CVHEC IN NEWS: KSEE Education Matters features Central Valley Math Bridge initiative

 

The Central Valley Math Bridge Project was featured on the Education Matters television segment April 10 by the Fresno County Office of Education with Juanita Stevenson on KSEE-24 (NBC). The project is a partnership of College Bridge, the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium  and the Rand Corporation.

Interviewed were Dr. Lynn Cavallos, president of College Bridge; Dr. Martin Macias, superintendent of the Golden Plains Unified School District; Angel Ramirez, CVHEC operations manager; and Tranquillity High School math teacher Bradley Scott.

Recruitment of high schools is underway with the Math Bridge kickoff, a day-long seminar for participants from six CVHEC community college members and selected high schools, set for May 18 in Fresno.

 

Valley high schools interested in participating may contact Nicole Korgie at nicole.korgie@college-bridge.org.

 

MEMBER NEWS: Modesto Jr. College presents  ZTC/OER Faculty Award to Dr. Brennan

Modesto Junior College presented its annual ZTC/OER Faculty Award to Dr. Jessica Brennan, a child development professor who has been one of the strongest supporters of Zero Textbook Costs and Open Educational Resources at the college for the past three years.

In addition to adopting the OER philosophy and incorporating ZTC into all her courses, Dr. Brennan has advanced the philosophy in her dept. She is awaiting word on a proposal that would fund five new ZTC degrees and certificates in Child Development.

The ZTC/OER Faculty Award was established in 2022 to honor the work of an exceptional faculty member who has gone above and beyond in support of the Institutional efforts around ZTC and the use of OER.

The 2022 recipient was Professor Rob Stevenson who was instrumental in the development of MJC’s first Zero Textbook Cost Institutional Plan and has supported these efforts both directly through the Academic Senate and behind the scenes by mentoring faculty involved with ZTC efforts on campus.

A Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) course is one for which students are not required to buy a textbook. There may be a materials fee associated with the course such as a calculator or art supplies, but students do not need to buy any books. Open Educational Resources (OER) are free resources that instructors curate or create on their own to teach their courses.

See video.

BOARD NEWS: Steve Watkin is interim president of Bakersfield College

Steve Watkin was named interim president of Bakersfield College (BC) by the Kern Community College District (Kern CCD) Board of Trustees in March,  succeeding Dr. Zav Dadabhoy who was recently appointed deputy chancellor of KCCD.

Previously, Watkin served as associate vice chancellor of Enrollment Management at KCCD. He assumes the role of president May 15 with an expanse of experience and knowledge having worked previously at both public and private higher education institutions like BC, California State University, Bakersfield and Fresno Pacific University.

Watkin earned his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and Master in Education degrees from Fresno Pacific University. In addition to his service to BC and KCCD, he has served as pastor of Church of God in Christ in Arvin for the past 11 years.  Watkin and his wife of 34 years, Kimberly, have six children and 11 grandchildren.

See the full Bakersfield College press release.

MEMBER NEWS: Enrollment Growth & Pathways: Strategy Session April 25 features CCC Chancellor-Select Christian

Dr. Sonya Christian, chancellor-select of the California Community College system, will be the guest speaker for the Central Mother Lode Regional Consortium’s “Enrollment Growth & Pathways: A Strategy Session”   Tuesday, April 25 at Fresno City College (1101 East University Ave.) in Fresno

The free event, hosted by FCC President Robert Pimentel, will be held from 10:30 a.m. – 3 p.m.  in Old Admin Bldg/Auditorium with breakfast provided during registration from 9:30 – 10:30am at the OAB East Courtyard. RSVP required.

A CVHEC duo of Angel Ramirez, operations and finance manager, and Elaine Cash, grants and programs coordinator, will present on the regional dual enrollment efforts taking place across the Central Valley.

The Central/Mother Lode Regional Consortium is a regional collaborative that focuses on growing the regional economy by facilitating development and growth of college training and educational programs to meet the needs of identified high growth sectors. It supports education and training to develop a skilled workforce in the Central/Mother Lode Region. Its membership includes 15 CVHEC member community colleges.

For more information and registration visit:

 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/enrollment-growth-pathways-strategy-session-tickets-591699668637

 

 

 

New Dual Enrollment Math Bridge Project provides support for Central Valley non-traditional rural students

(APRIL 20, 2023) — A new state-funded math dual enrollment program will “positively impact” approximately 630 non-traditional students at seven rural high schools next fall through four area community colleges that are members of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium.

