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January 12, 2022. Meeting of the Board of Governors.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Good evening, and welcome to the January
12, 2022 annual and regular Governing Board meeting. I'd like to
call the meeting to order.
Mr. Silvyn, if you could please read the roll.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Ms. Garcia, we didn't hear you.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: I think you're still muted.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Here.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there something wrong with your audio?
We can just barely hear you. I'm not sure if you're speaking into a
microphone or...
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Now?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Much better. Thank you.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Clinco?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: All board members are present.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. Thank you very much.
The first item is our new business, election of Governing Board
officers. According to Article 4 of the board bylaws, officers shall
be selected and elected by the members of the Governing Board. The
board shall conduct this election at the annual meeting as specified
in Article 6, section 3 of the bylaws. The specific officers to be
elected for a two-year term are the chairperson and
vice-chair/secretary.
So before we discuss the candidates of the board officer
position, I'd like to address a procedural matter. Specifically to
avoid the challenges caused by changing officers partway through this
virtual meeting and so that the officers have time to prepare, I
would move that the new officer assume the responsibility at the
close of today's regular meeting.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second. So moved.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Discussion? Is there any discussion?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I don't think that's a wise idea.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: We have never done that in the past.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. Is there any other discussion on
the matter? Okay.
Mr. Silvyn, if you could do a roll call vote, please.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yes.
Ms. Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: No.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Yes.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: No.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Clinco?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Yes. So the motion passes three to two
with Board Members Garcia and Gonzales dissenting.
Next item is opening the floor for nominations. I'd like to open
the floor for nominations. I will begin by offering a nomination for
Ms. Ripley as the chair of the board.
Is there a second?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Are there any other nominations?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. I nominate Luis Gonzales for chair.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there a second?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I second it.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Are there any additional nominations?
Okay. Hearing no other nominations, we will close the nominations
and then we will ask Mr. Silvyn to read the roll and please specify
who you are voting for.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Wait a minute.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Yes, Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Can we have a discussion first?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: We are simply voting, so...
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Can I make a statement?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Mr. Silvyn, is that within the parameters
of this type of -- because we didn't do a -- let's go ahead and have
a discussion.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: We didn't, but, I mean, I think it's
certainly appropriate and permissible.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Thank you.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Ms. Garcia, please go ahead.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So I nominate Luis Gonzales to be chair of
the Governing Board. He was elected to the Board of Governors in
November of 2018 and sworn into office in 2019.
As has been stated many times, Pima College was built on Native
land. To my knowledge, a Native American has never been board chair.
It would reflect well on the board and college if we would elect a
Native American to serve as board chair.
This would be the first time in 50-years-plus history and would
demonstrate our commitment to diversity and inclusion. He is a
senior member of the board and has served for three years.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. Thank you very much, Ms. Garcia.
Is there any additional discussion?
Mr. Silvyn, if you could please call the roll? To be clear, each
member will vote, will state who they are voting for of the two
nominated members.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Catherine Ripley.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Luis Gonzales.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Catherine Ripley.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Luis Gonzales.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Clinco?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Catherine Ripley.
So Catherine Ripley is elected president of the Pima Community
College Governing Board for the next two-year term.
Next at this time I'd like to open the floor to nominations for
the vice-chair and I will begin by nominating myself as vice-chair of
the board.
Is there a second?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any additional nominations?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I nominate myself.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I second it.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. Are there any discussions?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Yes. Ms. Garcia, please.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. This board has not -- you know, we
always talk about diversity and inclusion, and yet for the last four
years, Mr. Clinco, you have been chair.
Then we bring in a person, you assign a person, basically, to be
chair that has been with the college less than four years.
I don't think that that speaks very well for the college on
diversity, nor allowing the minorities or our constituents to be
represented on this board.
That's my opinion. Thank you.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there any additional discussion? Okay.
Hearing none, we will close the discussion.
Mr. Silvyn, if you could please read the roll?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I vote for Mr. Clinco.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Luis.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Luis Gonzales?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Mr. Clinco.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Luis Gonzales.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Clinco?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I will vote for Mr. Clinco, myself. So I
have been duly elected as vice-chair and secretary of the Governing
Board, and that concludes this item.
Our next item on the agenda is the election of the Arizona
Association of Community College Trustee representatives for 2022.
Just by way of background, the Association of Community College
Trustees is one of three organizations with ASSIST, the coordination
of the Arizona community colleges to promote the joint vision of
providing board access to higher quality education and training so
that Arizonans can achieve postsecondary education and training
goals, compete a degree and certificate and/or transfer to
universities.
The other two, Arizona Community College Council and the Arizona
Community College Presidents' Council, are the other two
organizations. All of the Arizona community colleges are members of
the AACCT.
For the last year I have served and I'm currently serving as the
president of the AACCT and would certainly be willing to continue in
that role if someone on the board felt that that was appropriate and
made a motion to the effect.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: I nominate Mr. Clinco.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there a second?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any other nominations?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I nominate myself.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there a second for Ms. Garcia's
nomination?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I second Maria Garcia.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any additional nominations? Hearing none,
we will close the nominations, and Mr. Silvyn, if you could please do
a roll call.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Mr. Clinco.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Myself.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Mr. Clinco.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Ms. Garcia.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Clinco?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Mr. Clinco.
So on a vote of three to two, Mr. Clinco, I have been elected as
the representative to the AACCT.
The next item is the election of advisory committee...
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Excuse me. Point of order, Mr. Chair.
There is actually an alternate who should be elected for the ACCT.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. So we will do a separate call for
alternates.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: I nominate Ms. Ripley.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I will second that.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I nominate myself.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I second it.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any other nominations?
Hearing none, we will close the nominations. Mr. Silvyn, if you
could do a roll call vote, please.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I vote for myself.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I vote for Luis.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: I vote for Ms. Ripley.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I vote for myself.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Clinco?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I vote for Ms. Ripley. So in a vote of
three to two, Ms. Ripley has been elected as the alternate to the
AACCT board.
The next item on the agenda is the election of advisory board
representatives. We have traditionally two members of the board who
serve each on the human resources advisory committee and the finance
and audit committee.
The chancellor recommends this Governing Board appoint two
members to each of the board's advisory committees, as listed before.
Traditionally, if we go around the room, Ms. Garcia and I have
both served on the audit and finance committee, and Ms. Ripley and
Mr. Gonzales have served, serving on the human resources advisory
committee. Dr. Hay has not had the pleasure of serving on a
committee.
So I wanted to find out first, is everybody willing to continue
on in their service on these particular roles, or does somebody want
to serve on a different board? I just wanted to -- because what I
could do is I could offer a slate that we just continue the current
composition, or we could -- why don't I do that?
I will offer the slate, and then we can have a discussion, and if
people would like to serve in a different role, then we can talk
about that. How about that?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Chair, just sort of a point of order, if
you just indulge me for a second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Of course, Mr. Silvyn.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you, sir. There is an agenda item
later tonight for the creation of a new advisory committee that had
been suggested by board members. So of course it hasn't been
approved yet so we can't appoint members, but I just thought it might
be worth noting for your discussion purposes that there are, assuming
the board approves it, going to be two additional opportunities to
serve on a committee.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: And that wouldn't preclude anybody from
continuing to participate -- board members could participate on two
committees?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yes, absolutely.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Participation on one does not exclude
participation on a second?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: That's correct. I just thought as board
members think about their time commitments and what their greater
interests are, it's just worth taking into consideration that there
is another committee being proposed for establishment later this
evening.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Just to be clear, we would propose this
new committee and then we would vote members on at the next meeting?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yes, that is correct.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. With no further ado, I will make a
motion that the two committees, the human resources committee and the
finance and audit committee, continue with the current member
composition.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Second from Dr. Hay. Discussion? Is
there any discussion or does anybody have concerns or want to change?
I don't hear any and I don't see any marks. So hearing no more
discussion, Mr. Silvyn, if you could do a roll call vote, please.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Just to clarify, since there is only one
motion on the floor, if you could just indicate whether you vote in
favor of or against the motion, please.
Ms. Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes. In favor.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: "Yes" or "in favor," any positive sign is
fine.
Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Yes.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Clinco?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Yes.
So the motion unanimously passes, and the composition of the
members will continue on the subcommittees or advisory subcommittees.
I think we will just take a five-minute recess and we will
reconvene at 5:55. We will just take a short recess.
(Recess.)
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. I'd like to go ahead and call the
meeting back to order. I will give everybody a minute to reconvene
on the line.
Okay. Looks like the board is back. We will go ahead and
reconvene to our open session regular meeting.
We will just take a moment. Looks like one of our board
members...
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Sorry.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: That's okay. Just wanted to make sure all
the board was here. So we are going to reconvene to our open regular
meeting. The first item on our agenda is the public comment and call
to the audience.
The Pima Community College Governing Board welcomes public
comment on issues within the jurisdiction of the college. Generally
the total time for public comment will be limited to 45 minutes, and
comments will be limited to 3 minutes per individual. These time
limits may be modified by the board or board chair.
Individuals sharing comments are expected to communicate with
decorum and respect. Individuals who engage in disorderly conduct or
use divisive or insulting language may have their time reduced or
concluded by the board chair.
