COMBASE: Innovative Colleges Helping Each Other With New Initiatives

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Vision
COMBASE focuses on supporting education that is community-based (CBE) and on enhancing the ability of its members to serve their communities.

Mission
COMBASE is a member-driven consortium created to improve community-based education (CBE) in its member institutions and to serve as an advocate for maintaining the importance of "community" in community colleges.

Goals
The COMBASE membership adopts the following goals as strategies for accomplishing the above mission:

Serve as a resource clearinghouse for CBE experts, articles, and other materials that institutions can use in developing their CBE initiatives.

Create a file on experts in CBE.
Create a file on articles and other materials that deal with the topic of CBE. In addition to hard copy files, place the above items on the COMBASE website.

Serve as an advocate for CBE to all community colleges by means of convention/conference forums, articles, speeches, the COMBASE and other websites, and other appropriate means of communication.
- Present forums at the AACC convention and submit proposals to other conventions.
- Submit articles on program initiatives, and submit them to various sources for publication, including COMBASE publications.
- Include all articles on the COMBASE website.
- The COMBASE fall conference should feature forums on program areas.
Conduct demonstration and/or experimental program initiatives, as well as improve existing program initiatives, that connect the community college and its communities.
- Institutional Representatives (IR's) should lead these projects.
- Program Areas (PA's) should include, but not be limited to, the following:
  1. Community building initiatives
  2. Citizenship Building
  3. Teacher Education
  4. Lifelong learning
  5. The community and technology
  6. Service learning
  7. Workforce development
Serve as the advocate for "community" in community colleges.
- Create John Gardner Award for Excellence, arecognition program for exemplary institutions that serve as advocatesfor "community."
- Make awards at Assembly meeting during AACC and seek publicity for the awards.
Emphasize collaboration and cooperation among COMBASE members.
- Encourage use of conferencing feature contained in COMBASE website.
- Encourage collaboration in conducting CBE initiatives.
Conduct the business of COMBASE in an inclusive manner that emphasizes participation and involvement. Create standing committees, such as membership, budget, publications, conference and nominations. Select lead and possibly co-lead institutions for PA's.
Develop future CBE leaders by mentoring, supporting, and involving Institutional Representatives (IR's).
- IR's should direct an institution's program initiatives.
- IR's should play a major role in preparing articles, providing information for the COMBASE website and in leading collaboration between institutions.

Process
Each member of COMBASE is expected to participate in one or more PA's by adopting one or more program initiatives and working toward the accomplishment of the above goals. Each PA will have a chair, selected at the winter board meeting by the President for three-year terms (staggered). Presentations from each PA will be made at the Fall Conference and forum proposals for the AACC and other conventions could originate from within PA's. Articles and WEB information could originate from within PA's as well.

COMBASE Strategic Plan