The institution’s resources, structures, and processes are sufficient to fulfill its mission, improve the quality of its education al offerings, and respond to future challenges and opportunities. The institution plans for the future.
5.A. The institution’s resource base supports its current educational programs and its plans for maintaining and strengthening their quality in the future.
- The institution has the fiscal and human resources and physical and technological infrastructure sufficient to support its operations wherever and however programs are delivered.
- The institution’s resource allocation process ensures that its educational purposes are not adversely affected by elective resource allocations to other areas or disbursement of revenue to a superordinate entity.
- The goals incorporated into mission statements or elaborations of mission statements are realistic in light of the institution’s organization, resources, and opportunities.
- The institution’s staff in all areas are appropriately qualified and trained.
- The institution has a well-developed process in place for budgeting and for monitoring expense.
5.B. The institution’s governance and administrative structures promote effective leadership and support collaborative processes that enable the institution to fulfill its mission.
- The governing board is knowledgeable about the institution; it provides oversight of the institution’s financial and academic policies and practices and meets its legal and fiduciary responsibilities.
- The institution has and employs policies and procedures to engage its internal constituencies—including its governing board, administration, faculty, staff, and students—in the institution’s governance.
- Administration, faculty, staff, and students are involved in setting academic requirements, policy, and processes through effective structures for contribution and collaborative effort.
5.C. The institution engages in systematic and integrated planning.
- The institution allocates its resources in alignment with its mission and priorities.
- The institution links its processes for assessment of student learning, evaluation of operations, planning, and budgeting.
- The planning process encompasses the institution as a whole and considers the perspectives of internal and external constituent groups.
- The institution plans on the basis of a sound understanding of its current capacity. Institutional plans anticipate the possible impact of fluctuations in the institution’s sources of revenue, such as enrollment, the economy, and state support.
- Institutional planning anticipates emerging factors, such as technology, demographic shifts, and globalization.
5.D. The institution works systematically to improve its performance.
- The institution develops and documents evidence of performance in its operations.
- The institution learns from its operational experience and applies that learning to improve its institutional effectiveness, capabilities, and sustainability, overall and in its component parts.