CVHEC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE (March 2023): Spring forward!
Spring forward to our CVHEC summit, Math Bridge Kick-off and Kern Mentors!
Welcome to this month’s CVHEC e-Newsletter. As we move into the spring of 2023 with a little more daylight on our hands, we are happy to share some timely items following our last issue.
First, as we in the Central Valley continue to bask in the pride and excitement of our own Dr. Sonya Christian, chancellor of the Kern Community College District, being chosen by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors to lead the California Community College System, we are delighted to feature her in this issue’s “What the CV-HEC Is Happening Blog.” 
The Chancellor-select reflects on her time working in the valley with her fellow presidents and chancellors on the CVHEC Board of Directors and the strides we have made as a united voice for higher education in our nine-county region [or Kern Co if that is what the blog focuses on]. Please enjoy her guest blog in this month’s issue and, once again, congratulations Sonya!
Registration for the CVHEC Annual Summit is now open!
Please plan on joining us May 12 for this great event as well as our special CVHEC Welcome Reception the day before at Arte Americas. The summit – always historic in that it brings together the higher education leadership in our nine-county region – provides the opportunity to showcase the great work that is taking place in our Central Valley colleges and universities to provide meaningful pathways for our students seeking a higher education.
In furtherance of our mission to increase access to college for students, we are pleased to announce the Central Valley Math Bridge Kick-off May 18 in downtown Fresno with our partners College Bridge and the Rand Corporation. With this the formal launch, we are excited to shine a light on the great work that can come out of small colleges in the Central Valley that we will share with the rest of the state and eventually nationally as this project creates a model for meaningful dual enrollment math pathways and expansion that can be replicated in other regions of California.
This same spirit carries forth in the South Valley where our Kern Master’s Upskilling Project is now recruiting community college professors to serve as mentors for high school teachers enrolled in the project to earn master’s degrees in math or English. In collaboration with the Kern Regional K-16 Education Collaborative, we are working to improve student progress from high school to postsecondary education and ultimately into the workforce by providing 100 South Valley high school teachers the opportunity to earn a master’s degree that achieves state qualifications for teaching community college dual enrollment English or math courses at local high schools.
We encourage Kern area community college math and English professors to join us in this innovative project.
And finally, as we close out March next week, let us acknowledge Women’s History Month by expressing our appreciation to the incredible women leaders who serve on the CVHEC Board of Directors as the presidents or chancellors of the colleges and universities in our region, led by board chairwoman Dr. Kristin Clark, chancellor the West Hills Community College District.
As you read through this issue, we hope you find inspiration in the many great higher education advancements taking place in the Central Valley. Thanks for being a partner and a friend of CVHEC.
CVHEC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE (February 2023): CVHEC Summit 2023
Spotlight on Unique Approaches To
Transfer and Dual Enrollment in Central California
Greetings …
February ushered in what promises to be a very productive and exciting spring and that is well illustrated here in the final week of the month with the historic appointment of our esteemed colleague and CVHEC board member, Dr. Sonya Christian, as the 11th chancellor of the California Community College System.
From all of us at CVHEC: congratulations Chancellor-Select Christian! See our story in this issue.
Also, in this month’s e-newsletter, we are happy to announce a SAVE THE DATE for the annual CVHEC Education Policy and Legislative Summit May 12 in Fresno with our quarterly CVHEC Board of Directors meeting the day before.
The annual summit provides an opportunity to showcase the impactful work being accomplished by our member colleges and universities in the Central Valley to our partners, friends and legislators who serve our region. Please plan on joining us later this spring to learn more about this work, including the unique approaches to transfer and dual enrollment in the valley — just to mention a couple of topics that will be covered. Registration info will be forthcoming in March.
In the South Valley, we are pleased to present the addition to the CVHEC family of two respected Kern County higher education professionals who will serve as faculty mentor coordinators for our Kern Master’s Upskilling Project: Drs. Vikash Likhan and Liz Rozell.
The Kern project, which assists high school teachers earn an MA in math or English qualifying them to teach dual enrollment, includes a mentoring component that joins high school teachers with community college professors. Drs. Likhan and Rozell will work with our project lead, Tom Burke (KCCD chancellor-emeritus), to identify and recruit South Valley community college professors to serve as mentors.
If you are interested in serving our students in this way, or know potential candidates, I invite and encourage you to connect with our team.
There is much more in this month’s edition. Please read on and enjoy.
CVHEC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE (January 2023): Kicking Off the New Year with Successful Initiatives
We are happy to welcome you to the 2023 spring semester and our first e-newsletter of the year. As you will see in this issue, the new year promises to pick up right where we left off when we went into the winter break.
