Butte College uses its Multi-year, Integrated Planning System (MIPS) and its annual Planning, Budgeting, and Assessment (PBA) process to maintain its focus on student learning and align its systems to achieve it. A key input into this process are external plans and priorities such as federal requirements, the Chancellor’s Office Vision for Success, and the results of internal and external assessments.

MIPS
The Multi-year, Integrated Planning System (MIPS) links the college's long-term, episodic, and annual planning processes into an integrated system. The college's Planning and Budget Committee reviews MIPS each year and updates it as necessary. The MIPS flowchart provides a graphical representation and a text description of the MIPS components.

These components include:

Institutional Bedrock

Mission/Values/Vision
Institutional Assessments

Strategic Initiatives
Educational Master Plan

Supporting Plans

Butte College Integrated Plan 2017-19
Equal Employment Opportunity Plan
Facilities Master Plan
Foundation Fundraising Plan 2018-2019
Student Equity Plan (2019-2022)
Technology Master Plan
Program Review
Unit Plans

PBA
The Planning, Budgeting and Assessment (PBA) process is the mechanism the college uses to link its annual planning, budgeting and assessment efforts.  The intent is to ensure that the college maintains its focus on implementing its institutional initiatives, that planning informs budgeting, and that assessment efforts drive planning.  

The PBA process flowchart provides a graphic representation of the PBA process to include activities, timelines, and how each of these activities is integrated. The text description of the text description of the PBA process provides details on each step of the process.

Planning

A key junction point between MIPS and the PBA process is the review and refinement of the college’s annual Strategic Direction.  The Strategic Direction is the college’s annual strategy for implementing its Strategic Initiatives. It is updated each year as part of the PBA process and departments are required to link their future development strategies to the Strategic Direction as they develop their unit plans.

To provide focus for the college, certain objectives from the Strategic Direction are designated as Strategic Direction Themes for the upcoming year. These institutional themes are developed by the Educational Master Planning Committee, approved by the constituent groups, and approved by the Planning and Budget Committee.

At the same time the Educational Master Planning Committee reviews and refines the Strategic Direction it also reviews and refines the college's Standards and Goals for Student Achievement. These are approved using the same process as Strategic Direction and institutional priorities.

Each year, programs and areas develop unit plans based on the Strategic Direction, program review results, institutional assessments, and program data. The Unit Planning Guidance describes the current process to include the general priorities for prioritizing requests for resources that are generated through unit planning. For the process occurring in 2014-2015 the college provided guidance for requesting and prioritizing projects to be funded from alternative funding sources.

The Environmental Scan provides internal and external factors that should be considered during planning.

Periodically, planning updates are provided to make the campus community awareness of external changes that will affect planning, the availability of new data, and the current status of planning initiatives.

Budgeting

Each year, the Leadership Teams review state priorities and initiatives, the Strategic Direction, and prior year activities and requests for additional resources for additional or new funding from unit plans. The Vice President for Administration reviews and develops revenue and expenditure scenarios based on the latest information from state and local sources. The Planning and Budget Committee reviews and, if necessary, recommends revisions to the Board’s Budget Criteria. After the Board approves its Board Budget Criteria, a tentative budget is prepared for the Board of Trustees to approve in June. A final budget is prepared in September, after the state has passed its budget and the college has closed the prior fiscal year.

Every year, after resources have been allocated through the PBA process and augmentations reviewed and approved by the Planning and Budget Committee, each of the four administrative areas (Administration, Student Learning and Economic Development, Student Services, and Planning Research and Organizational Development) develops its measurable outcomes for the year.  These are approved by the President and progress toward implementation of these goals is reviewed as the areas develop unit plans and by each Vice President and the President as part of the evaluation process.

Assessment

The college’s Outcomes Assessment Process is designed to support the planning processes. Outcomes are established, assessed, and dialogued about at the Institutional, Program and Course levels.