At the conclusion of public comment, individual board members may
respond to criticism made by those who addressed the board, may ask
staff to review a matter, or ask that a matter be put on a future
agenda. Members of the board, however, may not discuss or take legal
action on matters raised during the public comment unless matters are
properly noticed for discussion and legal action.
Finally, be advised that internal college processes are available
to students and employees for communication.
Please, I just want to remind everybody for the public comment,
please try very hard to get in ahead of time. It makes it much more
difficult when the requests are coming in after the deadline.
We do have two requests today for public comment. The first is
Makyla.
>> MAKYLA HAYS: I just wanted to clarify. I did register
actually last week. I was just going to also present. I think I
used the wrong link. So I was just checking that I was in the
correct link.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Not a problem. Glad we are able to get
you on.
>> MAKYLA HAYS: Thank you. Good evening, Chair Clinco,
Chancellor Lambert, board members, colleagues and guests. My name is
Makyla Hays, and I am the PCCEA president.
Happy New Year. I'd love to start off this year with some
messages of thanks. PCCEA would like to say thank you to Chancellor
Lambert, Provost Dolores Duran-Cerda, chief human resource officer
Carleen Thompson, members from STAR for meeting to hear concerns from
the faculty this past December. At this meeting I was able to
present the concerns of over a hundred full-time faculty gathered for
a quick survey and presented with responses organized by topic.
I think the conversation we had was a good start, and I look
forward to collaboration on solutions and responses to the concerns
brought forward.
We would also like to thank Provost Duran-Cerda for setting up
meetings with the AERC faculty chain this coming semester. Having a
set time and space to discuss policy-related topics directly will be
helpful, and I look forward to what we can accomplish this year.
I wanted also the provost and Chancellor Lambert for your
messages at All Faculty Day. I think you are right on track with
wanting to build more trust, and PCCEA wants to do the same.
PCCEA appreciated Dr. David Bea coming to the AERC to discuss
budget and expenditure trends this past November. I believe that
conversation was a good start and allowed employees to express honest
concerns directly. We do hope to hear back on answers to the
remaining questions sent forward by the AERC that we did not have
time for in that session and look forward to more conversations like
this in the spring about next year's budget.
Along those lines, after watching the board's study session in
December regarding the budget, PCCEA has some additional perspectives
we'd like to share on the information presented. We will be pulling
together more details we'd like the board to consider as you look at
the budget and will be following up with the board and administration
later this month with that information.
I would also like to thank Dr. Bea for joining the faculty
steering committee for the class and comp discussion. The last few
months the meetings have definitely had a different feel in the
conversation, and while we are still waiting to see some concrete
outcomes, there is definitely more of a feeling of collaboration in
the process than we had before.
Last, we'd like to thank you, the board, for putting in your time
to make the best decisions you can for our students and the employees
of the college. We know you are not compensated, and yet you have
such a large responsibility. Thank you for your service.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much. We really appreciate
the comment.
Next we have our acting chief, Michelle Nieuwenhuis. Chief
Nieuwenhuis?
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: Thank you, Chairperson Clinco. I'd like
to welcome everybody back. Happy New Year. I hope we are all
remaining healthy or are on the road to getting healthy.
I'm Michelle Nieuwenhuis, the acting chief of police for the
college police department. For the last several years, the Pima
College Police Department has been the recipient of grant funding
through the Governor's Office of Highway Safety to conduct targeted
traffic enforcement in the areas of bicycle and pedestrian safety as
well as DUI deployments.
Our efforts are critically important in helping battle the trend
of high pedestrian and bicycle fatalities on Tucson streets, as well
as impaired driving. We focus our efforts around our campuses to
impact those that are closest to us in accessing our college
facilities.
We were not able to participate this year until our grants were
signed and returned to the Governor's Office of Highway Safety in
Phoenix. Our grant period started October 1. The board graciously
agreed to entertain the approval of these grants during a November 29
study session, which enabled us to conduct enforcement efforts during
the month of December and over the holiday period.
I'd like to thank the board, the office of general counsel, the
office of finance and administration, and the grants office staff for
facilitating the approval of these grants ahead of the January board
meeting.
The holiday period between Thanksgiving and the new year are
notoriously dangerous times on Arizona's roadways where we see an
increase in crashes and fatalities. Our ability to participate and
cooperate with our local agency partners contributed to safer Tucson
streets and roadways this past holiday seen.
I would also like to thank Sergeant Josh Blum for coordinating
and leading our participation in these efforts, and the officers who
joined him, as well as Emelina Ormsby and Charlie McConnell for their
assistance with our grant reporting.
Thank you, everyone.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much, Chief Nieuwenhuis.
We really appreciate all the work you're doing. Thank you for
bringing that opportunity forward and all the work you did to keep
our community safe during the holidays.
Next we have our remarks by the Governing Board members. We have
20 minutes set aside for this item. We will start with Ms. Garcia.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. So I welcome everybody back and hope
that we have a good year. Hope that everybody stays safe and
healthy.
Then, with that, I'd like to just make a small statement. As a
member of this board, it is quite obvious that this board is not
willing to give minorities an opportunity to lead. As is expected,
it's what we call White privilege. It is so very unfortunate.
That's it.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much, Ms. Garcia.
Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes, I just wanted to welcome everybody
back to a new year, but more important I want everybody to be safe
and healthy, because I know these are challenging times for
everybody, including the board.
But I think one of the areas that we, as I personally and
strongly feel, are the students. Not only our college students but
also our kids that are in the K12 systems.
I do want to encourage all parents and grandparents to really be
vigilant in reference to watching over our kids in the K12 system,
because those are the kids that will finally and hopefully will be
attending Pima Community College very soon. The celebration that we
had last year of the 50 years of Pima Community College, I strongly
believe that this is an institution that should be reflective of the
community.
Unfortunately, tonight I was nominated for chair, and because how
the makeup of the board is, I wasn't successful, but it would have
been a true and historical accomplishment for a chair to be
reflective, especially being a Native American, to be reflective of
the community as well, too, and part of the Hispanic population, as
well, the majority that we have here.
Unfortunately I wasn't successful, and I do wish the best for all
of us. But more important, I think we all need to work together,
because that's something that needs to be improved. There is always
room for improvement. But I wish Ms. Ripley, that you will be
directing the show right now, as a new chair, but unfortunately it
does not happen that way. Thank you.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Next we have Ms. Ripley.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Great. Thank you so much. First of
all, welcome back, everyone. I do hope you all enjoyed a safe,
happy, and well-deserved break over the last few weeks.
I assure you and promise you all this, that I will take and do
take the position of chair extremely seriously. After observing the
job that Mr. Clinco did, it's very time-consuming, it's all-consuming
in many ways, and being retired, I have the privilege and the luxury
of devoting a lot of time to this school. It's why I took the
position and why I ran for this position.
Just to be clear, I am not Hispanic, I am half Japanese, and a
woman, and I think one of the things that I really loved coming in to
this board, the board itself has reflected men, women, the LGBTQ
community, the Hispanic community, as well as the Native American
community.
So I see this board as probably one of the most diverse boards
probably across the country. I mean, I would be interested in
finding that out. And it is a privilege. With that said, the
position of chair is, in many ways, a figurehead position in that I
observed Mr. Clinco, extremely amazingly organized leader that he is,
really conduct these meetings and conduct all of the affairs of this
school with one thing in mind, and that is that the board, according
to all board guidelines across the country, policy, bylaws, the board
has to act as a single unit.
We have to come to agreement. If we don't agree, we have to
agree to disagree perhaps, but we have to present to the public a
unified board, and with that said, civilized discussion both behind
closed doors as well as in public is something that I really would
like to promote in the future. I think we have tried to do that as
well in the last year that I have been on the board.
With that said, the board, the chair, it is not a dictatorship.
I'm just one member of the board that pretty much runs the meetings
and organizes the agendas.
With that said, again, I love the fact that this is an extremely
diverse board, and I look forward to working with all of you in that
position.
With that said, also, it's a lot of work. I have seen Demion do
the work. A lot of behind-the-scenes studying and researching as
well as showing up to so many things that a lot of us didn't even
realize he did.
Again, making it a little bit, I will end it here with there have
been a lot of heartaches and a lot of great triumphs with this school
in the last year, I have only been here for one year, throughout the
campuses. I say heartache and triumphs both personal, through all of
us we have lost people, and as professional. I commend the athletes,
the athletic teams and their successes as well as all of our
employees who worked over the break, both on campus, keeping the
facilities and campuses safe, clean, and ready to go, as well as
those faculty, admin, and staffers who worked from home preparing
countless hours of mounds of paperwork, curriculum, plans, and
strategies to keep our options flexible and compatible to online,
in-person, and hybrid teaching. This is something that's still up in
the area.
We begin a new year with hope, optimism, and a fresh start. We
also must look forward to addressing many issues that I know the
board will be working on that loomed large for many institutions
across the country even before the pandemic began. This includes
enrollment, retention, student engagement, employee welfare, digital
access have become crucial, and IT infrastructure, as many of you
know. Now these issues loom even larger, especially with this coming
year.
So thank you so much for a tremendous team effort from within the
college as well as from the Pima Foundation in getting us through
both surviving and thriving 2021. This new year will be challenging.
I'm ready to roll my sleeves up and get to it. Thank you.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Yeah, Happy New Year, everybody. I want to
give my full-throated support to Commander Ripley and her amazing
organizational and across-the-aisle skills, her diplomatic skills
bringing to bear on this board. I have full confidence in her.
