BLINN PRIORITIZES PLANNED GROWTH IN UPDATED STRATEGIC PLAN

  

Blinn College has updated its 2013-16 Strategic Plan to reflect the importance of planned growth throughout the college district.

In addition to the pre-existing College priorities of student success, community enhancement and human capital, Blinn’s Board of Trustees approved the addition of planned growth at its June board meeting. As part of the new priority, the College set goals to review and develop programs and improve the efficient/effective use of resources. The new goals and objectives reflect initiatives intended to build Blinn’s capacity to respond to demand at the Brazos County campuses and increase enrollment in the others.

“This addition to the plan communicates to our employees and the communities we serve that planned growth is crucial to our planning and decision-making processes,” said Joe Baumann, dean of Institutional Effectiveness & Enrollment Management.

As part of the College’s goal of reviewing and developing programs, Blinn added two new objectives: to review the vitality of its credit and noncredit programs, and to develop new credit and noncredit career and technical programs. In the past month, Blinn’s board has approved the development of new Associate of Science degrees in engineering, construction science and education.

“We want to make sure we have programs on each campus that serve the needs of the local community and other students who would move to the area and attend Blinn,” Baumann said.

As the College aims to maximize the efficient and effective use of resources, it set three objectives – expanding capacity to meet student demand, reviewing staffing levels and organizational structure and improving facilities utilization. To improve facilities utilization, Blinn identified four action items: increasing the number of sections offered at off-peak times, increasing the capacity of campus housing, increasing section fill rate and adding summer programs.

“We’ve got this brick-and-mortar infrastructure at all four of our campuses, and we want to make sure we’re using that infrastructure efficiently and effectively,” Baumann said.

As part of its objective to expand capacity and meet student demand, Blinn announced the purchase of 95 acres of land at the intersection of F.M. 2818 and Leonard Road in Bryan for the development of a second Brazos County campus in February. Blinn plans to develop this land into a 10,000–15,000 student campus to complement the College’s pre-existing Bryan campus on Villa Maria Road. The additional campus will allow Blinn to develop additional science, technology, engineering and mathematics offerings and expand its workforce, technical, research and health-related education programs.

Blinn announced record enrollment of 19,317 students last Fall, and has experienced 37.5 percent enrollment growth since 2006. Blinn’s master planning efforts indicate that growth will continue due to the College’s strong academic reputation and its partnerships with Texas A&M, Baylor, Sam Houston State and Texas State universities, and the universities of Texas and Houston.

Blinn announced its current strategic plan in 2013. The new priority, goals and objectives were developed by a working group comprised of faculty, staff and administrators.