WHAT THE CV-HEC IS HAPPENING BLOG (September 2022): The ZTC/OER Movement

Let’s Join the OERevolution with
ZTC programs, Central Valley!

 

By JAMES PRESTON, President
West Hills College Lemoore
CVHEC Board of Directors

The California Community College Chancellor’s Office recently announced it is launching the Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Program and supporting the system with $115 million to do the work in what we term the “OERevolution” (Open Educational Resources).

While the details are still rolling out in series of webinars, the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium CVHEC is forming a ZTC Taskforce to review/advise how its community college district members can access these funds to implement the program.

Each college in the system will receive a $20,000 planning grant designed to help colleges develop a team and devise a plan. The remaining funds will be available for colleges to fund ZTC degrees at their college. Applications are now available.

For the past six years, you have been hearing the OER and ZTC acronyms as our state community college system has been discussing the possibilities of a world without expensive textbooks. The time is now Central Valley to lean into the OERevolution! But before I explain its ingredients, let’s start with some basic definitions:

 

  • Open Educational Resources (OER) are free, openly licensed and accessible materials that faculty can retain, revise, remix, reuse, revise and redistribute. OER materials come in many forms such as open textbooks, videos, articles and ancillary support materials.

 

  • When creatively combined into a Canvas course shell, OER create what we now know as a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) course. Teamwork between discipline faculty, an area administrator, library or instructional design support and student services personnel, along with the financial support for people to collaborate, can quickly move things from a ZTC course to a ZTC degree.

 

  • Add in a dose of creativity, strategy, policy, equity and guided pathways thinking and you are on your way to a full OERevolution!

 

Three Wins When You Join the OERevolution!

In 2016 , West Hills College Lemoore received a $100,000 grant from the Achieving the Dream (ATD) network to create a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) degree for an Associate in Arts for
Transfer (AA-T) in Elementary Education and it started the college on our campus’ OERevolution journey!

Initially, West Hills College Lemoore jumped into the OERevolution as a way to eliminate textbook cost barriers for students; however, what started as a revolution against textbook publishers and outrageous prices quickly turned into an evolution of teaching and learning as faculty utilized OER materials in creative and powerful ways.

Thousands of hours of teamwork, a few additional grants and six years later West Hills College Lemoore has saved students over $8 million dollars, evolutionized teaching and learning and currently offers 62 percent of our courses in the ZTC format with a dozen degrees and certificates that students can complete without any textbook costs!

The ZTC program, like any new initiative or work, finds our Central Valley colleges in various stages while continuously fighting with competing priorities, but let me frame for you three guaranteed wins if you join the OERevolution!

 

Win #1: Affordability and Access

We have been fighting the affordability fight as a system for the past decade and are starting to see great movement in food insecurity, housing insecurity, financial aid reform and efforts to close the digital divide. These are all critical movements, but let’s talk about student success and how hard it is for students to succeed in their courses if they can’t afford the learning materials.

For years we at West Hills College Lemoore tried creative solutions like putting a textbook on reserve in the library or creating textbook checkout programs. Our college ran a very “successful” textbook checkout program for one of our categorical programs that checked out 250 textbooks a semester for 10 years which saved students about $500,000 over ten years (approximating $100 a textbook). But in the first year that we launched our OERevolution, we were able to save students $632,800 in textbook costs. Simple math: in one year with OER, West Hills College Lemoore saved students what took 10 years with other creative approaches.

Similarly, the California Community College Chancellor’s Office invested $5 million into the pilot program for ZTC degrees in 2016. West Hills College Lemoore served as the Co-Technical Assistance Provider (TAP) for this program and the savings for students were staggering: the 37 ZTC degrees and certificates that were created across the state saved students over $40 million dollars.

This chart shows the progress of West Hills College Lemoore the past six years and highlights the powerful combination of savings and Day One access for our students to their OER learning materials.

 

 

Win #2: Teaching and Learning

One major flaw in our community college system is that our new full-time and part-time faculty come into our system with minimal teacher preparation.

