CVHEC NEWS: ACBO Honors KCCD Chancellor-Emeritus Burke with Excellence Award

Thomas J. Burke

Tom Burke, chancellor-emeritus of Kern Community College District, was honored by the Association of Chief Business Officials/California Community Colleges with its ACBO Achievement of Excellence Award last month.

Burke, who now serves as coordinator of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium Transfer Project  and this month was named to lead the Consortium’s Kern Master’s Teacher Up-skilling Pathway for English and Mathematics, was presented the prestigious award during ABCO’s annual conference (Oct. 24-26) in Indian Wells, CA.

Formerly the Walter Star Robie, the award is presented to professionals in California community college business administration who have demonstrated outstanding achievements and exemplary service as chief business officials in their respective districts and the state of California.

Burke served the California Community College system for 24 years including 15 as KCCD chief financial officer before being named the district’s chancellor in 2016. He retired in July, 2021 and in December, Burke was conferred chancellor emeritus by the KCCD Board of Trustees.

 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.

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

(This issue’s “What The CV-HEC Is Happening” Blog features guest contributor Dr. James Zimmerman, senior associate vice provost and dean for Undergraduate Education at the University of California-Merced where he is also director of the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning and a physics professor. He serves on the CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Project committee and here he blog-connects its work the past year to a recent article on UC enrollment expansion).

The California UC Board of Regents has declared its intent to expand enrollment by adding 20,000 new seats in the next few years as outlined in a UCLA Daily Bruin article published May 12 that also presents the relevant challenges associated with this goal.

This illuminating journalistic endeavor by higher education reporters Megan Tagami and Lisa Huiqin is timely for students in the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium’s nine-county region as member institutions UC Merced, Merced College and Bakersfield College have used the last two years to lay groundwork for a CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Project that is designed to bring the college transfer experience into intersegmental alignment.

With this dedicated leadership and collaboration by consortium members and professionals, the Transfer Project is now being undertaken by other members of CVHEC’s 30 institutions of higher education for valley-wide implementation in 2023. And it comes complete with a free and public-facing software strategy students can use to master the curricular pathway to a four-year degree.

Setting the Stage

The Daily Bruin article illustrates that following an extensive decades-long push in California high schools to promote college-readiness and increase the number of UC-eligible students graduating each year, we are experiencing an increased demand for access to our UC campuses throughout the state.

Even more impressive, is the number of students eligible for transfer to UC from our California Community Colleges. Not only are more transfer-eligible students coming from community colleges, but these transfers also succeed in completing their UC degrees at higher rates than all other UC students.

In particular, Tagami and Huiqin cite the targeted efforts of UC Merced to increase the number of community college students from the Central Valley that successfully transfer to UC Merced.  This effort emerged in 2018 as UC Merced committed anew to recruiting/retaining local community college transfers. UC Merced officials met with a focus group of Central Valley community college chancellors/presidents in the CVHEC region to clarify and address the challenges.

Forthright TAG/ADT conversations

During this meeting, the group discussed the Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) project agreed to by some UC campuses as a transfer pathway for community college students to be accepted to the UC. This discussion quickly evolved into a compare and contrast of the UC-based TAG agreements and the California State University systemwide transfer pathways project called the Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT).

Completion of ADT’s as an effective pathway for transfer to the CSU far outpaced the number of successful transfers to UC through the TAG agreements. This is credited in large part to the consistency of the CSU’s commitment/acceptance of the community college ADT’s, that when completed, fulfill the lower-division requirements for guaranteed transfer to CSU.

Simply put, if a student successfully completes the ADT pathway in a particular discipline/major, they have fulfilled the lower-division requirements and are accepted as a transfer (third-year) student in good-standing to the CSU.

Walking the  talk

Fast forward to today … with its Transfer Project, the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium and UC Merced have been engaged in a collaborative, intersegmental process to review and assess the community college ADT’s with the intent to accept the completion of selected ADT’s in various disciplines as fulfilling the lower-division requirements for successful transfer to UC Merced.

This process brings together community college and UC Merced faculty in common discipline/majors to review/approve existing or slightly modified ADT’s for successful transfer to UC Merced. To date, seven of the CVHEC community college members are now engaged in the approval process with five more in line to begin the approval process in fall 2022 for implementation in 2023.

