2024 - 2029 Strategic Plan: Year One

Tactic 1.1.1. Expand programming/support for prospective students in the region.

To better reach and support prospective student populations, a quarterly workgroup began meeting to plan and implement new approaches and resources. Efforts included enhancing recruitment and admissions materials to engage a broader range of prospective students.

Under the leadership of Dr. Anthony Warrick, Director of Community Engagement, CSM’s homeschool program launched with 23 students on the La Plata campus in 2019 and now serves over 8% of Southern Maryland’s homeschool community. In the past year, homeschool enrollment exceeded its FY25 target of 1,030 registrations, growing from 961 in FY24 to 1,052. This fall, the program will expand to the Prince Frederick campus, piloting 12 classes for students ages 5 to 14. Additionally, $10K in scholarships, provided by the CSM Foundation, will help homeschool students access the program in FY26.

Purposeful work was done this year in support of neurodiverse students as well, with dedicated leadership and staff learning initiatives on how to best support these students, including the review resources and literature on the topic. A new director of Disability Support Services (DSS) was hired to oversee the needs of students identifying as neurodiverse and the DSS unit’s website was updated to clearly demonstrate the commitment to supporting the needs of these learners. Counselors in DSS enhanced their knowledge through professional development, attending the 2025 Autism Symposium, which focused on actionable strategies to address trauma’s impact on sensory and emotional processing. At this event, CSM counselors learned how to accurately differentiate between autism and trauma traits to be able to better provide targeted, effective, and deeply holistic care to this student population.

In year one of implementation of the CSM strategic plan, the Nonprofit Institute (NPI) developed its own comprehensive strategic plan to support their work in delivering professional development and capacity-building resources for nonprofits serving the Southern Maryland region. The plan established forward-thinking goals and initiatives tied to implementing seamless pathways for clients of local nonprofits to access educational opportunities at CSM.

CSM also hosted the 15th annual Nonprofit Institute Conference, focusing on resilience and capacity building. This community event brought together nonprofit professionals from across Southern Maryland to explore opportunities for growth, collaboration, and service. The conference featured keynote remarks, panel discussions, and breakout sessions on topics such as artificial intelligence for nonprofits, partnerships with the for-profit sector, and funding strategies, alongside wellness components and exhibitor engagement.

In order to expand partnerships with nonprofit organizations that support some of our students with adapted learning needs, an MOU was established with the Division of Rehabilitation Services (DRS) to supplement the focus on autistic students. Additionally, students experiencing food insecurity were assisted by a Basic Needs Coordinator during times of crisis.

Adult learners often bring knowledge and skills related to their previous experiences in education, the workforce, and military service. To leverage that experience and help adult learners move through credit and non-credit programs efficiently, CSM launched a website and dedicated email address for students seeking information on Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) in 2024. The college established membership with the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) in December 2024, and in partnership with Marketing, conducted an awareness campaign for high school students and adult learners.

Work started on the development of faculty training for CPL assessment with a standardized training course design and creation of three BAD Portfolio Assessment shells. Faculty training will begin officially in the coming academic year. Eight departments were informed at department meetings about the college’s CPL efforts, and new department equivalency exam offerings were developed in June 2025.

Year one of efforts to create and enhance access for adult learners began with obtaining a better understanding of current and returning CSM students, including characteristics and reasons for stop outs. More detailed understanding of students reached through the ReUp initiative was also a focus, including their particular needs, aspects of their education they most value, and how to best communicate with them. The cumulative knowledge gained from this exploration has illuminated the need to enhance more comprehensive college communications around topics such as amnesty policies and credit for prior learning opportunities. An action plan aiming to address these issues has begun its planning phase.

In addition to better understand current adult student needs, plans to conduct a community needs assessment are in progress with the intent of identifying non-CSM stop out populations and prior students with some college but no degree to better understand the breadth and depth of the population and their specific programming needs.

This past year focused on understanding and strengthening foundational aspects to support success for all students, including both staffing and infrastructure. The ADA Committee was reestablished in January 2025 to explore ways to improve accessibility both inside and outside of the classroom. A cross-functional group with campus-wide representation, the committee was charged with leading the college’s efforts to promote and achieve an accessible environment for students with disabilities. Early work focused on reviewing policies and processes to identify barriers; expansion of faculty and staff training; establishing accessibility standards in electronic and information technology; and identifying accessibility challenges requiring solutions and improvements.

