Vision, Mission, & Strategic Plan

CCD promotes excellence in teaching, learning, and service to a diverse community and enrolls more than 10,000 students annually. Among the student population, 92 percent are Colorado residents, more than 30 percent are Latinx, more than 50 percent self-identify as underrepresented, and our international students represent more than 40 nations. The College offers more than 100 degrees and certificates in transfer and occupational education, and CCD’s core classes are guaranteed to transfer to Colorado public colleges and universities.

Vision Statement

Every member of our community will attain the education they desire.

Mission Statement

CCD provides our diverse community an opportunity to gain quality higher education and achieve personal and professional success in a supportive and inclusive environment.

Values

  • Involvement
  • Student-Focus
  • Integrity
  • Lifelong Learning
  • Excellence
  • Healthy Work Environment 

The Strategic Plan has four overarching goals: Access, Acceptance, Ascend, and Achieve. Below are summaries of Community College of Denver's objectives to support our goals.

Access

Expand access to Community College of Denver to meet the needs of our service area.

Objectives

  • Diversify Methods of Service Delivery
  • Expand Workforce Development & Community
  • Improve Matriculation from High School to CCD

Initiatives

  • Add to our short-term, high-demand, programming – both non-credit and for-credit; and expand our accelerated, evening degree options.
  • Leverage the state’s financial support for the Displaced Aurarian scholarship to recruit and successfully complete students of Aurarian lineage.
  • Redevelop Boulder Creek building as a campus gateway and home to Health Sciences and other programs
  • Re-engage the downtown Denver corridor and philanthropy to build brand awareness and partnerships to bring awareness of the value the Community College of Denver has to offer to the Denver economy.
  • Enhance our concurrent enrollment program and processes in partnership with Denver Public Schools to yield more students completing high-school with a college credential and increase the numbers of DPS graduates enrolling in higher-education after high school graduation with a focus on students in Title I designated high schools.

Acceptance

Diversity and inclusion will be embedded in every aspect of work and learning at the Community College of Denver in an effort to reach equity for students, faculty, and staff.

Objectives

  • Create a Culture of Belonging and Acceptance
  • Close the Achievement Gap
  • Improve Campus Climate

Initiatives

  • As a Moon Shot for Equity institution, we will accelerate the erasure of equity gaps by meeting students’ holistic needs through proven and innovative practices and by building equity-minded leadership capacity.
  • Expose barriers to student success and test the effectiveness of interventions.
  • Attract and retain talented, diverse, and dedicated individuals who are not only content experts, but remain current in labor market needs and innovate to yield inclusive student success.
  • Build Framework for Shared Governance and Implement BrainTrust
  • Create and Execute College Communications & Belonging Plan

Ascend

Community College of Denver will be the college where all students are successful.

Objectives

  • Increase Retention
  • Increase Completion
  • Innovate Teaching and Learning

Initiatives

  • Create pathways-based supportive communities around our students that value each student as an individual and are invested in student success at CCD and after graduation.
  • Redesign New Student Orientation
  • Scale Up TRIO SSS Practices
  • Invest in Creating and Maintaining Open Educational Resources (OER)
  • Leverage Colorado Online @
  • Increase ACUE Participation
  • Develop Auraria Learning and Employment Ecosystem

Achieve

Community College of Denver will be the college where all students achieve their education or career goal.

Objectives

  • Increase Continuing Education upon Achievement of Credential
  • Increase Transfers to Four-Year Institutions or CCD Bachelors Programs
  • Increase Career Placement

Initiatives

  • Build a bi-institutional career center that focuses on supports to close the employment gap for students of color and low-socioeconomic students.

We value and are committed to a process of student learning outcomes assessment that is faculty- and staff-driven, student-centered, and advances student learning inside and outside the classroom at the Community College of Denver (CCD). Student learning outcomes assessment at CCD is the “systematic collection, review, and use of information about education programs undertaken for the purpose of improving student learning and development” (Palomba & Banta, 1999). Direct assessment occurs at three levels—course, program, and institutional—with defined outcomes/objectives at each level.

At the institutional level, a CCD graduate will demonstrate the following:

  • Quantitative Literacy – Interpret, represent, and analyze mathematical information accurately and perform calculations to solve problems
  • Effective Communication – Communicate a central guiding idea to a defined audience, for a concrete purpose, employing effective conventions in the service of meaning
  • Intercultural Literacy – Apply a set of cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills to effectively interact in a variety of cultural contexts
  • Critical Thinking – Analyze information and ideas from multiple perspectives and articulate an argument, opinion, or conclusion based on that analysis