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February 21, 2022 Study Session...
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Welcome, everyone, to this amazing
study session for the Pima Community College Governing Board. We
have two great topics that we will be discussing. I'm looking
forward to hearing from our subject matter experts at the college.
Those two topics are finance and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Before we begin, Chancellor Lambert, do you have anything you
would like to kick off?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Yes. Chairwoman Ripley, it's my pleasure to
introduce our first topic, the fiscal year 2023 budget discussion.
Then I'll come back when this one is done and introduce the DEI
discussion.
First, I want to thank Dr. Dave Bea and his team for putting this
together. I also want to thank each board member for meeting with
us. I appreciate each and every one of you took the time to have
premeetings with us. That really helps in formulating the
presentation you're going to be seeing here shortly.
With that, Dave, I'll turn it over to you.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Good afternoon, Chairperson Ripley, members of
the board, Chancellor Lambert, colleagues and guests.
As Lee just mentioned, this is an opportunity for us to continue
the conversation that we started in the late fall about the lead-in
to the fiscal year 2023 budget.
What we are going to be tackling today, and really we want to
have this, I will provide some information, but really give the board
an opportunity to have some interactive discussion related to the
expenditure priorities that we have been discussing.
I'm going to have some updated information on revenue and the
projections of that. Some conversation about the future and how to
plan for our new enrollment reality. That's going to be part of the
information we are going to talk about today.
With the ultimate goal that, one, we have a proposal related to
tuition that we can take to the board at the meeting in March. And
then more comprehensively the total budget for a presentation to the
community that we will be showing to the board at the May meeting.
At that point, we will also be talking about sort of developing
this three-year plan. This will be the first of the three years. We
are going to talk a little bit about what we are looking to do with
that. We welcome and encourage the board to give us feedback if
they'd like to see anything different from sort of how we are
planning and how it's coming together.
So with that, let's go ahead and start a little bit with what our
expenditure priorities are. First and foremost, as we have been
discussing with the board, and again, to reinforce what Chancellor
Lambert just mentioned, thank you, being able to discuss class comp
with individual board members and get into a little bit more detail
about how important that work is, and how important it is for our
employees, it was welcomed discussion and clearly is the biggest
priority of the budget this coming year.
It's been challenging going through a number of years of budget
reductions, starting with state budget reductions that happened
during the fiscal crisis, and then the challenges related to
expenditure limitation, and then with enrollment decline. We have
been going through sort of a myriad of challenges from a financial
standpoint over the last ten years.
The passage of Prop 481 and Prop 207 which adds some additional
revenues coming into the college gives us some flexibility to I think
go back and make some significant improvements to our compensation
for employees. We will talk a bit more in detail about that as we go
through today.
The second priority that we want to do is there are a number of
initiatives that the federal funding enabled us to kick off and that
we want to continue. Primarily this is related to the laptops,
hotspots, enabling students from more disadvantaged backgrounds to
have the technology so they would be successful.
What we are talking about is potentially something along the
lines of a $2 tuition increase which will enable us to continue that
program, continue to have online proctoring services for the growth
in our online programs, but again, first and foremost, enabling us to
continue what we have done in terms of having laptops, having
tablets, and having hotspots available for students and having some
staff available to help with that program.
Those are really, the board at the previous study session had
talked about any tuition increase should be tied directly to student
benefit. I think we have worked a good program together where the $2
tuition increase we will be talking about is specifically tied to
benefits those students would be getting through those programs. The
federal funding will be going away, so this will enable us to
continue that going.
We will be talking later in the spring more in detail about
giving you an update where we are at with the revenue bond projects
and the other capital projects along with the proposal for the
capital budget.
We won't talk too much about that today. That's mostly funded
out of college reserves and what is already operationalized within
the budget. But just to put that as a reminder, something we will be
talking about as we go forward with the budget development.
And later during this session we will talk about reallocating
resources, and really one of the key elements of what we are trying
to do is as the college transitions to new ways of doing education
that we need to shift resources in different ways throughout the
college, think about how to provide services in a different way
without just everything being added in.
Because we are not in a situation with our enrollment being where
it's at, not in a situation where we should be adding additional
costs for what we really need to do is figure out how to spend our
money, the money we are currently getting, more wisely.
In the upcoming March session, we are going to be talking about
what we have done for two years now is the student success courses at
no charge. We have really good information that that's a very
successful initiative. What we will be looking to do is make a
proposal that we just continue that on an ongoing basis rather than
renewing each year, which is what we've done the last two years.
So we have started it as a pilot, see how it goes. The second
year we renewed it again. But the idea now would be so that we don't
have to keep going back every year that the idea is the college will
be providing student support courses at no charge to students, that
it leads clearly to student success and we will be talking with the
board at the March board meeting about that.
Lastly, the other two initiatives, and as we are able within the
budget, is to continue to increase student scholarships and the
funding to help enable students to come to the college and then
enhancing marketing in this increasingly competitive arena.
So the priority order for these things is really focused on class
comp, and then as we are able, with the resources and with the way
the budget comes together, we will be working towards some of those
latter initiatives, but really it's focusing on class and
compensation.
To give an overarching perspective, again, a $1 tuition increase
represents an additional $350,000 of revenue for the college. So
when I mention the $2 tuition increase idea for laptops and to
continue that program, that would generate about $700,000, and that
offsets the costs of continuing that program on an annual basis, both
in terms of the equipment and a little bit of staff support that is
involved in getting machines up and ready, and then lending them out
and tracking them.
Property taxes, and we talked with the board about the fact that
we assume, and I will have more details, the idea is talk about a
range or different options related to property tax.
Because we have not done a levy max the last couple of years, we
have the capacity still to grow all the way to increase to the levy
max which would entail an increase of 6% to tax -- I will show you
where that is, and we are going to recommend doing that and phasing
that over time, and that came about from a conversation with the
board in the fall. I will walk you through some of the details.
We also have some good news related to state budget. The
governor's budget has some additional allocation for STEM, continuing
what they did last year. We think that will happen in the
legislative budget. And then a conversation related to 207 money.
I will give you some of the information related to what the
increased revenues look like from that standpoint. The revenue
picture from those key revenue sources, we have flexibility and we
have some potential revenue growth there.
In terms of what does tuition look like right now, so currently
we are at $87 for instate tuition. We're in with the majority, in
the same realm of other peer institutions, other community colleges.
We are slightly on the higher end, but it's sort of like Coconino is
high and then the next six institutions are really clustered within a
couple or few dollars of tuition per credit hour.
This shows what the impact would be for a $1, $2, $3 credit hour
impact in terms of the instate rate, what it means for nonresident
students, as well, the online, and the differential tuition what that
looks like.
Again, what we are talking about with the tuition increase and
the proposal that we want to take to March would be something in the
neighborhood of a $2 increase, and again, that would be to support
the ongoing effort with the laptop initiative and support what was
federally funded and some student proctoring.
In the property taxes, a little bit of a busy spreadsheet, but
basically if you look at where we are at in fiscal year '22, our tax
levy right now, our current year tax levy is $123 million and change.
Levy neutral for next year, that means we don't increase the
taxes. That's just adding growth from new property that comes onto
the tax rolls. That's going to generate another $2 million. Then if
we shoot all the way to the far right, this is what our levy max
capacity is.
So we are able to levy all the way up to $133 million. We can
spend the money because Prop 481 passed. What that means is that if
we went all the way to that tax levy and increased it all the way to
the $133 million, that would be a 6% increase to the taxpayers. Then
you can see what the tax rate change would be.
Demion, do you have a question?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much. I really appreciate
the graph.
Could you just tell us -- you don't have the 4%. If we did 4%
this year, we would be doing then 4% next year, sort of two
year-over-year same amounts versus this three-year thing which would
sort of push us out 3% a year for three years? I mean, this is the
problem with not increasing it to keep pace with inflation, right?
