Mt. San Jacinto Community College District

Strategic Plan, 2010-2017

This plan has been compiled from District planning documents developed by the Interim Dean of Planning, from documents provided by the Director of Grants, the Associate Dean of Research, and the Dean of Information Technology, and from documents commissioned by the District from the Mitchell Group (PPL). Principal author: R. Rockwell

June 25, 2009

Preface

Mt. San Jacinto Community College District is approaching its fiftieth anniversary. Rapid population growth, constrained fiscal resources, changing job markets—these and other factors will shape the District’s future. These same factors confront the Board and all employees with the extraordinary challenge of devising plans to guide the college through daunting times.

This atmosphere of rapid change and uncertain resources demands that we plan carefully. However, the pace of change ensures that current predictions will not be entirely accurate. Thus, planning must be sufficiently accurate to guide the District toward the future, yet flexible enough to adjust to unforeseen events. Moreover, even as the challenges of change require adaptation, it will be important to retain the values that have made MSJC unique. To lose sight of these values would be to lose touch with basic, enduring commitments which lend the college great strength. This is the special combination that strategic planning provides.

The strategic plan is the way the college finds answers to the questions posed by the future. Institutional purposes (the mission) and values, institutional strengths and weaknesses (via outcomes) are compared to future trends. If the current characteristics of the college are incompatible with the demands of the future, then the college must either change itself or find a successful way to swim against the tide.

The plan contains several parts. The first is a scan of the external context, the characteristics and demographics of the District, communities, and region. The second considers the economy, the job market, the fiscal climate, and the implications of all for offerings and programs. The third section assesses the current climate within the District’s operations, from curricular and enrollment patterns to staffing, facility, and equipment needs. In this way, the gap between the present and the future is made clear.

Finally, the last section identifies the implications of the preceding sections, the programmatic, personnel, facility, and finance issues, both in terms of current and future needs. I fused well, it can guide growth and development planning, helping to ensure that decisions are made with information in hand in an atmosphere of deliberation rather than hasty reaction.

  1. MSJCCD Strategic Plan, Part One: Communities and Demographics
  1. District and Sub-regions:Four Service Areas

The Master Plan, commissioned by the District from the Mitchell group through PPL, argued for planning to address the characteristics and needs of four distinct Service Areas within the District. A Service Area is an area within which a resident student would likely to select a college site at which to enroll. This approach to planning acknowledges that proximity is a primary factor students consider when determining where to attend classes. Others are transport time, shopping and entertainment links, and cultural traditions. Further, the college can affect student behavior through the nature of offerings, recruitment, and connectedness to the community. Nonetheless, proximity is a powerful motivator of student behavior, a fact reflected in the sharply higher participation rates visible statewide when students can attend within a fifteen minute transport time.

Map 1

West-Central Riverside County, Showing Incorporated Areas and Transport Corridors

Map 1indicates the impact of topography on transportation and hence enrollment patterns. The locations of the main transportation routes follow the valleys and passes, connecting the flat, buildable land via major arteries. Most of the major highways run in a generally north-south direction. These transportation routes and topography in turn have influenced the location of campuses and will determine in part the location of future centers, since available flat, buildable land is clustered adjacent to those transportation corridors, causing current and future residential populations to cluster near the major routes.

Basing its perceptions on transportation routes, topography, the location of existing campuses, population growth and patterns, the location of the urban centers, and the existing underserved areas, the Mitchell Report (2008) and the Updated Educational Plan (2009) argue that students of the Mt. San Jacinto Community College District could best be served if the District were divided into four Service Areas (see Map 2) with separate facilities provided for each area: the two existing facilities at San Jacinto and at Menifee, one in The Pass area, and one in the I-15 Corridor area (including the communities between Temecula and Lake Elsinore).

These four Service Areas do not necessarily match geographic regions nor the existing Trustee Areas, but arguments can be made that they are roughly equal in population and they are proximate to the campuses and the centers considered in the Mitchell Plan.Table 1 shows the suggested division of the District into four service areas (see below).

Table 1

Service Areas and Their Communities

(A) San Jacinto Service Area / (B) Menifee Service Area / (C) I-15 Service Area / (D) The Pass Service Area
Aguanga
Anza
East Hemet
Gilman Hot Springs
Hemet
Idyllwild
MountainCenter
Pine Cove
Sage
San Jacinto
Valle Vista
Winchester / Canyon Lake
Homeland
Lakeview
Menifee
Nuevo
Perris
Quail Valley
Romoland
Sun City / Lake Elsinore
LakelandVillage
Murrieta
Sedco Hills
Temecula
Wildomar / Banning
Beaumont
Cabazon
Calimesa
CherryValley
Whitewater

The rural area located in the east and southeast portion of the District contains only the small populations of Idyllwild, Pine Cove, Aguanga, Anza and Sage. To date, there has been no discussion about establishing a separate center in this region; students from the area will are likely to attend outreach courses to begin their college experience, or attend either the campus in San Jacinto or a facility to be established in the Temecula/Lake Elsinore region. Area C is so configured that it seems feasible for a major general education center to be established at one end of Area C, with a smaller, more specialized one at the other end. Table 5 reflects the areas suggested in the Mitchell Plan. From the perspective of the Mitchell Plan, facilities would be required in each of the areas, whether new construction of centers or build-out and refurbishing of existing campuses.

