SECTION 7: INSTITUTIONAL PLANNING AND EFFECTIVENESS

7.3    ADMINISTRATIVE EFFECTIVENESS

The institution identifies expected outcomes of its administrative support services and demonstrates the extent to which the outcomes are achieved.

JUDGEMENT

Compliance     Non-Compliance     Partial Compliance

NARRATIVE

N.C. A&T’s current strategic plan A&T Preeminence: Taking the Momentum to 2023 is a refresh of its previous strategic plan Preeminence 2020: Embracing our Past, Creating Our Future that set the strategic long-term course for the institution in 2011. Both the current and previous strategic plans place strong emphasis on operational efficiency and administrative effectiveness. Goal 4 of the university’s current strategic plan is focused on administrative effectiveness and efficiency as are two of the four elements in Goal 5. In addition, administrative support units all have individual strategic plans that align with the university’s strategic plan.  Two examples of unit strategic plans are provided—Student Affairs and Information Technology.

Goal 4:  STEWARDSHIP, OPERATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCIES.  North Carolina A&T will excel in resource stewardship, operational effectiveness and efficiencies.

4.1.   Achieve exemplary end-user service and response time.

4.2.   Increase diversity of funding sources in research, private and federal funding.

4.3.   Enhance and develop new relationships with non-research funding entities to broaden the university’s portfolio and to increase related funding.

4.4.   Create innovative revenue-generating opportunities and supportive seed funding.

4.5.   Enhance and modernize business practices throughout the university.

4.6.   Optimize available physical, human, financial and other resources.

Goal 5: DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE CULTURE.  North Carolina A&T will strengthen our campus community by fostering a more diverse and inclusive culture at all levels.

5.1.   Enhance the cultural and intellectual environment of the university by advancing an inclusive university campus community.

5.2.   Embrace a culture of respect to support diversity in all forms among the faculty, staff and student body.

5.3.   Graduate our students with global credentials through experiences abroad, international studies and domestic and international work experiences.

5.4.   Address in-state academic achievement gaps facing low-income, rural population and gender-related concerns.

All but 5.3 and 5.4 specifically demand responses from the administrative units, and each unit has prepare a strategic plan that addresses it major goals and initiatives, consistent with the goals of Preeminence 2023.  

Table 7.3—i shows evidence of administrative assessments at N.C. A&T, for the 2019—2020 academic year.  Links are provided to the unit assessment reports, which cover at least a three-year period.

Table 7.3—i: Summaries of Planning and Assessment Results and Improvements (2019—2020)