A comprehensive facilities study conducted by an external organization examined all public spaces on each campus, including parking lots, pathways, and public spaces inside each building. Additionally, the Maryland State Department of Education conducted an on-site review of spaces used for CTE programs as part of a program audit. These assessments identified areas for improvements, including increasing accessibility signage in parking lots and building entrances, enhancing two-way emergency communication systems in elevators, and increasing audible and visual alarm systems across campus. Work has already begun on addressing these concerns, and the Physical Accessibility Workgroup of the ADA Committee will continue to prioritize and plan further action items.

Student interest group participation grew to 160 students this year across 16 clubs. These clubs and organizations serve a wide range of student interests and provide opportunities for mentoring, leadership development, professional growth, and tutoring. In addition, college-supported social and cultural organizations offer students further ways to connect and engage on campus.

During the past year, CSM reviewed, clarified, and simplified the club creation process and began communicating the new process to students. Addressing momentum and retention concerns in shared-interest groups, Student Life is in the process of implementing a year-round model for student clubs and organizations. Additionally, in support of better club funding decision making, the college moved from a campus association model to a college-wide model to ensure more equitable funding for student clubs and organizations. The college also recognized student concerns about being overextended by the many requests for student representation, establishing a Student Leadership Team that allows students to self-identify interest in additional leadership and representation opportunities. This team is supported by coaching and scheduling support from CSM staff.

CSM is dedicated to increasing and enhancing student representation on campus decision-making bodies and engaged multiple student groups this past year for this valuable input. The Student Government Association (SGA) was engaged in the support of student activities and advocacy, including the following activities and initiatives: Amplify Student Voices, Student Advocacy Day, DREAM 2025 attendance, Student Hawk Huddle, CCSEE, Community Service Day, MLK Day of Service, SMCM/CSM Community Service, and Student Hawk Pitch.

Student clubs and organizations were engaged to expand dialogue and enhance their voice as students in leadership.

Finally, engagement opportunities between faculty and students were held, including the Miller Leadership Academy, faculty attendance of SGA meetings and Pink Out for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

A wide-ranging review of available data related to employee professional development opportunities and experiences was conducted in year one, including the following resources: CCSSE, CCFSSE, SENSE, MHEC Campus Climate Survey, PACE, and internal survey reports. Resources were assessed, feedback was provided, and reports were collected in a single repository. Moving forward, these data will be used to evaluate the current state of the college regarding employee professional growth opportunities.

Ongoing work related to this milestone includes: research other schools’ process for applying/receiving reimbursement for higher education; evaluation of existing data on employee experiences to gain insight into what is currently available to employees and how they feel about what is currently available; launching of an awareness and recognition campaign; allocation of an identified advisor dedicated to supporting CSM staff; updating supervisory and performance management data to include information on educational goals, and evaluating the effectiveness of the awareness campaign and trainings and make adjustments based on findings.

The milestone workgroup collectively identified and reviewed all CSM employee resources currently available to help students navigate through their student success needs, creating a comprehensive list for marketing to add in a single location on the CSM website for simplicity. A process for annually reviewing and updating these resources was also developed, including reviewing language, checking links, and adding or removing information as needed.

Other suggestions resulting from the work of this group included sharing information more purposefully and regularly with faculty and staff, particularly focusing on pre-semester. Faculty could also consider encouraging students in their classes to communicate with them if any student has a crisis and/or needs assistance.

Ideas for further engagement around student needs resources include a regular, comprehensive student needs survey or embedding of specific questions into existing processes and/or surveys to ensure all needs are being identified. Resources should be created with more universal user perspectives, specifically faculty and staff and not just students, who might be incorrectly assumed to actively seek out help when needed. Finally, the inclusion of a QR code linking to these materials and a primary referral point (e.g., email address) could be used to simplify and streamline access to relevant information for all users.

