By Kenney Kost/editor-in-chief

Innovation forums are now open on each campus, and open houses are scheduled for each throughout the first week in March.

The forums are being used to streamline the process of getting new projects and salaried positions that exceed $100,000 into the budget proposal for approval by the board of trustees, said public relations and marketing director Suzanne Cottraux.

“It will be implemented for the 2014-15 budget plan,” said director of process implementation Michael Eke.

Each forum will have a liaison that will help guide people through the entire process of getting their initiative or project through to approval, said institutional strategic development director Margaret Lutton.

The process starts with a quick go or no-go rating based on legality, TCC policy and a sanction status by TCC, Lutton said. If the project or initiative receives a go, it then moves through the DREAM score process, which gauges qualities such as diversity, workforce relevance, student engagement and completion metrics.

The final factors to determine if an initiative makes it through to the approval process are cost-per-student ratio and community impact, she said. An average DREAM score of at least one and a cost of no more than $3,000 per student are required before the proposal can move forward to the board of trustees for approval.

Trustee Bill Greenhill said he was looking forward to having the plan in action.

“This is an incredibly innovative process, and the entire team involved has done a

miraculous job getting this together and implemented,” Greenhill said.

Chancellor Erma Johnson Hadley shared his sentiments.

“It’s very cutting edge,” Hadley said. “Each of our campuses has a very lovely space.”