Now we see with sort of the more significant inflation that's
occurring, we are not even, this year we wouldn't even be able to
keep pace with that even if we were to increase probably the 6%,
certainly not over the last, accumulation of inflation over the last
three years.
Could you just provide a little bit of insight what that would
look like if we did it this year and another 4% next year, what your
thoughts are?
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Yeah, so just to clarify a little bit, so to
go to max would be a 6% increase of the taxes. That's the
accumulation of two years of -- it isn't 2 plus 2 and it's been
cumulative. It's a 6% now from where we are at to where we would be.
So doing a 3% is halfway to the max.
So what it would mean is it's phasing it in over two years,
getting to the levy max in two years.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: But then next year we'd be at 5%? Because
we still wouldn't be -- because we are adding another 2% to the 3%
that we haven't done. That's --
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Yes.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So really we are looking at --
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Well, it would be probably more like a 3% and
a 4%, I think. There is a compounding effect that's happening here.
But, yeah, so it wouldn't be quite as big a jump in the next
year, because there is growth in new property and some other things
that would have an effect on it.
But, yes, what we would be doing is deliberately leaving some
money on the table, or off the table, whatever the right phrase is,
and at a time when we are talking about we are absorbing some pretty
significant inflation. And again, what we are talking about trying
to do as best we can for compensation and for our employees, they are
all feeling the effects of inflation.
So next year, just to give some insight, next year's levy max
will be probably 136 million. I know, because of the compounding
effect and how things change year over year, it's not a linear effect
that you're describing. I'm trying to make that clearer, but I'm not
doing a great job of it.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: But in terms of the accumulative
percentage, I mean, if we do a percent, right, we could do a total of
6% this year, if we do 3% this year, that leaves 3% for next year
plus the 2% that would naturally organically occur next year, so that
takes us to 5%, right, so that doesn't really -- or is it better to
do 4 now, 4 then for next year, so that it's sort of the same year
over year as opposed to trying to spread it out for multiple years
and other economic uncertainty, we don't know what's coming in the
future, right?
So if there was a bad financial year and we didn't want to do the
levy to its full capacity, it would just continue the compounding
effect?
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Yeah. Agree. I think that's something that's
a worthwhile conversation with the board that right now, just to get
some context, so if you take a typical property, I think the average
property right now, the assessment valuation for residential is
around 150, 000, but let's just use $200,000 just as a ballpark.
The 3% increase that we are talking about here would be an
increase, all things considered, an actual tax increase for a
$200,000 property of about, a little bit less than $8. It would be
$7.50.
So because this increase gets spread out so much it actually has
a fairly small impact on individual properties. However, for the
college it makes a big difference. So the question I think for the
board to really think about is do we want to shoot for 3%, something
less than 3%, or go a little bit higher, closer to the levy max I
think is a good question.
You can see where, if we go up to the levy max, you have -- to do
the 3% adds over the growth number, so growth is 2 million, so the 3%
increase generates about 3.8 million. Then on top of that, if we
went all the way to the levy max, it adds another almost 4 million.
Chair Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Hi, yeah. I think just adding to Board
Member Clinco's comments, it would be good to see the 4%, because I
think that the board and perhaps not the greater public sort of saw
this coming, because we did try to consider and be considerate of the
pandemic in not raising the tax levy. So I think that if we see all
the numbers and if we shape this narrative to direct all of us to all
of the things you just said, I think it would really help.
Because at some point, as Board Member Clinco suggested, we need
to catch up. Because it's just going to keep accumulating, and we
are just always going to be in catchup mode unless we do something.
I don't think 4% is that drastic when you look at it, and it
might get us back. But we do need to see the numbers, and I think
that would really help all of us make a better decision maybe.
Thanks.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: So just to give a little bit of info, I can't
give you the exact number but I will give you roughly what the number
is. So a 3% increase is an increase for a $200,000 property at
$7.50, so it's about $2.50 for every 1% increase that you're talking
about. Again, it's a fairly small increase for a residential
property. With commercial, it gets to be more significant.
But the other thing to consider is what the other taxing entities
may do and what kind of an impact that would have. Again, for us, it
actually would be fairly moderate and wouldn't be that noticeable for
the typical residential property.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Any other tax-related questions?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I would just say I would support the 4%,
just for the record.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Any other discussion with other board members?
Ms. Garcia, you're muted.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I do not support any increase, primarily
because I think that we could do well with the new homes that are
coming onboard.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Demion?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Could you tell us, if we were to do zero,
the impact to the budget if we did zero percent, if we didn't
increase the levy and we allowed it to continue to accumulate, that
would create -- could you tell us exactly how much of an impact that
would be on the budget and really where we would see those cuts and
what we would have to do?
Because you have really built this around the expectation there
would be some increase based on our initial conversations, am I
right?
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Right. So there is going to be levy neutral
generates an additional $2 million. That's this figure right here.
The Prop 207 money, just to jump ahead here, so 207 is another 2.6
million. So we are talking about additional revenue about maybe $5
million if we go -- well, this is the levy neutral scenario.
Exclude tuition, just for the sake of this conversation, because
again, we are sort of thinking about tuition as supporting this, the
federal initiatives and continuing that. But you're talking about $6
million of additional revenue coming to the college.
What the challenge is is that with the class comp priorities,
having a significant amount of money so that we can adjust to this
new class comp reality without coming out and having a class comp
study say, okay, we are going to have this new structure, the market
identified that we want to make these adjustments, and, oh, by the
way, the college doesn't have sufficient budget to get you there, and
we have to do cuts at the same time, and/or we would have to do some
cuts at the same time.
So what the idea is that because we have the revenue accessible,
because the community supported 481 and we can actually access and
spend that money, we can actually do I think a really good job
adjusting and folding the class comp study and the results of the
class comp study into the budget. Otherwise there are some concerns
about whether we can do all that without having some other reductions
go along with it.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So just to reflect back to make sure I
understand, if we don't do this, a minimum of 3% with the potential
increase to the credit tuition hour, we would struggle to implement
the class comp study and increase pay to be competitive and in fact
would have to --
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Yes.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: -- potentially make cuts into our employee
base?
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Yes.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. Thank you.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Thank you, Dr. Bea. I just wanted to fully
support your process and your evaluation. I think the community has
told us loud and clear that they support a strong community college,
and the students expect our faculty and staff to be compensated as
well.
So I fully support certainly the 3% and maybe another 3% next
year. Of course the community is under inflation too, so I don't
think we want to raise it too high, but I'm certainly supportive of
finding the revenue for our faculty and staff. Thank you.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Okay. One of the critical things we are
talking about also that we want to sort of phase into is the idea of
scenario planning and developing a three-year plan going forward.
This is not news to the board. We talked at length about the
challenges of where enrollment is now, the fact that where the
college is in terms of its infrastructure, staffing size, that sort
of thing related to where our enrollment currently is.
What we are looking to do is really be realistic and be good
stewards of public funds and sort of developing a longer-range plan
that addresses this change in enrollment, if enrollment stays at this
level, how are we going to right-size the institution.
I wanted to talk a little bit about where we're at with that, the
challenges that we have, additional revenue sources other than the
ones that we just talked about. 207 looks like it's going to
continue to grow some amount. It's not clear how much it will grow
past what we were just talking about.
But we have had significant reductions in other revenues,
particularly auxiliary revenues, as enrollment goes down, and the
viability of having the textbook contract being the structure it has
been historically, those are revenues, contract revenues down and
investment revenues are down.
So we have lost revenues in other areas, and again, we are sort
of shifting a reliance over to the tax side. That has a couple of
implications long term. One, it's clear that the community supports
that idea, because they passed 481 to give us the ability and the
flexibility to tap into what is our tax base.
However, looking forward, if our enrollment doesn't grow, that in
a number of years we are going to be coming back and having more
conversations about expenditure limitation again.