Just a heads-up to my fellow board members and the chancellor, my
No. 1 priority this year is making sure we have adequate salaries for
our faculty and staff. I think given how hard they have worked, how
hard everybody has worked over the last two years during COVID, we
have to make sure they are compensated at the level that is
commensurate with their efforts, and if we want excellence, we have
to award excellence.
As we look at the budget, Dave, Dr. Bea, I hope we can really
focus on how do we compensate our employees at the level that we
expect, given their extraordinary efforts.
So I'm excited for the new year, and let's get to work.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much, Dr. Hay.
I just want to take a few minutes to sort of reflect on my time
as chair of the board. I want to first begin by just thanking
everybody on this call, everybody within the institution for their
support. It's been a very trying and difficult certainly two years
with COVID. Was certainly not what I imagined board service would
look like.
But it has been really one of the great honors and privileges of
my life to have served on this board in this role. I am so proud of
the work that we have collectively done together. I look back at the
last really six years that I have been on the board, and four years
serving as the chair. It has really been a transformational period
of this institution.
With the leadership of Chancellor Lambert, his executive team,
and the commitment of the entire institution, top to bottom, to
commit to becoming a premier institution, committing to student
success, I think we are making transformational change in this
community.
You know, I am incredibly proud to have been the very first
openly LGBTQ+ member of the community to be elected to this board.
I'm incredibly proud to have been the first member of LGBTQ+
community to have served as the chair.
A few times during my term I have had the opportunity to read the
vision and the mission at the beginning of a meeting. I just want to
do that again now, because I think it really again sets such an
extraordinary tone for what we are all doing here.
Each and every one of us, we come to these meetings, seems like
there is so much disagreement, but at the end of the day the reason
we are here is because of what this vision and what this mission lays
out. I want to take my time this evening to share this. Again, our
vision as a college is to be a premier community college.
Pima Community College will be a catalyst for personal
transformation, economic growth, and cultural prosperity that
enriches our diverse community. Our mission is to empower every
learner every day for every goal. As an open admissions community
college within the diverse setting of Pima County, PCC provides
comprehensive and flexible lifelong opportunities to promote learner
success and to empower every learner every day for every goal.
Every learner we commit to meeting the diverse needs of every
person who seeks to further themselves through education. Every day
we strive for excellence in teaching and support services to ensure
that all of our learners experience a welcoming and supportive
environment that enhances their education.
Every goal we align our programs and services with meaningful
careers, quality educational pathways and equity-driven practices to
empower learners to succeed in their college and career goals.
That's why we are here. At the end of the day, we are here in
service of our community to use and catalyze education to transform
lives. I am so proud of the work that we are doing together. It has
really just been such a privilege and really such an honor. I look
forward to continuing service at this institution and higher
education throughout the state.
So thank you very much. With that, we will move on to Pima's
Mission Moment. Chancellor Lambert?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Mr. Chair, it my pleasure to introduce the
Mission Moment. We are so excited that our PimaOnline team have been
just an outstanding group who have brought home some important
recognition to the college.
I'm going to turn it over to Michael Amick to lead us through
that recognition of our faculty, staff, and students. Michael?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Thank you. Greetings, Chairperson Clinco,
board members, Chancellor, everyone. I'm thankful to be with you
this evening.
The Instructional Technology Council recently revealed its 2021
awards for excellence in eLearning. I'm so proud to share
PimaOnline's recognition in three award areas. Distinguished
eLearner educator, Kimlisa Salazar Duchicela. Outstanding eCourse
culinary 130, savory cuisine, created for PimaOnline by associate
instructional designer Olga Chumakova. And outstanding eLearning
student award to Webster Rose.
ITC is a leader in advancing distance education. ITC's mission
is to provide exceptional leadership and professional development in
higher education to its network of eLearning practitioners by
advocating, collaborating, research, and sharing exemplary innovative
practices and potential and educational technologies.
As noted by the ITC, the innovation and diligence exemplified by
each award winner marked them as exemplary members of our community.
The ITC is a subcouncil of the American Association of Community
Colleges, and PCC has been a member for over 15 years.
First, Kimlisa has been recognized as a distinguished eLearning
educator due to her consistent dedicated involvement in distance
education. Throughout her career at Pima, in addition to having
worked on grant-related projects focused on technological innovation
and playing a significant role in the initiation development of
PimaOnline, Kimlisa integrates innovative engaging techniques and
technologies and meaningful renewable assignments into the courses
she teaches and develops.
Congratulations, Kimlisa, and I invite you to share any comments
now.
>> KIMLISA DUCHICELA: Thank you so much, Chancellor and board
members, and Michael and everyone else, and all my fellow faculty.
I'm very honored by this. Actually pretty surprised. I just
wanted to thank all of the amazing people that helped me do what I
do, especially my fellow department heads and fellow online
instructors.
I see Tom is here. All of the people in the CLT, especially the
team that worked with me on my classes. Rob, I couldn't have done it
without you.
I just want to thank everyone, and I hope we continue to move
forward in online. Thank you so much.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Thank you. Congratulations, Kimlisa, for all
of your service and your national recognition as an outstanding
eLearning educator.
>> KIMLISA DUCHICELA: Thank you. Thank you so much.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Next we have the award for outstanding
eCourse, culinary 130, savory cuisine 1, as an engaging introduction
to entry-level savory cuisine hot foods designed for students in the
culinary program at Pima Community College.
Yes, culinary is being taught online. The course makes heavy use
of our digital media production lab to deliver weekly interactive
cooking demonstrations modeled after cooking programs with Desert
Vista Campus's Chef Mario. The team it takes to design an online
course is extensive. It involves instructional designers, video
producers, web designers, the learning management support team, the
program director, and the dean, as well as the faculty.
The ITC award recognizes the instructional designer who is Olga
Chumakova, and in addition to the award, PCC has asked to do a
presentation at the ITC conference so all can see and learn about
this great work.
Olga will be joined by Frankie Reynoso, the PimaOnline web
designer, and Kayla Shaw, the digital media producer for PimaOnline
at the conference presentation.
I now want to introduce you to Tom Tenney, the director for the
center for learning technology who oversees all of the online course
creations for PimaOnline, for his comments.
Tom?
>> TOM TENNEY: Thank you, Michael, chancellor, board. The
culinary 130 course, savory cuisine 1, is a course developed by
PimaOnline center for learning technology as a fully online course as
part of the culinary and hospitality program offerings.
The course design team applied Universal Design principles
throughout the development, focusing on ease of navigation for
learners and accessible course materials such as assignment
instructions, high quality video resources, readings, and
supplemental learning content.
The course is designed in a way that brings the kitchen home to
the learner, providing a high level of engagement interaction for
learners through carefully selected educational technologies
effectively enabling learners to successfully demonstrate their
culinary skills associated with required course activities.
The visual design of the course provides learners with a visually
engaging and immersive experience, as well, reflective of the
fine-dining experience where course materials are "served to
students" on marble plates atop a wooden cutting board.
The culinary 130's team members' No. 1 goal was to make sure that
the course was immersive and engaging as possible while maintaining
the high quality standards and rigor of the culinary training in the
face-to-face program that that allows.
Thank you again so much.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Thank you, Tom. Congratulations to you, Olga,
and the many team members involved.
I hope in the future that we could be invited to share with board
members what our online courses look like and feel like for students
as it is currently 43% of PCC's enrollment.
Finally, I'm honored to introduce you to Webster Rose. Webster
is a Pima student who is currently pursuing his health information
technology Associate's degree, and will be graduating in spring of
2022. He participates in the Pearson accelerated pathways program
that allows him to attend PCC at no cost as his employer pays for his
tuition, books, and fees.
Webster is also one of our out-of-state online students, lives in
Florida. We are all so proud that the ITC is recognizing Webster as
the outstanding eLearning student of the year, and he will join us
for the recognition ceremony at the conference. Webster has an
inspiring story of persistence, and I'm glad to introduce him to you
now.
Webster?
>> WEBSTER ROSE: Thank you so much, Michael. Thank you,
Chancellor, board members, and faculty. I'm Webster Rose, I'm here
in Tampa, Florida, originally from Jamaica.
I graduated high school back in 2002, and since then I have been
of school, but decided to take a big step by focusing on my
education, especially since my company provided the opportunity for
me to attend at no cost.
I started Pima Community College back in 2018 where I chose my
degree in health information technology, since it correlates with my
career at Humana Insurance Company.
I can tell you I'm a very dynamic, ambitious, and motivated young
man with a robust work ethic, which helped prepare me for success
here at Pima Community College.
In addition to my drive here at Pima, I must say Pima has
provided me with outstanding support throughout the entire three
years. I remember when I started Pima Community College, my first
contact was with college advisor Jennifer Madrid. She was
professional, approachable, demonstrated skills of understanding, and
provided reassurance and confirmation that I selected the right
college.
Jennifer took the time out to provide me with detailed
information, which allowed me to be confident that I am ready to take
on this degree program, as in hit the ground running and to be
successful.
Overall, I'm very grateful for this opportunity to study at Pima
Community College with my experience not only from my professor, also
the director, Jacqie Allen, who has been outstanding.