Area A: The area around San Jacinto and Hemet is another separate area in which the original college is located. The 2006 Fact Book states that the San Jacinto area in particular is slated for the rapid growth in the near future, although that future appears to be slowed by perhaps five years due to the profound recession affecting the region, state, and nation. The slow-to-no-growth mountain communities of Pine Cove and Idyllwild are served from the campus in the San Jacinto Valley, but some students (especially working commuters headed to San Bernardino or Ontario) may find an educational center in the Pass to be more convenient.

Area B: The Menifee area includes all the territory from Menifee north to Perris and the communities in between. It has a large population and is slated to grow in the future. Students from this area are most likely to attend the Menifee Valley Campus, which has already exceeded the original campus ion size and which can clearly attract students for program completion or select specialty programs for most of the area from Winchester south and west.

Area C: The I-15 corridor includes the territory between Temecula and Lake Elsinore. It also has a large and growing population. The District has leased temporary facilities in the Temecula area, which could accommodate approximately 1,000 full-time equivalent students (and an enrollment of approximately 3,000). The building has classrooms but no laboratories. Thus, it would not be possible to offer a full program in those facilities without significant investment in a rented building. Many students from the Temecula/Lake Elsinore areas would continue to attend classes at the Menifee site, especially from Temecula, which is only a 10 to 15 minute drive by freeway. Others, reflecting a long-standing cultural identification with San Diego, would continue to attend Palomar College. In any case, it seems more logical to establish a center closer to the center of the Service Area. Establishing a center there would have the advantage of reducing student travel time required to reach a center in the area.

Area D: The Pass Service Area in the north along Highway 10 includes Cherry Valley, Whitewater, Calimesa and neighboring communities. Although small in total population, as recovery from the current recession accelerates housing starts in the area, Beaumont is slated for rapid growth. Planning is already underway for the establishment of a center in that area. The District already owns sufficient land on which to build a center near Banning. The District is pursuing development of the site, including utilities, grading, and a parking areas, so that at least temporary modular buildings will be available in the not too distant future.

The distance between the facilities in this scenario is very small, and considerably less than the Chancellor’s Office has required in the past for new centers. However, distance may be mitigated by the geography and topography of the area, and consideration may be given to the fact that the main transportation corridors run north/south, with only Highway 74 and Highway 10 providing east/west access. Further, at certain critical times of day travel times are much greater that the distance would suggest, due to the great lag in infrastructure development in Western Riverside County.

An alternative scenario exists in which the District can be viewed as five areas. This possible configuration, based on purchasing an commuting behaviors as determined by the Western Riverside CountyOrganization of Governments in its 2006 study of transportation behavior, can be seen in Map 3, below. It would support the “two centers in the Western Corridor” idea, but create separate service areas surrounding each. In this scenario, a specialized educational center would emerge in Temecula, while a more

general one would be built in the Wildomar or Lake Elsinore area. Whether either of these patterns will prove feasible may depend upon other matters, however, such as assessed valuation, actual route times, and the like.

  1. Population Trends

It is clear that MSJCCD will continue to grow, after the interruption to residential construction caused by the current recession. The District Master Plan (Mitchell Report) identified the outlines of that growth as it was reflected in 2005 data. However, subsequently, the District’s adult population was the subject of a 2008 updated estimate by the California Department of Finance, and that update permits a better sense of growth patterns in the district, as well as a more accurate determination of participation rates among the adult population in the District. Overall, it appears that each service area will experience substantial growth, with the largest share occurring in the I-15 corridor.

  1. General Population Growth

The District occupies the portion of Riverside County which has experienced the largest amount of growth over the last 20 years. Due to the availability of buildable land and the relatively inexpensive cost of utilities, it is likely that this pattern of growth will be sustained during the next two decades, although questions of available water, transportation, and delivery of non-fossil-fuel energy may play role in the pace of development. A further consideration is the deepening recession, the length and profundity of which is unknown. A slower pace of growth is the immediate result, and the job-loss that has also resulted promises to compound the issue (with the county reaching over 12% unemployment in early 2009 and most communities in the District exceeding that level). Ironically but predictably, these conditions have resulted in evenhigher demand for classes than usual at the same time that the economy in the region has weakened and the state is increasingly less able to support enrollment growth and facility construction.

