On October 27th, 2021, the Eastern Campus conducted a Town Hall with SCCC President Bonahue. This Town Hall conversation took place at all three campuses of Suffolk Community College.
Many students may be confused as to what a Town Hall even is, or how it is relevant to the student body. In this town hall, President Bonahue led a discussion concerning the future of SCCC, where much of the audience, which was made up of students and staff, had opportunities to make suggestions and highlight issues within the college that need to be addressed. Its purpose was to gather feedback, promote growth within the college community, exhibit proactiveness and set priorities for the college.
The meeting began with an introduction by Interim Executive Dean Reese who described the meeting as “a conversation about how do we align our work at the college to be present and to be thinking of our future as an institution.”
One of the forces that propel proactiveness into action at the college is the Strategic Planning Council. Kaliah Greene, Interim Vice President of the Office of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness and Co-Chairperson of the Strategic Planning Council, shared how these strategic plans define goals and values for the institution to follow for a certain period of time. Currently SCCC is following the 2013-2020 Strategic Plan whose theme is “Honoring our past, Forging our Future.” The plan expires in the spring of 2022, where a new plan will be implemented.
This Town Hall was a part of the Strategic Planning Process, a process that is dedicated to inclusivity, “every step of the way prior and every step of the way now.” The student body makes up the life of every college, so conversations such as these Town Halls, are not only relevant but depend on student feedback and experiences.
This meeting and this Strategic Planning Process is supplementary to the notion that education is constantly changing. This fact is augmented by how the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered how students learn.
When President Bonahue spoke, he emphasized the importance of distinguishing goals from values and covered the institutional values, which he said are “foundational to the institution’s aspirations.” To seek positive change, President Bonahue explains the college must be “committed to assessment” as well as “committed to innovation and to improve.”