There's easily accessible means through communication, and even
for my unforeseen situation where I had COVID, I must say that my
professors worked with me to ensure that I was successful in my
class.
I'm very proud and honored to be selected for the ITC award, and
I'm very proud to tell everyone at Humana even outside of my company
that I am the face of Pima Community College online student.
Thank you.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: That's awesome, Webster. Thank you so much.
Congratulations. I look forward to the awards ceremony in February.
>> WEBSTER ROSE: Thank you.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: It is exceptional that PimaOnline is being
recognized in not one but three areas of excellence in online
education, and I would like everyone to understand that from my
perspective, these awards are reflective of the overall processes and
methods we use throughout PimaOnline, and that all members of
PimaOnline are part of these accomplishments.
I also want to share with the board the direct strategic
influence the chancellor has had on each one of these awards. As
mentioned, Lee supported and helped implement the creation of
PimaOnline with Kimlisa and former community campus president
Lorraine Morales, and many others.
Second is an amazing innovative initiative that Lee requested to
reskill and upskill employees to the instructional designers. Lee
and Marcy Euler, the PCC Foundation president, secured funding from
the Brown Foundation early in the pandemic to fund this opportunity.
Tom Tenney and former dean Jan Kempster worked to implement a
year-long upskill program that I think we can safely say Olga has
successfully participated in as she is now being nationally
recognized for that work.
Finally, Webster is a student here at PCC because of Lee's vision
and innovation. Lee brought Pearson reps to PCC to explore how we
might participate in Pearson's online program with their business
partners.
I'm thankful that the ITC and eLearning community are
acknowledging the hard work of our students, faculty, staff, and
especially thankful for the support Lee gives to PimaOnline.
For closing comments, I want to introduce Morgan Phillips, the
vice chancellor of academic excellence, as well as thank him for his
oversight, continuous support to me directly and to PimaOnline.
Morgan?
>> MORGAN PHILLIPS: Thank you, Michael. I want to offer my
congratulations to PimaOnline for this recognition. Thank you to
those that made the extra effort that's required to fill out and
submit the award nominations. Dr. Josie Milliken, Dr. Anthony Sovak,
Reed Dickson, and Jacqie Allen. Finally, thank you and
congratulations to you, Vice President Michael Amick, for your
expertise and leading PimaOnline.
PimaOnline has a vision statement. PimaOnline will be a
nationally recognized leader in exemplary online learning
experiences. These awards demonstrate that vision is being achieved.
We need to clearly communicate that we can meet learner needs with
online learning and continue to develop more needed programs.
People are starting to recognize the quality of our online
programs and services, and it's time for us to accelerate our work on
marketing and building awareness.
Thank you, Michael, and thank you, board.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much, Vice Chancellor
Phillips and President Michael Amick, and congratulations to all
three of the highlighted winners.
You know, I really think it speaks volumes that the college was
really ahead of the curve of the pandemic, implementing these
innovations, which really just set the groundwork to be able to
rapidly deploy this transformational thinking and approach to
education.
So a massive congratulations to everybody. The board is
incredibly proud. You know, I think based on your offer to give us a
short presentation on actually demonstrating some of the online
classes, I think the board would really appreciate that.
I see Chair Elect Ripley nodding her head. So we will plan to
get that onto a future agenda so we can get a short presentation.
I'd certainly love to see how we are teaching virtual cooking and
some of the other tools. I really look forward to that at a future
meeting. Thank you very much.
Next up is our administrative reports. Our first is the
-- Chancellor Lambert, I will go ahead and hand it over to you.
Looks likes our first is the annual comprehensive financial report
for fiscal year end June 30, 2021, with Dr. Bea.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Mr. Chair, we're so excited to be able to
share with you just ongoing recognition of what Dr. Dave Bea and his
team has done to keep our financial house in order. I think what
you're going to hear here just continues to support just the
excellent quality of staff that we have at the college under his
leadership.
David?
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Good evening, Chairperson Clinco, members of
the board, Chancellor Lambert, colleagues and guests.
It is my pleasure to present to the board tonight an executive
summary of the college's annual financial report, which was sent to
the board separately by the auditor general's office back in mid to
late December.
Tonight we are just going to spend a little bit of time going
through this is really an executive summary, encourage you to dig
into the actual report. It's posted on our website. It's about 81
pages. It has a wealth of information and detail way beyond what I'm
going to talk about tonight.
We will also be talking with our finance and audit committee of
the board about this, and that group also gets a chance to talk to
the auditor general's office, as well, to see how the audit went.
In summary, the results are actually quite favorable this year.
I'm trying to make sure that I'm scrolling and it is being a little
bit difficult. There we go.
As you know, the results that we are talking about are a snapshot
in time as of June 30 of last year. What happens is we finish up the
year, we take a snapshot of the financial information, make a bunch
of year-end adjustments, and then that information is reviewed by the
auditor general's office.
They do testing on the transactions, testing on various pieces
and components of our financial transactions, ensuring that we are
following our own policies, procedures, that sort of thing, and that
the transaction is tied to what is indicated within our systems.
That process takes months, and again, it concluded early in December
and then the report was issued in mid-December.
As you know, the college had a number of challenges in this
fiscal year, most importantly related to COVID. As expected, the
negative results that you'd see here are that our tuition revenue is
down, in this case it's down about $6.2 million, and also noteworthy
on this are other revenues which are outside of expenditure
limitation, so all of our good revenues were down.
We talked with the board almost as soon as COVID started having
an effect that this was likely to be the case, and unfortunately
enrollment is still down and we are still having reductions in
tuition as a result of that.
Nevertheless, the results are actually still relatively strong
primarily because of support that we received from the federal
government and also just judicious spending on the expenditure side,
which we will get into.
Year over year, there was a reduction in total revenues of about
$17-plus million, but if you look at that second-to-bottom line
there, a lot of the difference in total was related to the one-time
capital appropriation we received from the state last year, and we
didn't receive a similar appropriation this year or in fiscal year
'21.
So year over year, the revenues were down a little bit but not
too much. Again, mostly because of the federal government providing
us some support.
On the expenditure side, again, we reduced expenses a little bit,
sort of across the board, but some of it is in the operations and
maintenance of plant. Some of that is timing in terms of there were
bigger expenses in fiscal year '20, some of which was in response to
the immediate response to COVID and doing some of the things that we
needed to do up front to prepare and make our facilities, get our
facilities where they needed to go. Overall, we were talking about a
reduction of expenses year over year of about $7 million. Revenue
down a tiny bit. Expenses down a bit more than that.
When we break it out, you can see the big reduction in expenses
was in the contractual services arena. I know that groups have
pointed out that has grown in the last couple of years and we were
pointing out that that was likely to be a temporary thing both
related to different expenses related to the construction and work
that we are doing with our centers of excellence and capital type
expenses that aren't capitalized.
Then also some one-time expenses that we are hitting again as a
result of COVID, and you see here there was a pretty big reduction in
those costs in the fiscal year '21.
Overall, again, the increase in net position is a very favorable
result where our net position increased by just under $25 million.
It's a little bit lower, about $10 million lower than the prior year,
but it's still quite healthy and results in our having good reserves
on hand.
We have talked about that with the board and what our plans are
to use those reserves. The net position information is more like
what you look at, this is in the long term and we try not to talk
about this more than sort of about once a year. This is what does
the college look like long term longitudinally overall, how does the
overall financial picture look?
You can see here that our total assets grew pretty significantly.
Again, that's because of the net change in assets that we just talked
about. There is a bit of an increase in terms of our cash and cash
equivalents. Those are the first two lines of what I talk about when
I talk about our reserves that are available for using for future
capital needs. You see there was a bit of an increase there.
There is a bit of a decrease in restricted cash in investments.
That's because that's primarily the bond funds. That's indicating
that we are spending down those funds as our capital projects move
forward, we are spending the money out of our bond funds and that
will continue to decline as we move through those projects.
Our net pension liability went up. That's mostly a function of
our Public Safety Retirement System, more significantly our Arizona
Retirement System and what our liabilities are related to our
employees and their pension benefits. Those fluctuate somewhat
during the year or across the years, because it has to do with
actuarial analyses that we are provided by the state on what the
liabilities are going forward.
I mention that in particular tonight, because I'm going to be
talking with the board in upcoming budget probably in February, there
is a senate bill that's being proposed with the legislation that if
passed will give public agencies that participate in Arizona State
Retirement System an ability to pay down some of the unfunded
liability that is out there, and I will have more conversation with
the board about that as we learn more about that, but it's an
opportunity to essentially issue debt to pay down the unfunded
liability which will help in the long term, and then again, if this
goes forward, and it looks like an opportunity that we can take
advantage of, we will be talking about that with the board in
upcoming budget conversations.
I want to put it on the radar. It's something we learned about
relatively recently and it will move relatively quickly I think with
the legislature getting back in session this week.
Sum total net position increased from $154 million to $179
million, again, indicating positive results. If you look at, and we
will talk more with the finance audit committee about all of our
financial ratios are actually looking as healthy as they have been in
10 years, that's due to judicious expenditure prioritization with
expenditure limitation and really reducing where the college was in
terms of its expenses and trying to align those as much as possible
with realistic projections of revenues. So we are doing a good job
from that standpoint.
