WHAT THE CV-HEC IS HAPPENING GUEST BLOG (NOV. 2022): The Master’s Upskilling Program

Master’s Upskilling experience

was a game-changer

This month’s guest blog is presented by Chet Frantzich, an English teacher at Buchanan High School in Clovis who earned a master’s degree in June through CVHEC’s Master’s Upskilling Program. Chet earned his bachelor’s degree at Fresno State in 2010 (credential 2012) and has taught at BHS since 2018. He shares the value of the upskilling program and how it will benefit not just his personal and professional advancement but also his students through dual enrollment courses he plans to teach in the near future.

By Chet Frantzich
Buchanan High School

The Master’s Upskilling experience afforded me courtesy of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, National University and the Clovis Unified School District was a career altering one.

Not only did achieving my master’s in rhetoric open up pathways for me to teach dual enrollment courses and even courses at my local junior college, but it also impacted the way I teach. Graduating from the program has instilled in me a better sense of what my students need when it comes to functioning in college, yes, but also in life.  The program was a revelation regarding what truly matters in education and regarding how to teach the whole student.

I knew going into the program that it would be demanding — not just the workload each class would require that would make it so, but also balancing teaching and extracurricular responsibilities. However, each class was so organized and each instructor so available and professional that it took hardly any time at all to fall into a kind of groove regarding the work. Before I knew it, the class was over, and hence, the program itself successfully completed.

Each class had a curriculum that was engaging and impactful, relevant to my cohort’s subject area, even to the point where I would read about a strategy or an idea on a Wednesday and apply that idea or enforce that strategy the very next week. It dawned on me early in the program that I was not just earning a postbaccalaureate degree; I was improving as a teacher day-by-day, week-by-week.

Here is an example of what made the program so navigable: from the outset of each class, we (each cohort member) knew exactly what the end goal was we were striving for. From week one on, we would engage with texts and perform activities and interact with one another and building ideas – one upon the other, never in isolation of each other – so that, come the final week of the class, a lot of the work we would have to do for our month’s final project has been completed.

Not only did this help me manage my time and make me feel like my work was consequential, but it also illuminated an idea: why don’t I do this with my students?

And so I did, almost right away. Not long after joining the cohort and being confronted with this realization, my students read a novel where I could show them the result we would be striving for before actually starting the book. This was not something foreign to me. What was new though, was the importance of revealing to people what they are doing, what the end result is, that way how they go about getting to that end destination is of the best quality possible.

The program elevated my teaching abilities in numerous ways, but understanding what my students needed to excel in their next stage of life was the chief way I improved. It is not that I did not know what they needed, but more so that I came to better understand how to get what they needed to them.

My mentor, Jeff Burdick, was a key piece in helping me understand how to help my students. His wisdom and experience in the college classroom revealed some things and affirmed others: that students need to be given a space to be creative, that they need to be shown tough love, that understanding how basic language works is essential to being a great communicator, that writing is the best way to teach people how to think.

Without the program, I think my grasp on those ideas would be decent, vague; graduating from the program, my grasp on those ideas is iron-like.

I cannot wait for the opportunity to teach dual enrollment classes. I have not been granted the chance to teach them yet, but when I do, I know I will be ready, and the Master’s program is a big reason why.

I do not think there is a topic or issue in the English classroom I cannot tackle, so expansive was the breadth of my experience earning my master’s. Going through the program is an experience I will never forget, and it is one I will forever be grateful for. There is no question that the program has made me a better, more well-rounded teacher, and it has inspired me to keep learning about my craft, that way my students get the best version of me year-to-year, month-to-month, week-to-week, day-to-day.

More specifically, I am confident they will find inspiration in the taking dual enrollment courses I hope to soon teach that will lay a foundation for a successful and meaningful higher education experience.

See Mr. Frantzich communicating with his student’s parents for Back to School Night 2021.

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) 

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).

CV-HEC BLOG: High School Students On Westside Can Start Taking College Courses

This issue’s “What The CV-HEC Is Happening” Blog features John Spevak, former Merced College vice president who is now a regional coordinator for the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium. He also is a correspondent for the Westside Express newspaper where this column on dual enrollment first appeared.

By John Spevak 

CVHEC Regional Coordinator

For a high school student living on the Westside of the Central Valley, college can be as near as the next classroom — right in their high school — in a course taught by a college professor.

Or it can be on their computer at home in an online course offered to them by their local community college. Or it can be a short drive from their home to their local community college campus.

These opportunities are available now to students in high schools in Los Banos, Dos Palos and Firebaugh in a  program called dual enrollment, offered by both Merced and West Hills Colleges.

In many cases these college courses also fulfill high school requirements providing dual credit. And dual enrollment is available to ALL high school students, not just a select few, and not just seniors. And no placement test is involved.

The challenge is that most high school students, and their parents, don’t know about this opportunity. But they could. All they have to do is talk with their high school counselor. And once they take a college course they can begin talking with a local college counselor.

“Dual enrollment should not be a ‘best kept secret,’’’ said Ben Duran, executive director of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, which consists of 30 colleges and universities from Stockton to Bakersfield.

Duran, who spent many hours of his youth working in the fields near Planada, believes every high school student in the Central Valley should have a college opportunity, and he says in most cases that opportunity can start right in high school.

“When I was the superintendent of the LeGrand Union High School district in the 1980’s,” Duran said, “I saw many students who were bright and talented but who didn’t believe that college was for them. Their parents hadn’t attended college, so college wasn’t a part of their background.

