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CVHEC Director’s Message: Re-imagining  the social and economic landscape of our region

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Greetings and welcome to our June CVHEC e-newsletter,

Welcome to the end of the semester and to the first summer in two years when we are not shut down.  As we emerge from the pandemic, faculty and staff at our Central Valley Higher Education Consortium member colleges and universities have been engaged in providing a great education to our students.

In this issue, please look at this month’s blog that , in light of a recent article regarding University of Californian, speaks to the Central Valley Program Pathways Mapper project that improves transfer of valley students to UC Merced as well as our three California State University campuses, Bakersfield, Fresno and Stanislaus.

We are also delighted to congratulate the Central San Joaquin Valley K16 Partnership (Fresno-Madera Collaborative & Tulare-Kings Collaborative) and the Kern Regional K16 Education Collaborative (Kern County Superintendent of Schools) on receiving $18.1 million in funding each from the state for a four-year effort to improve the educational and economic well-being of the Central Valley.  Merced, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin County are pursuing a similar grant opportunity and should hear in early fall.  These K16 Collaboratives that will include our CVHEC member institutions can change the very social and economic landscape of our region.

Last year, the Fresno-based K16 Collaborative served as a model for the funding that would eventually be allotted to create similar collaboratives throughout the state.

One of the initiatives funded by Fresno K16 Collaborative was the CVHEC MA Upskilling project which provided funding to support high school English and math teachers in earning their master’s degrees to allow them to teach dual enrollment college courses on their high school campuses to high school students.  Dual enrollment is one of the strategies CVHEC is supporting to help move students into and through higher education.  By the end of December 2022, there will be 118 new high school teachers in Fresno County holding MA degrees to facilitate the delivery of dual enrollment in our region.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the issue.  We wish you a restful and safe summer.

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

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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 Director’s Message: Turning the Corner

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 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

CVHEC 2022 Mini Grant Applications Now Open  

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Applications for the next Central Valley Higher Education Consortium 2022 Mini-Grant cycle are now being accepted and will continue until funds are allocated.

Once funds are allocated, grantees have until November 30, 2022 to finalize expenditures.

The CVHEC Mini-Grants project, currently funded by the College Futures Foundation, provides awards from $5,000 to $7,500 each which faculty from member institutions have creatively used for individual projects that help achieve the consortium’s strategy of increasing degree attainment rates.

Previous Mini-Grants have supported assistance and professional learning associated with Guided Pathways, Math Pathways, implementation of Corequisite English and math, course development and advancement of Pathways for Associate Degrees for Transfer.  The grants may also incentivize basic needs and equity, race and social justice work.

The filing period opened Jan. 10 and member institutions are encouraged to apply soon to allow enough time for project completion before the expenditure deadline.

The mini-grant application can be found at https://www.cvhec.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/CVHEC-Mini-Grant-2022-Applicaiton.pdf.

For application details, contact CVHEC Operations Manager Angel Ramirez at angelr@mail.fresnostate.edu.

 

Previous CVHEC Mini-Grants success stories:

A NEW YEAR: Recharged for a Dynamic 2022

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Hello friends and colleagues of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC)!

With 2022 well underway, we are pleased to share with you our first e-newsletter of the year.  We at CVHEC wish you a dynamic start to the spring 2022 semester with hopes of reaching some sort of a new normal that will lead us to working, meeting our students and convening in-person in the near future.

Though 2021 was a challenging and unprecedented year for us all, CVHEC members and partners were fully engaged in working to deliver productive educational programs for our students and valuable professional development opportunities for our faculty and staff in the region.  This  month’s newsletter provides a brief summary and reminder of the good work that was done in the Central Valley this past year.

