AQIP NEWSLETTER TEAMWORK AT MCC
Issue #8
March 2006

Newsletters

MCC's AQIP Home Page

 Quote of the month:

Coming together is a beginning.Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.

                        ~Henry Ford

In the last of the series featuring AQIP team profiles, we end with the Creative Connections Team. Although this Team is the largest, it has had a difficult journey the past two years. The group is in the process of reorganizing and is looking forward to the next months to put their restructuring plan into place. Here is an update on the Creative Connections Team.

The Creative Connections Team

Team Members: Brad Parker, Marlyn Hanson, Corliss Littlefield, Betty McKie, Carol Steward, and Jeff Jones

Not pictured: Mary Andersen, Sharon Bishop, Janet Brinkman, Kevin Cruse, Charles Duell, Don Enninga, Jaylene Evans, Sheri Kembel, Gene Kind, Laurie Morris, Linda Olsen, Dianna Pfeifer, Merle Rhoades, Ed Robinson, Tracy Schneider, Dickie Smith, Michael Wiener, Mary Zorn

What have you accomplished this last year?

To be honest, Creative Connections has struggled. While other teams have been logging great success, this is a team that has encountered one difficulty after another. First there was the difficulty of coordinating the largest of the AQIP action teams. Finding a meeting time that worked for everybody was next to impossible. Efforts to manage the discussion by e-mail and threaded discussion encountered setbacks and/or were unwieldy. Another challenge was the difficulty of translating the mission statement into concrete, actionable tasks. While all agreed the mission statement touched on something important to us, none could agree on what it meant in concrete terms. By default it turned into a review of MCC’s internal communication pathways. Once this was established, a survey of communication practices was circulated and the Team began to identify processes that could be improved. However, as current Team Co-leader Jeff Jones noted, many of the communication problems the Team was beginning to target for improvement, self-corrected before the group could do anything about them. The Creative Connections Team seemed to be running one step behind what the College was already doing. In fact, last year’s AQIP annual report gave the team credit for a number of communications-related results that had occurred although they were not a direct result of the Team.

In summing up the last two years, the Creative Connections Team concluded that the scope of the project it had undertaken was too large. It will now focus on a more specific aspect of MCC’s communication.

CREATIVE CONNECTIONS TEAM MISSION:

The mission statement for Maximizing Creative Connections involves communication and community.

This project is built on creative connections that must exist for the college to be its best. Where connections currently exist, they will be strengthened; where new ones are needed, they will be created. …the aim is a common goal with a oneness of all locations and cohesiveness within and among the community college. The result will be “College Connected,” a learning organization that allows all in the College to be partners for student success.

What are the Team’s plans for the future?

One immediate task before the group is to complete the last piece of the MCC 5-year plan, specifically articulating the College’s mission and vision statements. They hope to accomplish this in the next few weeks.

Beyond that, Creative Connections is looking at two possible projects:

1. Taking on the Environmental Scanning project that began during Professional Development Days.
2. Reviewing/revising the MCC website.

Reminder: ALL AQIP TEAMS NEED TO HAVE THEIR TEAM REPORTS IN TO THE WRITING TEAM APRIL, 2006. Please keep that in mind as you continue working on your projects. Thanks!