The goal of the master plan was to develop a fully integrated continuum of logically linked decisions. These decisions considered the region's market demand, the College's mission and strategic plan, and the institutional academic plan. In the first phase of the master plan, Rickes Associates (RA) conducted an environmental scan to explore the external forces that influence the operations and offerings of the College. RA analyzed national and state trends in three thematic areas: education and society; technology and the marketplace; and economy, population, and workforce. RA also coordinated the preparation of a comprehensive space inventory, encompassing some 698,000 assignable square foot across the four campuses. This included establishing a framework for the database, coding all individual spaces, and conducting a current utilization analysis.

In the second phase of work, RA examined the College's academic plan in order to develop the optimum program array that would respond to current and anticipated demands, reflecting the trends identified in the environmental scan. In the final phase, RA prepared a program of space needs at the four campuses that followed from the optimum program array. (2005)