For decades, the onboarding of an individual who meets minimum qualifications with a M.A. degree or vocational experience in their discipline — but no teacher training — amounted to receiving a course outline, a sample syllabus and the course textbook with publisher materials. If your institution utilizes this formula, you most likely end up with a teacher who will lean heavily on the textbook and publisher materials out of pure survival the first few years in the classroom until they have had the chance to gain experience, receive mentoring and engage in professional development.

The move to Open Educational Resources at West Hills College Lemoore has led to an evolution in teaching and learning as the faculty focus has been freed from textbook dependency and shifted from teaching “chapters” to teaching concepts. Faculty have diversified their curriculum and identified relevant and engaging OER materials to create their ZTC course shells in Canvas.

One of our most recent examples is our math faculty who recently shifted from Pearson’s MyMathLab ($120 access code) to MyOpenMath (MOM).

MOM is an open and free product created by a group of community college math instructors in concert with some programmers and has resulted in high-quality open Math courses in the Canvas Commons with ancillary materials comparable to publisher materials.

Our math faculty have taken the base model of the MOM courses and added their own personalized videos, lecture notes and even programmed in some quizzes, tests and other support materials. Innovation and collaboration have become the norm as faculty use a “base model” course shell and then add in their own materials to personalize it for their students.

Across our college, you no longer hear faculty stating they are “covering chapter three this week.” Instead they are talking about concepts and themes.

Win #3: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion  and Access!

For years we have heard stories, completed surveys and conducted focus groups at our colleges that informed us that students either don’t purchase the textbooks because of cost, buy textbooks later in the semester when they are able to gather up funds, or just get creative and try to find workarounds to purchasing a textbook which takes time and compromises the quality of materials.

The most compelling win for OER is equitable access to course materials for all students on Day One of the class. Thanks to the ZTC course model, the majority of our faculty are able to open up their courses with introductory content and access to learning materials a week before the class starts so students are ready to succeed from Day One.  

The beginnings of an OERevolution are grounded in faculty working together with their OER librarian or instructional designer and fellow faculty to identify diverse, engaging and quality materials aligned to their outcomes.

The next level of the OERevolution can also include open pedagogy where students are also gathering and identifying materials for a course and faculty content creation where faculty help fill the gaps and create content to support learning either in the form of videos, articles or textbooks.

Our most recent college example of faculty innovation is a new textbook that was co-written by a team of faculty for an Introduction to Ethnic Studies course. This free and open textbook serves as a guide and the course shell includes additional learning and engagement materials.

Co-author Dr. Vera Kennedy proclaims, “We are excited to share our new OER book with original content titled Our Lives: An Ethnic Studies Primer with students and faculty. The text was developed as a stand-alone resource for Introduction to Ethnic Studies courses. However, students and faculty wanting discipline-specific voices or perspectives may choose the book as a supplemental resource.”

The textbook is available in three online format that are listed below and you can see how with just a click of a link our students have Day One access to their material:

Scaling Up the OERevolution!

West Hills College Lemoore, through the TAP role with the pilot ZTC program, offered OER bootcamps and professional development for faculty and delivered strategic sessions for college teams to address institutional elements around OER such as building infrastructure and integration of ZTC and OER through shared governance, policy and campus plans.

Our campus looks forward to working with CVHEC to provide training, support and resources to help our Central Valley colleges continue their OERevolution.  I invite you to check out our story and a plethora of resources at our OER website: https://www.westhillscollege.com/lemoore/oer/.

 

OER Embraced – California community colleges implement zero–textbook–cost (Inside Higher Ed 09/19/19) 

CCLC Convention Re-emergence Features CVHEC Transfer Project/Mapper Panel

The Community College League of California Annual Convention 2022, which returns from its pandemic hiatus Nov. 17-19 in San Francisco, will include a panel by Central Valley Higher Education Consortium representatives presenting the consortium’s historic Transfer Project and its Pathways Program Mapper.

The CLCC Annual Convention – with the theme “Our Time is Now” and billed as the premier professional development event for California’s community college leaders – brings together CEOs, trustees, faculty, staff, administrators and partners from across the state to share tools, models and solutions to system issues, as well as celebrate accomplishments. (See details and registration).

The CVHEC panel, “Community College Transfers: The Breakthrough We’ve Been Waiting For!,” will present the consortium’s pilot project launched last year by UC Merced, Merced College and Bakersfield College that explores new strategies to increase transfers.

