Background
Over the past 53 years, Centennial College has transformed itself from a local community college to a worldly institution, with presence in 127 countries more than 65% of the world’s countries. It has accomplished this through exemplary teaching, leadership and innovative programming that emphasizes new skills and blurs the line between work and learning. Correspondingly, Centennial boasts the highest overall student satisfaction rate (74%) and service quality satisfaction (62%) among the four Toronto colleges – and employers indicate 91% satisfaction with how Centennial prepares graduates for work (1.2 percentage points higher than the provincial average) and 93% satisfaction with the quality of Centennial graduates’ contributions in the workplace.
In a time of prosperity and growth, it is prudent for the College to confront environmental disruptions and engage in a critical review of internal approaches in order to revitalize itself for the journey ahead.
Specifically, in order to sustain the College’s history of success and position itself for targeted strategic enhancements within an increasingly complex, tumultuous, and competitive context, Centennial College is seeking the expertise of an external consultant to explore the following questions:
- Who is Centennial or, perhaps better stated, why would a student want to entrust precious resources of time, money, and energy towards work goals to Centennial College?
- Considering the theoretical perspectives of structuration and institutionalization, along with promising SEM approaches, leads to the question: How should individual actors and formal governance (i.e., committees, working groups, and steering bodies) function for Centennial to be an effective SEM institution.
- What should Centennial’s SEM goals be? Specifically, what components of SEM (across the transition in, through, and out) that have been informed through strategic intelligence, should Centennial identify, define, and focus on to position itself in the market for future success? Correspondingly, what should governance and ongoing evaluation look like in order to ensure coupling, coordinating, and accountability?
A more comprehensive scope of work document will be provided, in confidence, to bidders for proposal composition purposes.
Scope of Work and Deliverables
It is the College’s expectation that the vendor will factor into their proposal the following processes and deliverables:
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- Identity (the WHY)
Following extensive consultation and review and consideration of the environment, define a clear and strong Centennial identity/brand that permeates external markets and internal climate.
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- Strategic Intelligence Report (the WHAT)
Conduct a thorough interrogation of institutional documents and data and the extant literature for evidence-based projections to compose a robust report of considerations in the landscape that Centennial must engage. The report must identify directions for optimizing both domestic and international student enrolment, Continuing Education offerings as strategic pathways towards earning credentials at the College, strengthening initiatives for student success, and providing the “right” mix of academic programming and robust methodology for determining that mix. The report should define SEM dimensions for Centennial College and translate the projections into cogent goals, with recommended institutional LAG measures and associated LEAD measures for subordinate areas.
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- Governance (the HOW)
Design a clear, coordinated, and effective SEM governance structure (along with revised terms of reference for all relevant committees to ensure articulation) and specific leadership positions that enable the College to sustain a strategically intelligent approach to planning, development, execution and assessment. This should include a meta-strategic cycle for institutional planning, evaluation and coordination of resources.
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- Public and Private Reports
Deliver a (a) comprehensive report (including executive summary) that provides directions as per the aforementioned deliverables and (b) succinct accompanying, confidential report for the President & CEO to identify issues and barriers that arose that they will need to address and/or monitor in order to realize the ideal system.
The Consulting Firm’s proposal should outline an understanding of the assignment, initial assumptions, assessment questions, methodology, and work plan. Propose a methodology and work plan with deliverables and milestones.
Draft Assessment Report: The successful proponent (consulting team) is expected to submit a draft report at the end of the review. The date for submitting the draft report would be on/about July 31, 2020. The proponent, as part of the submission, must include this deliverable in their work plan.
Final Assessment Report: The successful proponent (consulting team) is expected to submit a final report at the end of the review. The date for submitting the final report would be on/about August 28, 2020. Once in receipt of the final report, the College will review and will resubmit the report with comments to the Consulting Firm within ten (10) business days. The Consulting Firm will submit the Final Assessment Report within five (5) business days following the receipt of comments by the College. The Final Report will be submitted to the College in electronic format. The final report shall take into consideration comments and clarifications received from any and all debriefings.