Units	Outcome Statements	Assessment Results	Improvements
Chancellor’s Office (2018—2019)	The Board of Trustees (BOT) will evaluate its satisfaction with all aspects of its performance in fulfilling its governance responsibilities. Self-assessment done by guided by a consulting group.  Goal was 100% participation.	75% of the BOT members participated in the survey. An analysis of the assessment reveals that the majority of members strongly agree that the board maintains an effective operation in overall governance and institutional oversight.	Implement regular BOT self-assessments in compliance with system recommendations. Increase opportunities for BOT to interact and collaborate with key constituents in an effort to build stronger relationships.
	Special Events will use the Chancellor’s Speaker Series to present individuals of national and global recognition who symbolize preeminence in their respective fields.	Two events were executed each semester with speakers and topics of relevance and global recognition.  Survey was sent to students who received tickets through ticket office. Survey Results – 90% overall satisfaction rating of all events.	Create student focus groups to assist with recommendation of speakers and topics for upcoming events
	External Affairs will increase federal contacts and federal advocacy, to create more intentional interaction with federal elected officials, staff and agencies.	The office has partnered to host the inaugural Diversity in Tech Summit with the Bipartisan HBCU Caucus. The office has also had direct advocacy input with 2019 Farm Bill, which saw the largest increase in appropriations in the history of the university. The Director of External Affairs currently serves as the liaison for federal advocacy for the Council of 1890 Universities and was also elected to serve on the Executive Board of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities Council of Government Affairs.	Create publications that are focused on research that directly relates to federal agencies. Coordinate Federal Advocacy Day in Washington, DC. Utilizing Chancellor, Provost and Senior University leadership.
	University Relations will create new branded college collateral to assist academic units with external presentation of their programs and accomplishments and with donor and student recruitment.	New branded collateral was created for each college and implemented in a variety of collateral, including the new college websites created in 2018-19, college admissions materials, college stationery and wordmarks.	Work with College of Business and Economics to incorporate its new name into all branded materials.
Athletics	Achieve and maintain an annual departmental Single Year Academic Rate of at least 985. (2018)	987 Target met	Maintain
	Achieve and maintain an annual departmental Graduation Success Rate of at least 75%. (2019)	79.1 Target met	Added Mental Health counselor for student-athletes.
	Exceed $1,000,000 in annual donations to the Aggie Athletics Foundation.	$1,023,846 Target met	Developing capital campaign strategy for athletics facilities – launch in 2021.
	Achieve at least five (5) conference or national championships annually.	4 Inconclusive	Will determine at the end of the academic year (COVID-19).
Business and Finance	Significantly reduce the number of physical invoices flowing into the office and the attendant post processing scanning by partnering with EDM, our third-party scanning processor, to receive and scan vendor invoices. (Continued from 2018-19) The goal is to reach nearly 100% of invoices received in the office electronically	EDM has scanned approximately 7,000 invoices from 7/1/19 through 4/13/20. Paper invoices have decreased by approximately 40%. We still process approximately 8,500 manual invoices in Aggie Mart. About 2,500 invoices are processed electronically.	Goal has been Met Planned Improvement - Continue to reduce the number of paper invoices received in the office.
	Continue to make the Chrome River system more effective with respect to A&T processes, to train faculty/staff, to explore and utilize more system capabilities. Complete the implementation of the Chrome River travel reimbursement system. Identify and resolve system weaknesses by reviewing CR reports and conducting system tests.	We estimate that paper flow of travel reimbursements has dropped 90-95%. Cash Advance, personal expense, split transaction configurations needed adjustments. Customer satisfaction feedback has been positive; fewer phone requests indicate that usage is becoming easier for our customers.	Nuances of the Chrome River system are being worked on virtually every day in this ongoing process and should continue. Improved configurations and adjustments have resolved the majority of the existing issues. Some improvements in the report writing have been made with the help of the CR technical help desk staff, however all issues have not been resolved.
	Significantly reduce the number of employee overpayments and increase recovery time by establishing clear protocols for prevention and recovery. At July 1, 2019 there were 5 employees owing $18,744.68. The target is to recover this and reduce the June 30, 2020 balance.	We maintain a clearing fund for these issues and expect the amount of dollars in the fund to reduce significantly.	Evaluation to be conducted in May. An effective process must include the divisions of Human Resources and Research.
Human Resources	Achieve and maintain a conflict of interest rate of at least 95%.	95% Target met	Maintain
	Achieve and maintain an annual promotion rate increase of at least 40%.	75% Target met	Maintain
	Achieve and maintain an annual tenure rate of at least 15	16 Target met	Maintain
	Recruit and retain top talent faculty and staff.	53	Actively source and mine candidates through the company’s applicant tracking system and through additional online sources (e.g. LinkedIn, NC Works, etc.)
	Achieve and Maintain an annual  customer service satisfaction rate of at least 85%	90% Target met	Maintain
	Achieve and maintain an annual Professional development course recommendation rate of at least 80%.	98% Target met	Maintain
	Achieve and maintain an annual professional development courses increase of at least 5.	12 new courses Target met	Maintain
Information Technology	The Internet will be available to the campus with less than 30 minutes per month total connectivity outage.	Internet availability to the campus was 100% and host service averaged 99.87% from 5/31/2017-4/01/20 per the Nagios Host Availability report. FY2018: The goal was met. FY2019: The goal was met. FY2020: The goal is on target to be met.	NSA will continue using Nagios for monitoring and reporting Internet availability and expand to include monitoring and reporting of other services such as VPN access.