It won't be the same exact conversation with expenditure
limitation, because we won't be talking about a cliff where there
were new statutes passed that led to a dramatic reduction, a dramatic
one-time reduction in expenditure limitation, it will be gradual.
But what will happen is if our enrollment stays static, the only
thing that grows from expenditure limitation standpoint is you get a
little bit of inflation money each year. And the college expenses
will probably grow probably faster and historically they have grown
faster than the inflation measure that's in expenditure limitation.
So at some point you really have to make sure that you're calibrating
the size of the institution and the size of the budget with the size
of students. It's good stewardship and fiscal responsibility.
So what we are looking to do is to continue to develop mechanisms
and actually reduce the size of the institution over time. So this
would be mostly fiscal year '24/'25, through technology, being more
efficient with what we do, and then reallocating resources we have
talked about, shifting resources to provide services in a way that
might be different or might be more efficient than how we currently
do, and then thereby reducing some of the staff, the size of the
staff going forward.
I wanted to give you some information. This is enrollment
information, how things have changed recently. The board has been
through this a number of times. I don't really want to talk too much
about it. But COVID has resulted in pretty dramatic reductions in
enrollment after we already had sort of sustained reductions
following the fiscal crisis. We sort of stabilized and then had a
big dropoff when the COVID pandemic occurred.
And so the idea is we are now a size institution in terms of
enrollment that we were built up and staffed up for a size that's
significantly bigger than where we are currently at.
So what we want to do is gradually realign the college's
resources to be aligned with the size of the student body to continue
to do that, because again, that's what we were doing when we reduced
for expenditure limitation.
So what we want to do is build a three-year plan where we plan
for that, should enrollment not turn around, it will gradually reduce
our overall size, as well.
So one of the ways we look to do it and we shared with the board
comparisons with peer institutions in terms of staff size, so we know
we are a large institution compared to, large in terms of staff per
student, compared to peer institutions. There are a couple of
reasons for that.
One is that what I have just talked about. Another is that in
different states, particularly when we look outside of the state,
that other institutions have different structures. The state may
provide information technology or human resources structures so that
those wouldn't be on those colleges' IPEDS information, the colleges'
data.
However, we are on the high side. We want to look at, okay,
based on the measures we have looked at with peer institutions, we
know we're pretty high, not surprising. Then what we did is we
looked at where has the college historically been in terms of the
staff size per student.
What this shows is between 2012 and 2014, the average FTSE per
staff, full-time staff, regular staff position, was 20. From 2015 to
2019, that's following some of that work we did with expenditure
limitation to reduce our staff size, it dropped down to about 15 per
staff. And then, because of COVID and the big drop that we
experienced, it's now about 12.
So what we are looking to do is sort of build some scenarios, and
this is where we want the board feedback, is do we want to build
something that's more aggressive than this or build scenarios that
are along the lines, continuing the 50 to 1 ratio for faculty that's
been in place for some time now, and then for the overarching staff
number to target 15 to 1.
Just to give you an idea what that looks like, it looks like
right now it would be a reduction of about 150 positions. That would
not be particularly easy to do. That's after having reductions
already -- we have added some positions back but not that many from
the expenditure limitation reduction, so it would be a pretty
significant reduction for the college to move in that direction again
to phase that in over the course of three years, or should we drop
down and do something that might be more in the realm of 90.
Those would be sort of the scenarios we are talking about for
May. Looking at one scenario is, okay, we will try and reduce by 150
over three years or something probably more realistic would be in the
realm of 90, about 30 positions a year to reduce.
It's a lot easier to reduce through attrition if you're talking
about a number that's in the realm of 30 than it would be if it's
about 50. That's a lot harder to do.
The college also has to come up with, I think, and this is where
I'd also welcome some board feedback, about so what would be the
plan? How would we go about doing that? I think that would be
something that the board could task us with, is come up with a plan,
how would you reduce that number of positions over the next three
years. We could get that feedback back to you, how we can approach
that.
To give some context of what does that mean in the scope of the
college, this is how positions are allocated roughly by location. It
varies a little bit because it's a matrix organization now. So now
you have positions that are technically district positions that might
be located at a campus, but this gives you rough size that 150
positions, somewhat analogous to closing down an entire campus in
terms of position.
Now, that's not what we are saying we would do. That's what the
idea is, and we have been talking about this for some period of time
now, the idea is having the five campuses in a couple of locations is
not the structure you would have with the size of our enrollment
ordinarily.
However, we have what we have. It's important for us to be able
to provide services to the community at the different locations, and
I think there are reasons why we might want to keep those locations.
There are grants at those different locations, et cetera.
What this is really saying is, okay, it would be the equivalent
of about closing down a Northwest Campus, not that we are saying we'd
close down Northwest, just to be clear in what I'm trying to say.
What it would be then is we find cuts throughout the college,
shift resources around, reallocate, provide different types of
service, particularly at the smaller campuses, and utilize technology
to provide better service so that we are continuing to provide good
service but we're able to reduce the amount of people we have on
staff.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Again, thank you for the presenting, as
always, sort of an unfiltered reality where our situation is. I
think it really helps the institution prepare and certainly this
board prepare for the coming realities if enrollment doesn't
significantly shift.
I know, for me, I think it would be helpful to sort of see maybe
two or three different model scenarios. I hate to call it like a
Goldilocks Model, but if we could look at what sort of if we took a
very conservative approach, if we took sort of middle-of-the-road
approach, and a much more aggressive approach and really look at what
that, how that plays out in terms of both our facilities and the
long-range trajectory of our physical plant and staffing levels.
Because as we have talked about over the years, we know there has
been redundancy in the system. We have done a lot in terms of
implementation of changes and new modeling, especially around how we
are delivering services just to try to address some of that, the old
model of providing everything everywhere and now moving to more of
this hybrid, online, and certainly the pandemic has exceedingly sped
that up, significantly sped that up.
So I think it would be helpful to really look at those various
scenarios so that we could make a more informed decision and really
understand what the implication of that really was going to be.
You know, I think that the board in the past has not been, as
long as we have the real information of what we are looking at, we
have been able to make strategic decisions that have really helped
prepare us as an institution for significant changes economically,
culturally, enrollment issues.
So for me, that would be very, very helpful. I would ask that
that come back to the board with a more in-depth conversation around
that.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I'd like to also add, thank you, Dr.
Bea, for that. It's a stark reality that we all have to face.
We barely recovered, we haven't recovered, from the great
recession. As soon as ten years went by, we got stripped of our
state funding across Arizona, and then the pandemic hit. So all of
this has come to a head.
I think the reality of resizing or right-sizing is a really
important, hard conversation that we all have to have. I think
holistically, I would like to see some scenarios and some proposals
that if, for lack of a better word, looked at it holistically and
looked at right-sizing enrollment and the resources that we commit to
increasing enrollment and increasing retention as opposed to just
looking at the worst-case scenario, which is an increasing basically
students fleeing higher education.
So I think that if we looked at it holistically, that would
really help give a little bit of more of an optimistic view of the
next three to five years. So we do need to continue this.
Thank you.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: So let me add to all of this.
Dave is talking about it from the fiscal standpoint. What we
have been working on is developing where we think that puck is going,
so developing that overarching strategy for how we want to position
the college and then align the fiscal resources to that reality.
Instead of looking at -- a lot of places like to do
across-the-board-type reductions. I think our approach will be more
strategic and really look at, again, where the opportunities lie.
That's going to mean some restructuring of how we do internal
business, which is not always a bad thing. It's just a reflection of
the new reality but in a way that allows us to maximize and optimize
what we have and try to keep as many people employed as feasible.
I always start from I don't want to lay anybody off. I want to
look at how we can reallocate, leverage who we have, but we need to
be open to that.