The session will also address how Program Mapper, a public internet-based software application, presents students with pre-approved course sequences aligning the community college Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT) with the upper division requirements, by major, for successful degree completion.

Participants will hear about the groundbreaking collaboration of faculty and administrators to build this model and how it has been refined and replicated for implementation by several more Central Valley community colleges, said Stan A. Carrizosa Sr., president-emeritus of College of the Sequoias who currently serves as CVHEC southern regional coordinator.

He will be joined by three other Central Valley colleagues with expertise in transfer issues: Dr. James Zimmerman, UC Merced associate vice provost; Dr. Craig Hayward, Bakersfield College dean; and Tom Burke, chancellor-emeritus of KCCCD who is now coordinator of the CVHEC Transfer Project.

“UC Merced opened its arms to Central Valley community colleges to collaborate and increase the number of successful transfers,” Carrizosa. “Following the pilot project with Merced College and Bakersfield College, a streamlined process has been developed that brings UC and CC faculty/staff together like never before to achieve outstanding results.”

Panel participants will learn how, after UC Merced met with CVHEC in 2018 expressing grave concern for the low number of Central Valley community college transfers, the three CVHEC members launched the pilot project to explore new strategies to increase transfers.

At the same time, California State University, Bakersfield was collaborating with Bakersfield College to create full transfer pathways aligned with the CSU-approved ADTs.

This all was enhanced with a third element, the emergence of the Pathways Program Mapper, Carrizosa said.

“The significant breakthrough occurred when UC Merced agreed to pilot with MC and BC to convene select groups of faculty and staff to review the CSU-approved ADT’s to determine if they could also fulfill the lower division requirements for successful transfer to UC Merced,” he explains.

“Additionally, all parties embraced the Program Mapper application as the vehicle for creating easy access for students, counselors, advisors, high school students and parents to expedite their education planning and successful transfer to UCM.”

To date, six of CVHEC’s 15 community colleges members are implementing the Transfer Project andthe Program Mapper with five more scheduled to start the process this academic year. Statewide data is not available yet but Carrizosa said he knows of at least five more community colleges who are currently engaging with CSU campuses to increase transfers through the Program Mapper.

“Currently, CSU Bakersfield and UC Merced are the two institutions fully engaged as we started with a focus on increasing transfers for our Central Valley community college students,” Carrizosa said. “Other Central Valley CSU partners are in line to start – including Stanislaus State and Fresno State. Other institutions across the state who are already exploring Program Mapper include Cal State San Bernardino and Cal State Dominguez Hills.”

 

 Previous CVHEC e-Newsletter stories:

• Pilot CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Project Improves Process for Students  

• Charting Better Maps to Degrees

• CV-HEC BLOG: UC Enrollment Push Supported by CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Project and New Mapper Software

• CV-HEC Guest Blog: An inside look at the CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Pathways Initiative and Mapper  

• CV-HEC BLOG: UC Enrollment Push Supported by CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Project and New Mapper Software

 CVHEC Web Site Feature: Transfer Project

This September 2022 issue’s feature for our renovated Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC) web site is our Central Valley Transfer Project page developed by CVHEC regional coordinator Stan Carrisoza.

The Central Valley Transfer Project exemplifies the effectiveness of consortium members collaborating to ensure that the students of our nine-county region are afforded a successful transfer experience.

The web page details how in 2019, a year after UC Merced met with CVHEC and expressed grave concern for the low number of Central Valley CC transfers, the two entities launched a pilot project with CVHEC members Merced College and Bakersfield College to explore new strategies to increase transfers.

At the same time, CVHEC member CSU Bakersfield was collaborating with Bakersfield College to create full transfer pathways aligned with the CSU-approved Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT).

As a third element emerged — the Pathways Program Mapper, a public internet-based software application — the project bloomed into full implementation in the fall 2021. The project was presented publicly in November at a convening at UC Merced where educators learned how Mapper presents students with pre-approved course sequences aligning the community college ADTs with the upper division requirements by major for successful degree completion.