The Outcomes Assessment Committee is responsible for providing oversight and coordination for the college's outcomes assessment effort.  As part of this process, the committee reviews and refines the Outcomes Assessment Plan Implementation Matrix that serves as the operational portion of the Outcomes Assessment Plan.  This document provides the college's current strategy for ensuring that its evaluation mechanisms are focused on improving its instructional programs, student support services, and library and other learning support services.

The college provides a number of assessment mechanisms to support the Outcomes Assessment Process and to inform the development of the elements of the Multi-year Integrated Planning System (MIPS) and PBA process. At the institutional level these include:

Balanced Scorecard.This document, which is based on the college’s Progression and Completion Model, provides a global view of how well the college is meeting the outcomes it has identified in its Strategic Direction.

Demographic Snapshot. The Demographic Snapshot sets the stage for planning by providing information about the college's service area, student demographics, student enrollment patterns, and staffing. It also contains the college's environmental scan.

Program Review Data. This provides most of the information required for academic program review.

Strategic Direction Review. This document, which is available in the Educational Master Planning Committee page in MyBC, reviews the college’s progress toward achieving the initiatives and objectives in the Strategic Direction. It is used by the Educational Master Planning Committee as it updates Strategic Direction. 

Accreditation Review. Each year, as part of the college’s ongoing accreditation process, champions for each standard (component) conduct a review of the college’s compliance with their assigned standard (component). The result of this review, along with the evidence that supports it, is in MyBC.

Surveys. The college conducts several institutional surveys to inform the review and refinement of the Strategic Direction and Program Review. These include the following:

Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE).

In 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2017 the college administered the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). This nationally normed student survey enables the college to compare itself to other large community colleges across the nation in the areas most likely to lead to student success. Butte College CCSSE results include:

Executive Summary.  This shows our overall performance with the five benchmarks as well as our five highest and five lowest aspects of student engagement.   The Executive Summary also includes a summary of the results of the Community College Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (CCFSSE).  We did not take this survey but the overall results for those colleges that did is included.

Benchmarks by Enrollment Status.  This section shows the results of the survey by benchmark and compared to our large college comparison group and the overall CCSSE cohort.  This information is broken out by enrollment status – full-time and part-time. 

Results and Comparison Analysis.  This shows the results by question and compares these with questions asked in previous surveys.  You’ll notice that, while many of the questions on the survey have changed, the results tend to be consistent. 

Accreditation Follow-Up Survey (Faculty and Staff). This survey, which is conducted every year, provides information about the effectiveness of a number of college processes – primarily in the areas of planning, budgeting, and participatory governance.

Accreditation Survey (Students). This survey, which is conducted every year, provides feedback on student participation on campus, programs and services.

Completers and Leavers Survey. This survey, which has been conducted once but is planned to be conducted every three years, provides feedback to the college from program completers and leavers as well as salary information from students transitioning into the workforce. Results are at the Outcomes Assessment Committee MyBC page in Shared Documents.

Reports Server. Each time a report is requested the template for the report is updated in the Reports Server and the report is automatically populated. The Reports Server includes over 300 reports in the areas of Business Office, Facilities, Institutional Research, Instruction, Scheduling, and Student Services. The Institutional Research area includes reports on Enrollment Management, Cohort Tracking, Funding, Program Review, and Scheduling.

State Student Success Scorecard. The State Student Success Scorecard provides a variety of indicators tied to student progression and completion. The Board of Trustees is required to review this information each year.

State DataMart. The DataMart provides a variety of reports in the general areas of Students and Headcount, Courses, Student Services, Outcomes, and Faculty and Staff. The data is obtained from the college’s semi-annual MIS data submission and includes system-wide reports as well as those for each college in the system.

Salary Surfer. This tool provides information about the wages of students completing a degree or certificate three years after they complete. Students that transfer are not included. Since the data is obtained through the state Employment Development Department (EDD), many completers are excluded because their wages are not reported to the state of California for unemployment insurance.