I will give you an example so people have a concrete sense of
this. So we know that we're growing dual enrollment. That is so
critical for us to be able to serve a greater number of high school
students. We know our high school going rate is very low in the
State of Arizona.
Through dual enrollment, we can expand that high school going
rate. One of the barriers to that expansion is faculty with the
qualifications to teach college-level courses unless Pima starts to
deploy its own resources that faculty, in this case, into those
environments, which would allow us to expand.
Now, what that means is we may be getting more of those high
school students getting college education, but they may get their
Associate's degree, therefore they don't need to come directly to us.
And so is that a good thing or is that a bad thing or is that a
neutral thing? That's part of what I mean by starting to think more
strategically as opportunities for us. But it does change the
equation. We do get FTE, by the way, for those dual enrollment
students.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Chancellor, going off of what you said
about dual enrollment and reallocating the teachers, would you
consider, or maybe you already have, since the schools don't have,
like TUSD doesn't have enough teachers, there's a shortage of
teachers, is there some way that maybe perhaps you could try to
negotiate positions with TUSD with our faculty?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I think that -- so that would be part of the
dynamic. I think there is opportunities to explore that.
Remember, our teachers are not certified to teach at the K12
level, and so there is some realities around classroom management
that we'd have to work through.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: We can do that.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: But we can do that, that's right.
But our faculty have to be willing to go down this path, and they
have to be willing to go down this path, but I think it could create
a win-win for everybody if all sides are open to it.
I mean, it's not going to solve the larger challenges, but it's
one piece of an overall solution.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: And then the other part where we are
talking about providing services, the same at all campuses, I really
do think we need to relook at that.
My point is with the centers of excellence being the main focus
right now, okay, so we really need to look at that. Are we
considering just having that as a main campus? Do we really need
five buildings? Do we reallocate our resources?
I just don't think that we have looked at everything as openly as
we should.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I always start -- so let's step back for a
moment, right? I mean, great question.
So right now, because we are designated as campuses, we receive
quite a few federal grants as a result of that. So if we moved away
from a campus model, one or two locations as an example, we would be
walking away from those grants. We are talking millions. So we have
to understand that as part of the larger consideration. So we want
to do a piece around that for the board. I want you to understand
those considerations.
Another thing is if you look at our enrollment patterns
currently, we are growing in some areas of the college. It happens
to be aligned with the centers of excellence. So we need to also
weigh that into the mindset.
Now, I will pick on East Campus as an example. I will pick on
our public safety program. Right now we know that we can grow that
program and its enrollment if we expanded the physical footprint of
it. But because of our limited current footprint, we can't expand
enrollments there. There is demand for that program. We just don't
have the physical capability to meet that.
So looking at it from those strategic lenses, there is
opportunity for us. Now, I will dial it back out. I mean, you have
heard me say this many, many times, and again, this is all about the
data. If you go and look at our zip codes, the classification of
instructional programs, at a national level, especially during the
pandemic, the zip codes that have taken the largest reductions in
enrollment in community colleges have been primarily in the liberal
arts program areas and in the physical sciences.
If you look at over the decades where the enrollments have been
declining, it's been in the liberal arts. So if you bring all of
that together, that's the reality we're going to have to confront.
But I believe if we modernize the liberal arts, bring more of the
digital tools into the classroom, that that may help to reverse some
of that decline.
In talking to some other universities who have done what I just
described, their enrollments are going back up in their liberal arts
side because they've digitized the liberal arts.
The faculty are essential to this. It's not less faculty. It's
faculty now approaching their work in a different way with digital
tools.
So we are looking at all of those pieces, right, because I
believe that students have got to have that experience. By the way,
those are the pieces that transfer to the U of A, to ASU, NAU, and
the like. So we have to figure out how we balance all of that out.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. I get what you're saying,
Chancellor, but the other part I guess that maybe some people don't
understand is that even when you do like the vocational training or
skills training, normally when you get people into those jobs, those
areas, they then grow and want to do the liberal arts. They will
aspire to learn something else. They will go for business degrees or
something else.
I don't think that you start -- I mean, that's where I think the
centers of excellence is a good idea, but you can also grow that with
the liberal arts.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: And that's what we are hoping to do. But
again, it's not the way we have been doing it. It's got to be
recast, integrated -- because the other data that we are learning,
right, is the best experience for a learner is not one versus the
other. It's the infusion of the two. So let's not forget that.
Now, what we are learning is that learners don't come to us
necessarily wanting one piece. They want the skill piece, the
technical skill piece, and they don't want to sit in the class for
two years, three years, four years. They want to come in and get it
and then get to work or do it while they are working.
So if we can integrate this in a better way, then I think we have
an opportunity to strengthen or bolster the liberal arts as well as
bolster our CTE side of the equation. But it's going to be a
challenge.
We are talking about this in the context of the metaphor of the
second curve. The second curve represents the digital age. We are
transitioning out of the industrial age. Our model of higher
education is really a model that aligns more with an industrial age
model. We have got to get to that digital age model.
That's part of what you're hearing us talking about at Pima.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I don't know who came first, Mr. Clinco
or Dr. Duran-Cerda? You both have your hands up.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Well, my question is just an actualization
question, which is, Chancellor Lambert, and then I'm sure our provost
will have some insight into all of this.
But I just wonder, could you tell us what is the plan to actually
bring forward a pathway to do this? We have sort of been talking
about this for a while, and I think we have seen some outstanding
examples of sort of the implementation of digital tools into the
classroom impacting -- it's really about the skills, building the
skills embedded into the program.
So I think about the drawing class where then things were
actualized into 3D printing as sort of the model or the example.
So could you tell us really what -- when would we expect to see
this type of fully integrated programming in place? Is that a
one-year horizon, a two-year horizon, a five-year horizon?
It's not just in the arts. It's in the liberal arts. So really
this is a transformational way of thinking about how we are
delivering and how we have traditionally delivered classes, and I
guess my follow-up question is how does that really dovetail into
ensuring that we still have clear pathways to the universities for
transfer? So we are not creating, programming things that won't
transfer and then we are back in the same problem that we were in
four years ago where credits weren't transferring and they were
costing students.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Right. So as you know, we have been looking
at different technology platforms, if you will, one of which was the
Apple platform.
So we, just a group of us, just got off a call earlier today
where another community college integrating those digital tools into
their classrooms, both on the liberal arts side or the gen ed side as
well as in the CTE side, are seeing great results. So they call it
their 1:1 Initiative where every student gets an iPad. The faculty
are supported in integrating that iPad into the learning environment.
Again, they are seeing great results. Maryville University is
another one who has done a similar thing. And Penn State, one of the
colleges in the Penn State University system has done this.
So we are starting to see colleges who are starting to integrate
these digital things into the context of gen ed courses or liberal
arts courses, starting to see some better enrollment, better
retention, and the like.
So remember, we have already been moving down this path. Now
it's just a question of when do we say, "This is the model"?
I can have Dolores talk about this, because she's leading that
conversation with our goal to fully get to something come the fall.
So that's one piece.
Now, on David's side of the house, they have been working on the
what we call Pima FastTracks, the micropathways. Micropathways are
the integration of a 21st Century skill, which you typically get in
the liberal arts, along with the technical skills you get on the CTE
side, into a short-term programming of maybe eight weeks, maybe a
little longer, so we have already launched that.
We have launched a handful of those. So as those take root, we
may be able to scale that quicker and quicker to other areas of the
college. So you have those two big pieces starting to come together
as part of, jumping on to that second curve, if you will.
It's just a question of getting our buy-in internally to just say
we embrace this and let's get moving. It does mean changing of
contracts and how we look at contracts for employees and the like.
But at the other end, I think it will provide employment
opportunities that are going to become harder and harder to maintain
if we stay on that first curve or that more industrial age model.
