CV-HEC Photo Blog: Higher Education Policy and Legislative Summit May 5-6, 2022

For this issue, our What The CV-HEC Is Happening feature is a “photo-blog” capturing scenes from the  CVHEC Higher Education Policy and Legislative Summit held May 5-6 presented under the theme “Post Pandemic World: Recovering with Equity and Inclusion in the Central Valley” in Fresno.

Dr. John D. Welty, Fresno State President-emeritus who left the CVHEC board nine years ago when he retired, returned to join founding board members Dr. Frank Gornick, West Hills Community College District chancellor-emeritus, and Dr. Benjamin Duran, Merced College president-emeritus and current CVHEC executive director, in recalling the early days of the consortium.

At the rare gathering of the presidents and chancellors of 30 Central Valley higher education institutions and other leaders, summit participants engaged in four panel presentations exploring challenges faced by colleges and universities during the pandemic with these topics:

  • Looking at Recovery Through a Lens of Equity and Inclusion
  • Dual Enrollment as an Equity Strategy for Valley High School Students
  • Creating the Central Valley Transfer Model – A Pathway for Valley Students
  • Broadband for All – Taking Broadband to the Next Mile in the Central Valley

A student panel once again provided the voices of those served by higher education professionals including several who “starred” in two CVHEC videos made in the past year:

During the CVHEC Board of Director’s quarterly meeting held the day before the summit, the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine Fresno regional campus was seated as the 30th member institution of the consortium.

Following that board meeting, CVHEC presented a Cinco de Mayo Reception featuring Las Hermanas Medina (Sofia, Bela and Paulina) of Hanford and theme decorations by the Kings Cultural Center in Armona. (Special thanks to Dr. Juan Medina, KCC Director, and wife Chely)

 

 

CVHEC Director’s Message: Consortium Summit ’22 Wrap – Recapturing the Magic

CVHEC board members and May 6 summit participants enjoyed the music of Las Hermanas Medina at the Cinco de Mayo reception the day before more than 130 higher education leaders and advocates convened for the Higher Education Policy and Legislative Summit in downtown Fresno.

 

Greetings and welcome to our May CVHEC e-newsletter,

As the spring semester ends, there is so much to talk about.  For the first time in two years, students and their families are enjoying attendance at live commencement ceremonies at colleges and universities throughout the Central Valley – you can feel the magic in the air.

Also, in a very generous gesture, institutions are honoring those graduates in 2020 and 2021 who were deprived of their commencement events by the pandemic by providing opportunities for them to participate in this year’s ceremonies as well.  We know the graduates would also want to thank the staff and faculty on their campuses for helping them achieve their educational goals.  Congratulations to ALL graduates and to your respective support systems!

As we celebrate our graduates, we hope you enjoy our May issue of the CVHEC Newsletter.  You will see this was an exciting month for us as well.  On May 5 and 6, CVHEC held its spring Board of Directors meeting and our first CVHEC Legislative and Policy Summit since 2019 live in Fresno.  Participants were appreciative of the opportunity to reconnect in-person with colleagues and make new connections.

At the board meeting, the CVHEC Board of Directors was happy to welcome the University of California, San Francisco – Fresno campus as the 30th member institution of the Consortium.  CVHEC also invited six newly-appointed CEOs as members of the Board.

This summit marked the 20th Anniversary of CVHEC with over 150 participants celebrating two decades worth of success by our member institutions in increasing the college-going rate for Valley residents. Please view the Summit photo gallery blog for the visual story of this very successful Summit.

Highlights of the summit include a conversation with Dr. John Welty, President Emeritus of Fresno State and founder of CVHEC, in addition to a panel of students from the region sharing how they navigated the pandemic.  The annual visit and legislative update by Congressman Jim Costa also added to the day.

These highlights, the information that was shared with attendees about the initiatives in the Central Valley to improve student success, and the ability to network in a live setting were invaluable and welcome.

Enjoy our newsletter and enjoy your summer.

See: PHOTO BLOG

CVHEC  Dual Enrollment Convening set for March 17 in Fresno

The “Establishing Dual Enrollment Pathways in the Central Valley” convening Thursday, March 17, will bring more than 150 secondary and postsecondary educators together in person for the first time since the pandemic shutdown to address challenges and barriers to dual enrollment success.