Overall, in summary, the auditor general's report, and this is
the key element of the audit, which is that they provided us an
unmodified opinion, which means that they agree that our financial
statements reflect, are reliable, they are fairly presented, and they
reflect reality in terms of what our financials are. That's why they
do the testing, they do a lot of verification to make sure that what
we are saying is accurate to what they find.
What you want to hear in an audit report is that you have an
unmodified opinion. It doesn't sound too sexy, but it is what you
are looking for.
As I mentioned already, there are strong financial results that
are reflected in this, again, with the caveat that we have to be
attentive to our enrollment declines, the revenue declines as a
result of that, and making sure that we have sustainable operational
expenses versus revenues going forward.
One last thing that I will add on top of -- I'm going to put this
up there and thank the group in financial services that works for
months, again, closing out the books and then working with the
auditor general's office to go through the audit. They work
tirelessly to make sure that our financials are aligned with
accounting standards and that they are fairly presented, that people
can look at our financial reports and make good sense of them.
That's reflected in our credit ratings, in what the confidence is
with our financials across the board.
With that, I will also add that there is some breaking news that
happened in the last day, which is Fitch, one of the rating agencies
that we use for our revenue bonds, just came out today with an
affirmation of our college's ratings. Affirmation means that they
affirm that they are the same as what they were previously. So our
issuer rating is a AA. Our revenue bonds specifically are AA- and
both of those are very strong credit ratings.
We will provide that information from Fitch because they go
through and break down some of the different things that lead to
those ratings and the confidence they have, they gave a stable
outlook. Our credit rating is very strong for our size institution,
and we can again take great pride in that, as well.
With that, I will stop with my presentation and ask if the board
has any questions related to the financial statement.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any questions from the board? Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: I'd just like to thank Dr. Bea for all of
his hard work. (Dogs barking.)
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Dr. Hay, you have a chorus congratulating
Dr. Bea.
I would echo that again. Thank you, Dr. Bea, and the entire team
listed on the slide for the extraordinary work to make sure that that
CAFR continually reflects the highest standards of accounting
practices, gives the public and the board confidence in our financial
position.
Thank you for the update on the credit rating, because of course
that affects our ability to issue bonds and do other large capital
projects. It's good to hear that we're affirmed to our existing
credit rating. Thank you very much.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Mr. Chair, just real quick, I don't know if
you mentioned this, Dave, but we are going to build into a future
piece, because he made reference to it, the federal grants that we
received? He'll break that out in a little more specificity as we go
forward. That way you know how we have used those dollars consistent
with what we are required to do.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: That sounds terrific. Hopefully it will
be reported to the audit and finance committee, as well.
Thank you very much, Dr. Bea.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Absolutely.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Next item is the PCC employee COVID-19
vaccination update with Dr. Bruce Moses, vice chancellor for
educational services and institutional integrity.
Before Dr. Moses presents, I just want to, you know, acknowledge
his extraordinary work for the college. As you may have read in the
announcement, Dr. Moses has accepted the job as the president of
Allen Community College, located in Eastern Kansas, and will be
leaving us to accept that position on July 1, 2022.
It has certainly been a tremendous privilege to have gotten to
know Dr. Moses through the whole HLC accreditation process. He has
always delivered his communications with extraordinary clarity that
has made the job of the board much easier in helping to provide
direction to the institution.
Dr. Moses, we will certainly miss you. You have really been just
an outstanding asset to the community and to the college, and I just
want to say thank you before you give your presentation this evening.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Hear! Hear! Way to go, Bruce.
Congratulations.
>> DR. BRUCE MOSES: Thank you, Demion, and thank you, Meredith.
Chairman of the board, fellow board members, colleagues, faculty
and staff, I just want to give you a quick update about some of the
work that's been going on.
There is actually two groups that are kind of working around the
COVID-19. There is a pandemic advisory group which really is doing a
lot of monitoring and recommendations that go forth to the
chancellor, then ultimately comes up to the board level.
There is also a vaccine steering committee, which I kind of
oversee, but it's basically chaired by David Parker, our director of
enterprise risk management and a group of other fine people of the
college, I don't have all their names in front of me, who have done a
lot of work in a short period of time to help us manage and navigate
through this pandemic and this vaccine, kind of the vaccine status
stages that ultimately came out of the executive order 14042. I'm
going to first start off by just giving you some numbers.
The vaccine status of employees of the college, these numbers
slightly changed with retirements and adjuncts that kind of roll in
and roll out from fall semester to the spring semester, but right now
we stand about with 1689 fully vaccinated or have a reasonable
accommodation employees, which is about 87.5% of our workforce here
at Pima Community College.
We have 29 people that are partially vaccinated, meaning they
either have received one shot of the two doses that you can get
either from Pfizer or Moderna. We have 26 folks that are still under
review when it comes to accommodation. We have 213 people who have
yet to provide information regarding vaccination.
Everyone is pretty much familiar with the executive order. Pima
is a federal contractor. That's what basically PCC falls under that
executive order as being a federal contractor.
The planning committees have been working originally under the
deadline of January 4. We all know that there has been stays in
federal court, and PCC has observed those and has paused any type of
enforcement around the vaccine mandate for January 4.
So right now that's in a pause stage, and we are just kind of in
a holding pattern as the court appeals and scheduling orders and
briefings are taken about in about two weeks, based on the
information I received.
A decision may or may not come quickly, as we know. The other
thing is that we do not fall under the OSHA or emergency temporary
standard requirement, so that won't apply to us here in Arizona.
Omicron is a variant that's quickly spreading in the community.
The college is requiring universal masking in campus and in the
offices. Synexus units provide us with additional protection. We
believe these measures are protective for employees and students, and
we are watching what's going on in the community on an ongoing basis.
We have had little experience with the Omicron variant at this
time. We are learning more day by day, week by week. Those who are
vaccinated are less likely to contract the virus and less likely to
have more severe symptoms. However, we are also seeing more children
needing hospitalization and it's still proving challenging for
unvaccinated people, particularly the elderly.
We are providing masks for all employees and for students who do
not have them, and we have KN95 masks both in stock and on order for
those in higher protection areas where the education methods require
it, such as in some of our health profession programs and dental
programs, for example.
The college has arranged for free rapid test and has a cadre of
employees who can conduct these tests for asymptomatic employees or
students. We are not able to test symptomatic individuals, but
community options are available for free.
That's pretty much where we stand to date. Again, we are
monitoring things on an ongoing basis, this group, the vaccine
steering group, as well as the pandemic advisory group, and we will
be happy to bring you updates in the future.
Are there any questions from the board, anyone?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Does the board have any questions? Okay.
I would also just say, I mean, again, the fact that the college is
offering testing services, I think that's significant. There is a
shortage of tests, at-home tests.
I was at my pharmacy today and they were completely out of them.
I read there are shortages across the city. The fact we make that
available I think is so important, and I'm really glad to hear that
we continue to offer that to our employees.
Thank you very much, Bruce, again for all of your work, and look
forward to continuing to work with you but we are going to miss you.
>> DR. BRUCE MOSES: Thank you, Demion. It's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Next we have our reports by
representatives of the board, three reports this evening. We will
start with our student report by Collin Bryant.
Mr. Bryant?
>> COLLIN BRYANT: Good evening, Chairperson Clinco, Chancellor
Lambert, members of the board, faculty, guests, fellow students.
I hope everybody had a relaxing winter break and is now ready to
get into this new year and semester at Pima. This month the All
College Council is starting their annual project. We are all sure
that the pandemic has certainly had an effect on the enrollment and
retention here at PCC. This project however will look at other
factors that have contributed to this decline in enrollment and
retention, such as the resources and support systems available to
students here at Pima.
More big news for the All College Council, this is not in my
original report, by the way, but I just received word that the ACC
representatives from Student Senate may be headed to Washington,
D.C., in early February to attend and participate in a national
congressional summit, given COVID restrictions allow this to be in
person. This is an exciting opportunity for our young leaders to
advocate for the funding and support for programs that benefit our
students.
In other news, the students have decided on their project for
this year, as well. We have decided to create some new murals on a
couple of our campuses. We hope these murals can bring new life and
color to campus. These are expected to be up in the late spring and
I hope to keep everybody updated on their progress.
That's all I have to report this evening. Listening to this
meeting so far, though, it sounds we are off to a good start. Thank
you all for your time and here is to a good 2022.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much, Mr. Bryant.
Next is our faculty report, Denise Reilly.
>> DENISE REILLY: Happy New Year, Chairperson Clinco, Chancellor
Lambert, members of the board, colleagues and guests. I'm really
enjoying this meeting. I will echo what others have said. It's very
positive. So I appreciate that 2022 is starting really well with a
lot of grateful words and a lot of thanks.
This is an exciting time of year for faculty as classes start
tomorrow for spring 2022, and faculty are in full swing getting ready
to go, making last-minute changes to classes.
So we had many meetings back in November and December, as
evidenced by the nine-page report I submitted. It's a compilation of
several meetings we had with much information. But what I want to
kind of highlight right now is that we had All Faculty Day on Tuesday
of this week, and so every spring semester faculty come back and get
straight to work on classes, but we had some great welcome messages
from Chancellor Lambert and Provost Dr. Duran-Cerda with a strong
message and focus of trust. That was kind of what was conveyed to
all of us. I think that's a great message.