Table 2: Population Projection MSJCCD, Incorporated Areas
From DOF E-5 at West. Riverside Council of Govt. / 2010 / 2015 / 2020 / 2025
Banning / 36645 / 42120 / 47684 / 53713
Beaumont / 33951 / 45029 / 52591 / 63660
Calimesa / 11605 / 15193 / 18267 / 21348
Canyon Lake / 11137 / 11227 / 11409 / 11533
Hemet / 85742 / 100832 / 107533 / 120353
Lake Elsinore / 51138 / 61045 / 69558 / 78044
Menifee / 27848 / 35018 / 48431 / 50338
Murrieta / 103726 / 109715 / 114370 / 119689
Perris / 55799 / 64221 / 71468 / 78671
San Jacinto / 51322 / 68731 / 80922 / 87000
Temecula / 99387 / 103150 / 112551 / 117800
Wildomar / 30779 / 35144 / 38918 / 41198
Totals, incorporated / 599079 / 691425 / 773702 / 843347
Percentage change / 15.4 / 11.9 / 9.0
Overall percentage change / 40.8

However, It is relatively straightforward toenvision demand over the next decade and beyond, if one remembers that District in-migration has sloweddue to economic conditions. Department of Finance figures forecast a total population gain of about 401% by 2025, a daunting prospect reflected in Table 2 above.

However, it is also necessary to note that the Department of Finance normally undercounts adult populations in Western Riverside County, because it only analyzes incorporated areas and census designated places. Table 3 reveals that a more complete count significantly alters the picture: over 225,000 additional residents should be added to the calculation by 2020.

According to the projections developed for the Riverside Center for Demographic Research, the figure being used by the Department of Finance had already been met within MSJCCD in 2008, and the 2020 figure under countsresidents by more than 200,000.

  1. Adult Population Growth

MSJCC District’s population is becoming younger as new residents arrive.Department of Finance figures are used to determine the size of the adult population in California community college districts. It is likely that DOF forecasts are inaccurate for MSJCCD, however, since that agency uses county-wide estimates of change for adult population, and it is evident that the rate of growth for Riverside County generally does not describe changes in adult population for MSJCCD very well.

Table 4: Adult Population Growth
(2008, MSJCCD estimates based on DOF and WRCCDR composites)
City / 18 to 65 % / 2010 / 2015 / 2020 / 2025
Banning / 53.60% / 19642 / 22576 / 25559 / 28790
Beaumont / 58.60% / 19895 / 26387 / 30818 / 37305
Calimesa / 52.20% / 6058 / 7931 / 9535 / 11144
Canyon Lake / 51.60% / 5747 / 5793 / 5887 / 5951
Hemet / 48.00% / 41156 / 48399 / 51616 / 57769
Lake Elsinore / 61.30% / 31348 / 37421 / 42639 / 47841
*Menifee / 41.40% / 11529 / 14497 / 20050 / 20840
Murrieta / 58.00% / 60161 / 63635 / 66335 / 69420
Perris / 59.00% / 32921 / 37890 / 42166 / 46416
San Jacinto / 61.00% / 31306 / 41926 / 49362 / 53070
Temecula / 62.00% / 61620 / 63953 / 69782 / 73036
*Wildomar / 56.00% / 17236 / 19681 / 21794 / 23071
totals, adult population for incorporated areas / 338619 / 390089 / 435544 / 474652
Percent change from 20010-2025: 40.2%
NB: 2008 figures were used to establish the percentage of adults in each incorporated area, and then those figures were applied to
*Wildomar is a newly-incorporated city. Menifee is a newly-incorporated city, assembled
from Sun City and Menifee Lakes communities. Current data are not available for these cities, so 2006
data were used for the component parts, and used in the table above.

The Department of Finance anticipates that the rate of increase in adult residents in Riverside County as a whole will be 28% from 2010 to 2025 (Department of Finance, Projections, 2000 Census Base). Table 4 (above) uses actual percentages from the 2008 recalculation for incorporated areas within the District and applies them forward, thus applying the smaller share of adults within the total population of MSJCCD, resulting from the visible pattern of younger residents. However, the result is sharply higher in MSJCCD than the rate of growth in Riverside County generally, with 40% increase in MSJCCD over the period to 2025, compared to the 28% for Riverside County as a whole.

  1. Geographic Patterns of Growth

An analysis of population projections prepared for the Riverside County Center for Demographic Research shows that the major population growth will occur along the transportation corridors created by freeways and other major thoroughfares. The data, built at the level of partial census tracts, reveal that the two existing campuses will continue to experience increasing demand, while an ever-larger portion of the population will be living considerable distance from either campus. Especially visible in the patterns of growth are the San Gorgonio Pass area (on the northern edge of the District) and the western edge of the District, where I-15 runs from the San Diego County line through Temecula, Murrieta, Wildomar, and Lake Elsinore.

On the following pages is a sequence of maps that reflects the timing of growth, as forecast for the Riverside County Center for Demographic Research. The maps help identify which areas will need additional services by which periods. In the first map, portraying populations as actually counted in the 2000 Census, The San Jacinto Valley and the confluence of the I-15 and I-215 freeways are notable for their populations. By 2010 (a fairly good representation of the levels reached by 2007-8, in most opinions), the two previously-cited areas have been joined by the Perris-Menifee zone, and the San Gorgonio Pass area has begun to attract more residents. By 2025, each region has continued to grow, but the change is especially notable around the Elsinore-Wildomar area and in the San Jacinto Valley, trends made even more visible by 2035.