“The significant breakthrough occurred when UC Merced agreed to pilot with Merced College and Bakersfield College to convene select groups of faculty and staff to review the CSU-approved ADT’s to determine if they could also fulfill the lower division requirements for successful transfer to UC Merced,” explains Carrizosa, who is also president-emeritus of CVHEC member College of the Sequoias.

“Additionally, all parties embraced the Program Mapper application as the vehicle for creating easy access for students, counselors, advisors, high school students and parents to expedite their education planning and successful transfer to UC Merced.”

The Transfer Project program will also be featured at the Community College League of California Annual Convention 2022, in San Francisco Nov. 17-19 (see related story in this issue).

“On CVHEC’s Transfer web page, you can learn how the Transfer Project model has been refined and replicated and is being implemented by several more Central Valley community colleges,” said Angel Ramirez, CVHEC Operations & Finance Manager, who has been spearheading the web renovation project.

See the Central Valley Transfer Project page.

Presenting our renovated CVHEC Website: Meet our Board of Directors

The chancellors, presidents and superintendents of 30 institutions of higher education in the Central Valley nine-county region from Stockton to Bakersfield sit on the CVHEC Board of Directors. They meet quarterly in pursuit of CVHEC’s core mission to increase valley college-going rates and degree/certification attainment, providing a unified voice for their more than 250,000 students served jointly. See the board of directors section in our newly renovated website: https://cvhec.org/about-cvhec/ 

 

This fall, we unveil phase one of our renovated Central Valley Higher Education Consortium website which we hope will be easier to navigate as we showcase the work of the Consortium throughout the valley.

We will be featuring a different piece of our website as we continue to build it out in hopes of showcasing it as a resource for our members, colleagues and partners.

This month, we feature the professionals and experts who are carrying out the CVHEC mission. On the “About CVHEC” page, you can meet our CVHEC Board of Directors – the presidents and chancellors of our 30 members of higher education in the Central Valley’s nine-county region from Stockton to Bakersfield as well as the core staff that includes several former educational leaders who  now served as CVHEC regional coordinators/liasions,

Also, see our CVHEC News web page that is being finalized this fall featuring our newsletter stories and press releases where news media can connect with us as well as the members of our CVHEC PIO/Communicators Committee, consisting of the communications professionals handling media relations at each of the 30 campuses.

Our new calendar will keep you up-to-date on CVHEC and other higher education events on our radar. For considerations and modifications to our calendar please email centralvalleyhec@gmail.com.

YCCD Names Dr. Tran President of Columbia College

Congratulations to Dr. Lena H. Tran, a San Jose City College vice president, on her appointment as the next president of Columbia College effective March 7 when she also becomes a member of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium Board of Directors.

The Yosemite Community College District Board of Trustees unanimously approved Dr. Tran’s appointment at its Feb. 9 meeting. She succeeds Dr. G.H. Javaheripour, who has served as interim president since January 2021 when Dr. Santanu Bandyopadhyay, Columbia’s former president, was named to the same role at Modesto Junior College in June.

“Dr. Tran has a strong track record of developing strategic partnerships with K-12 schools, universities, and business and industry,” said YCCD Chancellor Henry Yong, citing Tran’s experience working with companies such as Microsoft, LinkedIn, Google, Honda, IDT, Facebook and Samsung.

Dr. Tran earned a Doctorate in Education in Organizational and Leadership Development at the University of San Francisco; a Master of Business Administration in Entrepreneurship and Marketing at Seton Hall University; and a bachelor of science in International Business and Marketing at Montclair State University.

“I am honored and humbled to accept this wonderful appointment, and I’m excited to begin working together with Columbia College and the Sonora community,” said Tran who currently is SJCC vice president of Strategic Partnerships and Workforce Innovations.

“During my service in higher education, I’ve realized that community colleges are accomplishing something extraordinary in America through their positive impact on the lives of the people we serve,” she added. “The opportunity to work with multicultural groups of college students over the last decade has given me a profound appreciation and respect for the benefits that community colleges are bringing to our society.”

Columbia serves about 4,000 students, mostly from Tuolumne and Calaveras counties. In addition to its academic programs, it offers many highly regarded vocational programs, including culinary arts and hospitality as well as forestry and natural resource management.

See the YCCD press release.  