Under a regional umbrella of equity and inclusion, the Dual Enrollment (DE) Math Bridge will provide equitable access to transfer-level math courses with embedded support for high school students who are disproportionately impacted, and/or are not traditionally college-bound, said Dr. Benjamín Durán, CVHEC executive director.

McKenna Salazar, Tulare-Kings College & Career Collaborative; Orquídea Largo, UC Merced interim associate vice chancellor; Ángel Ramírez, CVHEC; and Dr. Claudia Lourido-Habib, Porterville College president.

“The project provides students with a transfer-level math course with tiered support,” Durán explained.  “Students have the opportunity to earn transferrable college-math credit in all models that satisfy both the California Community College (CCC) and California State University (CSU) General Education Math Requirement.”

The initiative, the second of its kind launched by CVHEC and its partners in the past few months, is funded by a $1,075,340 award by the California Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program, a statewide initiative designed to help California’s economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic while addressing long-standing social and economic inequities in higher education and workforce participation with a $250 million appropriation to the Department of General Services (DGS) in the Budget Act of 2021. Collaboratives were set up in 13 regions throughout the state.

For the Math Bridge funding, two Central Valley K-16 programs – the Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative and the Tulare-Kings College & Career Collaborative – collaborated to create the Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership that combines resources to achieve equity-focused goals in the four-county region where college graduation rates are 50 percent below the state average.

Other partners in the Dual Enrollment Math Bridge Project with CVHEC and the Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership are College Bridge of Los Angeles (which presented the first Math Bridge program for the region in January using federal funds) and Fresno Pacific University (also a CVHEC member).

The four community college partners are Clovis Community College, Reedley College, West Hills Community College – Lemoore and West Hills Community College – Coalinga.

The participating high schools are Clovis, Clovis East, Riverdale, Sanger and Sanger West with two more high schools slots still available (see below).

Since the K-16 initiative was established, the Fresno-Madera component has also funded CVHEC’s Master’s Upskilling Program that will play a part in the current CVHEC project upskilling high school teachers to teach dual enrollment math and English courses by CVHEC, National University and Fresno Pacific University.

“DE Math Bridge is the culmination of the partners’ efforts to address the identified needs in one, collective project,” Durán said.

The need for the Dual Enrollment Math Bridge Project stems from students’ failure to pass gateway courses in mathematics and /or English as the biggest barrier for students to be successful in staying enrolled and completing their college degrees, Durán said.

The project will establish systemically aligned dual enrollment courses in college level transfer Mathematics that will become a consistent and ongoing part of the course offerings by the participating high schools and colleges, Durán added.

“The dual enrollment courses will be provided at no cost to students, on their high school campus, during the regular school day,” said Dr. Lynn Cevallos, president of College Bridge.  “Also embedded in the courses will be a College Transition Bridge (CT Bridge) curriculum to prepare students for college success.”

Students will have access to either a Statistics and Liberal Art Math (SLAM) or Business, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (BSTEM) option with a level of support determined by their GPA band.

Each DE Math Bridge model will be taught and assessed by a local team consisting of college and high school math instructors with a college math instructor participating in course planning, common assessments and team grading.

The general goals of the DE Math Bridge proposal are:

1) develop and maintain strategic high school/college partnerships to address educational inequities and foster college success,

2) provide an intersegmental Professional Development program to foster continuous improvement,

3) utilize dual enrollment as a strategy to close equity and achievement gaps,

4) develop a sustainability plan,

5) scale DE Math Bridge and develop a sustainable model that can be replicated in other parts of the Central Valley and rural California.

“CVHEC and its partners are committed to undertake this deeper work that can effectively blur the lines between high schools and its colleges in the Central Valley,” Duran said.

High schools interested in participating, contact Ángel Ramírez, CVHEC finance and operations manager: centralvalleyhec@gmail.com or 559.292.0576.

 

For CVHEC media inquiries: Tom Uribes (tom@uribes.com or 559.348.3278)

 

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WHAT THE CV-HEC IS HAPPENING GUEST BLOG (April 2023): Kern Math Master’s Upskilling/Dr. Manjula Joseph

With the first cohorts of the Kern Master’s Upskilling Program underway, this guest blog is by Dr. Manjula Joseph, associate professor and program director for math education at Fresno Pacific University, a CVHEC member institution.  She reflects on the experiences of the math cohort offered by FPU with 21 current practicing high school teachers enrolled in the program designed to empower them to create classrooms that foster a love for math with specific sights set on eventually teaching dual enrollment courses at their respective high schools. This first Kern math cohort completes in July 2024. (An English master’s cohort offered by CVHEC member National University is also currently in session).