Among these are our  Dual Enrollment Upskilling Teachers Master’s Program; announcement of our  CVHEC Equity, Race and Social Justice Taskforce; success stories about our dual enrollment efforts featuring some of our Central Valley students as well as innovative initiatives undertaken with our popular CVHEC Mini-Grant Program; our communications initiatives resulting in ongoing development of this e-newsletter including  a new blog feature, development of our public information officers/communications committee and a video on broadband disparity, one of three videos we are producing; our historic  CVHEC/UC Merced Transfer Project and the appointment of several new chief executives for member campuses.

This newsletter will also provide a preview of higher education efforts to come in the valley this year.

Be on the lookout for a continuation of the work around equity and inclusion in member institutions through our Equity Task Force, the pursuit of dual enrollment as an equity strategy in rural parts of the Valley and the Consortium providing assistance in creating K16 collaboratives in the north and south counties of the region.

CVHEC is also partnering with state and regional advocates to work to bring broadband to rural parts of the Central Valley to ensure that internet connectivity and bandwidth are no longer a barrier for our students and residents.

Also, the CVHEC Board of Directors is considering conditions that will allow for delivering our annual Legislative and Policy Summit in an in-person setting later in the spring, for the first time since 2019.

Needless to say, while the pandemic has put the squeeze on all of us the past two years, we are more determined than ever to conquer that challenge as we have so many others. To that end, we look forward to continued partnerships with you all in the coming year.

Pursuing the Last Mile: Broadband in the Central Valley

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Three Central Valley college students share their experience during the pandemic in a CVHEC-commissioned video highlighting broadband disparity.

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Broadband Disparity: equity issue in California’s Central Valley – adequate
access is essential to increasing degree attainment rates 

Benjamin T. Duran, Ed.D. CVHEC Executive Director

Greetings Colleagues and Friends of CVHEC,

We are delighted to share with you a video project the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium undertook to highlight the state of broadband in the Central Valley — “Pursuing the Last Mile: Broadband in the Central Valley.”

The Central Valley’s broadband disparity — an inability to access reliable internet — is not a new story, however, in true pandemic fashion, COVID restrictions forced us all to face the reality of Central Valley students’ struggles to reach academic goals and work through remote learning with foiled attempts.

Everyone has a story. But this internet disparity hits at the heart of what CVHEC is attempting to accomplish — improve the Central Valley’s degree attainment rates. Pre-pandemic, the Central Valley already suffered inequitable access to postsecondary education (the Central Valley has nearly half of the Bay Area’s rate for bachelor degree attainment) — not having adequate access to broadband makes the goal of increasing degree attainment rates even more difficult.

“Pursuing the Last Mile: Broadband in the Central Valley” is a three-minute video CVHEC commissioned the Fenceline Media Group to create to tell the Central Valley broadband story. This video not only highlights three students’ personal struggles but also shines a light on their perseverance to reach their academic goals.

Our hope is that the California Legislature and the federal government consider the Central Valley story in building the last mile of broadband infrastructure that has been lacking and is creating even greater disparity.

Our Central Valley students shouldn’t have to prove themselves worthy of education by showing how creative they can be to secure some form of internet access. Reliable broadband should be afforded to all California students — even those who are attempting to access from our rural fields. California needs reliable broadband infrastructure to ensure all Californians are able to pursue their educational pursuits.

A COVID-impact survey of graduating high school students and continuing college students conducted by the California Student Aid Commission, released July 2020,  shows that students’ concerns over online learning during the pandemic caused them to change their academic plans.

Another COVID-impact survey conducted in May 2020 by the RP Group shows that African American/Black, Hispanic/Latina/o/x and American Indian students disproportionately lacked access to computers and the internet. Broadband is an equity issue that must be addressed.

As fall plans begin to emerge, a hybrid learning/work environment will likely be a reality. To ensure our Central Valley is afforded the same opportunities as the rest of California, the last mile of broadband infrastructure cannot wait.