Presented by the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, the convening will be from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.  at the DoubleTree By Hilton Hotel in downtown Fresno.

Registration to participate is now open at: https://bit.ly/DEpathwaysCV (the hotel link is https://bit.ly/DoubleTreeFresno).

This second convening will continue the work started on March 5, 2020 – two weeks before the pandemic shutdown – which resulted in several initiatives that have enhanced the delivery of dual enrollment in the region:

  • Improvements in the CCCApply application process to the California Community College system.
  • The Dual Enrollment Upskilling Teachers Master’s Program that provides access to state funding through the Fresno K-16 Collaborative providing funds for high school English and math teachers to earn their master’s degrees.

“This unique event — intersegmental collaboration at a regional level — will be highly interactive and will engage audience members with panel presenters from valley colleges and high schools including practitioners and student success stories,” said Dr. Benjamín T. Durán, CVHEC executive director.

This renewed localized promotion of dual enrollment began in Spring 2019 when Central Valley community college leaders approached CVHEC to provide convening assistance surrounding dual enrollment, a strategy that allows secondary school students to earn college credits before their high school graduation.

As a result of the discussions in these early gatherings, the Central Valley Dual Enrollment for Equity and Prosperity (CVDEEP) Task Force was formed with about 60 community college and K-12 educational leaders who deliver dual enrollment services valley-wide.

“These educators endeavor purposefully and strategically in addressing the complexity of dual enrollment to spotlight both challenges and best practices for colleges and high schools in the nine-county CVHEC region,” Durán  said.

In June 2020, CVHEC released a 16-page report, “Dual Enrollment in the Central Valley, Working Toward a Unified Approach for Equity and Prosperity;”   by former CVHEC Strategies Lead Virginia Madrid Salazar, Esq., that highlights this work and provides a blueprint to strengthen dual enrollment delivery in the Central Valley. (Also, see her blog in this issue: https://bit.ly/CVHECblog-DualEnrollment021822).

Check for updates and event follow-up at the CVDEEP Convening Website

SEE: CVHEC report, “Dual Enrollment in the Central Valley, Working Toward a Unified Approach for Equity and Prosperity” and press release).

 

BACKGROUND

In 2016, a new dual enrollment option was introduced through Assembly Bill (AB) 288, amending Education Code (EC) 76004, and creating the College and Career Access Pathways (CCAP). This legislation enabled more high school students to take college courses taught by college professors on their high school campuses.  California AB 30, signed by Governor Newsom in October 2019, expands and protects dual enrollment through 2027.  

CVHEC media contact: Tom Uribes • tom@uribes.com • 559.348.3278

‘What the CV-HEC is Happening?’ Guest Blog FEB. 2022: Dual enrollment

Virginia Madrid-Salazar, Esq., was CVHEC’s strategies lead from 2015 through July 2021. In August, the San Joaquin College of Law alumna’s service to her community shifted to private law practice as a dependency attorney serving parents and minors involved in Dependency Court of the Fresno County Superior Court. She is also a board member of the Fresno County Office of Education Foundation. Not only did she utilize her skills while at CVHEC to help develop dual enrollment strategies with CVHEC member institutions and educational partners, Virginia also supported her own son’s productive dual enrollment journey – so we asked her to share some observations on dual enrollment from this unique perspective for our fourth “What the CV-HEC is Happening” Blog.

 

Dual enrollment: an equity change-maker

By Virginia Madrid-Salazar, Esq.

As the strategies lead for the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, it was an honor to work alongside area educators to affect transformational changes that have occurred in the region’s higher education sphere during that period.

This blog entry gives me a welcome opportunity to share my perspective, first, reflecting on the dual enrollment work that CVHEC champions; experiencing dual enrollment in my own son’s educational career; and lastly, expressing my hope for where the Central Valley will go with dual enrollment. As a dependency attorney, I welcome the push of dual enrollment for foster youth.