These are all coming together now. As we have learned from these
other institutions, these are multi-year approaches, but it's that
patience but also recognizing that that is the right path to where we
are moving.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: As a follow-up, what could the board do to
help support this? I think we all know this is critical. What can
we do to help accelerate this in terms of budgeting, in terms of
policy support? What can we bring forward to help articulate that
this is an institutional priority?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I think you have already done that.
Like we have learned from the other two institutions we have
talked to, you take a buy-in approach, dictated from above, and that
over time it becomes your standard, and recognizing it's just a
multi-year approach, but you have been clear -- I think the board
just continuing to be clear, we expect you to get on that second
curve and that you continue to lead down that path.
We will support important policy changes that need to be made to
align to that. So you'll see us bringing some of that forward as we
go along. But I think we are well-positioned because we are in a
good financial position to do this.
But we also have to accept the other realities, right? The U.S.
is not growing population-wise. The fertility rates, as you know,
are well below replacement levels. So there's a reality coming
through the K12 side.
We have a big bulge in terms of the working learner population.
So that means we have to do things differently, because they are
working. They don't have time to come at 8:00 in the morning to 2:00
in the afternoon, right? In some cases they may not even want to
come on campus at all. So those things.
I think the board is doing that now. It's just us continuing
this long march, because that's what it is. It's a long march. It's
not going to happen overnight.
We are not in a drastic need to do it right now, either, because
we have been working on it
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. We have about four minutes.
Provost, would you like to add to that?
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Yes, I will be quick. Thank you.
I wanted to first answer Board Member Garcia's question and then
Board Member Clinco's question.
Board Member Garcia, a few months ago, last semester,
cybersecurity, center of excellence for IT, cybersecurity had a group
of specialists, panelists, on cybersecurity and hacking, all of that,
and students were a part of that. Others were live-streaming, but
the students who were there present had a chance to talk them and ask
questions.
One of the students raised, it was a male, his hand, and he said,
I'm a liberal arts student and I'm really interested in
cybersecurity. What can I do? Is it too late for me?
And one of the specialists said, no, in fact, communication,
psychology comes first, and then technology when it comes to
cybersecurity. So there is a support for working together regarding
the liberal arts and then technology. So that was, I thought, very
eye-opening if we collaborate on that.
Because of COVID, faculty were forced to use technology, whether
they were used to it or liked it or not, but they really have stepped
up and are so innovative.
We had division meetings where they shared, everything they're
creating and sharing with each other, working with the TLC, they are
onboard. There may be some pockets, but they are bringing along the
others who maybe are a little bit unsure.
One more thing. B of A work we are doing, and NCII, we're having
this curriculum subgroup that came out of the Breaking Student
Barriers task force, now working with B of A and their consultants,
focusing on the liberal arts, putting in technology, embedding DEI,
climate action, 21st Century skills. And so we are, we have for two
semesters, we have been working on that. So it's coming to fruition,
but it does take time.
It's a total different mind shift from how things were in the
past. But we are getting there, and we are progressing fast. I just
wanted to reassure you that. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much.
Dr. Bea, do you want to conclude? I just wanted to say thank you
for this. It's pretty much a broad brush, but in a study session,
this is precisely why we are here. It's a lot of food for thought.
We, as board members, are going to have to do our own homework
and research and reach back out to Dr. Bea, to the chancellor, to
myself, and we need to have this discussion and have a really serious
look at the holistic view of retention and enrollment, right-sizing,
what is this budget going to look like in comparison to the recent
class comp study, as well.
There is a lot of pieces to this giant puzzle, and it's not easy.
It ain't easy. It's extremely difficult.
I appreciate all the comments about liberal arts, because the
beauty of a community college is that we are not a Voc Tech. We do
have liberal arts and it's extremely important to humanity.
Final words, Dr. Bea, before we go on to the next topic.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Again, really appreciate the conversation
today. Then the next conversation we will be having will be tied
more to more directly to the tuition and what I discussed earlier in
terms of the proposal to fold in what was funded by the federal
dollars with the fairly moderate $2 tuition increase is what we are
looking to bring in March.
We will also be taking benefits, which I have talked with the
board a bit about, the good news on the benefits side is there is not
a big increase and that the college will fold in the additional
moderate cost increase for medical in terms of not pushing the costs
to the employee.
And then as we go through the spring, we will have more
conversations again about class comp with more detail, more
information as the steering committees work through that and come up
with recommendations. We will have a discussion with the board
related to that and related to capital.
Then the last thing in March we will be talking about the student
success courses and looking to formalize that those will be ongoing
at no tuition going in the future.
So that will be our next conversation, and really appreciate the
conversations we had here today.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much for that. I think we
need to go on to the next topic. It's 5:01. We're on schedule.
Another extremely important topic: diversity, equity, and
inclusion. I could speak I think for the board on behalf of the
board, we all take this very seriously. It's a topic near and dear
to our hearts.
So I will hand it over to you, Chancellor, to introduce the
speakers.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Thank you, Chairwoman Ripley. It's my
pleasure to introduce our diversity, equity, and inclusion
conversation around the high-level strategic planning we have been
doing as well as an overview of our climate assessment with specific
emphasis around the recent Pride Index work and the path forward.
I'm very pleased to have Hilda Ladner here. Under her leadership
all these pieces are coming together. I want to thank Hilda and her
team for that. Also we have Carleen Thompson here from HR who has
been heading up our affirmative action work. As you know, we can't
set quotas, but we can set goals.
I know we don't have time to go through all of the specifics, but
I really wanted Hilda to lead us through this and really get to some
of the inclusion pieces. I think diversity, equity, and inclusion
can also be seen as KPIs, and if you look at those big KPIs, there
are certain pieces we need to get better at and that sense of
inclusion. Especially with our LGBTQ+ employees and students, we
have to do better.
And so with said, I will turn it over to Hilda.
>> HILDA LADNER: Thank you so much, Chancellor. Thank you,
Chair Ripley and board members for inviting me to provide this update
for you. Let me share my screen.
I don't think this is sharing the right thing with you. One
moment.
Are you seeing diversity, equity, and inclusion?
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Yes.
>> HILDA LADNER: Okay. I'm on two screens, and it's looking a
little bit different for me.
Anyway, so thank you so much for the invitation to join you
today. I will just give you a really brief overview of some of the
work as Chancellor Lambert said on where we are with the planning
process and then some of the recent work we have been doing around
climate assessment, so looking at belonging.
There is a lot here. I'm going to go through it rather quickly,
so please let me know if you have questions and we can discuss.
As you know, one of the chancellor goals for this year is to
develop a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategic plan, and I'm
leading that effort. There is a group of about 25 of us that have
been working on this new strategic plan for the college.
Last fall we reviewed a lot of data from the college related to
employee demographics, retention, completion, student information,
and also recent climate surveys that were completed through Hanover
Research and the Campus Pride Index.
During the spring we've already started drafting what some of the
priorities will be and we will be seeking input from different
constituents internally and externally around what those priorities
should be. We will finalize that and align them with the college's
strategic plan and bring it back to you all for feedback and
approval.
As the chancellor already said, the three areas of diversity,
equity, and inclusion, when we looked at diversity, it's really about
representation, the composition of the college, who is here.
As a community college, we are really very diverse. We are
aligned with the demographics of Tucson as far as the student
representation of the college as well as our employee demographics.
We compare really similarly to other similar institutions as it
relates to our employee demographics.
Equity has really been about access and what our system looks
likes so that students and learners can access the institution, not
just coming through the doors, an open access institution, but
through our different programs and through their goals for their
lives.
There has been a lot of work happening in this area over the last
year, including our equity and student retention working group, which
went through the Gardner Academy on student retention and equity.
Over this next year, we are really looking at the experiences of
part-time students, and then breaking it down from there for
different demographic groups so that we know what the experience of
students are and how we can be more friendly to students. Especially
as we see that 70% of our students attend part time, we need to be
thinking about the part-time student.
