Board Goals
College of the Desert Board Goals
2024/2025 and 2025/2026
Support Equitable Student Access and Success
1. Increase enrollment by 18% by 2025-2026.
Rationale: In order for COD to “rebench” and establish revenue commensurate with its
highest enrollment point, the District will need to increase enrollment by 900 FTES
(approximately 10%), but in order to sustain new facilities/expansions, additional
FTES will also be needed, which is why the goal is at 18%. This sets the FTES goal
to 10,600 FTES. The College intends to meet this goal through dual enrollment, incarcerated
education, increased retention, and increases to short-term programming.
2. Increase degree attainment among Hispanic/LatinX students by 5% by 2025-2026.
Rationale: Since the Hispanic/LatinX students at COD represent approximately 10,000
of the College’s total approximate head count of 13,000, this represents a statistically
significant number of over 500 students. The College intends to meet this goal through
increases in connectivity and belonging as well as better access to education through
transportation and dual enrollment.
3. Increase degree attainment among African-American students by 10% by 2025-2026.
Rationale: Since the African-American students at COD represent approximately 1,200
of the total approximate head count of 13,000, this represents a statistically significant
number of over 100 students. The College intends to meet this goal through increases
in connectivity and belonging as well as better access to education through transportation
and dual enrollment.
4. Increase the number of students who successfully complete transfer-level math and
English in their first year by 2025-2026.
Rationale: The completion of transfer-level math and English is a key performance
indicator for transfer success and degree attainment, as well as a major contributor
to the College’s total computational revenue as part of the “success” portion of the
student-centered funding formula (SCFF). Increasing these achievements is also a proxy
for improved equitable outcomes as well because the College supports such a high number
of underserved students.
5. Increase work-based learning opportunities for students in high demand sectors
by 2025-2026.
Rationale: The College is currently working toward greater alignment to workforce
sectors in the community, focusing on thriving wage programs and multiple access points.
Internships and apprenticeships through cooperative work experience are ways to increase
FTES and promote employability in a more coordinated and coherent way.
Ensure Organizational and Fiscal Health of COD
6. Increase the ending fund balance to represent five months of operating budget expenses
by 2028.
Rationale: Legally, the College is required to maintain an ending fund balance to
cover two months of operative expenses. Payroll, alone, represents between $6-7 million
in salary and benefits. The College has readily maintained that requirement, but in
order to maintain optimal cash flow, flexibility, and solvency in difficult times,
the College should strive to maintain an ending fund balance (or “reserve”) of approximately
$50 million.
7. Eliminate or reduce COD’s OPEB responsibilities by 2029.
Rationale: The College has paid for approximately half of its post-retirement benefits
obligations through an irrevocable trust. To further advance the fiscal stability
of the College, paying the remaining $4.5 million in liabilities is a conservative
and sound fiscal goal.
8. Support increased diversity hiring per the College EEO Plan among all employee
groups, but especially faculty, so that the campus community more closely resembles
the College’s student demographics.
Rationale: The College is dedicated to building a workforce that is continually responsive
to our diverse student population by ensuring that all persons receive an equal opportunity
to compete for employment and promotion within the District and by eliminating barriers
to equal employment opportunity. The College has made several recent efforts to improve
its hiring processes, including the redaction of an applicant’s identifying characteristics
in the hiring process. In both the administrative and classified staff groups, diversity
has significantly increased; however, both adjunct and full-time faculty still do
not adequately represent the College’s student population, and more work needs to
occur in order to advance this goal through better EEO practices and training, as
well as more intentional recruitment strategies. In the short-term, the College will
conduct a job fair for the local universities and region in fall 2024 to begin a process
of attracting more diverse faculty talent.
Advance Board Governance and CEO Relations
9. Conclude the formalized Accreditation process and implement recommendations from
ACCJC as appropriate.
Rationale: The College’s Accreditation is an essential element of its educational
viability going forward, and maintaining good standing with ACCJC is an ongoing process
of which the Board is consistently an essential component as outlined in Chapter 4
of ACCJC’s Accreditation Standards.
10. Recruit and hire a permanent Superintendent/President who will lead the College
into the future of student achievement efforts, fiscal sustainability, and community
responsiveness with the Board’s support and direction.
Rationale: The recruitment and hiring of a permanent superintendent/president is a
necessary component of the College’s future success.
