Learning Resources

Abstract: In an era of heightened accreditation expectations, declining resources, and increasing competition, tools such as integrated planning and budgeting, evidence-based decision-making (EBDM) processes, an overarching continuous quality improvement (CQI) framework, and up-to-date technology solutions for managing planning processes are no longer optional. While Mesa Community College (MCC) has a long history of planning, the integration of planning and budgeting was limited and our planning system was outdated (as in beyond end-of-life outdated). Additionally, planning and budgeting processes lacked EBDM practices and an overarching CQI framework. MCC’s Strategic Planning Committee set about remedying all of these issues and did so within the span of a year.

Abstract: The thickening and expanding digital layer of our world has prompted us to reevaluate how we navigate through it and also what, why, where, when, and how we read the things within it. In an institutional setting, reading for learning and research is no longer confined to the printed page or the campus; this has led to a hubbub by those who fear an embrace of digital technologies will in some way diminish students culturally, intellectually, creatively, and emotionally. Sorting through the hubbub, there is reason to be optimistic as examples abound of how the digital layer enhances learning and knowledge creation. Institutions have an important role here: they have the heft to help drive innovative practices, policies, technologies, materials, and spaces for reading now and tomorrow in this hybrid physical-digital information landscape.