We had some great presentations by Faculty Senate President Rita
Lennon as well as PCCEA President Makyla Hays. Both of them
discussed the differing roles that PCCEA and Faculty Senate have,
especially also bringing up AERC, as well, the All Employee
Representative Council, and kind of how all of them are going to
focus more on collaboration to support faculty. And so I thought
that was really neat, and then of course we had our regular Faculty
Senate meeting.
I just wanted to share with you all that we had such a positive
day and we are really starting out with a positive year. I can see
that the board is, as well. I'm just really thankful for all your
hard work.
So focusing on this year and kind of our goals, and I know that
Meredith had mentioned her goals of the year and everybody else had
kind of mentioned some goals, I wanted to let you all know that
faculty surveyed -- so we had a faculty survey with great
participation in December. What came out of that survey were three
main areas that we'd like to focus on for the rest of this semester.
We have agreed as Faculty Senate officers that this is the focus
based on faculty results. The first is D2L and technology. When we
think about technology, we are talking about institutional processes,
learning, and improvement, and obviously we heard some great words
from PimaOnline tonight. Hopefully to continue to learn more about
D2L and all that it can do for us.
The second was in terms of faculty leadership. That would be
related to having a voice, and I think the focus of trust is going to
be helpful, and collaborations with executive leadership and
administrations. So kind of feeling like the faculty are part of the
mix and part of the decision-making.
And then the third goal is policy and procedures and kind of
updating within the college, within the faculty group what these
policies and procedures look like. Those would be our three goals
for the faculty senators and faculty in order to support them
throughout the year.
I did want to mention just a quick tidbit about another poll that
was given or the same poll but actually just a little bit more
detailed information that we asked in December.
And it turns out three things we were talking about how often
we'd like folks and administration to attend different meetings and
to kind of be present, but also having a chance for faculty to
collaborate.
One of them was we really appreciated Chancellor Lambert came
into our Faculty Senate meeting in December, and that was actually a
great meeting. So we polled members and they would like, faculty in
general, twice a semester for the chancellor to join us in those
meetings. That was kind of a result from the survey.
Then the second was to have Dr. David Bea, which I know he's
presented at a couple different groups, to come in March to Faculty
Senate and as needed, so just talking about the budget for the future
year.
The third one really applies to this group here. We'd love to
invite and ask the Governing Board members to attend a Faculty Senate
meeting. So I know that many of you had mentioned in a previous
Governing Board meeting ways to kind of incorporate and go across the
college more, and we think a Faculty Senate meeting would be great.
So the invitation is out there.
We'd like to continue to collaborate with administration, with
the board, and I just want to say thank you. This has been one of
the better meetings I have ever been to. Let's keep it up.
Any questions?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Nope. Thank you very much, Ms. Reilly. We
appreciate it.
Next is our staff report with Dorothy Netherlin. You're up.
>> DOROTHY NETHERLIN: Hello. Good evening, Chairperson,
Chancellor, board members, faculty, staff, guests. It's been a
really positive meeting. I have enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm and
everyone be happy and congratulating ones for the achievements for
online learning, the students. Bruce Moses, I will miss seeing you.
Congratulations to the new chair, Ms. Ripley. Congratulations to
you, Mr. Clinco, to now moving on to a supporting role for her.
The update that I have for you is from our meeting in December.
The Staff Council is more or less still worried about what we are all
worried about, which is COVID-19. Since December, a lot of
information has changed, and that has been talked about, as well, at
the meeting that we had this past Friday.
We talked about the class and comp study, as well. Dr. Bea was
amazing. He always fills us in on everything that's happening and
how things are moving along, and that was fantastic. So I think a
lot of our guests that were at that meeting were put at ease.
We welcomed new members. So we have Raphael Gill from the IT
department. Wendy Scheder Black from the academic excellence.
Stephen Ebel from education services and institutional integrity.
James Johnson from facilities. And Erika Elias from student
experience and workforce development.
Thank you, guys, very much. We really appreciate all your hard
work. That is all.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much. We appreciate the
report.
Next we have our chancellor's report. Chancellor Lambert? You
have 15 minutes.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Happy New Year to
everybody.
We have a lot of exciting things that happened as we were coming
to the end of last year, and will progress through the balance of
this year. I want to say, first and foremost, thank you to the
faculty and the staff, administration, and the board for your
resilience.
This has been a tough 21, 22, going on 23 months for all of us.
I can't think of a better group of individuals to have gone through
this period of time with than each and every one of you.
Pima has really risen to the occasion. As noted by Denise, when
I came, I think it was December when I came, I talked about how the
work we had done prepandemic was so critical to how we were able to
navigate through the pandemic, I think it serves as a good barometer
for us going forward, as well.
So Dolores, Nina, Kate, Edgar and myself, we had a chance to --
Dolores and I are on the board of the Leadership Academy. We
attended their conference in November. They had Stephen Covey come
and speak to us on the speed of trust.
So many of the points that he made really resonated with all of
us. We are going to put increased effort and focus around trust
going through the balance of this academic year and really, truth be
told, it's something we have to constantly pay attention to and be
vigilant about.
Mr. Covey talks about the 13 trust behaviors. And so we have
already started to have the conversation with the administrators
about those 13 trust behaviors. We hope to be able to roll that out
to the entire college as we go forward.
Some of my takeaways during this piece is trust begins with each
of us individually, and then are we willing to extend trust to
others. So it's a two-way street, not a one-way street, was an
important message that I took away. But also the importance and one
of the 13 values is talking straight, being honest with folks, even
if it's not always popular to be honest, but be honest.
But also it's how you do it, right? You do it with respect and
so forth. So look forward to that focus.
Also, the provost talks a lot about kindness and gratitude, so
you'll hear more of that as we go forward. I want to make sure that
every administrator is expressing kindness and gratitude. I hope the
faculty would be willing to personally invite each administrator to
their classrooms. It's different to say, Oh, come visit my
classroom. It's another thing to say, Hey, Tom, I want to invite you
personally to come to my classroom.
You see the difference in that, right? So please, please do
that. I know that each of the administrators would love to come into
the classroom and see firsthand the great work that you do.
Also, I just want to say again, just acknowledge Kimlisa. I
don't think folks understand how visionary Kimlisa is at times.
Because when I was first hired, she came to me not too long after I
was hired, and said, Lee, we need to put more of a strategic focus
around creating what ultimately became PimaOnline.
And so I just want to acknowledge just her vision and ultimately
bringing Michael Amick onboard to make that a reality. Thank you,
Kimlisa, thank you, Michael, and the entire PimaOnline team for what
you have done. You have really shown that focus on the technology
gap, what we can do when we put that type of attention and focus to
benefit ultimately our students.
Also, we had the privilege -- let me, I will come back to this
point. But as we closed out last year, I got contacted by Harvard
about a potential involvement at Pima Community College.
I'm pleased to report that Pima will be, I believe it's going to
be five community colleges, we are going to be one of five community
colleges to be part of the Harvard Workforce Project. I'm not sure
if that's exactly how they title it, because we are seen now as an
innovative leader in the workforce economic development space across
the country.
We did not apply for this. They came to us and said you are seen
and recognized as one of those leaders. We want to work with you and
these other colleges to create case studies that puts the community
colleges at the center of what needs to happen in this country and
the transformation of the workforce.
So we should all be proud of the work we have all done over these
last nine years to really position Pima to be that premier
institution. So I want to thank everybody that's involved.
Ian will be our point of contact as we go forward in this
project, and we are looking forward to so many positive things that
continue to reflect on the greatness and positive nature of Pima
Community College.
Let me close with this piece. So yesterday Dolores, David,
Morgan and myself, went up to visit ASU Polytechnic. I'm not sure
how many of you are familiar with what ASU has been doing in that
space, but one of the innovative things they have done is they have
created a 4+1 degree, meaning you can complete your Master's degree
in five years instead of six years or beyond.
Then, as part of that conversation, we may have the opportunity
to partner with ASU to do something along a similar line. So we will
be exploring this as part of an overall project to explore whether
Pima should offer applied baccalaureate degrees. I'm not saying we
will. I'm saying we are going to explore that option and then start
to look at models that are out there, and one potential model is
what's happening with ASU and that 4+1 model that allows you to get
that Master's degree in that five-year period of time. So we are
very excited about that.
I will close with this. Bruce, congratulations to you. I'm
proud of you. I think you're going to hear that from all of us as we
move through the remaining time you have with us. We have been very
fortunate that you have been part of the team, and we will look
forward to working with you in your new capacity when you go to Allen
Community College in the state of Kansas.
>> DR. BRUCE MOSES: Thank you, Chancellor. I appreciate that.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: You're welcome. Happy New Year, everybody.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Happy New Year. Thank you, Chancellor
Lambert. Thank you for sharing the report. It's always wonderful to
hear these highlights, but the component about the Harvard Workforce
Project, I mean, how extraordinary that we are being asked to
participate at this type of level to help drive this national and
really what will be an international conversation on workforce in the
world that community colleges take.
It really is a tremendous recognition of the work that you and
Ian Roark and Dr. Dori and the full team is really doing. It's
really profound.
I really want to say, if we're going to go down this
baccalaureate path, the idea, the innovative ideas you are already
bringing forward, like this 4+1 program where we could really make
Master's degrees more accessible to our community really opens the
door for additional transformation to students in Southern Arizona.