Benjamin T. Duran, Ed.D.
Executive Director – Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC)

 

SEE:

• Recovery with Equity Task Force report – Central Valley’s rate for bachelor degree attainment

•.California Student Aid Commission COVID-impact survey (December 2020) – graduating high school students and continuing college students

• RP Group COVID-impact survey (May 2020) — African American/Black, Hispanic/Latina/o/x and American Indian students access to computers and the internet

Full press release

You Tube version

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Spring – a renewal of our resiliency and celebrations

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Benjamin T. Duran, Ed.D. CVHEC Executive Director

Greetings Colleagues and Friends of CVHEC,

There is plenty to celebrate this Spring. As the celebration is underway, Central Valley’s resiliency during this pandemic is on full display. We are delighted to highlight some of those efforts in this month’s issue of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium’s newsletter.

Please join us in congratulating two CVHEC board members who have been selected to serve their districts as chancellor. Dr. Kristin Clark has been selected as the third West Hills Community College District Chancellor and Dr. Sonya Christian was selected as Kern Community College District Chancellor. Congratulations!

University officials and family party-planners alike have been busy preparing for Spring commencements. Although the pandemic is impacting traditional commencement celebrations, our region is bustling to honor student success. With fewer restrictions than last year, creativity abounds as campuses are finding new ways to commemorate student success. We are highlighting the variations and look forward to a joyous commencement season. Congratulations graduates and everyone who helped them get to that next step in their lives.

Finally, in this issue, we look at how our member campuses have stepped up to support vaccine distribution to help our economy come back, and eventually, assist in face-to-face learning on campuses. Our Central Valley campuses are serving as strong partners.

Benjamin T. Duran, Ed.D.
Executive Director – Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC)

Mini-Grant Success Stories – Brandman University’s Textbook Award Program

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For the past three years, Central Valley Higher Education Consortium Mini-Grants have been awarded to member institutions in support of CVHEC’s mission to increase degree attainment rates. We will highlight how members’ innovative uses for the grants are positively impacting students in our CVHEC e-Newsletters. We begin telling this story with Brandman University which created the Textbook Award Program for 50 students.



CVHEC Mini-Grants support Brandman students in pandemic  

In an innovative use of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium Mini-Grants Program, CVHEC member Brandman University funded the Textbook Award Program, reaching out to its students at three Central Valley campuses for immediate relief to about 50 participants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CVHEC Mini-Grants, in various amounts up to $7,500 each funded by partner College Futures Foundation(CFF), are intended to support activities providing assistance and professional learning associated with Guided Pathways, Math Pathways, implementation Corequisite English and math course development (implementation of AB 705 and EO 1110), and advancement of Pathways for Associate Degrees for Transfer.

For this year’s cycle, in response to the COVID Pandemic and racial unrest last summer, the criteria was expanded to incentivize basic needs and equity, race and social justice work.

This led Brandman to use its Mini-Grant funds to create $150 book vouchers for undergraduate, first-generation students, reports Sonia Gutierrez-Mendoza, director of the Visalia and Lemoore campuses.

“When CVHEC expanded its criteria this year and called for initiatives that could help students during the pandemic, we asked our students ‘what are some of your pain points during this difficult time?’” she said.

“Over and over, we heard them say ‘we can’t buy textbooks because Financial Aid is not in yet’ so with CVHEC’s expanded criteria for the mini-grants, we created this program and notified recipients of their award right before the winter break, when expenses add up for their families.”

Richard Carnes, director of Brandman’s Modesto campus, credited Gutierrez-Mendoza for the Textbook Award ideaand its innovative appeal since the grants are usually applied to long-term pathways projects.

“Those long-term projects are good and necessary, but students need help now,” Carnes said.

“We told our students that CVHEC projects like the Mini-Grants demonstrate to them, and to our university team, that the higher education community here in our Central Valley is united and supportive of your endeavors and want to help make a positive impact on your success and persistence,” he added.

