What do you do when your president asks you to write a blueprint for a virtual college in three months time? If your president has not asked you to do this yet, it soon may be on the horizon because many institutions of higher education are responding to the challenge of serving the same or more students with less resources by putting a greater emphasis on online learning. Shoreline Community College, a comprehensive community college just north of Seattle, is a current case in point. In the midst of budget cuts, the financial need to maintain enrollments, and a mission-driven desire to increase access to quality education, Shoreline Community College undertook a strategic initiative to capitalize on one of its most promising areas for growth and opportunity: online learning. In this presentation, we will discuss Shoreline Community College's Virtual College initiative, from the presidential call for a "blueprint" of a virtual college to the beginnings of implementation. The wiki for the project will be shared, which includes everything about the project, including a copy of the blueprint. In addition, specifics on how the college has started implementing the blueprint will be shared. Thus, the presentation will give you concrete tools and a framework for devising a similar strategic initiative around online learning at your institution. The goal of the presentation will be to help prepare you to answer honestly (when asked), "Sure, we can write a blueprint for a virtual college by next quarter and double enrollments by the end of the decade." Shoreline Community College's Virtual College initiative grew out of our President's vision to double enrollments by the end of this decade. He articulated an urgent need to increase access to education, maintain affordability for students, and increase value and quality. Hence, four principles informed the Virtual College initiative: accessibility, affordability, accountability, and outcomes. In response to the President's vision, the President's Executive Team appointed seven campus leaders and gave them a very directed charge: develop a blueprint for what a virtual college at Shoreline Community College might look like and have it to them in three months time. Members of this "Virtual College Leadership Team" (VCLT) were chosen because of their individual knowledge and experience, functional area of responsibility within the college, time availability, and leadership abilities. In carrying out the work, the VCLT appointed five workgroups, which addressed issues related to instruction; student support services; marketing; funding; and quality, assessment, and continuous improvement. Members of those workgroups were selected on the basis of their expertise and experience in those areas. The fact that members of these teams were appointed based on their skills and experience represented a significant departure in how groups on campus typically were composed. Typically, there was a call for volunteers among each employee type (faculty, classified staff, and administrators), with the goal of having proportional representation from each group to form a "committee." The Virtual College team and work group model, with selected individuals, not volunteers, challenged the underlying institutional value of equal representation based on employee type. Even though this was not specifically by design, the team/work groups did include broad representation from all employee types. In addition, the initiative solicited and considered a significant amount of feedback from various campus groups within the short time frame. Most importantly, the team produced a thoughtful, well-researched deliverable on time (by the deadline of March 1, 2011): a 92 page blueprint. The blueprint was positively received by the college's Board of Trustees with a charge to move ahead with implementation as quickly as possible. Because of the success of the blueprint, the team/work group model seems to be transforming the way the college works and collaborates; other strategic college initiatives are contemplating using the same model of selecting those with expertise and experience in an area instead of asking for volunteers based on employee type.