	Planned uptime for DHCP and DNS services will average 99% per month.	Planned uptime for DHCP and DNS services was 100% for host availability and 99.95% for average service availability from 5/31/2017-4/01/20 per the Infoblox Host Availability report. FY2018: The goal was met. FY2019: The goal was met. FY2020: The goal is on target to be met.	NSA will continue using Nagios for monitoring and reporting DHCP and DNS services availability and expand to include monitoring and reporting of other services such as VPN access.
	Blackboard will be available 99.5% per academic year outside of scheduled maintenance and downtime.	FY18: 1083 minutes (18 h 5 m) downtime / 2629 min yearly allowance.  Goal met. FY19: 1583 minutes (26 h 38 m) downtime / 2629 min yearly allowance.  Goal met. FY20: 1907 minutes (31 h 42 m) downtime / 2629 min yearly allowance. Goal met.	The supporting documentation indicates that the root cause of Blackboard downtime is incidents outside of ITTD control. One incident is due to issues in Blackboard’s data centers. All other unplanned downtime is due to issues with the design of the Banner-Blackboard interface produced by EAS. To address these problems, EAS and ITTD launched a project to redesign and replace the interface in FY20. ITTD and EAS will monitor the performance of the new interface in FY21.
	Blackboard access issues will be resolved within 24 hours 99.9% of the time.	FY18: 98.90% 362 Login/Access issues reported; 4 issues took longer than 24 business hours to resolve FY18: Goal was not met by 1% point. FY19: 99.47% 375 Login/Access issues reported; 2 issues took longer than 24 business hours to resolve FY19: Goal was not met by a fraction of a percentage point. FY20: 99.66% 298 Login/Access issues reported; 1 issue took longer than 24 business hours to resolve. FY20: Goal on target to meet.	A careful assessment of this metric indicates that the target percentage of 99.9% is unrealistic and a modest reduction to 95% is reasonable. Less than 3 issues per year took longer than 24 hours to resolve on average over the past 3 years. A target of 95% still represents a very high level of service. ITTD will continue to monitor this metric in the coming year.
Legal Affairs	Create and implement an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) program to establish a systematic organization wide approach to proactively manage campus risks.	Host ERM workshop to revisit, review and revise risk priorities and mitigation efforts. Outcome: TBD after July 1, 2020; progress delayed due to COVID 19.
	Create and implement a university-wide Ethics and Compliance program based upon the nationally accepted foundation of the United States Sentencing Commission’s seven elements of an effective compliance program.	Regular updates to Cabinet and Board; creation of biannual compliance activity report. Outcome: Cabinet and Board updated quarterly with written reports. Biannual report completed and presented November 2019. Offer a minimum of 10 training programs in compliance related areas. Outcome: Complete – 15 training sessions offered.
	Enhance the University’s Title IX prevention and education program	Provide annual report to Chancellor and Board of Trustees of the status of the strategic plan and impact of new Title IX regulations. Outcome: Complete, June 2020. Complete website design. Outcome: Incomplete; University website design and COVID-19 impacted full implementation Appoint sexual misconduct board; provide 3 training sessions for members and Dean of Students staff. Outcome: Complete; structure will change 20-21 due to new Title IX regulations.
	Promote OLA staff professional development to enhance the effectiveness and visibility of the Office of Legal Affairs and its attorneys within the University community through enhanced and continued engagement with administrators, supervisors, faculty, and staff through increased training opportunities and communications with units; as well as the local, state, and national legal communities/professional organization.	At least 50% of staff will attend or present at a conference annually. Outcome: For the 2019-2020 fiscal year, 75 % of /staff in the Office of Legal office attended or presented at a conference.  OLA staff member recipient of distinguished service award from the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) Increase number of training and campus outreach by 25% Outcome:
	Development and implementation of a revised University-wide comprehensive policy related to COI/COC to supplement research conflict of interest policies.	Outcome: Policy approved by Cabinet and Board effective Sept. 2019.
Research and Economic Development	Faculty develop competitive proposals. Anticipate seeing growth of at least 10% in the number of proposals each year.	The goal has been met for FY20 even though data have only been collected through March 31, 2020.	Faculty develop competitive proposals – ORSPM and OSP will continue to assist faculty in finding relevant funding opportunities, creating and advancing functional teams, and developing high-quality, competitive proposals.
	Administer proposal submission and awards received. Anticipate seeing growth of at least 4.5% in the total dollar amount of award funding received each year	The goal for FY2020 may not be met, although data has been collected through March 30, 2020.	Administer proposal submission and award set-up – OSP and C&G will work with faculty and sponsors to ensure quick, correct award negotiation, and award set-up.
	Increase in the number of patents issued. At least 4 patents issued each year.	The goal has been met for FY20 – 6 patents issued.	Increase in the number of patents issued or license agreements signed.  – Tech Transfer will continue to work with faculty on patent and license issues to ensure successful patent applications as well as an increase in license agreements.
	Improve business processes to ensure timely receipt of receivables. UNC System Office Key Performance Indicators Report will report aging of receivables in the “green”	The goal not met as of March 31, 2020.	Improve business processes to ensure timely receipt of receivables and award closeout.  – Contracts and Grants will continue to review and revise processes to ensure timely receipt of receivables and award closeout.
	Reduce the number of post-approval research compliance findings. Zero findings of non-compliance.	FY20 – The goal Met through March 31, 2020.	Increase awareness of research integrity through training to assist faculty and students in maintaining research compliance.
University Advancement	Please see the Assessment/Annual Report

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS

1. A&T Preeminence: Taking the Momentum to 2023

2. A&T Preeminence 2020

3. Unit Strategic Plans (2 examples)

a. Division of Information Technology

b. Division of Student Affairs