Gutierrez-Mendoza agrees. “Students can’t walk those pathways very well if they have pebbles in their shoes, or worse,” she said.  “When we told our students how CVHEC was there with its CFF partner to lend a hand, they were so grateful. To know that, even in a small way, this grant helped students persist in their college education is an amazing feeling.”

That gratitude was reflected in a letter campaign the students undertook thanking Dr. Ben Duran, CVHEC executive director, his team and CFF. The Brandman students, who are adult-learners, shared how the textbook awards positively impacted them during a difficult year.

Bethany Burnes

Bethany Burnes of Brandman University’s Visalia campus, who reported she has been off work for “what seems like forever due to COVID restrictions” while also welcoming her third child born on Christmas Day, said, “Things have been really tight with our household budget and with your assistance some of the pressure is now off of me and frees up some money for my babies. I appreciate this grant so much!”

Karla Melgar of the Modesto campus said the Textbook Award “was such a big help for me and my family since I’m the only one currently working full time.  Once again thank you!”

For Marybel Herrera, also a Visalia campus student who plans to graduate this spring with a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies, the award is “like the icing on the cake to my last semester at Brandman University. In a time like this, and all the changes that COVID has brought to everyone, this award is a nice change. Once again thank you!”

Duran commended Brandman University for responding to this year’s Mini-Grant program criteria expansion, which was intended to encourage CVHEC member institutions to create innovative ways to help students when the pandemic was having the greatest impact, and creating the Textbook Award Program to help fulfill that need with the grant funds.

“We applaud Brandman for identifying a basic need that was just in time especially during this period in our history when there has been so much uncertainty,” Duran said.  “We definitely want to see more students complete degrees and this simple use of our grant dollars shows the great impact a small grant can have when our members are allowed to use their creativity to connect with their students whose immediate needs they know best.”

Innovative Central Valley academic leaders help overcome a year of pandemic

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Benjamin T. Duran, Ed.D. CVHEC Executive Director

Greetings Colleagues and Friends of CVHEC,

We are delighted to invite you to this issue of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC)  e-newsletter.

As we hopefully begin to emerge from the year-long pandemic and welcome the spring flowers to the valley, we share some of CVHEC’s highlights since our last issue including a glimpse at how our academic leaders and community collaborate to lead our students forward.

First, we want to re-welcome our newest member, the University of the Pacific (UOP) located in Stockton. We are happy to invite our north valley colleagues back into the Consortium after some time away.  Founded in 1851 in Santa Clara, UOP is our most senior institution and has been serving the northern valley since 1923 when the campus was moved to Stockton.

Another of our independent members, Brandman University is also featured in this issue.  We take pleasure in sharing with you a heartwarming story of the university assisting students impacted by the pandemic.  The innovative use of CVHEC Mini-Grant funds by Brandman leadership to bring some relief to students suffering financially during the COVID19 shutdown is highlighted.  We think you will agree that these sorts of uplifting stories are what we need in times like these.

You will also read about the work that Central Valley colleges are doing around the equity, race and social justice agendas our institutions are pursuing. In particular, we extend our gratitude to the professionals who make up our CVHEC Equity, Race and Social Justice Taskforce announced in this issue. The expertise, talent and experience these dedicated scholars from our member institutions contribute to this valley-wide undertaking is a tribute in itself to our higher education community here in Central California.

Again, thank you for joining us in enjoying this issue.

Benjamin T. Duran, Ed.D.
Executive Director – Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC)

Three Fresno-area colleges search for new leaders. You can help decide who gets hired

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Three Fresno-area colleges search for new leaders. You can help decide who gets hired

BY ASHLEIGH PANOO
FEBRUARY 05, 2021 07:59 AM

As several of the Fresno-area’s top college leaders retire or move on this year, it has put the central San Joaquin Valley in a position of searching for three people who will shape the future of higher education in the region.

Fresno State, State Center Community College District, and West Hills Community College District are already in different stages of the hiring process.