Energizing for Dual Enrollment Despite Pandemic Limitations

Right before the pandemic hit, on March 5, 2020 CVHEC hosted a groundbreaking event for Central Valley higher education and K-12 educators. Nearly 200 interested educators gathered to create an action plan to create a dual enrollment model that improved the delivery of dual enrollment for the Central Valley’s rural and urban communities.

It was an energizing event. A CVHEC-convened taskforce primed the agenda to allow colleagues an opportunity to identify shared barriers to dual enrollment and devise action plans to dismantle those barriers. This collaboration proactively allowed for a valley-wide approach.

Among the needs that emerged included improving CCCApply for dual enrollment students (the application was not originally  designed for use by high school students taking college-credit bearing courses and it showed); and the simple fact that not enough teachers met minimum qualifications Ito teach college courses on their high school campuses.

During the pandemic, CVHEC brought those interested parties together virtually via Zoom where these challenges were further examined and solutions were crafted.

Application Frustrations Raised and Fixed

An executive committee of the task force identified frustrations experienced by Central Valley students when enrolling in dual enrollment courses. These concerns were shared with the California Community College Chancellor’s Office team working to improve the application process.

As a result, improvements have been implemented and there are more students now overcoming that barrier.

Growing Dual Enrollment Teachers on High School Campuses

CVHEC got to work on another barrier and organized grant applications to the Fresno K-16 Collaborative to fund high school English and math teachers to earn their master’s degrees (see Dual Enrollment Upskilling Teachers Master’s Program). In December 2021, the first of three cohorts completed their degrees. Not only will these teachers teach dual enrollment courses on high school campuses, but some will serve at rural high school campuses where the need is great.

These efforts are the beginnings of improving dual enrollment for Central Valley students.

Improving dual enrollment access does not necessarily mean a student must earn their associate degree by the time they finish high school either. Rather, the opportunity to take at least six units of college-credit bearing courses – especially an English or math course – before they finish their high school career can transcend a student’s outlook on their college career.

That was my son’s experience.

Students Getting a Head Start in College Career

In his senior year of high school, my son enrolled in six units of college credit-bearing course work taking Communications and English 1A. It was the first he heard of these dual enrollment classes offered on his campus and he decided he would give it a shot. Not only did he find the course work and his instructors interesting (he earned A’s in both courses) but, perhaps more importantly, he saw himself as a college student – in that moment.

“That dual enrollment is clutch!” That was his exclamation in our kitchen with his ed plan in hand. It was clear to him he was free to take a few other courses he needed to transfer to his choice school. This was all because he got a head start on his college career with dual enrollment. All I could do was smile.

Unbridled excitement for his future. It’s an indescribable feeling to see the positive impact of transformational change. That must be what our Central Valley higher education leaders pursue as they explore how to grow dual enrollment in the valley.

Opportunities to Grow Dual Enrollment – Equitable Growth

That excitement I saw in my son – a mix of relief, inspiration and a vision he saw for himself – is for everyone. Growing dual enrollment offers an equitable growth opportunity. As of late, I’ve noticed a push for foster youth in dual enrollment. (See Career Ladders Project Dual Enrollment for Foster Youth: Toward Effective Practice.) Now as a Dependency Attorney, and not someone in the daily challenge of growing dual enrollment, I see the experiences foster youth endure and the resiliency they display and I applaud this push on their behalf.

This is where I have a unique perspective. I can see the transformation that can occur for foster youth if they participate in dual enrollment – even if it’s a few college courses. Not just because of the impact higher education can have on someone’s life, but because for a senior who is living life as a foster youth, a lot rides on that last year of high school. Let me explain.

When foster youth are not reunified with their family as they near the age of majority, they may continue to receive County support through age 21 if they work or attend college through what is known as AB 12 Extended Foster Care Program and Benefits.  If foster youth can envision themselves as college material while in high school that young person will be inclined to participate in AB 12 and pursue a college education. This is a decision they make during that last year of majority or their senior year of high school. I cannot emphasize enough how a dual enrollment opportunity can transform that young person’s life.

Simply put, in all its fashions, dual enrollment cannot be denied in its ability to create long-lasting, unimaginable change.

Yes, it was such an honor to lend my skill through CVHEC to help Central Valley educators create transformational change.

I cannot wait to see what transformations take shape in the next few years and what other barriers to dual enrollment Central Valley educators will dismantle.