CVHEC BLOG: ‘WHAT THE CV-HEC IS HAPPENING’ (Dec. 2021)

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The opening panel discussion at the CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Project convening Nov. 4 in Merced included Shirley Asher, Jennifer Johnson, Karissa Morehouse, Sonya Christian, Gregg Camfield and Chenoa Woods.

 

The beat – serving student success – goes on!

An inside look at the CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Pathways Initiative and Mapper

By Tom Burke
CVHEC Transfer Project Coordinator

(Photo Gallery below)

In June, when I stepped down as chancellor of the Kern Community College District, many thought I would embark on the typical “retirement” life of fishing, hunting, traveling and just resting after a 40-year career.

While I did enjoy some of that, I also soon found myself right back in the saddle in a “new” role with KCCD as Deputy Chancellor and as a coordinator with the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium. So for those of you wondering: no I’m not officially “retired!”

Rather I am happy to report that the past few months have been quite a rewarding whirlwind as I plunged headlong into a new “assignment” as coordinator of CVHEC’s Transfer Project with the intent to enhance what has been my life’s work: serving students in general and in this case specifically, helping build effective pathways to our community colleges for a smoother, efficient transfer experience.

To that end, these past 45 days alone have seen the fruition of two great milestones.

First was the public celebration of the completion of Phase I of a joint program, the CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Pathways Initiative, at a convening Nov. 4 on the UCM campus with community college partners Bakersfield and Merced Colleges.  Secondly, at that historic event, we also launched Phase II of this project that includes the participation of four more CVHEC member institutions: Porterville College, Reedley College, Clovis College and West Hills College-Lemoore.

 

Revolutionizing Positive Outcomes

The Transfer Pathways Initiative is the result of a $500,000 grant from the California Educational Learning Lab to Bakersfield College, Merced College and UC Merced for the development of 2+2 transfer maps that streamline and guide the transfer of community college students to the University of California system.

Last month’s convening, “Charting Better Maps to Degrees – Developing Transfer Pathways to UC Merced,” demonstrated how we can revolutionize positive outcomes across enrollment, completions and equity for students while emphasizing UC Merced’s commitment to significantly expanding transfer pathways for community college students within the San Joaquin Valley to UC Merced.

With about 172 participants representing all three segments of higher education, the hybrid convening itself was a hallmark of sorts being the first major gathering convened by CVHEC and its partners since the pandemic shut down the world in March 2020. The energy from seeing and hearing our colleagues in the flesh was very evident throughout the six-hour event that was also presented virtually via Zoom (130 virtual and 42 in person).

CVHEC member community colleges were well represented at the convening where we discussed how in Phase 1, our partner teams completed 14 Transfer Pathways from Merced College and Bakersfield College to UC Merced as well as Transfer Pathway work with California State University, Bakersfield.

The convening also further introduced interested colleges to the Pathway Mapper software program, particularly its ability to enhance the student transfer experience as well as early student success results from institutions utilizing the Pathway Mapper. Participants also received information on future Program Mapper software enhancements that are scheduled.

The topics of four breakout sessions portrayed the breadth and depth of our mission:

  • The Tech Behind Program Pathways Mapper
  • Student Impact of Program Pathways Mapper – On-path Percentage, Student Engagement
  • Getting Started with Program Pathways Mapper: Cleaning and Loading Your Curriculum
  • The Technology of Collaboration – How to set up effective intersegmental discipline faculty teams and develop 2+2 transfer Documentation of process and guidelines.

 

Implementation teams of faculty, staff working hand-in-hand

The second great milestone is the launch of Phase II which actually got its start in the summer when a convening of representatives from all 15 CVHEC community colleges included an update presentation on the aforementioned Phase I completion of the 14 Transfer Pathways from Merced and Bakersfield Colleges to UC Merced.

At that June 16 convening, significant interest was expressed for participation in Phase II project implementation so in the early fall CVHEC reached out to interested member community colleges with a call to form and submit their implementation teams.

The four Phase II community colleges mentioned above — Porterville, Reedley, Clovis and West Hills-Lemoore — established teams and scheduled convenings to commence the development of curriculum transfer pathways to UC Merced. They will now be individually convening in the next four months with the first held Dec. 2-3 at Porterville College.