Leveraging both curricular and operational approaches, CSM increased support for adult learners and multilingual learners working towards a high school diploma or on English language skills so they could continue their education at CSM. To provide immediate support, a temporary Transition Navigator was hired to help students explore post-secondary and career pathways and new members were added to the ELL workgroup, including a new Coordinator for Adult Education and a new instructional specialist for adult education. EnGen software was implemented to provide a free, supplemental service to bilingual students as well.

The first-year seminar curriculum was updated for fall 2024 to better support the learning and resource needs of students, including how to locate resources in their transition from high school to college. Results from a student interest survey, “Road to Careers,” led to the creation of three new personal enrichment language classes and two adult education courses. Additionally, bilingual tutoring services are now available at the La Plata, Prince Frederick, and Leonardtown campuses, offering support both in and out of the classroom. The combination of these efforts has already helped 68 students transition from English language and adult education programs into credit-bearing or workforce training pathways, continuing their momentum towards academic and career success.

To improve how we deliver courses to meet student needs, CSM is finalizing the selection of a new scheduling software solution to support a more responsive and efficient course planning process. This initiative has been a cross-departmental effort including teams from IMT, DOL, CWD, OPS, and SES and has progressed through five phases, from stakeholder surveys to real-time vendor demonstrations.

Once finalized, the new platform will support a more student-centered scheduling experience: improving access to needed courses, maximizing classroom space, and giving students more transparency to build balanced, conflict-free schedules aligned with their academic and personal responsibilities. Faculty and staff will also benefit from improved workflows and more accurate course data. This work directly supports our strategic goals around retention, timely completion, and equitable access.

Aligned with exploration of technology solutions, a Strategic Scheduling Task Force is being launched in year two to further improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our course schedule. The task force will ensure that scheduling decisions align with student needs, instructional capacity, and institutional strategy. Next steps include launching interdisciplinary scheduling meetings, aligning course schedules with program pathways, and ensuring clean, reliable data to support a strong system launch. This comprehensive approach, focusing on a trifecta of technology, processes, and policies, will support student success by addressing key barriers: course availability and scheduling conflicts, campus location and modality issues, and the clarity of information provided.

CSM launched the Center for Career Development and Success (CCDS) on the La Plata Campus in spring 2025, which provides students with a comprehensive career support system, offering access to a wide range of services and valuable opportunities. Consulting with industry engagement specialists at CCDS is available for experiential learning, internships, externships, and apprenticeships; career exploration, resume preparation, interview preparation; and professional competency development learning opportunities, including webinars, seminars, and in-person events. Career services were also expanded to include work-based learning opportunities.

The college worked to increase internship opportunities for students this year through intentional networking and growth of business partnerships. Focus groups were also conducted in order to inform the development of an experiential learning functionality in Simplicity software, with an implementation date in late summer/early fall 2025.

Building on a foundation of over 300 articulation agreements with over 60 different institutions, the strategic plan focused CSM forward by expanding and strengthening our transfer partnerships to hone our focus and efforts on the agreements that are getting, or have the potential to get, our students to the finish line. Articulation agreements span all across the board when it comes to the location of our partners, the teaching modalities offered, and the pathways built for our programs. The initial goal of this work is to identify those partnerships and pathways being most utilized and benefitted from by students, explore the potential partnerships and pathways our students may be missing out on, and develop various support systems for both students and the faculty and staff supporting transfer students that make the transfer process as seamless as possible.

Over the past year, the main focus for this milestone’s work has centered on reviewing our existing agreements and where they are in their review cycle, gathering data on where our students are transferring to and earning bachelor’s degrees at on a program level, and visiting the campuses of institutions to begin the discussions of creating and expanding partnerships. A tracking system was built using the SmartSheet platform, which makes pulling agreement information at various levels more efficient.

Transfer data was gathered data at a program level (where students are transferring to, based on the program of study they were in at CSM), and data dashboards were created for all academic departments. Each department and each individual program will have its own dashboard that displays data on the top transfer institutions for students within that program, the top bachelor’s degrees being earned, as well as the list of all of the agreements and their statuses for that program. These dashboards have not been officially shared with all academic departments just yet, but they will allow for transparency between Transfer Services and the Division of Learning that did not previously exist and provide insight when reviewing the agreements to prioritize for our students.