“Back then,” he continued, “they didn’t have the opportunity for dual enrollment. Now every high school student on the Westside has that opportunity,” Duran said. “Both West Hills and Merced Colleges have been leaders in the state in providing dual enrollment.

“I would like all students (and their parents) in high schools in Los Banos, Dos Palos, Firebaugh and Santa Nella to know about this terrific opportunity,” Duran added. “I’m hoping that everyone who reads this article in the Westside Express tells their family members and friends about dual enrollment.”

The best place to find out about dual enrollment is by talking with high school counselors, all of whom are familiar with the dual enrollment concept. Each high school, along with its partner community college, has its own processes and procedures for dual enrollment.

Duran believes there are two things he’d like to see every high school student consider when thinking about dual enrollment: identifying a tentative career goal or path and then fulfilling their college English and math requirements before leaving high school.

“It would be great if high school students, beginning in their freshman year, would start thinking about what career they’d like,” Duran said. “A friend of mine suggests they think about their ‘dream job.’

“Then they should explore what education is needed to have a well-paying job in this career,” he said. “In almost all cases today a job that earns enough to support a person and her or his family requires some sort of college education leading to a certificate or a degree. It may not require four years of college, or even two.

“Then, along with their parents and high school counselor,” he added, “high school students need to map out what college courses are needed for that career and start looking at what college courses on this path are available to them in high school.

“I particularly recommend,” Duran said, “that whatever path high school students choose, they fulfill their English and math requirement before graduating from high school. Once students have these two requirements out of the way, all kinds of doors are open to them, immediately and down the road.”

Both Merced and West Hills Colleges, along with their partner high schools, plan to provide more information to students and parents on the Westside of the Central Valley about dual enrollment opportunities soon.

See the original Westside Express post.

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

 

 

 

 

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)

 

 

CV-HEC BLOG: Heroic Students Who Are Also Mothers Deserve More Support

Kindergarteners do an art project at Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland, Calif., Wednesday, June 4, 2014. (Photo by Alison Yin for EdSource).

For this month’s What the CV-HEC is Happening Blog, we share a recent Ed Source commentary written by Dr. Sonya Christian, chancellor of the Kern Community College District and member of the CVHEC Board of Directors, for Women’s Herstory Month advocating for student moms.

Every March, Women’s History Month prompts me to reflect on pressing issues facing women. This year, as vice chair of the California Community College Women’s Caucus, the issue of focus has been the support needed by our community college students who are also mothers.

For much of the last decade, I’ve been part of a generation of women and men who’ve succeeded in bringing more females into the leadership ranks of our state’s community college system. As of 2020, 42% of community college presidents and chancellors were women, the highest percentage in California history. In fact, this epic story is a mixture of both successes and of what clearly remains to be done — the mission continues. The notable but incremental progress within California community college’s is far from absolute, far from universal.

What remains true is that, whatever the context, student mothers remain among college students needing significant support.

According to a national study of postsecondary student aid, 22% of college students are parents, a group not divided equally between genders. A full 7 in 10 student parents are mothers, 62% of whom are single — compared with only 39% of student fathers who lack a spouse.

A study in the Journal of Higher Education found that student mothers have far less time available to devote to school — about 4.3 hours per week, on average. This “time poverty” is greatest among mothers of preschool-age children, who make up 56% of student parents. Student parents carry nearly twice the amount of student-loan debt as nonparent students. As a result, 52% drop out without earning a degree, compared with a 32% dropout rate among students without children.

Regardless, we must recognize that the accomplishments of our country’s student parents are nothing short of remarkable. Student parents consistently earn higher GPAs than students without children. A 2021 study found that, despite their lack of available time compared to students without children, student parents spent significantly more time on their education (after controlling for discretionary time) at the cost of far less free time for themselves.

Directing more resources to student mothers is not only an issue of gender equity but racial equity. Student parents are more likely to be students of color. Black students are the most likely to be parents, at 33%, and Black female students are most likely to be mothers, at 40%.

California Competes, a research and advocacy organization, concluded that declining high school completion rates over the next decade could leave businesses without enough educated workers. Their practical recommendations directly target student parents, including more availability of federal grants for low-income student parents, who typically don’t know of these options; more campus services such as child care; flexible schedules like offering more classes at night, weekends and online; and more supportive institutional designs.

The outdated picture of a male-breadwinner family is now faced with the reality that more women are in college and in the labor force than men, more mothers raise children alone than fathers, and 41% of mothers are the sole or primary breadwinners in their families, all while earning less than fathers.

At the Kern Community College District, most of our support for student mothers is from the state-funded Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education program, which was established to assist Extended Opportunity Programs and Services students who are single parents. More needs to be done.

Community colleges are “success incubators” for the marginalized. Seeing our student mothers and their needs clearly through data, through stories and through our commitment to meeting our basic goals indicates that investing in our student mothers, and especially student mothers of color, will produce great benefits to our society as a whole.

I am a big fan of Wonder Woman, particularly of Gal Gadot, the star of the most recent editions. Gadot’s character, Diana Prince, hails from a line of women warriors created by Olympian gods to protect mankind. At one point, when Diana finally defeats the evil Ludendorff, she’s confused at first why her victory does not end the war. She, like us, learns that the single victory is just a milestone in the long and arduous journey ahead; her mission continues. And so does our own.

For me, women’s history is an epic retelling of character and resilience, a long story of the struggle of women that provides context for Abigail Adams’ call to “remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them,” in 1776; for Susan B. Anthony’s founding of the Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, eventually leading to the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution recognizing in 1920 women’s right to vote.

For each milestone, I wonder how it can have taken so long?

See the original Ed Source post.

‘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’

 

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