With the spring 2025 semester now in full swing, welcome to our March newsletter.  We are excited about all that is going on in the Central Valley region beginning with our annual CVHEC Higher Education Summit set for May 9, 2025.

Registration is now available as we continue preparing for the summit. We welcome and encourage your participation this year.

In this issue, please read about some of the summit topics we will be covering.  Among those topics will be the work that the CVHEC Math Task Force has been undertaking to deal with the changing math requirements in higher education throughout the state mandated through Assembly Bill 1705. They will be holding a follow-up convening March 28 that will include a presentation by two valley community college math professors who traveled to Atlanta for a national math conference where they shared the “Central Valley Way” underlying the task force’s work the past two years.

Also, this issue we are excited to feature the recent California Dual Enrollment Equity Conference in Sacramento where I led a delegation of team members and high school educators for a panel we were invited to present, “Using Dual Enrollment as a tool for Math Alignment and Increasing Instructor Capacity in the Central Valley.”

Speaking before a very interested audience of educators from throughout the state on Feb. 24, we discussed how our Master’s Upskilling Program — generously funded by our partners: the Fresno/Madera K16 Collaborative, the Kern K16 Collaborative and the We Wil K16 Collaborative – is providing  approximately 225 high school teachers from throughout the Central Valley with the opportunity to earn Master’s degrees in English or mathematics making them eligible to teach dual enrollment courses. In addition to the upskilling program, we were joined by College Bridge and two valley educators to discuss how our Math Bridge program is working collaboratively and creatively with secondary and post-secondary educators to  systemically align college and high school math programs, creating a seamless transition for students.

Also, enjoy this month’s “What the CV-HEC is Happening” Blog from our guest contributor, valley native, Dr. Iliana Perez. She is the executive director of Immigrants Rising, an advocacy group based in San Francisco that has been assisting member colleges of the consortium, as well as throughout the state, with information regarding the current status of undocumented students in higher education and resources available to them.  Once a dreamer student herself at CVHEC-member Fresno State, Iliana presents a remarkable academic journey that now has her giving back to her community in a significant manner in support of vulnerable students.

We are also happy to welcome Dr.  Kristin Clark, chancellor-emeritus of West Hills Community College District, who joins our CVHEC Team as dual enrollment lead, just in time for Dual Enrollment Week March 10-14.  Welcome Kristin!

May your spring semester be fruitful and enjoyable and what better way than to join us at our higher education summit May 9?

It is a delight to welcome you to 2025 on behalf of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium member colleges and universities as well as the CVHEC staff that has the privilege of working with our members on the impactful work they undertake in our Central Valley region – work that strives to improve the well-being of our students, their families and the communities we live in.

Before we proceed, let me join you all in wishing our colleagues and students from our sister colleges and universities in Southern California safety, security and well-being as they deal with the horrific and unimaginable fires raging.  It is heartening to see those higher education campuses in the region serving as sites joining in efforts to assist the victims.  Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

In our last edition, we shared with you the successes and highlights of the previous year.  In this, our first newsletter of the year, we are happy to share some of the events and initiatives planned in the coming months.

First, you will note that Dr. Sonya Christian, chancellor of the California Community Colleges and Central Valley native, will join us Feb. 3 as the keynote speaker for our convening “Dual Enrollment — the Central Valley Way.” At this event, with educators and policymakers in our 10-county region, we will showcase the successes achieved throughout the Central Valley in the delivery of dual enrollment courses to regional high schools by our community colleges and examine what is ahead so that we work in unison, as one voice, as much as possible.

Also in this edition, you will read about the first cohort of Math Bridge high school students that began in the fall with a prep course and will now be taking their first college course this spring through the innovative approach rolled out in 2023 by College Bridge in partnership with CVHEC, community college consortium members and Rand Corporation.

As the spring progresses, CVHEC will hold similar convenings around other student success initiatives that are being implemented as well as to begin discussing strategic planning for the consortium. Details will be forthcoming on those events and plans but chief among them is the annual CVHEC Summit scheduled for May 9.

The summit is where the heads of the valley’s higher education institutions – the CVHEC Board of Directors – come together for a full day of showcases and discussions regarding education issues pertinent to our region. We will be joined by our colleagues, partners and friends. We look forward to hearing from our annual panel of legislative leaders from the Valley and, just as important if not moreso, them hearing from us. Watch for more details in our February issue.

In this issue, we are pleased to announce that this year the CVHEC Board of Directors will be chaired by Dr. Juan Sánchez Muñoz, chancellor of UC, Merced.  Presently, two board meetings are in the works for this spring.

In closing, we also kick off 2025 with a special edition of our “What the CV-HEC Is happening” Blog: a reprint of the speech delivered by Dr. Jaime Merisotis, president of the Lumina Foundation, at the Complete College America Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana last November: “Progress in a time of disruption: the urgency of reimagining higher ed.”  

CVHEC sent a delegation to the three-day conference where we were fortunate to hear President Merisotis issue both an alarm and a call to positive action. He warned that higher education is at a crossroads due to changes ranging from COVID, climate change effects, worldwide unrest, political polarization here in the US and a declining confidence in higher education due to distorted information.

But he calls upon our higher education community nationwide to heed a unique “opportunity to use this moment of extreme stress to pursue genuine, urgently-needed systemic change.

“Bluntly stated, this means calling BS on the outrageous distortions about higher education while also pursuing urgently-needed changes,” Dr. Merisotis told us. “These things are both possible, and not in contradiction.”

I hope you enjoy the blog and that this national education leader’s words generate some dialogue between you and your colleagues. We encourage you to share those conversations, as we will, on our various CVHEC social media platforms.

Once again, welcome to the new year and we look forward to maintaining and strengthening ongoing relationships with you as the year unfolds.