 

Check the CVDEEP Convening Website for updates and follow-up of the March 17, 2022 event.

See CVHEC White Paper Released: ‘Dual Enrollment in the Central Valley: Working Toward a Unified Approach for Equity and Prosperity’

 

CVHEC Member News: CLP Guidance Pathways

Four CVHEC Members Highlighted in Career Ladders Project
Look at Guided Pathways Redesign Challenges

The Career Ladders Project recently highlighted four CVHEC member organizations in stories illustrating how 15 California community colleges are redesigning their Guided Pathways programs and structures prompting college leaders across the state to share the stories to help clarify opportunities, spur conversation and motivate Guided Pathways redesign teams.

Founded by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors in 2002, Career Ladders Project is a nonprofit that operates under the fiscal sponsorship of the Foundation for California Community Colleges.

The project promotes equity-minded community college redesign by collaborating with colleges and their partners to discover, develop, and disseminate effective practices. CLP policy work, research, and direct efforts with colleges lead to system change—and enable more students to attain certificates, degrees, transfers, and career advancement.

The Guided Pathways stories are presented in one-page narratives — grouped into topics — produced by Career Ladders Project with funding from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

The four CVHEC members highlighted are:

Bakersfield College

• Integrating Student Supports in Guided Pathways Redesign

• Aligning Redesign Across Campus

• Using Data in Guided Pathways Redesign

Madera Community College

• Centering Students in GP Design

West Hills College Lemoore

• Aligning Redesign Across Campus

• Supporting Students from a Distance

Reedley College

Managing Guided Pathways redesign and Engaging the College

 

See the CLP Redesign stories overview.

CVHEC MEMBER NEWS: CHSU Sim Center

A valley first: CHSU Simulation Center granted provisional accreditation

California Health Sciences University (CHSU) announced its state-of-the-art Simulation Center is the first in the Central Valley to receive provisional accreditation by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, the largest healthcare simulation accrediting body in the world with over 100 accredited programs in 10 countries.

At CHSU’s Simulation Center, located at their College of Osteopathic Medicine, students learn with high-fidelity manikins, patient trainers and standardized patients in specialized labs, including in-patient hospital environments and out-patient clinic or doctor’s offices.

The center will be eligible to apply for full accreditation in 2024.

See:  CHSU Sim Center press release 

The Business Journal story about the CHSU Sim Center

CVHEC Member News: Historic COS Gift

$5 Million Donated to College of the Sequoias

College of Sequoias Press release — Jan. 20, 2022

The College of the Sequoias Foundation has announced $5.4 million in gifts received from a family trust. This marks the largest gift in the college’s 95-year history. The family trust was formed by a local couple that have since deceased and wished to remain anonymous in this announcement.

While they were still with us, the couple were funding $50,000 in COS scholarships annually to support students in the Nursing Program, the Physical Therapy Assistant Program, and other medical majors. They wished to help build skilled medical professionals locally as they were beginning to interact with so many themselves. They saw COS as a great partner in doing so. The trust’s executor saw sustaining these scholarships forever through a $1.25 million endowment aligned perfectly with the donors’ values.

Beyond these scholarships, the COS Foundation Director, Tim Foster and the trust executor spent some time aligning other needs of the college with what they knew to be the donors’ values. Through these discussions, the executor determined three more areas of support:

A $550,000 capital gift to expand and enhance the COS Nursing and Allied Health simulation lab. Providing quality, hands-on experience and debriefing of simulations is critical to the education of future medical professionals. Simulation became more critical during the pandemic when nursing students could no longer obtain the hands-on experience and clinical hours required as medical facilities restricted access to non-essential workers. This gift will support the equipment purchases and building modifications needed to complete a three-phase sim lab upgrade master plan.

A $2 million investment in the COS Local Heroes Fund. The Local Heroes Fund collects and directs resources for scholarships and other investments in the recruitment, education, certification and hiring of “Local Heroes”, those in the education, medical, law enforcement and firefighting professions. This gift initiated a Local Heroes Endowment within the Local Heroes Fund to perpetually support scholarships and other investments in students seeking to become teachers locally. One such scholarship supports COS students that transfer to the Fresno State South Valley Integrated Teacher Education Program (ITEP) offered on their Visalia Campus. In this program, participants already have an associate degree. Through ITEP, students earn their bachelor’s degree and teaching credential simultaneously within two years.  Both donors were local teachers for forty years. The executor knew these lifelong educators would have loved to support such a cause.

