Iowa Western Community College • Campus Coversation Tour

Strategy + Design + Execution + Facilitation

Client: Iowa Western Community College

Project Timeline: 2023

Industry or Expertise: Community College

Strategic Planning with the help of the Community, Students, Faculty and Staff Feedback

Iowa Western Community College’s Campus Conversation Tour

Iowa Western Community College (IWCC) is an innovative series of interactive brainstorming sessions across Southwest Iowa. These sessions sought to bring together communities, students, faculty, and staff. Teaming up with Tandem Works, IWCC took standard community feedback meetings and transformed them into dynamic, engaging events that resonated with attendees.

The series of IWCC Campus Conversation Tours did more than facilitate conversation; it helped shape and influence IWCC’s strategic plan for 2025; they ensured a continued and meaningful conversation with the community, students, and faculty. This case study explores how IWCC and Tandem Works turned community feedback into a vibrant and transformative experience, forging a stronger, more connected future for the college in several different communities.

Client: Iowa Western Community College

Who they are and what they do:

Iowa Western Community College is a dynamic educational institution in Council Bluffs, Iowa, known for its commitment to student success and community engagement. IWCC offers various academic programs, from technical training to liberal arts, and equips students with the skills and knowledge needed for today's workforce.

The college's state-of-the-art facilities, dedicated faculty, and vibrant campus life—including top-tier sports teams known for their competitive spirit and excellence—are just a little bit of what it has to offer.

With additional campuses in Atlantic, Clarinda, Harlan, Shenandoah, and Missouri Valley, Iowa Western extends its reach and resources to a broader community, ensuring accessible and comprehensive education across the region.

Challenge — or what we like to call the opportunity:

Community input is essential for a college’s accreditation process to ensure the college meets diverse standards and needs. Beyond that, the role of the Campus Conversation Tour not only checked the box on the accreditation process but also gave students and faculty a taste of the college president, Dr. Dan Kinney, who was somewhat new to his role at IWCC, but he was excited to build on the hard work of the presidents before him, including his father, Dr. Kinney. He was also ready to infuse his leadership style - student-centered and strong communication- with a revamped strategic plan.

The mission? Create engaging and accessible opportunities to gather diverse perspectives and input from students, faculty, and community members across IoWestern'sn's multiple campuses to ensure IWCC remains a leader in higher education and community engagement. Then, with that feedback, help the Executive Steering Committee go through the data collected and make informed decisions on what was said.

Insert Tandem Works

This is where we swing into action. Tasked with the challenge of transforming the mundane into the extraordinary

IWCC engaged with us (Tandem Works) to help design, promote, and facilitate engaging community feedback sessions and digital surveys that would reach current and future students, faculty and staff of the four campuses and the community at large in each community.

IWCC was in a prime position to engage with the community through listening sessions and surveys. The results of these listening sessions would guide the Steering Committee through the strategic planning process, meet the community's needs and desires, and introduce Dr. Kinney’s leadership..

Our Strategy:

Our mission? Create and facilitate insightful and engaging community feedback sessions, deploy targeted digital surveys, and then use that information to create tools and reports for the Executive Steering Committee to make well-informed decisions.

Boring is always banned with us. Instead, we envisioned sessions that would be well-attended, interactive, inspiring, and, dare we say, a little bit fun. No folding chairs and PowerPoint slides we wanted sessions that inspired people to dream a little and to get down to the nittty gritty.

We knew that not everyone could attend an in-person session, so we also created targeted digital surveys to reach high school students, business owners, leaders, and the community at large as an additional accessible option.

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