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.

CCA Dual Enrollment National Focus Group Features Central Valley Students

A nation-wide communications campaign conducted by Complete College America (CCA) to recruit more Latinx students and other students of color into dual/concurrent enrollment student programs across the United States includes four Central Valley students who participated in CCA’s Dual Enrollment Student Focus Group Sept. 19 via Zoom.

The projected release of the virtual presentation is early 2023, said Dr. Brandon Protas, a strategic director for CCA.

Complete College America is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is focused on significantly increasing college completion rates with a focus on racial equity through an alliance of higher education leaders and organizations – such as partner CVHEC.

Dr. Benjamín T. Durán, CVHEC executive director, serves as one of 48 CCA leads nation-wide who provide oversight and coordination for local initiatives as well as CCA-sponsored projects. Leads act as strategic thought partners and leaders and promote the efforts and importance of CCA, Dr. Protas said.

The alliance sought the student recommendations after seeing CVHEC’s dual enrollment awareness campaign the past year that culminated in a five-minute video, newsletter stories and student panels at two convenings earlier this year. In addition to those students from the consortium’s nine-county Central Valley region, for this national project CVHEC also recruited valley students who attend a college outside the region.

Dr. Protas said the national project sought racially homogenous focus groups of students over 18 who participated in dual/concurrent enrollment in the past four years.

“The aim is to understand what impact DE/CE classes had on students of color, as well as on their motivation to go to college and to earn a certificate or degree and their experiences as a student of color,” Dr. Protas said.

“Information gathered from this national focus group will help create plug-and-play communications assets that can be used for intentional recruitment of dual/concurrent enrollment students who are underrepresented in these programs,” he said. “These would be branded through Complete College America and made available throughout the CCA Alliance to help recruit future high school students into DE/CE programs across the United States.”

The conversations were facilitated by Dr. Stepheny Hinkle Beauchamp, who CCA retained to conduct them through a race-conscious lens, Protas said. Her doctoral research is in dual enrollment rates for Latinos in Colorado.

The CVHEC students participating in the nation focus group are:

 

  • MARISSA GUTIÉRREZ, a graduate of Firebaugh High School who took dual enrollment through West Hills College-Firebaugh Center, earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Fresno State. She is now enrolled at University of Northern Colorado earning a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling while working full time for a local elementary school in Greeley, CO.

 

  • VERÓNICA MÉNDEZ GARCÍA graduated from Madera High School where she enrolled in dual enrollment courses through Madera Community College before earning a Bachelor of Arts at Fresno Pacific University in spring 2022. She also served as student body president (2021-22) and was featured in a CVHEC video regarding broadband disparity. She is now pursuing a master’s at California Baptist University online.

 

  • AMIRA MALDONADO earned an Associate of Arts degree (plant science) through Reedley College’s Wonderful Prep program while at Sanger High School and is now in her second undergrad year at University of California, Davis (human development- sports medicine).

 

  • JOSÉ ACOSTA, a Sanger High School alumnus, took dual enrollment courses through Reedley College’s Wonderful Prep program and is in his second undergrad year at UC Davis (Animal Science).

 

The students have been enthusiastic in sharing their respective success stories, said Tom Uribes, CVHEC communications/media coordinator who coordinated the local student effort with Saundra McGlothlin, CVHEC regional coordinator and dual enrollment lead.

“We identified students who took just a few dual enrollment classes and found themselves motivated to pursue a higher education and we had some who went all out taking enough courses to earn an associate degree a week or two before they formally graduated from high school,” Uribes said. “All have been very articulate in sharing their respective stories either in our video, newsletter stories or serving on the panels.”

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.

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 MEMBER NEWS: Fresno State President Jiménez-Sandoval Investiture Sept. 9

The investiture ceremony for Fresno State’s ninth president, Dr. Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, on Sept. 9 wove together iconic threads representing the Valley’s history and elements of his personal and professional trajectory during his time in this fertile land.