And finally, a $1.5 million investment in creating a Technology Endowment that will perpetually fund opportunities to put cutting-edge technology in the hands of students. The husband of this donor couple was very interested in science and technology. In honor of his desire to see students engage with technology, this funds COS programs that do just that. One such program is the COS Friday Night Lab, a weekly makerspace that engages students in various projects currently focused on virtual reality, mobile application development, 3D modeling, and many other design projects and competitions. The executor believed he would have really enjoyed participating in Friday Night Lab. Additional projects will be determined annually through the COS Foundation’s existing internal mini-grant program.

Remaining resources were short-term investments in some of these new areas as the endowments begin to generate investment income for sustained use.

“This couple are incredibly philanthropic. Their frugal lifestyle and generosity resulted in three endowments and several other transformative gifts that will bring positive changes in COS student lives forever. We are honored to be entrusted with stewarding such wealth from one family. Our students have much more need for such gifts, but these gifts are real game-changers for the COS Foundation and the college.”, said Tim Foster, the COS Foundation Director.

For more information about the College of the Sequoias and the COS Foundation online go to: COS.edu or call the COS Foundation at 559-730-3861.

CVHEC Director’s Message: Turning the Corner

 Greetings colleagues,

I am happy to present our February CVHEC e-Newsletter amidst recent encouraging news showing our country may be turning the corner on this historic pandemic that has transformed the way we deliver instruction and services to our students in the region.

With that in mind, we are pleased to announce that this spring CVHEC will return to in-person convenings with two major events for the Valley’s education community, pandemic conditions permitting.

The first event March 17 will bring the Central Valley Dual Enrollment for Equity and Prosperity (CVDEEP) Task Force together with regional and statewide partners.  See details in this issue.

For our second event, CVHEC leaders are excited about the return of our annual Legislative and Policy Summit in the late spring – details to follow in next month’s issue.  The Summit has been on “pandemic hiatus” since 2019 and many are anxious to come together in person to follow up on much progress that our Valley higher education community has been pursuing.

Additionally, CVHEC will hold other professional development and regional meetings in-person when campus COVID regulations allow.

Also in this issue, we announce a new round of mini-grants launching this spring throughout the Central Valley. For the last three years, CVHEC has been able to offer this funding to member colleges and universities in the Central Valley providing opportunities for faculty and staff to target areas on their campuses that have been identified by the Consortium as regional strategies and priorities. We invite our member institutions to utilize this opportunity for services that can help your students.

Finally, we are especially pleased to publish the fourth installment of our “What the CV-HEC is Happening Blog”  that features an entry by former CVHEC team member Virginia Madrid-Salazar, Esq. regarding dual enrollment from the personalized perspective of a parent of a high school student benefiting from taking college courses at his local high school. Dual enrollment is one of the equity strategies CVHEC is pursuing throughout the region and Virginia’s blog is a great warm-up for the CVDEEP Convening next month. I am proud to note that Virginia was instrumental in developing our CVDEEP Task Force while she was with us. We appreciate her taking some time from her busy law practice that she began last summer.

We hope you enjoy our newsletter for the month and we welcome your feedback

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.  

SAVE THE DATE: CVDEEP Convening – March 17, 2022

(UPDATE – the CVDEEP Convening has been rescheduled to March 17. Details will be available in the upcoming February issue of the CVHEC e-newsletter).

CVHEC’s Central Valley Dual Enrollment for Equity and Prosperity (CVDEEP) is now planning to re-convene in person Friday, March 17 at the DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Fresno for the first time since the pandemic shutdown two years ago.

Open to secondary and postsecondary educators and community leaders interested in dual enrollment opportunities for high school students.

See details and registration info:  https://www.cvhec.org/cvhec-dual-enrollment-convening-march-17/

 

• See story about the 2020 CVDEEP Convening.

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  • 559.292.0576

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