Pathways work is also related to system and access, the
FastTracks certificate programs that the chancellor mentioned in
adult education, our IBEST programs, and dual enrollment so that you
can see that across the life span of students here at the college, we
are thinking about equity.
The final piece then is inclusion, and this is really about
belonging, thinking about everyone's experience at the college, both
around sense of belonging, safety, being seen and represented at the
college.
So we have done some climate assessment work. We have reviewed
some of our resources and policies and practices and disaggregated
data in a lot of different ways so that we know what different
experiences are and we will be sharing that with you as part of this
today.
So first, we were provided with some information from our human
resources colleagues around the affirmative action plan. That's
included in your board documents with more extensive information that
is provided here on this slide.
What I will pull out from here is both that we have an
affirmative action plan and are looking at it in different ways than
we maybe have in the past, and that again, goals and percentages
around goals are not quotas. We want to make sure that we are
recruiting really diverse pools so that we have options and can
improve the diversity in our different job categories. But again,
not quotas.
Then the other piece is that we do have equal opportunity,
employment opportunity clause as part of all of our contracts for
purchasing and other things.
I will just leave it there, and we can talk more about that if
you have questions.
And this is -- again, you have seen this before, just some
demographics about our faculty. This is probably where we are not
quite as diverse as the demographics of Tucson and somewhere where we
need to work, but again, doing well as compared to others. This
chart shows you just the different race and ethnicities and
male/female demographics for the college.
When we look over at our full-time staff, you can see that is a
lot more aligned with our student demographics and the demographics
of Tucson. We employ more women than men, and we also are well
aligned with the percentage of Hispanic/Latinx employees, similar to
our students, and again, all of the demographics are a lot more
aligned.
Now I will turn over to our work around assessing the climate for
diversity, equity, and inclusion, and I will start with some work we
did over the last year. A team of about 15 of us worked over the
last year to review more data for the college, looking at
representation, retention, completion.
We studied best practices from across the nation, including
participating in some different virtual conferences and webinars and
events to help the team understand what DEI climate is, what some
good models are across the nation, and what we should be striving
for.
We also worked with Hanover Research to conduct a climate survey
and an employee focus group, and separately a group of us completed
the Campus Pride Index.
First, the Hanover Research did a climate survey. This was
conducted last May. We sent out a large number of e-mails, as you
can see, to faculty, staff, students, everyone that had a Pima.edu
e-mail, and now you see that around 34,000 e-mails to students went
out. Not all of those were necessarily taking classes with us at
that point in time. The return rate is hard to really know what
exactly that was.
We received 1,100 responses to the survey. Faculty, staff,
students responded. Hanover Research provided us with a portal where
we can look at all of our different results and also with a report
regarding their highlights of what they thought about our climate for
diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Some of the key findings from that include that most people do
agree or strongly agree that Pima leaders consider diversity, equity,
and inclusion to be important. For staff and administrators, that
was 67%. Students and faculty were at 77%.
Also, that more than three-quarters of respondents somewhat or
strongly agreed that it is a priority to narrow success gaps. So
good findings.
They also looked at sense of belonging. You can see on this
graph that we looked at feeling valued, respected, a sense of
community, the blue is students, orange is faculty, and the gray is
staff. You can see that students had a greater sense of feeling
valued and respected at the college. All of those numbers are pretty
high.
Another interesting finding is that 60% of respondents said they
had never participated in a diversity, equity, and inclusion event at
the college. When we looked at specifically for students, that
number went up to 80%. So something for us to really think about and
consider.
Some of the key findings around faculty and staff, again, most of
these were rather high, but I wanted to pull some that maybe weren't
as high on the different rankings.
The first one here is feeling confident that reporting harassment
and discrimination would not have a negative professional impact, for
faculty, only 52% agreed or strongly agreed. For staff, that was at
60%. Feeling comfortable reporting incidents of harassment and
discrimination was a little bit higher, as well as how supportive is
Pima fostering a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The bottom one there where gives you a little bit of pause about
this is that Pima promotes equity in promotion decisions, both
faculty and staff were closer to the 50%.
We did ask for disaggregated information, and we weren't able to
do this for all the different race and ethnicity groups. Hanover
wasn't able to provide that. But they pull out the experiences for
Hispanics and Latinx respondents and for Black and African American
respondents.
The numbers for the Hispanic and Latinx respondents was really
similar to the overall experience, so I didn't pull that out, but I
did want to share with you what it looked like for our Black and
African American members of our community.
So you can see in these different areas, the blue are Black and
African American respondents and the orange are those that do not
identify as Black or African American. There is a difference in
perceptions around that diverse faculty and staff are engaged and
involved at the college, 78% to 64.
Diversity and inclusion are prominent in coursework, there is a
number difference there. Diverse students are engaged and involved.
And that Pima fosters a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
You can see these slight drops there.
The other piece where I thought it would be important to pull out
information is around the experiences of our LGBTQIA2S+ community.
For those that may be watching and wondering what the different
letters are, that's lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex,
asexual or aromantic, and two-spirit. Those are some of the letters
around LGBTQ identity.
The chart on your left looks at sense of safety. We pulled out,
the gray is respondents that identify as nonbinary or gender
nonconforming. Orange is not straight or heterosexual. Blue is
straight and heterosexual.
You can see these numbers are still high, but when compared to
respondents that identify as straight or heterosexual, there is a
significant difference going from over 90% feeling safe during class,
going to and from campus, and safe at campus events. The number goes
down when you look at especially nonbinary and gender nonconforming
respondents.
The other graph is around feeling isolated or alienated and then
feeling like you need to hide some aspect of your identity in order
to fit in at Pima. The lower number there are those that identify as
straight or heterosexual. The number that it's showing us is
respondents within the last year daily or weekly felt isolation or
alienation or had to hide some aspect of their identity. You can see
how much the numbers go up when you look at respondents that identify
as nonbinary or gender nonconforming, goes from 7% to 36% and 43%.
Based on some of that data and information from the survey, the
climate assessment team provided some recommendations related to what
we should consider for the strategic plan.
I will pause here for a second. Ms. Garcia, you had a question?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yeah, I'm just wondering why, considering
that the population at Pima College, the higher percentage is White
and then the second is Hispanic, why you didn't include any of those
two?
>> HILDA LADNER: Sure. The reason that I didn't pull that out
is because that number was really similar. The percentages were
really close together or almost the same, but I can come back and
show you some of that information at a later time or share that with
you, also.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yeah, well, I have already gotten calls
about this data, and one of the things that, that's one of the
comments that they made. Considering that Tucson is a high
percentage of Hispanics and the chart doesn't show anything about
them, the comments I have gotten is that we are not here, we are not
at the table. We don't matter.
I'm just sharing what I have been told.
>> HILDA LADNER: Okay. Thank you for that.
I didn't pull out those numbers because they weren't
significantly different or different at all, but I can definitely
share that back out with you.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay.
>> HILDA LADNER: Okay. These were the recommendations that we
will consider as maybe including in the diversity, equity, and
inclusion plan. Each of these themes had a number of actions below
it. Those will be things we consider.
The next piece that we did with Hanover Research was employee
focus groups. We decided to do that because of the timing during the
year and because of some of the pieces that came out from the staff
and faculty perceptions.
So we worked with Hanover. They sent out almost 2,000 e-mails to
employees and groups below the director level and for faculty.
Employees then self-selected to be part of these focus groups, so
they conducted three focus groups, which was the plan all along, so
they were only going to do three focus groups. One group with female
staff, one group with male staff, and one with faculty.
These were small group discussions. They were conducted in
November with the report coming to us in January.
Some of the findings from those focus groups focused on these
themes. So employees felt that recent changes in hiring practices,
such as greater inclusion and blinded risumis, are evidence that Pima
is changing, taking diversity, equity, and inclusion more seriously.