Transforming Practicing Teachers into Innovative Math Educators

Embracing the shift in math education for the Kern Master’s Upskilling Program: Fresno Pacific University’s MA in Mathematics Education  

 

By Dr. Manjula Joseph

Program Director, Math Education – Fresno Pacific University

 

I enter the (zoom) room and observe a class in session.

The students in the first cohort of our Kern Master’s Upskilling Program for practicing high school math teachers are sharing celebrations and challenges about life events – school, family, health, etc. Some of them request prayer.

After this brief time of sharing, they are presented with a graph of an intertwined circle and parabola with a red-shaded area and asked to respond to the prompts “What do you notice? What do you wonder?” on a Google Jamboard. Their two-dozen responses range from noticing symmetry to wondering what the center of the circle might be. Then, moving to breakout rooms to discuss how they might solve the problem at hand, they write their thoughts on the Jamboard.

The complex problem involves differential and integral calculus, trigonometry and intricate algebraic manipulation. Not initially finding answers only seems to push them further to learn unfamiliar concepts, expand prior knowledge and reach a solution.

Professor Alice Keeler, the instructor, and I silently observe this activity unfold and marvel. What I have just observed firsthand is a genuine “community of learners” engaged in supporting and strengthening each other’s content and pedagogical knowledge.

Student Kim Halbrook also observes: “The program is designed to build ‘a community of educators’ willing to support and help each other be the best teachers they can be.”

 

So, what makes FPU’s program unique?

In a rapidly evolving educational landscape, our Master of Mathematics Education program at Fresno Pacific University (FPU) stands out as a beacon for change.

Focused on a humanized, student-centered approach, we transform practicing teachers into innovative math educators who embrace the shift from traditional instruction towards a more engaging and holistic learning experience without compromising rigor.

 

Propelling the Shift in Humanizing Mathematics

We see mathematics as a deeply humanizing activity emphasizing critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration — a fundamental shift from viewing it as cold and abstract, and emphasizing speed and competition.

Mathematics affords us the space to explore the mysteries of the universe and appreciate the beauty and order that underlies it. Mathematics also allows us to think logically and critically about the challenges and inequities that plague society, empowering us to contribute to the advancement of human knowledge, social justice and progress.

Our program helps teachers embrace this shift, enabling them to foster a love for mathematics, a joy for exploration and a passion for problem-solving in their own classrooms.

“Fresno Pacific University has provided more content-specific advancements in my career as an educator than the entirety of my Teacher Preparation Program,” says student Brandon Butler.

 

Believing Engagement is More Than Just Fun

Our program recognizes that engagement is not synonymous with fun. We believe that true engagement comes from feeling rewarded for one’s efforts and that students would rather work on challenging tasks (absorption) than boring, easy tasks (compliance).

We prioritize student engagement through personal connections, using collaborative tools and interactive activities. Our approach models compassion and grace, encouraging teachers to create classroom environments where mathematics is seen as a means for thinking and engaging, rather than as a competition.

Student Edna Cruz affirms: “I have learned so much about integrating technology in a way that encourages students to think and engage in productive struggle. All this in a course that unites a group of people who genuinely love math and the advancement of education, to better serve the students of our community. We are all taking what we are learning and implementing it in our own classrooms.”

 

Balancing Commitment with Life

Our program acknowledges the challenges faced by teachers who must balance their commitment to earning a master’s degree with their existing teaching responsibilities and family life.

With this in mind, we designed a student-centered program that cares for students not just as learners but as individuals with unique personal and professional lives. This philosophy influences assignments, discussions, and interactions. We view students (both ours and their students in turn) as whole persons, cultivating an environment where teachers can develop their skills while maintaining a strong connection to their own values and personal lives.

 

 

A Passion for Reimagining Math Education

In conclusion, the Master of Mathematics Education program at Fresno Pacific University offers a transformative experience for practicing teachers passionate about reimagining math education.

Focusing on humanizing mathematics, emphasizing human-centered approaches, and embracing a balanced approach, our program empowers teachers to create classrooms that foster the love for mathematics and nurture the critical thinking skills necessary to be successful in finding solutions to the challenges of today and tomorrow.

 

 

 

CVHEC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE (April 2023): Blurring the lines!