You will read about the successes of our Central Valley Transfer Project which has developed a unique approach with its Program Pathways Mapper to improve the number of Central Valley community college students transferring to the University of California, Merced, and the valley’s California State Universities.
This entry is timely in light of a recent article announcing the UC system’s effort to expand outreach to 65 California community colleges and the release of the report by a joint task force between UC and the community college system recommending that UC increase the percentage of community college transfers who apply, are admitted to and enroll at UC. The UC also has a systemwide goal to enroll one California community college transfer student for every two California resident freshmen.
The Transfer Project provides a historic collaboration between our three segments of higher education to improve this process for students with first round surveys (studies ?) showing a direct correlation between students using the Program Mapper and important student success metrics.
We are also happy to congratulate our CVHEC partner, College Bridge. Six rural community colleges in California’s Central Valley will partner with 21 high schools to promote equity in mathematics via dual enrollment courses for Black or Latino students thanks to a $4 million US Department of Education grant awarded to College Bridge. This united effort will highlight the good work a group of small rural colleges can do when partnering with their dedicated high school partners.
In this month’s guest blog, Ginny Sandu, a teacher at Sunnyside High School talks about her journey to earn a Master’s degree through our MA Upskilling Program last year, funded by the Fresno-Madera K16 Collaborative. The program increased the number of high school teachers holding Master’s degrees in English and Mathematics in the Fresno-Madera service area qualifying them to teach dual enrollment at their high school campus. Armed with her new post-grad degree, Ginny was able to begin teaching dual enrollment courses last fall — exactly what the project was designed to do.
Enjoy Ginny’s story and the rest of the newsletter. Please take moment to meet our dedicated staff of higher education professionals in this issue’s CVHEC Website renovation presenting our staff page. We are all looking forward to a great 2023!
CVHEC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE (December 2022): Happy Holidays!
Best wishes for 2023 from the CVHEC staff: Tom Burke, Saundra McGlothlin, Ángel Ramírez, Dr. Benjamín Durán, Pricila Villanueva, Stan Carrizosa, John Spevak and Tom Uribes. (Not pictured: Elaine Cash and Marcus Johnson).
A Season to Celebrate our Triumphs
Holiday Greetings to All,
We, the team at the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, wish you a joyous and peaceful holiday season as we come to the end of a historic fall semester at all our partner institutions and prepare to usher in a new year.
The 2021-22 academic year saw our Central Valley colleges and universities emerge from the post-pandemic blues and welcome our students and staff back to our campuses. It was a long two years. Congratulations to each and every one of you who dedicate your professional career to relentlessly serving our students regardless of the challenges we face.
This is truly a season to celebrate our triumphs!
In this final issue of 2022 – our Silver Edition – you will see highlights of the good work that took place in the region, in spite of the constraints imposed by COVID. Enjoy reviewing this glimpse back at the last 12 months as well as a recap of the winter CVHEC Board of Directors meeting held earlier this month.
One of the highlights of our board meeting was a collective farewell to friend and colleague Dr. Lori Bennet who is retiring as Clovis Community College president Jan. 3 after a long and successful career serving community college students. Congratulations Dr. Bennett, we wish you a long and well-deserved retirement.
To all, please enjoy the holidays and plan on joining us again in January for our first newsletter of 2023.
CVHEC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE (November 2022)
The Valley’s Presidents and Chancellors to Convene at Dec. 8 CVHEC Board Meeting
Hello CVHEC Friends and Colleagues,
As we approach the end of the fall semester and prepare for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday season, we are happy to share the November issue of the CVHEC Newsletter.
The CVHEC Board of Directors will convene for the fall Board of Directors meeting December 8, at the California Health Sciences University (CHSU) in Clovis. The meeting will give CHSU an opportunity to show off their new medical school campus. The meeting will also provide an opportunity to invite a number of new presidents who have assumed their positions since the last board meeting.
The board will be introduced to new CVHEC staff member, Elaine Cash, a former area superintendent who has taken on the role of Grants & Programs coordinator and introduced in our last issue. The Board will also hear a report on the work of the K-16 collaboratives in Kern County and in the central region that includes Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties.
Additionally, we will be delighted to announce two state planning grant awards. The WE WILL! collaborative in the North Valley region and the Eastern Sierra Region K16 Collaborative were each awarded a $250,000 planning grant that will result in the establishment of two more K-16 collaboratives in the Central Valley — a total of 4 collaboratives across our membership!