Employees also felt that divided leadership throughout PCC causes
difficult work environments for employees and that employees feel
unheard and made to work in an environment of fear due to their lack
of knowledge about reporting structures.
Participants also want diversity, equity, and inclusion
initiatives to be transparent, reflecting the voices of stakeholders
across the college community, and with administration held
accountable for implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion
initiatives.
Staff and faculty would like a shared governance model that works
for everyone at the college, and participants also find a
considerable pay equity problem at PCC, particularly with adjunct
faculty not being adequately compensated for their work.
Those were the six themes. Their recommendations from Hanover
based on the focus group conversations were that we need to create a
campus-wide inclusive DEI task force that is funded and can enact
change, that we need to reestablish or examine our shared governance
across the institution, and that we need to provide documented
examples of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to increase
transparency across the institution, particularly around compensation
practices.
So these are some conversations that are happening now and that
will be examined as part of our strategic planning process, including
that we have conversations happening around shared governance with
various groups. I will just say that this isn't necessarily part of
diversity, equity, and inclusion, but certainly part of climate and
important for us to address.
Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Thank you for putting this out here. What
Hanover has made recommendations on and what they have addressed are
similar things that I have been hearing that people have been calling
me about.
So hopefully we can do something about making these changes for
improvement. I'm hopeful. Not guaranteeing it, but I'm hopeful.
>> HILDA LADNER: Thank you. Yeah, this is something that we are
considering in our discussions, right, as part of the planning
process and our next strategic plan.
Ms. Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. I know you're not
finished, but I also just wanted to interject that especially with
this slide here and the three recommendations, they are so doable and
these are things that we are working on behind the scenes and with
your help and with the help of the DEI office, and really this is an
all-hands thing.
I mean, this is something that we all need to take responsibility
for and lead the way, so I think that this is wonderful. I love it.
I love that we did a survey. I also love that there was a Pride
Index conducted.
I don't think we fared that well, but this is why we are doing
this, is to look at the hard facts, because we don't know what we
don't know. So this is why we are here. Now that we know, this is a
start.
A lot of these things are really doable. What is more
challenging, and I think we have board support on this, is changing
culture and changing mindsets, especially when it involves the LGBTQ+
community and the -- there is a T in LGBTQ+, and I think these are
things we are all learning and we're all going to grow and be better
for. So thank you so much.
>> HILDA LADNER: Thank you. With that you have teed up talking
about the Campus Pride Index. I will move through this quickly.
The Campus Pride Index is a national tool that colleges can use
to assess policies, practices, and programs and how they impact the
quality of life for LGBTQ and ally campus community.
This was something recommended at our LGBTQ+ Town Hall last year,
and so I worked on it with a few other individuals at the college.
Currently, there are about 450 colleges that are listed on the
Campus Pride Index. Only 48 of them are community colleges.
Colleges are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, just for context. Of the
community colleges listed, only five of them had four or more stars
and 20 of them had three or more stars. And there are six
Hispanic-Serving Institutions listed on the Campus Pride Index.
So for Pima, we did receive two stars out of five when we
completed the survey. For the sexual orientation score, it was two
out of five stars. Our gender identity and expression score was also
two stars.
There are eight sections of the Campus Pride Index. They ask us
a number of questions about services, resources, the way that we do
our work, classes, all kinds of things. So we did best in that
policy inclusion where we received 3.5 stars. We scored our lowest
in supporting institutional commitment.
That has to do somewhat with staffing. I work on a lot of these
issues, but it's certainly not 100% of my time, and so when you don't
have dedicated staff to really pay attention full time to these
issues, that takes its toll and can create less awareness about the
work that needs to happen.
Under academic life we received 2.5 stars. Student Life we
received 2. Campus safety we were at 2.5 stars. Counseling and
health, 2 stars. And then recruitment and retention we received 1.5
stars.
The eighth category is residential life, and we were not scored
there because we are not a residential college.
Some of the takeaways are that we scored similarly to other
community colleges, we're not far off. Certainly there is work to
do, as you can see from our score.
It does provide a good baseline for our work going forward, and
as Chair Ripley said, you can't work on what you don't identify. So
doing this really helps us know exactly what the issues are and start
to address them. So you name it, and then you work on it, right, and
start to address issues.
Some issues to address based on our scores are around staffing.
We need to do some additional examination of our policies and
processes.
In Student Life, counseling and recruitment, we need to become
more comfortable with the vocabulary, actually thinking about the
LGBTQ+ community, and specific, like with other groups around
identity groups, we need to make sure that we are comfortable with
equity and not just treating everybody the same, that we need to
think about equity issues, what it means to really address issues for
different communities.
In academic affairs, making sure that we are providing more
training for our faculty and looking at our curriculum to be more
inclusive.
Yes, Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I just have a question. This assessment
you did for the LGBTQ, did you do the similar things for the other
populations?
>> HILDA LADNER: So that was part of our climate survey, and we
do have some pieces there that we have drawn out. We have looked at
that climate survey and what other colleges are doing.
So those are places where the Breaking Student Barriers task
force has really looked at the experiences for different groups.
It's a lot of the work that we are doing in the -- equity and student
retention is also really focused around both the part-time student
and looking at the experiences for different racial and ethnic
groups.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Thank you.
>> HILDA LADNER: This is just some of the immediate next steps
that we are looking to take.
I have already met with our organizational effectiveness and
development and our teaching and learning center to talk about
drafting some different programs that we can immediately offer.
Tina Neil in OED has outlined what a manager track could look
like for professional development around addressing climate
environment for members of the LGBTQ community.
We would also have it on employee track, and out of the teaching
and learning center this spring the focus of their equity and
inclusivity summit will include LGBTQ+ topics and presentations
especially as they relate to nonbinary and gender nonconforming
experiences.
Our human resources office has already started to examine our
employment application process to be more inclusive, to include
capturing chosen name and pronouns early in our employment
application process.
We will organize another Town Hall to provide information, more
detail about the Pride Index, and the work that needs to happen.
Solicit additional feedback from the community. Then we will develop
an action plan to address some of the climate issues that were raised
in the Campus Pride Index. Of course some of our progress will be
measured by taking that survey again and seeing how we can improve
over time.
Finally, this is one of the areas of diversity, equity, and
inclusion, and certainly there is a lot more across the college. So
looking at the Campus Pride Index and some of the steps there, we
have already started to address restroom access, chosen name on ID
badges.
We need to do more professional development. That was one of the
recommendations of the climate assessment group is that we need
inclusion and DEI topics at a variety of different levels so that all
employees have an entry point to this conversation but also more
advanced trainings for people that are further along that want to do
more, want to make sure their classrooms are more inclusive for all
of the learners that we serve. Some of the long-term planning is
really what's going into our diversity, equity, and inclusion
strategic plan.
So what were the recommendations out of the Breaking Student
Barriers task force? What are the other things we are seeing out of
the climate assessment for Black and African American students and
community members as well as maybe there are specific pieces around
how do we make sure that we are a Hispanic-serving institution, for a
Hispanic-serving institution, what's it look like to be serving?
What's that mean for language and outreach and specific outreach to
communities? All of these different pieces are definitely part of
our conversation.
I will pause there, see what other questions you have. I know
that was a lot of information.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any questions from our board members or
our audience members?
Thank you so much. That was a lot. I know you're taking a
breath now. We have one question from Board Member Clinco.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much, Hilda. We really
appreciate all of the work you are doing. We know you're such a
small shop, and it's a huge amount of work to really tackle. Thank
you so much for your work in this area.
I really want to just sort of focus my questions on the Pride
Indexing. This is something I'm certainly, something I have been
talking about, as Chancellor Lambert knows, for quite a while. So
I'm really glad to see this progress.