That recent convening was my first as a coordinator and I was impressed with the commitment and excitement by the Porterville College, faculty, staff and administrators to develop nine transfer pathways directly to UC Merced including a new pathway in Spanish.

Perhaps the pinnacle of that enthusiasm was to observe, when a potential curriculum issue arose, how UC Merced staff collaborated and interfaced with community college faculty and staff for solutions on the spot.  They collectively brainstormed and developed options for resolving the issue.

In particular, the level of commitment by host Porterville College to fulfill this mission for their students was further demonstrated by the active involvement and attendance in the two-day convening by the Vice President of Instruction Thad Russell, Vice President of Student Services Primavera Arvizu and President of the Academic Senate Robert Simpkins.  In addition, Porterville College President Dr. Claudia Habib made an appearance at the convening impressing upon faculty and staff the importance of their contributions to this project for their students’ success and thanked them for their work on the pathways.

Equally, I was impressed with the Transfer Project planning team, especially CVHEC colleague Stan Carrizosa, a former College of Sequoias superintendent/president, and James Zimmerman, senior associate vice provost and dean for Undergraduate Education at UC Merced.

We hope this level of partnership by all parties will be emulated by all our members, which I am convinced will only lead to a great reward: positive outcomes across enrollment, completions and equity for students.

And that will clearly make for happier fishing, hunting and traveling days along the way (when I can squeeze them in)!

Happy Holidays to all!

See UC Merced press release: https://news.ucmerced.edu/news/2021/uc-merced-offer-simpler-transfer-pathway-central-valley-community-college-students

See Merced Sun Star story: UC Merced announces partnership to encourage Valley community college student transfers

Dr. Benjamín Durán, CVHEC executive director; Dr. Sonya Christian, Kern Community College District chancellor; Lark Park, director of the California Education Learning Lab; and Dr. Juan Sánchez Muñoz, UC Merced chancellor.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_images_carousel images=”6150,6118,6120,6119,6184,6171,6164,6162,6161,6147,6148,6149,6151,6144,6142,6141,6096,6140,6107,6170,6139,6138,6136,6135,6121,6122,6126,6127,6130,6131,6132,6133,6110,6109,6108,6143,6059″ img_size=”large” autoplay=”yes” title=”Gallery: CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Pathways Initiative — UC Merced campus Nov. 4″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

MEMBER NEWS: CCO honors  8 CVHEC members with ‘Champions’ Awards

Campaign for College Opportunity honors 

8 CVHEC members with ‘Champions’ Awards

Eight CVHEC member institutions were honored as 2021 Champions of Higher Education and Equity Champions for Excellence in Transfer by the Campaign for College Opportunity.

Honored at CCO’s annual Champions of Higher Education for Excellence in Transfer virtual awards ceremony Nov. 16 were Bakersfield College; Clovis Community College; California State University, Bakersfield; College of the Sequoias; Fresno City College; Fresno State; Modesto Junior College; and Reedley College.

These colleges and universities are leading the state in: conferring the Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT); enrolling ADT earners on guaranteed pathways to a bachelor’s degree; and intentionally working to support Latinx and Black students on their path to a degree, said Michele Siqueiros, CCO president.

For a breakdown of specific awards, see the CCO announcement and video.

(CVHEC members are encouraged to submit items for this column: centralvalleyhec@gmail.com).

 

Dual Enrollment Success Stories: Celeste Galvan of McFarland

Celeste Galván of McFarland and her family celebrated her two degrees earned by the age of 19 thanks to dual enrollment courses through Bakersfield College before Fresno State. Here they pose with her at her high school graduation in 2018. She is now enrolled in CSU Bakersfield’s teacher credential program. All three campuses are CVHEC members.

 

CVHEC Dual Enrollment Spotlight: Celeste Galván of McFarland

From one end of the valley to the other, the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium continues to spotlight student dual enrollment success stories.

Like Nataly Frias featured in our first story in September, Celeste Galván of McFarland earned an associate degree at age 17 before she even graduated high school, marching alongside thousands of other Bakersfield College students at the commencement ceremony in Memorial Stadium in 2018.

Celeste Galván graduated from Fresno State in December 2020.