The culminating feature in the project’s process is the implementation of a public-facing, internet-based software application called Program Pathways Mapper with two key outcomes for transfer student success:

  • This software merges an updated/accurate list of community college courses in approved ADT/curricular pathway with the corresponding upper-division coursework at UC Merced to show a complete four-year pathway to degree completion.
  • The Program Pathways Mapper software makes all of this information available through public internet access to all students, parents and community college and high school faculty and counselors without a need for a institutional login

As a higher education professional for more than 25 years, I am extremely satisfied with the continuing collaboration that my colleagues from CVHEC have provided to this groundbreaking initiative: Tom Burke, Transfer Project coordinator for the consortium, and Stan Carrizosa — both are former chief executives at Central Valley community colleges who now serve as regional coordinators for CVHEC under the leadership of its executive director, Dr. Benjamin Duran (also a community college president-emeritus).

UC Merced/CVHEC Transfer Initiative + Program Pathways Mapper = student friendly/student empowerment/student success

As the UC system explores ways to accomplish its newly minted goal to increase enrollment, it would be well-served to study the CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Project.

This is a process-based project that requires little to no additional funding other than the time for faculty and staff to collaborate. And its Program Mapper is an inexpensive software solution.

The result, so far, is that high school and community college students can now open the Program Mapper on their smart phone and easily find their major of interest at their community college and an accurate/up-to-date list of all the courses necessary both lower division and upper division, to successfully transfer and graduate from UC Merced in those majors.

Bottom line translation: student-friendly outcomes and increased UC enrollment!

 

 

See previous CVHEC newsletter articles:

https://bit.ly/TransferProject-CVHEC0921

https://bit.ly/MapperTransferLaunch-CVHEC1021

https://bit.ly/BlogCVHEC1221-TransferBurke

 

 

 

 

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]

Mini-Grant Success Story: CHSU Pre-Med Pathway Bootcamp

Pre-Med Bootcamp Helps Local Students
with CHSU-COM Med School Applications 

NOTE: For the past three years, CVHEC Mini-Grants have been awarded to member institutions in support of CVHEC’s mission to increase degree attainment rates. We are highlighting how our member institutions’ innovative uses for the grants are positively impacting students. 

A Pre-Med Pathway Bootcamp helped 25 local students prepare to apply to California Health Sciences University College of Osteopathic Medicine (CHSU-COM) thanks to funding from Central Valley Higher Education Consortium’s Mini-Grant project.

CVHEC’s $6,000 mini-grant offset course fees for students so they only had to pay $25 to reserve their seats. The grant also provided all MCAT prep supplies and instruction, T-shirts, certificates of completion and a catered lunch for the attendees.

“Our local pre-med students greatly benefited from only having to pay $25 for this in-depth Pre-Med Pathway Bootcamp,” said Dr. Kevin Steed, assistant professor of Biomedical Education who served as program director with Samuel Kadavakollu, PhD, chair of the Biomedical Education Department and associate professor at CHSU-COM.

“We appreciate CHSU’s and CVHEC’s commitment to keeping this program affordable for local students, many of whom would not have been able to participate if they had to pay thousands for a program of this caliber,” Dr. Steed said.

CHSU’s four-weekend bootcamp held in October was divided into three main categories with sessions that provided the aspiring pre-medical students an opportunity to prepare for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), learn about the medical school application process and experience the medical school environment.

In addition to classroom learning, pre-med students experienced HoloAnatomy using the Microsoft HoloLens; participated in a culinary workshop in the CHSU-COM Teaching Kitchen where they practiced cooking healthy recipes; and stepped into the shoes of a current medical student by participating in medical simulation scenarios in the CHSU Simulation Center with manikins and real Standardized Patients.

Graduates of the bootcamp were presented with certificates by John Graneto, DO, dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine and Lisa Chun, DO, associate dean of Osteopathic Clinical Education and Simulation.

CHSU is now planning for its next Pre-Med Pathway Bootcamp in spring 2022.

The CVHEC Mini-Grants project, currently funded by the College Futures Foundation, provides awards up to $10,000 each which faculty from consortium member institutions have creatively used for individual projects that help achieve CVHEC’s strategy of increasing degree attainment rates.

Previous mini-grants have supported assistance and professional learning associated with Guided Pathways, Math Pathways, implementation of Corequisite English and math, course development and advancement of Pathways for Associate Degrees for Transfer.

The 2021 funding cycle also sought to additionally incentivize basic needs and equity, race and social justice work. Details about applications for the 2022 funding cycle will be announced in January.

For more information about CVHEC Mini-Grants, contact Angel Ramirez at angelr@mail.fresnostate.edu.

See CHSU press release.

Students prepared to apply to California Health Sciences University College of Osteopathic Medicine (CHSU-COM) at the Pre-Med Pathway Bootcamp with funding from the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium Mini-Grant project.

Boot camp students participated in a culinary workshop in the CHSU-COM Teaching Kitchen where they practiced cooking healthy recipes.

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