs, but individual departments need to build in advertising funds if desired for existing programs (with the exception of grants that pay for advertising, e.g., in health professions).  

Progress reports from the subcommittee’s working groups 

  • The group focusing on communicating the success of programs (Bryant Windham, David    Davenport, Steve Wenzel) has been doing the following:
    • Formulating a questionnaire to send to departments and programs on campus.
    • Asking for feedback from subcommittee members concerning potential questions.
    • The questions in the questionnaire will likely cover the following topics:
      • What are the departments’ most successful programs?
      • What programs are underutilized?
      • What are good programs for recent grads or non-traditional students to enter if they are looking for a quick career start?
      • What are good programs for people who have been in a career and are looking for the next step?
      • Where would be the best places to advertise these specific programs? 
  • The group focusing on how to work with area high schools and home schools to increase first time in college enrollment (Joe Arrington, Matt Porter, Sally Frazier) has been considering the following:
    • how to reach into schools and get more information
    • how to create linkages/pairings between like entities
    • what schools to go to for collecting information

The group has contacted Londa Carriveau to get information and to discuss their ideas and questions. 

  • The group focusing on outreach to Hispanic students and the community has been reduced to one person (Glynnis Gaines), and she has been doing the following:
    • putting information together
    • receiving good information from students and alumni
    • working with groups on campus such as Project LEAP and Upward Bound 
  • The group focusing on offering more non-degree options (Annette Bigham, Lizette LaStrape, Sharon Kenan) has been doing the following:
    • Learning how to build better career pathways
    • Researching options that people want, e.g., career pathways needed using a continuing education path
    • Learning how MCC can help students get a better job
    • Working on a recommendation that will likely include the following items:
      • the hesitation by some to accept/consider the importance of continuing education for providing a pathway to credit courses/programs
      • the need to map express pathways
      • the need to build awareness of the programs/advertise
      • the need to access/share workforce reports on campus (may just need access to links or may need a repository with keyword access)
    • The group focusing on incentivizing enrollment (Bradley Christian, Celina Brown, Gary Myles) has been doing the following:
      • Focusing on developmental education and non-traditional students. ed. students are vulnerable and have a high attrition rate.  Non-traditional students are older students who do not have the knowledge about college that younger students have. 
      • Incentives would be oriented toward getting students in the door (with discounts or perhaps free textbooks), keeping students in school (with flexible schedules and other incentives that are inexpensive for the college), and encouraging students to complete their program of study (with tuition reimbursement or perhaps scholarships in the dollar amount for the cost of their dev. ed. coursework).
      • So making front end incentives low in cost and back end incentives higher in cost to benefit the college with completers would be a goal. 
  • The group focusing on looking at changing the name of the college includes Sharon Kenan, and she shared the following information:
    • Of the 50 community colleges in Texas, 39 do not include community or junior in the name.
    • A QRT report completed in 2012 interviewed community colleges throughout the United States and found that offering baccalaureate degrees or changing the mission of the institution were the primary reasons for dropping community from the name.
    • Texas institutions that have dropped community or junior from their names in recent years will be contacted and asked several questions, including why they decided to drop the word “community” from their names. 

Update on Community Survey 

  • Joe Arrington and Sharon Kenan are creating a community survey with Laura Wichman.
  • They reported that Laura is checking with Dr. Rhodes to determine the kind of incentives to offer participants taking the survey.
  • Questions related to food, hunger, and homelessness were removed from the survey since that information is available elsewhere.
  • The survey will likely be conducted in June, but a firm date is not available yet. 

Action Items and Timeline 

  • Committee members will be moving forward with their working group projects, or as one member said, “moving from storming to norming.”
  • Committee members are to be thinking about when, what time, and how long meetings should be, especially in the fall. Meeting times are being extended thirty minutes (i.e., 1-2:30 p.m.). 

Submitted by Sharon Kenan

 June 3, 2021