In this issue you will also read the blog contribution from Chet Frantzich, English teacher at Buchanan High School in the Clovis Unified School District. Chet, one of the teachers who participated in the Master’s degree Upskilling funded by the Fresno/Madera K16 Collaborative, shares his experiences in the program and how his earning a master’s degree has impacted his students and him personally.
I hope you enjoy this edition and feel free to share it with friends and colleagues.
Here is wishing you all a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving Holiday!!
CVHEC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE (October 2022)
Kern High School Teachers: Join Us!
Hello CVHEC Friends and Colleagues,
Welcome to our October e-newsletter with news in higher education around the Central Valley.
In this edition, we announce the launch of the cohort recruitment campaign for our new Kern Master’s Degree Upskilling Project funded by the Kern Regional K-16 Education Collaborative. The project mirrors the Upskilling Project that CVHEC undertook in Fresno and Madera counties two years ago as a pilot project with funding from the Fresno K-16 Collaborative
National University and Fresno Pacific University will deliver Master’s degrees, subsidized by the Kern Regional K-16 Education Collaborative, in English and mathematics to high school teachers in Kern County holding BA degrees in the two subject areas and interested in teaching college level dual enrollment classes on their high school campuses. They are now accepting applications to reach our goal of 100 high school teachers earning Master’s degrees in Kern County by 2025. Please pass the word if you know of high school teachers who might be interested.
Also, we “introduce” Elaine Cash, who as of Oct. 1, has taken on the role as CVHEC’s Grants & Programs coordinator. Many of you know Elaine not just as a longtime, dedicated and accomplished educator in our region, but also in her service the past few years as a CVHEC K-12 Liaison who brought her years of experience and expertise in K-12 education to work with our higher education leaders.
The strategies of the Consortium benefit greatly by bringing in our K-12 partners to improve the student success pathways for our region’s students so we are delighted that Elaine will expand her role on our team in this new capacity to support the growth and sustainability of the consortium and our work.
This issue’s “What the CV-HEC Blog” provides commentary on Assembly Bill 1705, a piece of legislation aimed at ensuring the final elimination of developmental education in community colleges and developing corequisite support courses to replace them.
You will also read about one example of a successful CVHEC mini-grant and how a member-institution, the California Health Science University, earned recognition for a program in which the mini-grant helped students gain the opportunity to begin pursuing careers in health and medicine.
Enjoy the newsletter and please share it with friends and colleagues.
CVHEC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE (September 2022)
New semester, renewed dialogues
Hello CVHEC Friends and Colleagues,
Welcome to the September 2022 newsletter! By now, our member institutions are well into the fall semester.
In this edition we are happy to begin a dialogue in the Central Valley that will launch a regional Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) movement in our region to assist our students navigate the increasing costs of higher education. CVHEC, with the assistance of some of our community college leaders, will launch a Central Valley ZTC Task Force.
To learn more about ZTC, see our task force story and our What in the CV-HEC is Happening blog by West Hills College Lemoore President James Preston, a CVHEC board member whose college is a state leader in the OERevolution.
We also update you on a couple of initiatives that have made our CVHEC member institutions leaders in the state:
- Our Program Pathways Mapper team working to create a model transfer approach that can be replicated in the rest of the state, has been invited to present at the statewide California Community College League of California conference in November.
- We are also happy to announce that a group of Central Valley dual enrollment students have been invited by Complete College America (CCA) to participate in a national focus group on the benefits of well-delivered dual enrollment opportunities. We are very proud that our students’ voice will be heard nationally.
We hope these topics and others in our newsletter will be resourceful for you and your colleagues.
We wish our member institutions — and the students they serve — a successful and safe fall semester. Let’s hope that we have put the pandemic behind us as we continue to be cautious and stay healthy and safe.
CV-HEC VLOG – August 2022: Dr. Mike Farr, CHSU Alumnus
This month’s “What The CV-HEC Is Happening” Blog features a guest vlog with Dr. Mike Farr, an alumnus of CVHEC-member California Health Science University when he was featured on GVWire’s “Unfiltered” weekly virtual talk show May 24 hosted by Darius Assemi, president of Granville Homes in Fresno.
Dr. Farr shared his experience as one of the first medical students in the CHSU leading to his career in two positions presently: as a retail pharmacist for Walgreen’s and as a clinical pharmacist for Integrated Prescription Management. He served as CSHU student body president and was conferred the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree with 62 graduates at CHSU’s first Graduation Ceremony May 19, 2018. Dr. Farr touts the value of having a medical school in the Central Valley.
(Note: the show was the second part that followed a debate featuring two Fresno County sheriff candidates in the June election).