Then just two years later, after transferring to Fresno State, she earned a bachelor of arts degree in Liberal Studies in May and now, at age 19, she is enrolled in the credential program at California State University, Bakersfield while serving an teacher internship at a nearby elementary school. All three institutions are CVHEC members.

In high school, Celeste participated in a Bakersfield College pilot program at the Wonderful College Prep Academy in nearby Delano that provided students with the opportunity to complete an associate of science in agriculture business from BC by the time they graduated from high school.

Before her senior year, Celeste’s family moved to Bakersfield and she chose to stay with her grandmother in McFarland to finish her BC degree work with the Wonderful Academy.

A typical day for Celeste would start at 4 a.m. to get ready for practice with the cross country team, where she took second place at the CIF Central Section Championships in Woodward Park in 2015. After classes, she would stay at the school library as late as 8 or 9 p.m. to finish her college and high school classwork since she didn’t have access to wifi at her grandmother’s house.

Celeste rode that Renegade/Bulldog/Roadrunner spirit through Bakersfield College, Fresno State and back to CSUB.

ROMEO AGBALOG — President of the KCCD Board of Trustees

Romeo Agbalog, president of the Kern Community College District Board of Trustees, wrote in a Bakersfied.com op-ed in January that the success of Celeste and other students prepared Bakersfield College to scale up its model by launching the Early College program in 2019, with the vision of providing a pathway for every high school student in   Kern County to earn between 12 and 60 units of college credit before graduation.

“Every incoming freshman at McFarland High School is enrolled in college-level courses alongside their regular classwork, developing the tools for college and career readiness. Today, over 23,000 students have completed a total of approximately 90,000 college credits at 36 high schools across the county” said Agbalog who also noted the program is successful in closing equity gaps.

“Early College has had a 93 percent student success rate across all high school campuses in the last academic year, consistently exceeding BC’s own institution-set standard for student success by 15 to 20 percent,” he wrote. “Most importantly, more than 85 percent of students from rural areas who were in an associate degree completion pathway went to college after high school.”

See Trustee President Agbalog’s column.

Background: 

The Central Valley Higher Education Consortium has been playing an increasing role in furthering Dual Enrollment as an equity-driven strategy to reduce disparities in student persistence and completion rates, which is the essence of the CVHEC mission, including

the creation of a task force in 2019, the Central Valley Dual Enrollment for Equity and Prosperity (CVDEEP).

With over 60 education leaders from the CVHEC region, CVHEC’s Central Valley Dual Enrollment for Equity and Prosperity (CVDEEP) Task Force is identifying and establishing the best elements of a sustainable strategy for dual enrollment that is intentional and aligns with Guided Pathways.

Made up of representatives from Central Valley K-12 districts, colleges, and universities, the task force developed a collaborative regional accord on an equitable delivery of dual enrollment, culminating in a Central Valley Higher Education Consortium white paper in July 2020, “Dual Enrollment in the Central Valley.”

This consensus framework document is designed to assist the nine-county region in the advancement of dual enrollment by reviewing where it has been, identifying the bright spots, identifying challenges and working together to develop solutions.

CVHEC efforts focus on policy implementation and delivery of support to faculty and administrators working on these efforts. The work focuses on regional strategic scaling of Guided Pathways; math pathways; corequisite support (AB 705 and EO 110 implementation); California College Guidance Initiative; and dual enrollment as strategies for equity and degree attainment.

CVHEC will continue to highlight stories about dual enrollment students like Celeste and Nataly in its e-newsletter, and social media platforms. Also, a showcase video conveying the value of dual enrollment for all students through the stories of individual valley students is currently in production and due to be released later this fall semester.

 

 

Dual Enrollment Success Stories: Nataly Frias

Nataly Frias and family: parents Anthony and Sabrina, both CSU Stanislaus alumni, are counselors at Modesto Jr. College and Merced College respectively. Older brother Anthony Frias, II, also took dual enrollment courses and graduated from MC in the spring with Nataly. Younger brother Isaiah, a Turlock High junior, turned 16 this month and is also taking dual enrollment courses at Merced College.

