Strategic Plan

Our Vision

Through strong community bonds and a commitment to inquiry, innovation, and lifelong learning, we will create an environment in which all people thrive.

By 2030, Santa Fe College will advance our mission by being uncompromisingly Student Driven, Future Focused, Community Connected, and Organizationally Resilient.

Student Driven

Charge: Facilitate strong interpersonal connections, provide personalized support, and design and deliver high-quality learning experiences to boost unimpeded access to higher education pathways, academic engagement, and student success.

Expand access to educational opportunities.

Foster a college-going culture within our communities by expanding early outreach, mentorship, and career exploration and development opportunities.
Anchor signature programs aligned with workforce and community priorities at SF’s educational centers, and ensure students enrolling at centers benefit from SF’s full array of support services.
Create clear paths for upskilling and reskilling, and increase outreach to communicate opportunities to move between non-credit and credit-bearing programs.
Develop flexible learning models, credit for prior learning frameworks, and other seamless and accelerated pathways toward a credential.
Reduce student debt by developing cost-savings and financial support initiatives.

Provide seamless, comprehensive support designed to advance every learner’s participation and achievement.

Improve student access to services when, where, and how students need and want them.
Centralize and streamline student services through physical and virtual one-stop models.
Ensure all points of access provide students with the same level of service excellence.
Use technology to provide timely, coordinated support for every student, including options for self-service.
Embed career planning and preparation into initial experiences and throughout curriculum.

Enhance student engagement and belonging.

Adopt inclusive practices that welcome, enhance well-being, and provide support for the whole student to foster resilience, learning, and achievement.
Increase intentional touchpoints from pre-admission to beyond graduation, and implement integrated systems and case management to promote institutional connection and belonging.
Cultivate strong connections with and between students, including increased opportunities for student-to-student mentoring, peer coaching, and student-organized teamwork.
Design experiences and spaces to elicit a sense of institutional belonging and strengthen peer-to-peer relationships.
Amplify student voices in assessing learning and support.

Ensure students experience high-quality learning, regardless of their selected paths, modalities, or locations.

Embrace high-impact practices that facilitate transformative learning experiences.
Curate educational experiences to ensure students inevitably encounter highly beneficial practices.
Expand robust professional development offerings appropriate for a learning college.
Improve pedagogy designed for online and hybrid learners.
Provide superior online and in-person support for learning and academic achievement.

Future Focused

Charge: Ensure that students are ready to meet the future by cultivating a creative, forward-thinking learning environment that anticipates and adapts agilely to an evolving world and focuses on continuous improvement.

Champion forward-thinking teaching and learning to ready students for the future.

Prepare our students to be technology-savvy, digital citizens and adaptable, curious life-long learners.
Design innovative curricula to ensure students develop future-forward skills adaptable to changing environments and ways of working.
Ensure professional development opportunities and training remain up to date with emerging technologies and current best practices.
Identify successful pedagogical practices through assessment and research, and scale these practices across the institution to benefit more students and faculty.
Develop pathways for meaningful co-curricular learning linked to program outcomes or career competencies.

Leverage design and technology to support modern, engaging learning environments.

Optimize the use of physical spaces to better support collaboration, growth, and innovation.
Create adaptable settings for collaborative activities, flexible teaching approaches, and active learning.
Invest in cutting-edge technology to support future-focused academic programs.
Prioritize future flexibility and strategic aims in developing physical space and technology utilization plans.

Promote a workplace culture that values collaboration, creativity, experimentation, and agility to innovate and improve.

Foster a risk-tolerant culture where experimentation and learning from failures are encouraged, shared, and valued.
Engage the expertise of employees to pursue solutions to challenges and drive continuous improvement.
Align college processes and resources to support innovation and improvement.
Provide resources for pilot projects and prototypes that test new ideas and technologies.
Increase agility in developing new programs and services responsive to change and opportunity.

Community Connected

Charge: Make community engagement a hallmark of our culture, deepening our relationships and partnerships to advance the public good.

Drive workforce development and economic opportunity in our region to build strong, sustainable communities.

Become the trainer of choice for regional employers, developing flexible, targeted learning opportunities to meet specific skill or industry needs.
Catalyze economic mobility through collaborations with external partners.
Partner with government and civic agencies to attract employers to the region.
Work with regional employers and advisory boards to regularly update curricula to meet emerging needs.
Expand practical learning opportunities through job shadowing, internships, externships, and apprenticeships.

Support lifelong learning opportunities.

Connect community members of all ages to the college through personal enrichment and leisure programs, language programs, and skills training.
Collaborate with educational partners to promote a college-going culture and post-secondary educational options.
Create signature events to support community-based learning.
Cultivate alumni engagement, and develop enduring relationships with graduates.
Market the college’s rich array of learning opportunities.

Cultivate a culture of community service and civic engagement as integral to the student and employee experience.

Liaise with regionally based community groups to forge connections and collaboration.
Expand service-learning programs collegewide to meet community needs.
Connect students with volunteer opportunities that deepen co-curricular learning and skills development.
Create an inventory of employees’ current service to identify and promote strategic opportunities for public service.

Organizationally Resilient

Charge: Foster a supportive, empowering, and sustainable workplace culture and engage in intentional organizational development to drive positive student outcomes and better serve our communities.

Build a thriving work environment.

Initiate and sustain employee engagement through improved institutional onboarding and orientation, ongoing communities of practice, and regular team-building opportunities to advance SF’s mission and values.
Establish a comprehensive development program to ensure employees feel valued, connected, and equipped to thrive.
Ensure every employee benefits from a regular, meaningful evaluation process that leads to growth and is supported by robust professional development.
Create pathways to increase opportunities for internal advancement and programs that support leadership development and promotion.
Expand the wellness program to better cultivate employees’ physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

Advance operational excellence.

Optimize purposeful allocation of institutional resources to ensure responsiveness to changing conditions and needs, and to support educational quality, manageable workloads, healthy environments, and sustainable operations.
Strengthen infrastructure to support increased cross-departmental collaboration, communication, assessment, and action planning.
Simplify administrative tasks and streamline processes to free up time and resources for more purposeful work.
Embrace sustainable practices, green initiatives, and renewable resources to be good stewards of the environment and conserve resources.
Increase transparency in decision-making, resource allocation, and communication college-wide.