CSM Receives Maryland Performance Excellence Award

Silver Presented to College for Leadership, Strategic Planning, Results

Named as a Silver Level Maryland Quality Award recipient for the second year as part of the 2009 Maryland Performance Excellence Awards (MPEA), the College of Southern Maryland is one of six Maryland organizations honored by U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin as they announced the recipients.

The MPEA award honors role model organizations for successfully implementing systematic processes for continuous improvement and achieving outstanding results. Award recipients are evaluated rigorously by an independent board of examiners using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, which measures an organization in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; process management and results.

CSM is a comprehensive community college dedicated to serving the residents of Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties through a broad range of high-quality associate degree and certificate programs, workforce development, cultural enrichment and continuing education offerings. In 2008, more than 21,000 students attended the college at its three campuses. The college serves to improve the quality of life for residents in the community by providing a wealth of educational services and uses a Quality Improvement Process for continuous improvement throughout its three campuses.

Previously CSM has been recognized as the 2007 Employer of the Year by the Maryland Department of Aging and is a six-time recipient of the Workplace Excellence Award by the Alliance for Workplace Excellence.

Since 1983, Maryland's U.S. Senators and the University of Maryland have joined together to help Maryland organizations achieve excellence and world-class results using the MPEA process to inspire, coach and recognize role model organizations for their successful implementation of systematic processes and achievement of outstanding results. The awards program provides an opportunity for organizations to improve their performance through self-assessment, writing an application, receiving an external analysis, participating in workshops and conferences, benchmarking with other high-performing organizations and sharing best practices.

For more information about the MPEA and a listing of all award recipients, visit www.mpea.umd.edu. For information on CSM visit www.csmd.edu.