Praiseworthy Performance

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SPOTLIGHT: COMMUNITY COLLEGES
This spotlight appeared in Business Officer  Magazine, April 2006.

One of the seven institutions in the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD), Richland College, received the 2005 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The six winners of the nation’s highest presidential honor for quality and organizational excellence were announced late last year by President George W. Bush and U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. 

Richland is the first community college in the United States to receive the award, which was established by Congress in 1987 to enhance the competitiveness and performance of U.S. businesses. Categories were expanded in 1998 to include education and health care. “This award is a tribute to each member of the Richland College family, our community partners, and the long legacy of encouraging support from both the DCCCD board of trustees and members of the DCCCD Foundation’s board of directors, as well as many former Richlanders whose work preceded our efforts,” says President Stephen K. Mittelstet. “Richland College has used the Malcolm Baldrige criteria for performance excellence during the past eight years as a framework that guided us through continuous performance improvement. We will continue to maintain those standards of excellence now and in the future.”

Key Criteria
Each award recipient is evaluated by an independent board of examiners in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; human resource focus; process management; and results. The evaluation process includes approximately 1,000 hours of review and an on-site visit by teams of examiners to clarify questions and verify information.

Winning Traits
The Baldrige examiners prepare a feedback report for each applicant. This list detailing some of Richland’s strengths that the examiners included in the report may be helpful to other community colleges and universities.

• A leadership system that allows for broad representation and input from faculty, staff, students, community members, and other key stakeholders.
• Processes that support a culture that engages participation among students, faculty, staff, and community members, such as monthly departmental performance reviews.
• A commitment to serve an ethnically diverse student population.
• The ability to be agile by supporting and developing a strong cadre of adjunct faculty members.
• Effective use of resources in response to a reduction in state funding.

RESOURCE LINK Visit http://www.richlandcollege.edu/ and click on the Baldrige Award logo to access Richland’s 2005 application. For more information, contact Jenni Gilmer at 972.238.6022 or jgilmer@dcccd.edu.