I'm excited to hear what comes of these conversations and what the
plan, what's developed as we move forward.
I think, you know, if we are going to do this, to be able to do
it in innovative ways really can be very powerful.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: If I can add to that, Chairman Clinco.
Chancellor, I hope as the conversation proceeds with that program,
and the opportunity avails itself, I think we need to really
highlight that in our communications effort, not just statewide but
nationally, certainly to all of our constituents, but nationally
about the leadership of Pima in that space.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Can I say one last thing? When we had the
meeting with the Harvard team, so David Dori, Ian Roark, and myself,
were in that conversation. I just want to thank David for his
leadership, as well.
Oftentimes we talk about Ian, we talked about Bruce, we talk
about Michael, but sometimes we forget that David and Dolores are the
two leaders of our academic and workforce sides of the college. So
sometimes they can be easily skipped. They are not to be skipped. I
want them to know that. It's under their leadership that all these
pieces really come together, and so many other people, but I just
want to call them out expressly.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Hear! Hear!
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you for clarifying, and thank you
for your hard work.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Just so it doesn't go over everybody's
head during Lee's conversation about this, we were one of five
colleges across the country to be chosen for this, and I just had to
repeat that in my head, because it is quite extraordinary that they
came to us. We didn't seek this out.
The forefront of the conversation right now is exactly what Pima
Community College, community colleges across the country, are about.
It's the bread and butter, which is workforce development.
It isn't just a nice cool thing that we got chosen to do. This
is really addressing the most important thing right now, which is
getting people back into the workforce and addressing the economy
during this pandemic.
So again, I think this is something to celebrate. Thank you.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Can I just add, Chair Elect Ripley, thank
you for that, I also just want to say because of all of this work,
that's why Hillman came to us to want to make that $5 million
investment. I just want to thank Marcy and her leadership. We are
seeing our Foundation growing and blossoming alongside of the college
as we have really turned the institution around.
We just have so much to be proud of, but so much more work to do,
so we are never satisfied with where we are at, but we need to take a
moment to reflect and appreciate what we have accomplished.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you, Chancellor Lambert.
Next is our information items. They are posted for the board and
the public. They are posted on our board docs. Anyone can take a
look.
Next is our consent agenda, which is posted online.
Do I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: So moved.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any discussion?
Okay. Hearing none, all in favor of the consent agenda approval,
signify by saying aye?
(Ayes.)
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Anyone opposed? Hearing none, the motion
passes unanimously.
Next is item 8, our action items. Our first is the Governing
Board enrollment and external outreach advisory committee.
Mr. Silvyn, if you could please read the recommendation.
>> MR. SILVYN: The Chancellor recommends that the Governing
Board establish an enrollment and external outreach advisory
committee by approving the proposed committee charter, which is
attached to the board materials.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Do I have a motion to approve?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So moved.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Discussion?
Chancellor Lambert, do you want to give us a very, very brief
overview of this?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Yes. So first of all, I want to thank the
board for really expressing an interest in creating this committee.
I think it's much needed, especially now, with the sansdemic and just
the challenges we are going to face not only as a community here in
Southern Arizona, but throughout the state and the country to have
more attention and focus on enrollment and external outreach is going
to be critical.
I want to also acknowledge Phil Burdick and his leadership for
pulling all the pieces together. Phil is here to answer any
technical questions you might have about pulling this together.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Does the board have any questions?
No. Okay. I think we know what this is about, and we have been
asking for it, so without further ado, all in favor of the motion,
signify by saying aye?
(Ayes.)
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes
unanimously.
Item 8.2, honorary degrees, Jeff Henderson.
Mr. Silvyn, could you read this recommendation?
>> MR. SILVYN: The chancellor recommends that the Governing
Board approve the award of an honorary degree to the following
individual, Jeff Henderson.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there a motion to adopt the
recommendation?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: So moved.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Discussion?
Chancellor Lambert, do you want to give us a brief presentation
or discussion on this?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Yeah, so let me provide a little discussion
or background, and then I'm not sure who, Dolores, you would want to
speak on this to just kind of provide a little more sketch of it.
As you all know, I'm on the National Association Workforce Board,
so they had their annual conference earlier last year. David, Ian,
and myself were there, and the keynote speaker was Chef Jeff. He has
an incredible life story, and he's a celebrity chef, is often on the
Food Network and a number of things.
Well, the way the conference was set up, we couldn't approach him
right afterwards, so we are at dinner, and guess who is sitting in
the same restaurant with us? Chef Jeff.
So I go up and I start talking with him, and I said to him, would
love for you to come and visit us at Pima Community College.
Came back, shared this with the team. Turned it over to Jewel
Mideau, and now here we are. We are on the precipice of bringing
Chef Jeff to Pima Community College to do a very special set of
events later in the spring. One aspect of that is to recognize Chef
Jeff and his outstanding, extraordinary life and career with an
honorary degree from Pima Community College.
I don't know, Dolores, do you want to say a few --
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: I can expand on that. Thank you,
Chancellor. Good evening Chairperson Clinco, members of the board,
Chancellor Lambert, faculty, staff, students.
It's my pleasure to answer any questions you may have, but this
is an extraordinary opportunity for the college to be welcoming Chef
Jeff Henderson to come, and I think it's in April that Jewel Mideau,
who is the academic director of hospitality leadership under Dean Jim
Craig, bringing him to share his talents and really get involved with
the community, especially with our students, and then also those in
prison, currently in the prisons, because that was his background,
and he wants to influence, positively impact our community.
We are really privileged that he wants to be here in Tucson with
us. So we would like to offer him this honorary degree. He's also
interested in teaching as an adjunct faculty member with the college
beyond his visit at Pima.
I'll be happy to answer any questions for you.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any questions from the board? No?
Okay. Hearing none, all in favor of the motion, signify by
saying aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Anyone opposed? Hearing none, the motion
passes unanimously. The honorary degree is conferred upon Jeff
Henderson. Congratulations.
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Item 8.3, possible modification of
decision to implement federal contractor COVID-19 vaccination
mandate. Based on our conversation in our executive session, I would
move we table this item to our next regularly scheduled meeting.
Is there a second?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Seconded by Mr. Gonzales? Did I hear your
voice? I heard everybody at once.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: It was me.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Sorry. It was all the voices at once.
Any discussion on the item? Hearing none, all in favor of
tabling the motion, signify by saying aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Anyone opposed? Hearing none, the motion
passes unanimously.
Next is item 8.4, engagement of the Association of Governing
Boards, AGB, to assist the Governing Board to prepare for the
upcoming Higher Learning Commission, HLC-focused visit.
We have 10 minutes on this item. If we can start with Mr. Silvyn
reading the recommendation, and then we will take the motion and then
discussion.
>> MR. SILVYN: The chancellor recommends that the Governing
Board authorize the chancellor or designee to retain consulting
services through the Association of Governing Boards to assist the
board with preparation for the Higher Learning Commission focused
visit scheduled for 2022.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there a motion to adopt the
recommendation?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: So moved.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Second?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Discussion? Chancellor Lambert, do you
want to give us an overview? And it looks like there may be some
questions.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Just to put things into context, as your
chancellor, it's always my belief that it's my responsibility to help
prepare the board for any time our accreditor is going to be coming
in to do a visit with the college.
So when we were first on probation, we brought in a team to work
with that board at that time to prepare them for the visit. We have
done that subsequently. So this is just a longstanding practice to
prepare the board for the upcoming visit.
The difference this time is this visit is about the board. So I
think it's even more critical than even in the prior times that the
board have an independent entity come in who is very skilled and
experienced working with boards to help them prepare you for what you
may be asked or faced with during this visit.
Obviously it's not just going to be each of you who will be part
of that process, but there will be others, but you will be the key
focus of this visit.
So if there is any technical questions, I will have either Bruce
or Jeff chime in. I just want to give you that context of this is so
important that we don't send you in there without properly being
prepared.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any questions? Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. Well, I hope nobody is offended by
what I have to ask, but these are some concerns that I have.
No. 1 is that, Chancellor, I was not aware that in the past that
you prepared the board for the HLC visit. Okay, now, in my view, I
personally do not need preparation for the HLC visit. I mean, what
are they going to tell -- I just -- what are they going to tell us?
I mean, what kind of training do we need? Because it isn't about
training, because in my view, you know, I will respond spontaneously
and truthfully to the HLC. I don't want to be advised about what I
should have to tell them.
Then the primary concern that I have, Chancellor, is that we were
not asked as an entire board, and this has been my issue all along,
decisions are made, recommendations are made, and then they come to a
vote, and the entire board has not been previewed or had any
opportunity to request, to evaluate, to select whatever, to give us
the training.
This is not, I'm sorry, Chancellor, this is not your
responsibility. It is the board. It appears to me, anyway, you
know, and I don't know, it's like do we work for you? This is how I
take it.
Okay. Then the other part is that has the Association of
Governing Boards been provided with HLC complaint? Has the
chancellor or any member of the board discussed the situation
surrounding the HLC complaint with the Association of Governing
Boards?
Will the board be provided with names of individuals who will be
consulting at this meeting? What is the cost of the AGB consulting?
If the purpose of the meeting with the AGB is to advise board members
on the HLC visit, we are aware that the team will arrive on March
29th.