‘Committed to the deeper work — blurring the line between high school and college

Greetings colleagues,

This April edition of our CVHEC e-newsletter ushers in the final month of a busy spring semester for many of our CVHEC member colleges and universities not to mention our own relentless team.

In spite of wrestling with all the challenges in just the second year of a post-pandemic world, faculty, staff and CVHEC partners have been working diligently on regional strategies that will shed light on the good work our Central Valley colleges and universities are doing collectively for the well-being of our students.

First, we alert you that the 2023 CVHEC Annual Summit originally set for May is being rescheduled to October.

This will give us the opportunity to deliver a more impactful and compressive summit that, in addition to bringing higher education leaders and policy-makers together, showcases the great work being done in the region.  Please be on the lookout for updates.

One of the things we continue to express is that passing the college math gateway courses can make the difference for a student between college completion or not.  In this month’s newsletter, please read about some of efforts going on throughout the region that aim to eliminate this barrier.

Specifically, we are pleased to announce our new state-funded Dual Enrollment Math Bridge Program in collaboration with the Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership.  This comes on the heels of our first venture with College Bridge announced in January that is in full swing with the recruitment of high schools and that was featured in valley news media (see related story in this issue).  CVHEC and its partners are committed to undertake this deeper work that can effectively blur the lines between high schools and its colleges in the Central Valley

In this issue’s What the CV-HEC is Happening Blog, Dr. Manjula Joseph from Fresno Pacific University speaks about some of the experiences these high school teachers are having while earning a Master’s degree that will not only qualify them to teach dual enrollment math courses at their high schools, but also make them even better teachers by humanizing mathematics.

Thanks again for taking some of your valuable time to peruse our e-newsletter.

CVHEC to lead California delegation at CCA Day on the Hill May 16- 17

Dr. Benjamin Duran, executive director of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, will join Complete College America for its CCA Day on the Hill in Washington, D.C.  May 16- 17 where “a network of higher education experts share strategies and lessons for the implementation of higher ed strategies at scale.”

Complete College America, a national non-profit organization founded in 2009 to raise postsecondary attainment in the United States, is a national alliance of state and higher education leaders .

Alliance partners collaborate to introduce bold initiatives that help states and institutions confront inequities, close institutional performance gaps and increase college completion rates, especially for marginalized and historically excluded students.

At the CCA Day on the Hill event, Alliance members directly engage in the federal legislative process with their federal representatives and share best practices in states and regions that can be translated into federal policy while advancing CCA’s legislative agenda at the federal level, said Charles Ansell, CCA vice president for Research.

“As Congress looks to reauthorize the Higher Education Act next year, CCA Alliance members who participate in this opportunity will bolster the organizations’ efforts to make a lasting federal policy impact to support students seeking to complete college,” Ansell said.

The event starts on Tuesday, May 16 when Alliance members will attend an in-person training for the Day on the Hill with CCA’s federal lobbyists, Arnold & Porter (A&P). A&P will set up all member meetings while in DC and will provide a schedule for their Hill visits, which will take place between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 17.

Dr. Duran is the Alliance lead for California’s central region, serving as the go-to resource as members work to advance student success.

Dr. Brandon Protas, assistant vice president for Alliance Engagement, said CCA recognizes CVHEC — made up of 28 institutions of higher education in the Central California’s nine-county region with the presidents and chancellors of each member institution serving on its board of directors — as the convener and facilitator of education, community and legislative representatives as well as technical support experts as needed by members in carrying out the CVHEC board’s key policy objective:  to increase the Central Valley’s degree attainment.

The consortium works with legislative leaders as an advocate of the higher education policy positions of its board, he noted, fortifying the Central Valley as an “educational powerhouse.”

“We are thrilled that Executive Director Durán is partnering with CCA leveraging his visionary leadership and commitment to equitable degree attainment to influence federal policy that ensures higher education accessibility for all,” Dr. Protas said.

“This strategic collaboration not only strengthens the Central Valley community but empowers its diverse student population to see policy work that helps them to achieve their fullest potential, thereby promoting the Central Valley as an educational powerhouse for generations to come.”

Duran said the CCA, which CVHEC joined in 2016, shares many of the consortium objectives.

“CCA is a valuable partner because it provides a network of higher education experts who share strategies and lessons for the implementation of higher ed strategies at scale,” Duran said.  “The CCA alliance advocated for work in corequisite support and math pathways projects, working with multiple states to create the conditions for change required to implement the strategies at scale.”

For more information, visit www.completecollege.org.

MEDIA ADVISORY: Broadband Regional Planning Workshop April 14

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