The College of Southern Maryland (CSM) has been named as a Silver Level Maryland Quality Award recipient as part of the 2008 Maryland Performance Excellence Awards (MPEA). CSM is one of eight Maryland organizations honored by U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin as they announced the award recipients April 7.
It is almost unprecedented for a first-time nominee to win such a high level award, so I cannot begin to express how proud I was to receive the award on behalf of the college, said CSM President Dr. Brad Gottfried. This has been a long journey for the college, begun by former president, Elaine Ryan. The application process allowed us to examine ourselves in the areas of leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, measurement, analysis and knowledge management, workforce focus, process management and results. More importantly, though, the process has given us as a college a unique opportunity for not only self-assessment, but also a rigorous evaluation by an external independent review board. Our staff and faculty should be honored by this level of recognition. I want to thank all of our employees for embracing and supporting this effort as we strive to achieve excellence and world-class results.”
Celebrating its 50th anniversary of providing the residents of Calvert, Charles and St. Marys counties with a broad range of high-quality associate degree and certificate programs, CSM also offers short-term training, workforce development, cultural enrichment and continuing education offerings. In 2007, more than 21,000 students attended the college at its three campuses.
CSMs mission is to prepare the students and community to meet the challenges of individual, social and global changes by offering a broad range of affordable, high-quality learning opportunities. Previously CSM has been recognized as the 2007 Employer of the Year by the Maryland Department of Aging and is a four-time recipient of the Workplace Excellence Award by the Alliance for Workplace Excellence.
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.
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, call 301-934-7765 or 301-870-2309, 240-725-5499 or 443-550-6199, ext. 7765 or visit www.csmd.edu.