And throughout, President Jiménez-Sandoval, who also serves on the CVHEC Board of Directors made up 30 valley college CEOs, emphasized that “every thread matters” when it comes to advancing student success, promoting the University and solving tough challenges.

Hundreds gathered in the Save Mart Center for the formal ceremony that conferred upon  President Jiménez-Sandoval, an immigrant from Mexico who grew up in the Central Valley community of Fowler a few miles south of Fresno, the authority and symbols of the highest University office by California State University interim Chancellor Jolene Koester. 

Fellow CVHEC Board member, Dr. Lynnette Zelezny, president of CSU Bakersfield, returned to Fresno State where she once served as provost to deliver the investiture keynote address.  

In addition to President Zelezny, other CVHEC board members in attendance were

  • Dr. Ellen Junn, President – California State University, Stanislaus
  • Dr. Andre Stephens, President – Fresno Pacific University
  • Dr. Lori Bennett, President – Clovis Community College
  • Dr. Jerry Buckley, President – Reedley Community College
Related links:

FresnoStateNews.com press release

Dr. Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, Ph.D. – President – Office of the President

CSU Board of Trustees appoint Jiménez-Sandoval the ninth Fresno State president May 19, 2021.

President Jiménez-Sandoval profile (The Fresno State Collegian – Sept. 8, 2022). 

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).

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.

CVHEC Director’s Message (August 2022): Here’s to an Engaging Fall Semester 2022

Greetings to you all and welcome to the fall semester as students, faculty and staff return to in-person learning at our CVHEC campuses throughout the Central Valley.

As we all approach the 2022-23 academic year with renewed energy and enthusiasm, we are dedicating a portion of this edition of the CVHEC e-newsletter to the good work  of the medical healthcare  partners in the Consortium.

We are delighted to announce  the establishment of the California Medicine Scholars Program (SJV-CMSP) hub in Fresno, one of four hubs in California authorized by the Senate Bill 40, authored by our very own Senator, Melissa Hurtado, (D-Sanger Hurtado).  The budget bill, signed in June by Governor Gavin Newsom, includes $9,975,000 to establish a regional pipeline system for community college students who want to go to medical school.

Dr. Kenny Bahn of the UC San Francisco Medical School – Fresno headed a team to develop the application for funding and collaborated with CVHEC partners, California Health Sciences University and regional community colleges that will feed the medical pathways in the valley.  Valley wide collaborative efforts will hopefully lead to more physicians and allied health professionals settling in the region.

In keeping with the medical theme, please see the video in our “What The CV-HEC Is Happening” Guest Blog featuring Dr. Mike Farr, an alumnus of CVHEC member California Health Science University, in an interview on GVWire’s “Unfiltered” virtual talk show.  Dr. Farr was conferred the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree in CHSU’s first Graduation Ceremony in 2018 and touts the value of having a medical school in the Central Valley.

Please join us in welcoming to the CVHEC Board of Directors Dr. Brock McMurry, newly appointed interim superintendent/president of the West Kern Community College District (Taft College). He will be seated at our next quarterly meeting this fall along with two new members also recently appointed to their posts: Dr. Robert Pimentel, president of the historic Fresno City College (the oldest Community College in California) and Dr. Andre Stephens, president of Fresno Pacific College (see our May issue).

This fall, CVHEC will push forward with several exciting developments that will be featured in future issues including the resumption of in-person convenings to address issues of higher education relevant to our mission. Be on the lookout for our continuing work in Dual Enrollment and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA).  In collaboration with the three K16 Collaboratives in the Central Valley, CVHEC will also be pushing for improved transfer pathways and a valley wide dialogue on creating meaningful STEP and math pathways for our students.

Also this fall we unveil our renovated website which we hope will be easier to navigate and showcase the work of the Consortium throughout the valley.

The 2022-23 academic year stands to be another exciting and productive year.  We hope you will stay engaged with us and join us for the in-person convenings we will hold as the pandemic wanes.

 

 

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