2017-23
As an open-access learning institution, Seattle Colleges prepares each student for success in life and work, fostering a diverse, engaged, and dynamic community.
Seattle Colleges is recognized as an exemplary learning institution that transforms lives, promotes equity, and enriches the community.
Accessibility for all learners and partners
Collaboration through open communication and commitment to working together.
Diversity, inclusion, and equity for all individuals, particularly the underserved in our community.
Fiscal sustainability for long-term viability and excellence in service and operations.
Growth and development of faculty and staff through professional development
Innovation in instruction, student services, operations, and organizational culture
Integrity by adhering to the highest standards of ethics and public stewardship
Student success: The success of our students is the central focus of Seattle Colleges. We strive to make steady gains in improving student satisfaction, retention, completion, job placement, and narrowing student performance gaps
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Community: At Seattle Colleges, we firmly establish equity, diversity, and inclusion as a strategic goal and as human rights for all. We frame our decisions and actions with a lens of equity, diversity, and inclusion and are accountable to the community.
Organizational excellence: Seattle Colleges aspires to achieve excellence as Seattle’s open-admission institution of higher education. We seek to achieve continuous improvements in excellence in teaching and learning, operational efficiency and fiscal sustainability, strategic innovation, employee growth and engagement, and diversity and inclusion.
Partnerships: As an important engine of economic development, Seattle Colleges values and invests in strategic and ongoing partnerships with educational, business, governmental, labor, and community organizations.
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Chartered by the state Legislature in 1967, Seattle Colleges enjoys a proud 50-year history of serving Seattle and the state of Washington.
Seattle Colleges is composed of Seattle Central College, North Seattle College and South Seattle College. As the largest community college district in the state, we serve 45,000 students annually with more than 135 professional and technical programs, including nine applied baccalaureate degrees.
Seattle Colleges is the city’s open-access education institution. Generations of students with diverse academic and socioeconomic backgrounds have come to us to learn, improve, and live a better life. We have also formed strong partnerships with educational, business, governmental, and civic organizations throughout Seattle.
Although each of our institutions has unique strengths and specialized programs, they all share the same commitment: transforming lives, bridging opportunity gaps, and fulfilling community needs. It is a shared vision and our common story now—and for the next 50 years.
The Seattle Colleges Strategic Plan 2017–23 provides broad, forward-looking direction to ensure student success in the dynamic and vibrant city of Seattle.
The Board of Trustees—in consultation with the district community, including faculty, staff, students, administrative leadership, and external partners—initiated and approved the new strategic plan.
The plan reflects a common purpose, beliefs, commitments, and priorities. It also establishes a set of major goals that will be achieved over time at each college and across the district. The strategic plan recognizes the unique characteristics of each of the colleges and includes a range of high-level strategies that will be operationalized in a manner appropriate for each college. Ultimately, the strategic plan acknowledges our proud history, short-term challenges, and opportunities while identifying future directions, aspirations, and operational strategies. It also affirms our fundamental mission: to prepare each student for a successful life and work in a diverse, global, and dynamic society.
The previous 2010-17 Seattle Colleges strategic plan sunsetted in 2017. With this in mind, the Board of Trustees initiated a process to develop a new district-wide Strategic Plan in late 2016. The new plan serves to set strategic direction for Seattle Colleges for future years. The colleges will develop operational plans in support of the district-wide strategic plan. A critical part of the strategic planning process was to engage and gain input from our stakeholders, including our employees.
The district planned a series of conversations beginning in the Winter Quarter of 2017. Additional conversations continued throughout the subsequent months to ensure faculty, staff, students, community members, and civic and business leaders were able to provide feedback. Our goal was to seek input from valued community members to chart a path for our future.
In addition to strategic planning, the chancellor and college leadership carried out other related major initiatives: Budget Planning and Achieving System Integration.
The strategic plan built upon the planning that already took place at each of the colleges and aligned common goals and purposes as well as approaches to our work. Members of the board of trustees, the chancellor and vice chancellors, and presidents agreed that working towards one mission, vision, values, and set of common goals for the entire district is the long-term goal. The board of trustees in consultation with stakeholders is ultimately accountable for setting the mission and goals of the Seattle Colleges.
Through June of 2017, input was received from members of the chancellor’s advisory council; the district management team; more than 20 external experts from business, government, and community; and nearly 200 employees through an online survey. Additional input activities included a town hall and stakeholder input meetings with faculty and classified staff.
Input includes: District Management(150), Employee Survey(230), Town Hall(300), Student Forums(12), Faculty(35), Classified(30), External Experts(21), Advisory Council(15)
In the fall of 2018, the chancellor’s executive cabinet and college leadership teams finalized measures, strategies, and operational plans. Across the strategic plan’s four goal areas, a common set of twelve districtwide measures have been identified. These measures enable comparisons across the colleges and over time. Also, seven districtwide strategies provide broad, forward-looking guidance to advance goals and respective measures. The finalized strategic plan is supported by a dynamic, interactive scorecard. Periodic in-depth reviews of each goal area and measures are held at meetings of the board of trustees.
Board Member Institution of the League for Innovation