The college’s mission statement and accompanying components emerge from the commonly understood educational philosophy of the comprehensive two-year college in the state of Montana. Fundamentally, this means the college focuses on serving community needs, employing an open-admissions policy to engage individuals from all walks of life, and delivering academic programming in a variety of fields and modalities to help students succeed. Within this construct, the college’s mission is further delineated through the identification of four core themes and objectives: 1. Workforce Development: Prepare students to meet current and emerging workforce needs. 2. Transfer Preparation: Prepare students to transfer to an institution of higher education. 3. Academic Preparation: Prepare students for success in developmental education and college- level courses. 4. Community Development: Cultivate productive relationships through Lifelong Learning and community engagement. Therefore, the college defines the fulfillment of its mission to educate and inspire as the functional deployment of the comprehensive two-year college philosophy and the achievement of the objectives tied to the four core themes. The two-year college philosophy is embodied in the institution’s values, policies, and role within Montana’s system of higher education. The core themes, objectives and indicators of achievement are designed to measure institutional effectiveness and mission fulfillment. Articulation of an Acceptable Threshold, Extent, or Degree of Mission Fulfillment To articulate an acceptable threshold, or degree of mission fulfillment, the college has adopted a culture of data-driven, continuous quality improvement. As a performance-based institution, the college has created and is committed to an integrated, mission-centric model of assessment, planning and resource allocation at all levels of operation. This commitment is reflected through activities and processes emanating from the college’s mission, vision, values, core themes, and the system-level and campus strategic plans. The college uses an Institutional Performance Report using data to measure and evaluate mission attainment. CPBAC uses core indicator data to determine whether it is fulfilling the mission. Each core theme has a standing task force with the charge of recommending seven-year and annual goals and reporting progress to CPBAC. If a target is not met, the appropriate task force and ultimately CPBAC and the Executive Teamwill determine whether the target needs to be adjusted based on updated data or if other action is needed to reach that target. These reports take several formats, based on the target audience. Samples of two of these reports are included in the Appendix. Because the core indicators have recently changed, data for these sample reports are not available as of the writing of this report. However, baseline data will be reported to the core theme task forces to assist them in setting targets. Great Falls College Montana State University 26