Vision, Mission, & Strategic Plan

Redesign how and when CCD offers programs & support services.

As an initiative connected to the Strategic Plan 2020-2025 goal of increased access for students, alternative educational offerings will allow a greater percentage of student populations to take and complete courses and full programs outside of the standard M-F on-campus day time model. Alternate delivery methods will include evening, online, accelerated, and weekend options for students.

Redevelop Boulder Creek building as a campus gateway and home to Health Sciences and other programs.

This initiative redevelops the Boulder Creek building as a campus gateway and home to health sciences and other programs. It consolidates all of the college’s health programs into a strategically focused Health Education Center of Excellence in a to-be-remodeled and expanded Boulder Creek building on the Auraria campus, from scattered and dated teaching spaces on both the Lowry and Auraria campus. By housing CCD’s growing health sciences programs with laboratories incorporating the latest technology, the Boulder Creek Health Education Center of Excellence will provide an improved teaching and learning environment for students and faculty.

The Health Education Center of Excellence at Boulder Creek features space for health curricula, three community clinics (primary care medical, dental, and veterinary), a teaching kitchen that supports the nutrition and wellness curricula, and a state-of-the-art biological and chemical analysis center that supports health and natural science programs and provides opportunities for undergraduate research and new programs such as cannabis business. Phases in the project match the constructive ownership of the building, as MSU Denver and CU Denver vacate the property over the coming years.

This initiative improves access to health careers by increasing space for additional student cohorts in these programs, solves current student concerns regarding the lack of availability to safe and convenient access to public transportation on the Lowry campus, provides improved access to clinical space required for student competencies, provides students the ability to receive on-campus tutoring and other student services, and creates an opportunity for collaboration with local communities, the public sector, and commercial partners. Because the health programs typically have high completion rates, increasing access and the number of students/cohorts able to participate in these programs also impacts college retention and completion statistics and equity concerns in these programs.

Successful redevelopment of this building includes partnerships with community organizations, healthcare, cannabis, and laboratory enterprises and features a capital campaign and specific goals for accumulating college reserves in order to raise the 25% of building costs required to earn maximum support for the project from the CCCS System Office and the state legislature. It also includes raising funds totaling 5 years of building operating maintenance costs (estimated at 1% of total estimated construction costs) to be held by the CCD Foundation and transferred to the college to assist in funding proper building maintenance costs.

Develop partnerships with business and industry to expand credit and non-credit offerings.

The Community College of Denver (CCD) has always made a concerted effort to engage in meaningful partnerships with local school districts, four-year institutions, businesses, government agencies, and community organizations to advance educational opportunities for all community members. While we acknowledge the importance of our existing partnerships, we realize the need to pursue new and innovative partnerships that are critical in achieving our strategic goals. New and innovative avenues of cooperation and expanded engagement with existing and new partners will result in meaningful academic and career pathways for better student learning outcomes in courses and programs that accelerate completion and transfer rates. Those pathways will also help the college to directly address labor market needs and contribute to a better-prepared workforce. In addition, those meaningful partnerships will increase access to higher education and provide students with seamless opportunities to achieve educational, professional, and personal goals.

Shift concurrent enrollment strategy to have a primary focus as an access point for DPS students to matriculate at CCD.

Concurrent enrollment accounts for 15% of CCD’s overall enrollment, which for the spring of 2020 includes 1,700 students enrolled in high school-select, 518 enrolled in college-select, and 98 enrolled as AEC (Ascent and CEC 5th year) scholars. It is a high priority of the CCCS’ chancellor as well as the governor and is reflected in the CCCS strategic plan as a key performance measure (KPM) 3.1 Concurrent enrollment saved Colorado students $35 million in tuition dollars last year alone, serving as a critical piece of the access and equity puzzle for our students. This initiative will strengthen the pipeline for these concurrently enrolled students from their high school, to completion at CCD, to their four-year institutions or the workforce.

Implement AACC Pathways strategies

This initiative focuses on the strategies the college will employ to transform the student experience via our five AACC Pathways Commitments.  Objectives seek to move student interactions with CCD faculty and staff from transactional to more relational and transformative engagements. 

CCD’s five AACC Pathways Commitments are:

• All students will have a New Student Orientation.
• All students will have a First-Year Experience.
• All students will confirm their program of study by the end of their first semester.
• All students will complete gateway math and English in their first year*.
• All students will receive advisement once per semester.

*Not all students require enrollment in gateway math and English in their first year.  Some do not require the courses, some bring courses in. 

Improve collaboration across Academics & Student Services through targeted projects to support Student Success: Scale TRiO Model, Co-Curricular Programs, Faculty Mentoring/Advising

Improving collaboration across Academic Affairs (AA) & Enrollment Administration and Student Services (EASS), through targeted projects to support student success, demands a holistic practice for supporting students’ intellectual and social-emotional development. AA and EASS play a major role in the retention and success of our students, inside and outside of the classroom. Exerting collaborative and strategic genuine care and concern for our students’ intellectual and personal wellbeing, education, and aspirations toward their career goals is a necessary component of institutional success and student-centered practice.

Invest in creating and maintaining Open Educational Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources are textbooks and other classroom/online materials that can be used and reused freely with no direct cost to the student. OER at CCD is recognized as an innovative tool for meeting the challenges of providing affordable learning opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds. CCD fosters the adoption, adaptation, and creation of OER material for relevant courses with the goal of reducing the expense of college by removing the cost of textbooks and other classroom/online materials to make learning more affordable, equitable, and accessible.

Adapt the Inclusive Excellence Framework as CCD's equity model to transform CCD  in a manner that creates a sense of belonging for students, faculty and staff.

Diversity and inclusion will be embedded in every aspect of work at the college in an effort to reach equity for students, faculty, and staff. This initiative is designed to guide the college’s work to ensure our culture and operations reflect progressive philosophies around equity and incorporate the experience and knowledge of our diverse employee and student community.  The objectives within are designed to make us a more welcoming and inclusive campus, where members of our diverse population feel valued, and where quality is embedded in every aspect of our work so that all students have equal opportunity to succeed, regardless of their identities.