About the initiative

About the College Culture Initiative

Initial Roots

During CCRI’s strategic planning process, a theme emerged around issues related to CCRI’s culture. While many employees shared that our college culture encourages, supports, and prioritizes students, employees also shared concerns related to collaboration, trust, and communication.

As a result of these discussions, CCRI's 2018-2021 Strategic Plan includes the following goal: “define and establish a CCRI culture that promotes transparency, respect, and accountability.”

The Process

In response to this goal, the College Culture Initiative is working to determine what kind of culture we need to best meet our students’ needs now and in the future. Beginning in early 2018, CCRI employees began working together on an initiative to envision a strengthen culture at CCRI, with an initial goal of developing a set of Guiding Principles, which will clearly state the ways in which employees will work together moving forward at CCRI.

The initiative launched in February 2018 with our first College Culture workshop. View a video about the workshop below.

Additional workshops were held in March 2018 and at April’s Professional Development Day, where employees worked in small groups to describe the elements of a strengthened culture and worked collectively to identify the most important elements.

In May, 2018, the Culture Task force developed a set of draft Operating Principles, which are statements that describe the cultural norms – or behaviors – that CCRI employees should follow in order to best meet the needs of our students, and to strengthen our workplace environment.

Through the summer and fall of 2018, the Task Force gathered feedback on the draft Operating Principles through focus groups and a survey, and renamed them "Guiding Principles." Read the results of this process in our Guiding Principles Report.

Click here to review the Guiding Principles. 

What's Next

The Culture Task Force is now working to share and spread the Guiding Principles across the CCRI employee community. The Task Force has formed three subgroups: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Group, Community-building Group, and Faculty Experience Group. If you are interested in getting involved with the Task Force or one of the subgroups, please contact Lizzie Pollock, Associate Director of Employee Engagement and Organizational Effectiveness.