I wanted to know what, sort of as you always know, I love to know
timelines. What do you see timelines being in terms of
implementation of a number of the changes? If we were to, let's say
in a year, do the survey again, where would we land? How far do you
think we can get in terms of institutional transformation in this
area to get to that five-star rating?
>> HILDA LADNER: As I said, a few things are already in progress
and easy to do and change. Our employee information process, that's
already started. So capturing and directing the information in the
correct ways for chosen name and pronouns, I think that is going to
move quickly.
We have already started to address restroom access issues. A
group led out of our registrar's office has been working for the last
several months around the process of inclusion for students, so
students can have their chosen name and pronouns on rosters, on their
MyPima, so across our system, making sure we are capturing the
correct name.
At this point, we are making sure we've caught everything and
that all of our systems are communicating correctly with each other
so that students aren't misgendered and misnamed in different places.
Part of the challenge, as you said, I'm a small office, pretty
much one person doing a lot of this work, and my other staff member
really working on immigration and refugee issues for the college,
which is also a really big job.
So when I work as sort of in a consultant fashion project to
project, and right now the biggest project is the strategic plan,
it's hard to work on all of it, but certainly I think that in a year
we will have made quite a significant amount of progress on policy
issues and addressing classroom climate. Our faculty are really
excited to be part of this.
I have already received several e-mails identifying speakers for
our spring forum or summit that's coming out of our TLC as well as
faculty that are eager to present on some of these topics during
that.
Where will we be? I don't think we will be at 5 in a year. It
takes time to build, but I think we can get up there to a 3.5 and
make some progress on a lot of these issues.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I think, as a follow-up question, if I
can, I certainly know the board has articulated the importance of
this topic, not just the Pride Indexing, but our diversity, equity,
and inclusion initiative as a top priority for the institution.
Maybe as we talk about -- I would be curious to know, Chancellor
Lambert, if there are other resources that could be brought to bear
to support some of this and the implementation of this in a more
rapid sort of deployed way to support this office in doing some of
these things.
A good example is the Pride Indexing. Are there tools we can
bring to bear and resources to really effect change in a more -- to
move with alacrity?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: The short answer is yes. What I like to do
is look at reallocating some existing positions.
As you know, as things are shifting in the larger sphere of the
college, maybe there are some places we could move existing employees
who have the competencies into some of these areas to help better
support our overall DEI work.
I'd love to see an individual, for example, who would work with
Hilda specifically around LGBTQ+ issues in supporting our training
efforts and creating a better sense of belonging. So that would be
one example.
Another example is looking at creating a better reporting
structure for concerns and looking to see -- we may already have an
individual or individuals at the college who we could identify as an
ombudsperson to be that neutral person at the college where you can
bring your concerns forward and then have them addressed in a more
informal way.
We have a formal process, and that's through our ODR office.
What we don't have is this informal piece. So I think those are at
least two pieces we can move on before we move into the fall.
As long as the board is supportive of that, and I believe overall
the board is supportive of that approach, it's just reallocating
without having to add to our existing financial realities that we
face.
Then you can see the training that's going to get rolled out
pretty soon here. I really want us to emphasize the pronoun piece.
I know Hilda knows that.
Really, I think we can start to make inroads there, and then you
will see us doing more Town Halls to keep the community up to date.
But it's not just about LGBTQ+ issues. It's about the whole
range of DEI. We know we have to do a better job around the
inclusion part.
As you're seeing, we are doing pretty well on the diversity piece
in terms of representation, et cetera. We are doing a better job
around equity. You saw Dolores share last month around where we are
in terms of outcomes for students based on race and ethnicity. We
are getting to that equity line there.
Now I think where our biggest gap -- I'm not saying we won't
continue working in those other areas -- is in the inclusion, sense
of belonging, we've got to get better at that. This is really going
to help us to be able to really strengthen those areas.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Demion, you had a comment or question?
No?
Provost?
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you. I just wanted to share
that more and more now on the campuses we are seeing more gender
fluidity. And we are a community college that is -- we want our
students, we want to be ready for our students is what I want to say.
In the past, it's been said we want students to be college ready.
Pima Community College needs to be ready for the students. Whatever
background, whatever identity, who they are, we bring them in as
inclusive as possible and make them feel comfortable, there is a
sense of belonging, so they can reach their goals.
I just wanted to share that. We need to be ready for them.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Let me build off of what Dolores is pointing
out.
If you look at the generation that's coming up, the Gen Z, this
is their expectation of all organizations that we become more
conversant and be able to understand the different dynamics around
nonbinary, gender nonconformity, looking at nonstraight or
heterosexual dynamics, et cetera, et cetera. So we've got to get
better at that, and we are going to get better at that.
It is a continuous improvement growth process, because that is
the expectation of that generation as they move through. Not that
it's not true of other generations, but I think what we are starting
to see is more of that reality. It's not going to lessen. It's
going to grow in its intensity, and we have to be prepared to create
that welcoming environment.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. I'd like to add too that
the fact that we do these surveys and we do the indexes and we have
strategies being written is wonderful in and of itself, but the next
and most important step is the implementation and the how.
The how piece is going to be where we turn to all of you to help
us implement. And what we do best is education. So that's a big
start is communicating all of what we have learned and make sure that
it trickles down to the entire staff, faculty, administration. It
has to come from leadership on down.
I heard a term today, "not about us without us." So we do need
to hear from the communities. Whether they are people of color, the
LGBTQ+ community, women, we need to create an environment where
people aren't afraid to come forth and speak and where people can
help us to take the next step. Because many of us aren't necessarily
quick to do that.
This is truly a team effort, a community effort, it's a family
effort, the family of the community college.
Thank you so much. Hilda, you have a team of one, but please,
please, please don't ever hesitate to ask us what you need, what more
do you need.
The worst thing we can say is no, but the best-case scenario is,
oh, we didn't know, thank you for asking, here you go.
So take that leap.
Any other comments? This is a huge, important topic. I think
that no matter what community you come from, LGBTQ+ community, the
female community, whatever minority, people of color, I think that
it's important that we stress the beauty of community college in and
of itself being diverse.
I mean, we are diverse whether we like it or not. Rather than
just tolerate it and just create a safe place, I would like to see
this college embrace and celebrate our diversity.
Thank you so much. Any other comments or questions?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I guess what I wanted to say is that it
needs to start with the board. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much.
Yes, and that's why we are here. I'm really excited about -- I'm
not excited about the Pride Index or the survey, but it is what it
is, and we needed to hear that. We needed to hear the hard facts.
So again, we didn't know what we didn't know, and now we do so
there is no excuse. Let's go for it.
I, for one, as chair of the board, commit to really dedicating
our time to the how piece. We have done these surveys. How do we
fix it? Thank you.
Anyone else? I think we have finished a little bit early.
>> HILDA LADNER: If I can add really quickly, I want to thank
you for that. I think it's important when we do these Pride Index or
the campus climate, it's really important that we are ready to act on
our findings, that we can't just do this, identify issues, and then
do nothing with it, because that's really disappointing to the
community and doesn't help with our climate.
I know that your commitment and with your support we can move
forward on a lot of these issues that we have identified. It's work
that can be done.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Absolutely. Thank you, yes.
And that's the how. We know the what. The next step is the how.
I'm all about the Five Ws and the H. The H is the how.
Thank you. Anything else, anybody? Chancellor? Board members?
Thank you so much, Dr. Bea. Hilda, thank you so much for being
here and educating us. We have a lot of work to do, and I think
people are excited to roll their sleeves up and to actually do the
work.
It's going to be challenging. The budget is going to be
challenging. We have amazing times ahead. But I think this is
something that we all can get on the same page and really try to look
at what is the greater good of the college. That's the key thing is
to always keep in mind.
Thank you so much, everybody. I think this concludes our study
session.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Good-bye.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Bye-bye.
(Adjournment.)
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