Dual Enrollment: success stories underscore equity-driven strategy
to reduce disparities in student persistence and completion rates

The Covid-19 pandemic of the past 18 months cast a shadow over joyous occasions like graduation events for Class of 2020 and 2021 high school and college students everywhere, but one narrative emerged repeatedly in the Central Valley that provided a spark of optimism for our region’s college attainment rates: dual enrollment success stories.

One of those stories is 18-year-old Nataly Frias, who, during her pandemic senior year at Turlock High School (2020-21), had taken enough Merced College courses online to earn two associate degrees in May, even before receiving her THS diploma in June.

Like other students around the country over the years, California students such as Nataly have taken college-level courses while still completing their high school degree thanks to various options such as concurrent or dual enrollment.

“Recent legislation has opened the gates for far more students to take advantage of dual enrollment,” said Saundra McGlothlin, CVHEC’s central regional coordinator and dual enrollment lead “The CVHEC region is committed to stay engaged in developing solutions to overcoming persistent barriers to equity.”

Born to teen parents who themselves worked hard and returned to college (Stanislaus State alums Anthony and Sabrina Frias who are now counselors at Modesto Jr. College and Merced College respectively), Nataly is now enrolled at Fresno State for a bachelor’s degree in Psychology but with her sights set on the Nursing Program.

“Just do it,” Nataly said in a media account about her success and the challenge of dual enrollment courses. “It’s a lot of hard work but you’ll feel so accomplished.”

The pandemic actually had a silver-lining in that she had more time during the quarantine to focus on schoolwork.

“I probably wouldn’t have graduated as early without the pandemic because it really helped give me so much time where I was only focused on my online courses,” said Nataly who said she comes from a “dual enrollment family.”

Her older brother Anthony also took dual enrollment courses when he attended Turlock High and graduated from Merced College with Nataly last spring but is now enrolled at Modesto Jr. College where he plays football. And younger brother Isaiah, a Turlock High junior, is currently  taking dual enrollment courses thorough Merced College.

McGlothlin, who retired in 2017 as the vice president of Student Services for West Hills Community College – Coalinga, noted that not all students follow Nataly’s accelerated path of earning an associate degree while in high school. Many take just a few dual enrollment courses that help them get some college credit under their belt while providing a glimpse of the higher education academic curriculum.

“Most of dual enrollment students complete 12-24 units,” said McGlothlin. “This means — in addition to meeting graduation requirements — less money spent when working towards a degree in college, usually a semester or two free.”

See Nataly’s story in local news media accounts:

https://www.turlockjournal.com/news/education/turlock-high-senior-uses-pandemic-downtime-earn-college-degree/

https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2021/05/21/turlock-teen-graduates-high-school-college/

 

Background: 

The Central Valley Higher Education Consortium has been playing an increasing role in furthering Dual Enrollment as an equity-driven strategy to reduce disparities in student persistence and completion rates, which is the essence of the CVHEC mission, including

the creation of a task force in 2019, the Central Valley Dual Enrollment for Equity and Prosperity (CVDEEP).

With over 60 education leaders from the CVHEC region, CVHEC’s Central Valley Dual Enrollment for Equity and Prosperity (CVDEEP) Task Force is identifying and establishing the best elements of a sustainable strategy for dual enrollment that is intentional and aligns with Guided Pathways.

Made up of representatives from Central Valley K-12 districts, colleges, and universities, the task force developed a collaborative regional accord on an equitable delivery of dual enrollment, culminating in a Central Valley Higher Education Consortium white paper in July 2020, “Dual Enrollment in the Central Valley.”

This consensus framework document is designed to assist the nine-county region in the advancement of dual enrollment by reviewing where it has been, identifying the bright spots, identifying challenges and working together to develop solutions.

CVHEC efforts focus on policy implementation and delivery of support to faculty and administrators working on these efforts. The work focuses on regional strategic scaling of Guided Pathways; math pathways; corequisite support (AB 705 and EO 110 implementation); California College Guidance Initiative; and dual enrollment as strategies for equity and degree attainment.

CVHEC will continue to highlight success stories like Nataly’s in its e-newsletter, and social media platforms. Also, a showcase video conveying the value of dual enrollment for all students through the stories of individual valley students is currently in production and due to be released later this fall semester.

 

 

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