In the last year, CSM leadership teams also made campus visits to both Towson University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, as well as joined the state-wide initiative called the Maryland Transfer Intensive to strengthen the transfer process amongst the 2 and 4-year institutions within the state of Maryland.

As part of CSM’s commitment to growing and enhancing transfer partnerships, CSM joined the Maryland Transfer Intensive (MTI) in spring 2025, an initiative jointly led by the Aspen Institute and MHEC. This multi-year effort focuses on improving transfer and subsequent bachelor’s degree attainment for Maryland residents to develop a diverse workforce talent pool and enhance economic mobility and security for Maryland residents. Leveraging a data and analytics-based approach, leadership engagement, and examination and further development of institutional and partnership practices, 2 and 4-year school representatives were paired to establish new, scalable approaches to foster strong transfer student outcomes and experiences.

Using the framework of the MTI, CSM is partnering with UMBC with the goal of developing and implementing a clear transfer pathway to support CSM students who wish to go on to be STEM educators, a defined need in the southern Maryland area. Using this program as a starting point, the colleges will continue to strengthen their partnership over time, possibly expanding the number of transfer agreements for students completing their associate’s degrees in CSM programs in the future. Shared goals across the institutions currently include improving 4-year graduation rates for transfer students, strengthening STEM pathways and outcomes, expanding transfer enrollment from CSM To UMBC, supporting first-year success through enhanced engagement and advising.

By honing the college’s focus and efforts on the partnerships being most utilized by and benefited from by our students, as well as new partnerships and pathways that align with local workforce needs and providing students with living wage opportunities, we will be able to expand the tools and resources available to students for each of those partnerships and pathways, build up the transfer-related events connecting students to our transfer partners, and give our faculty and staff at CSM the tools and knowledge they need to better support our students while navigating the transfer process. The overall goal of this work is increasing successful transfer as a whole for all students (not just the traditional full-time student who enters right after high school) and enabling more students reaching their finish line of earning the bachelor’s degree in a timely manner and at an affordable cost.

• Unduplicated Headcount: the distinct count of unique, individual students enrolled during the fiscal year period. Each student is counted only once, irrespective of their enrollment status, course load, or terms enrolled during the fiscal year period.
• Credit students: Those enrolled in classes that may earn credit toward an academic degree
• Non-Credit students: Those enrolled in continuing education, workforce development, or personal enrichment classes that may culminate in some type of certification, but not a degree
• Fiscal Year: Period of time between July 1 and June 30
• First-time student: A student attending college for the first time at the undergraduate level. Includes students enrolled in the fall term who attended college for the first time in the prior summer term. Also includes students who entered with advanced standing (college credits earned before graduation from high school)
• Enrollment Status: Full-time student: Credit student enrolled for 12 or more credit hours in a semester
• Enrollment Status: Part-time student: Credit student enrolled for fewer than 12 credit hours in a semester
• Degree-seeking: Student enrolled in courses for credit who is recognized by the institution as seeking a degree or formal award
• Transfer Student: A student entering an institution for the first time after earning a high school diploma or equivalent, who has successfully completed at least one course at another institution of higher education that is transferable to the institution the student is currently enrolled

• Credit and Non-Credit Headcounts: Each student who attends CSM during the fiscal year is counted once per enrollment area (credit and non-credit). Students who enrolled in both credit and non-credit courses are counted once in each category.
• Fall-to-Spring Retention Rate: The percentage of first-time, credit students who enroll in their first fall semester and then re-enroll for the subsequent spring semester. The percentage does not include those students that graduated prior to the subsequent spring semester.
• Fall-to-Fall Retention Rate: The percentage of first-time, credit students who enroll in their first fall semester and then re-enroll for the subsequent fall semester. The percentage does not include those students that graduated prior to the subsequent fall semester.
• First-Time, Full-Time 3-Year Degree or Certificate Attainment: The percentage of first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who completed a degree or certificate within three years.
• First-Time, Part-Time 6-Year Degree or Certificate Attainment: The percentage of first-time, part-time, degree-seeking students who completed a degree or certificate within six years.
• Transfer rate within one year of earning associate degree: The percentage of students who earned an associate degree in a given fiscal year who transferred to a four-year institution by the end of the following fiscal year.