Secondly, if other members need assistance to prepare for the
HLC, they are welcome to do so. I need no preparation for the HLC
visit.
So again, and it has been my contention all along, I don't have a
problem with any of the board members, you know. My complaint or
dissatisfaction or mistrust has always been based on how this board
runs. Yes, there is a problem with the board, because we do not work
as a board. Right now, just presently with the voting that just
appeared, we are a 3 to 2, it's a majority all the time, not taking
anybody into consideration. You know, I mean, I'm tired of being
pushed down.
Thank you.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Before Dr. Hay speaks, I actually have a
couple of responses.
First and foremost, this is a democracy. This is an elected
body.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, I know.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: This is an elected body. It is a
democracy, and we are going to have votes and there are going to be
people who vote yes and people who vote no, and the majority is what
will carry this institution forward. It's not about suppressing a
vote. It is about simply voting.
You may not agree with the outcome of the vote, but it is about
actually a democratic process that takes place in public where
everyone can see, and there are only five people elected to this
board. You know, we have a very narrow margin, and that is just the
composition of our current board.
The Higher Learning Commission has made it very clear that this
board needs to be working very hard to self-manage itself. You're
correct: Chancellor Lambert cannot manage us. But part of the HLC's
criteria is to follow our policies and our procedures that we have
established. We have a record of not doing that, which is a concern.
The point of bringing the AGB in, which we discussed collectively
about becoming a member and bringing someone in from the AGB, and we
agreed, was to help guide this board in continuing to make and
educate ourselves so we don't continue to break policies that then
undermine our accreditation standards. That's absolutely what this
is about.
When they talk about preparing, which Chancellor Lambert talks
about preparing us, it's about self-auditing ourselves and getting a
better understanding of what we need to do as a board so that we can
say to the Higher Learning Commission, you know what? We're aware
that we may or may not be doing the perfect job, but we are working
to improve it.
The hubris with which, you are stating that you don't need
additional training or support is going to cause the institution to
be put on sanction. Like, I mean, I'm not perfect, by any means. I
need continual support in professional development in education so I
know I am doing the very best job for the institution.
Because it's a constant state of continual improvement. To just
throw your hands up and say I don't want to participate in any sort
of professional --
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I didn't say that.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I mean, that's what I heard. You know,
it's a concern, because I think we need a professional organization.
We have tried to bring in the National Association of Community
College Trustees, and it didn't seem to make much of a difference.
We brought in the Arizona Association of Community College
Trustee president or CEO. That didn't seem to make much of a
difference.
This is yet another professional organization we are bringing in
as part of a demonstration that we, as a board, are committed to
continual improvement.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Demion, but you make that choice, maybe
perhaps you and the chancellor. The entire board did not
participate. I will leave it at that.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Ms. Garcia, we collectively discussed
hiring AGB, and now this is coming forward and we have a focused
visit in two-and-a-half months. We don't have a lot of time, so we
really need support.
Going through, you know, a massive selection process to interview
20 different candidates and spend months doing it, I don't see how
that's going to be productive. What we need to do is get somebody
here as quickly as possible to help support our board in making
better decisions.
Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Thank you, Chairman Clinco. Just for our
audience and others on this call, I want to be very, very clear on
this. The AGB is not just another association, another membership.
The AGB has been engaged for 100 years in helping to empower college,
university, and foundation boards and board members to govern with
knowledge and confidence, providing guidance and thought leadership
through expert services and resources.
They are "the" experts in how Governing Boards for higher
education are supposed to conduct themselves. Obviously as a board,
we have members on this board who do not understand that, and this is
not a fly-by-night organization. This is "the" No. 1 organization in
the United States for offering services to Governing Boards about
best practices, about how best to proceed. It's not just queuing us
up for HLC. It's about bringing us together as a board and reminding
us what our fiduciary responsibilities are to follow board policies
and board governance.
Obviously as a board there is a couple of us on this board who
have refused to do that. The AGB is absolutely one of the final
authorities on how board members should govern themselves. I have
been the only one on this board who has years of experience in higher
education administration, and the AGB is exactly who we need to bring
in to help us work with these issues.
I applaud them, and I look forward to hearing from them and
learning from them, because every day of my life I try to experience
and progress and get better. If I can bring in the AGB to help this
board be better and serve our students and serve our constituents and
serve this state and serve this county, then by golly, I think we
should do it. AGB is exactly who we should do. We are not going to
go through 20 different candidates. The AGB is the only one we
should be listening to, because they have a hundred years of
experience in our Governing Boards work.
There is absolutely no question in my mind the AGB is the right
authority to help us navigate through these issues and prepare to be
a better board in the future, not just this quibbly squabbly stuff.
But let's be a better board. That's work together.
Mr. Gonzales, you said in your comments, let's work together.
Well, okay, let's work together. This is exactly what we should do.
We don't invent, we don't make up board governance policies. We
don't make up and invent how boards should respond. This is exactly
what we should be doing is if our board collectively, all five of us,
don't understand how boards should behave, then we need to bring
somebody in to help remind us what good board behavior is, and the
AGB is exactly who we should bring in.
I'm sorry for my passion on this, but by golly, I believe in this
college. I believe in what we're doing, I believe in our mission,
and refuse to let anybody undermine what Chancellor Lambert is trying
to do or trying to do as a college and for this community.
I'm sorry for my enthusiasm on my response.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you, Dr. Hay. Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: You're correct, Ms. Hay, in reference to
working together. But more important, I want to emphasize that each
of us has a voice. Allow us the voice. There is a lot of times that
we don't have that voice. We come to hear it after the fact.
As I mentioned earlier, it's kind of disappointing, I was
expecting the new chair to be directing this meeting tonight, but
little things happened along the road. I don't know if it's proper
or improper, but that was done.
As Ms. Garcia mentioned, it's never been done before since I have
been here, but it happened today. I was hoping to, in fact, I'm glad
Ms. Ripley was going to be the chair and directing and heading this
meeting tonight, but it didn't happen that way.
Like I said before, there is always room for improvement, and we
all have to work together. But I think one of the setbacks, and I
know, I said it before and I will continue to say it, it's kind of
difficult to be on the video. I'd rather have it be with you guys
face-to-face. I know the next meeting maybe we can -- I know was
planned for virtual, but let's meet face-to-face. The boardroom is
big enough for each of us.
But I think that's what we need to look at, because to me, I have
a lot of difficulties in reference to what we have here. It's a
disconnect. There is no -- to me, it's a very emotional but more
important it's a physical disconnect in reference to what we want to
share, what we'd like to do.
Like I mentioned, there is a lot of stuff that if you heard we
support a majority of the stuff, but when stuff like this coming
along and we don't have the opportunity or the voice before, it's
frustrating. It's frustrating. That's why I mean there is always
room for improvement and we need to work together.
Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thanks, everybody, for their comments
and don't ever apologize for being passionate, Dr. Hay.
I think that the reason for having the AGB or any outside entity
come in is, from what I have seen in my careers in the military,
Raytheon, and in higher education, is communications.
When there is a communication breakdown, everything from
dysfunctionality to wars being started and waged overseas can happen.
So it really boils down to communication.
The AGB is, as far as I know, is not coming here to tell us what
to say or do or think. They are here to facilitate a conversation
and allow us to communicate. Because clearly there is a little bit
of a communication breakdown.
I have been here for a year, and I have not been blindsided by
decisions or votes, because we get the materials like a week before
the meetings, and you go through the materials. If there is a beef
with anything on that board packet a week before these board
meetings, I will either call Demion or I will call the chancellor or
Jeff Silvyn, and I will ask them or I will protest if I don't think
something should or should be on the board agenda.
So, I mean, I feel sorry and sad that you feel like you have been
blindsided, but I have always been prepared for the meetings and knew
what was coming.
I think it's all about communication. So everything from, like I
said, misunderstanding to wars being waged boils down to a lack of or
improper or bad communication.
I welcome the AGB to just help us to communicate together as a
board. Again, I have taken online courses all year, one of them was
from the AGB, on how to become a better board member. I'm
continuously trying to research and read books on how do I become a
better board member. Every single one of them say you have to act as
a unit.
And you might not always agree, but you're elected officials, and
the forefront of our brains has to be what is the greater good of
this college? Not any kind of interboard dislikes or disagreements,
and especially nothing as petty as, you know, what has been going on.
I think much more than that is what is the greater good of the
school.
Sometimes you're not going to get -- I have disagreed with every
single board member here. At the end of the day, they have convinced
me, okay, let's go that way, and you agree to go that way.
But publicly slandering and discrediting each other is not only
bad for us as a board, it's going to damage the school. Anything we
could do to be constructive, not destructive, I will vote for. If
AGB can help us and if HLC can help us, we need to communicate and
listen.
That's all I wanted to add to the conversation. Thank you.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you, Chair Elect Ripley.
Any other comments?
Okay. Hearing none, all in favor of the motion, signify by
saying aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Opposed?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Oppose.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Oppose.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Motion carries 3 to 2 with Board Member
Garcia and Gonzales dissenting.
Item 9 is request for future agenda items.
With that, the meeting is adjourned. The next regular meeting
will be February 2 -- actually, February 2 I think is how it's
scheduled, but are we looking at a different date? Okay. February 2
as of now and we will sort that out.
Thank you all very much. Good night.
(Adjournment.)
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