Preface

For months prior to beginning the self-study, President Schatzberg reminded the College community frequently of what was to come, so we were well-prepared to begin the self-study. By the end of May 2006, the president had appointed the two co-chairs and the various standard chairs. During the summer, the standard chairs met to select committee members from an extensive list of volunteers. Thus, when everyone returned to campus in the fall of 2006, the committees were in place. Having formed the committees, chosen the co-chairs, and gotten the process up and running, the president stepped back to let the fun begin. And begin it did.

The co-chairs come from two different sides of the college house. Cindy Crossman is the Assistant Vice-President of Financial Affairs, and Sally Polito is a professor of English. It was an appropriate pairing, symbolic of the representation on the various standard committees. Most committees were microcosms of the campus community with representatives from all areas: administration, support staff, faculty, professional staff, and students. The Steering Committee for this self-study process, composed of the co-chairs, the standard chairs, and the chair of the editing committee, met monthly during the academic year 2006-2007 to discuss the progress and problems of developing the document. The co-chairs, sometimes separately, sometimes together, attended many different committee meetings to discuss the chapters and to offer assistance as well as moral support (and considerable encouragement).

In order to do a revision of the lengthy CCCC mission statement, the Mission and Purposes Committee began meeting in the summer of 2006, well ahead of the rest of the committees. By the middle of the fall semester, a new mission statement had been approved by the college, by the Board of Trustees, and by the Board of Higher Education. Shorter and more direct, the new mission statement focuses clearly on our students.

In September 2006, Louise Zak and Barbara Brittingham of NEASC addressed the Steering Committee and offered a general overview of what was involved and expected in our self-study. In October 2006, President Schatzberg, Vice-President of Academic and Student Affairs Robert Ross, Cindy Crossman, and Sally Polito attended the NEASC self-study workshop in Marlborough, MA. The committees had already begun their work, gathering material to prepare for the actual writing of their chapters. Throughout the fall of 2006, the committees met regularly to begin preparing their documents. The chair of the editing committee assigned two or three chapters for review to each member of the editing committee, so every committee had an editor available very early in the process. And the committees definitely made use of their editors.

The spring of 2007 brought increased effort in the different committees. The editing chair, the co-chairs, and the president set a deadline of May 15, 2007, for finished drafts. For some that was quite reassuring; for others, it was panic-inducing. However, right around that deadline, completed drafts trickled in, and the co-chairs were reminded of how thoroughly and carefully everyone had been working. The spring brought concerns about fine-tuning the document and questions like "What on earth is institutional effectiveness?" Cindy Crossman was in frequent contact with Louise Zak, who helped all of us considerably.

The goal of the self-study process for this campus has been to learn where we are compared to where we were ten years ago and to understand where we still need to go. The entire process has been educational, collaborative, and even, at times, inspiring. We have learned a great deal about our college and its people, recognized innumerable strengths and occasional weaknesses, and as a result, we are already in the process of instituting changes suggested by our self-study work.