Former Fresno State President Joseph I. Castro left in January to become chancellor of the 23-campus California State University. Paul Parnell, chancellor of State Center, will retire in July. And Stuart Van Horn will retire in June after serving four years at West Hills.

It’s not uncommon to have several higher education positions up for filling, according to Benjamin Duran, executive director of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium.

“They can come in clusters,” he said. “In this particular case, it was just kind of a perfect storm, if you will, where the three of them all left at the same time.”

But it could be an important time for the public to have input about the qualities these next leaders should possess.

“It goes without saying, but anytime a leader of higher education or K-12 education is going to be replaced somewhere locally, the public should have their voice heard,” Duran said. “I think that those leaders should reflect, to some extent, the kind of profile that the public and the institutions think are important.”

Across the Valley, several other college leaders were hired in 2020, including U.C. Merced Chancellor Juan Muñoz, and Madera Community College President Angel Reyna.

FRESNO STATE SEARCHES FOR NEW PRESIDENT
California State University will hold a virtual forum from noon to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, outlining the search process. Community members wishing to speak must register online by 5 p.m. Friday. The open forum will be livestreamed to the CSU website.

The community can also fill out a survey which asks which professional qualifications, experiences and personal attributes the next president should have.

Members of the search committee are:

Joseph I. Castro, Chancellor

Lillian Kimbell, Chair, CSU Board of Trustees

Jane W. Carney, Trustee and Chair, Search Committee

Diego Arambula , Trustee

Wenda Fong, Vice Chair, Board of Trustees

Krystal Mae Raynes, Trustee

Robert S. Nelsen, CSU Sacramento, CSU President Representative

Paula Castadio, Fresno State Vice President for Advancement, Administration Representative

Thomas Holyoke, Chair, Fresno State Academic Senate

Joy J. Goto, Faculty Representative

Jenelle S. Pitt, Faculty Representative

Georgianna Negron-Long, Staff Representative

Jacqueline Campos Ledezma, Student Representative

Elizabeth Rocha Zuñiga, Student Representative

Edgar Blunt, Alumni Association Representative

Nicole Linder, University Advisory Board Representative

Carol Chandler, Community Representative

Clint Williams, Community Representative

The search is expected to take six months to a year, the university has said. In the meantime, Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, the university’s provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, has stepped in as interim.

STATE CENTER COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT

State Center is the parent district of Fresno City College, Reedley College, and Clovis and Madera Community colleges. The board of trustees could appoint an interim as soon as its next meeting on March 2, which they say would allow for a smooth transition when Parnell departs on July 6.

It’s early on in the process, but the district is gearing up to collect public input soon, according to board president Annalisa Perea.

“I think one of the first important steps is to hold (a) virtual forum in the next couple months and really have an opportunity to hear from our faculty and students,” Perea said, “and really just give people an opportunity to tell us what they want to see in the next Chancellor.”

And although it may not be uncommon to have several higher ed leader spots open, it could create competition in the search process, according to Julianna Mosier, the vice chancellor of Human Resources.

There are “a number of other chancellor and superintendent (and) president searches already underway across the state,” she said during a board meeting on Tuesday, “including Kern (Community College District) and West Hills locally, and San Diego (Community College District), and then El Camino (College) and many others, which will impact the pool of candidates we are able to attract.”

The district is looking to hire a search firm to garner a greater pool of national candidates.

A preliminary timeline shows the job posting could go up in August/September, applicants could be screened and a public forum held in November/December, and the appointment could be made in January/February 2022. The chancellor would start in spring or summer 2022.

WEST HILLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT
A national search to replace Van Horn began in October, and candidates are being interviewed at this time, said spokesperson Amber Myrick.

Public forums will be held the week of March 15, she said.

West Hills has campuses in Lemoore, Coalinga and Firebaugh.

The board of trustees is expected to appoint the new chancellor at their April 20, 2021 meeting, with a start date of July 1.

 

View story here –https://www.fresnobee.com/article248967874.html

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