George Brown College

In 2004 we were engaged by George Brown College to assist in a college-wide ‘discovery’ leading up to the development of an integrated academic strategy for GBC. Faculty, all levels of staff, and students had an opportunity to provide their input and share their views on a number of topics through open forums, staff, faculty and student focus groups, presentations and written submissions. The initiative was highly visible and garnered a high degree of support from the college President and Board of Governors.

There were three working groups, each with a chair - Curriculum Design/Development; Excellence in Teaching and Learning; and Quality Assurance. Our role was to consult with the academic strategy task force sponsors and working group co-chairs to develop questions, applying the principles of Appreciative Inquiry, and then design, facilitate and report on the output of each of 25 focus groups with different constituencies and synthesize findings.