Let’s begin “Making Way for Excellence at UWF” with a voyage chart that helps give some sense of direction and structure:

The first step in our new course of adventure was the process of conducting an organizational assessment. UWF and the Baptist Leadership Institute worked together in this effort. In order to be genuinely effective in improving UWF, a fact-based knowledge of what we do well and what we need to improve was gathered. It is crucial to our success that we have an accurate picture of what UWF is and how the university is perceived in order to make prudent decisions for our organization and its members.

In order to gather fact-based knowledge, surveys, focus groups and other methods of obtaining feedback were performed. The feedback obtained from these fact finding methods was analyzed. From that analysis, UWF and the Baptist Leadership Institute produced an organizational assessment that is helping to guide the organization in creating strategies for improvement.

On Aug. 11, 2004, our voyage set out with our UWF Leadership participating in a one-day seminar that introduced a methodology of improvement used by Baptist Health Care Systems that has been exceptionally successful in creating their culture of excellence.

The next marker and second step in our journey was the development of teams with purpose. These teams drive the strategies that navigate the way in our path of improvement. With focus on their particular goals, strategies and actions, our service excellence teams steer the ships that create our course. The goals of the teams are constructed by the findings of the UWF organizational assessment. Currently, UWF has seven teams: Standards, Measurement, Student Satisfaction, Employee Satisfaction, Leadership Development, Communications, and Community Outreach.

The seven teams of service excellence are assisted by a coordinating committee that provides advice and contributes in the coordination of team activities. The coordinating committee is composed of a diverse population, representative of UWF, and includes service excellence team captains. The coordinating committee also serves as linkage between the steering committee (UWF Presidential Cabinet) and the seven service excellence teams. The steering committee monitors, responds to and manages performance based on our organizational results and serves as a final authority in the decision-making process.

Our expedition is structured as follows (click on thumbnail for larger view):

Committee (click on thumbnail for larger view):