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January 11, 2023 Board of Governors Meeting...
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Good evening. I will now call the January
11 meeting of the Pima Community College Governing Board to order.
At this time I would like to stand and do the Pledge of
Allegiance. Please join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
(Pledge of Allegiance.)
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: To continue on, we are going to initiate
the roll call. Mr. Silvyn?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Wade McLean?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Theresa Riel?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Maria Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Greg Taylor?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Luis Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Let the record reflect that all board
members are present.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: For the first item of business, we will
now conduct the election of the board chair. We are going to open
the floor for nominations for chair.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Hold on. Sorry. We are going to do a
motion to suspend --
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So our acting chair has announced the next
agenda item and opened the floor for nominations. I understand there
might be a procedural motion.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Mr. Chair, point of order.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Sorry. Mr. McLean, for the microphones you
have to push the little red button at the bottom.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I asked for a point of order because being
one of the new board members, I want to make sure that I understand
the procedures for this agenda item.
Is there any criteria that we have set in our bylaws that we need
to address when nominating and/or electing chair and vice-chair?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Okay. So there are actually -- would it be
helpful, I can put that bylaw article up on the screen if it would be
helpful, and it does pertain to the procedural motion that Ms. Garcia
is referencing.
So if it's okay with the board, let me walk through that
provision really quickly and you can decide how to proceed after
that.
(Pause in proceedings.)
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Well, if that's not going to work, I can
read it. It's not very long.
Well, all right. So in the interest of time, I will just read
it. It's only a few sentences.
So Article IV of the bylaws has provisions about the election of
officers, and the pertinent provision says the board shall nominate
and elect officers for a term of two years at the annual meeting,
which is Article VI, any nominee for either chair or vice-chair must
have demonstrated compliance with all board bylaws and policies as
well as a commitment to such continued compliance. Exceptions can be
made to this section by a majority vote.
So that means exceptions can be made to the provisions of what I
just read by a majority vote. I guess, if you don't mind, I will set
the stage...
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Go ahead, Mr. Silvyn.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you, just to see if this will help
clarify things. I believe Ms. Garcia has a motion to make an
exception to one of the provisions, and then the board will need to
have -- well, let me just quickly run through how we normally do
motions.
So normally what happens is a board member makes a motion. There
has to be a second. If there is a second, then there is discussion
about the motion, possible amendment. At some point the board chair
will ask if there is any further discussion. Once discussion
concludes, then the board chair calls for the vote.
Typically that's a voice vote, so all in favor say aye or
something similar, all those in favor say nay. If it's an important
item, we can do roll call votes and we do do that for certain
specific topics.
Again, just to kind of lay the context, so the issue here is
going to be about the exception, a request for an exception to the
provision about compliance with the bylaws and policies, because
there has been that prior -- for a couple of things that the board
should consider. So there was a prior finding of noncompliance
involving more than one board member. So the board would have to
make an exception, and then the other factor the board should
consider is the college does have a monitoring report due to HLC.
The focus of that is board governance and board compliance with
applicable policies and rules.
Then of course we are coming up on reaccreditation of
affirmation. So there is kind of a bigger context that the board
should consider as part of making its decision about whether or not
to have an exception.
I guess does that -- I tried to lay a little context for the
discussion. I'm happy to elaborate a bit more if that would be
helpful. I'm making an assumption about the motion that I think is
coming.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: That answers my question. Thank you.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. So I make a motion to make an
exception to Article IV, section 2 of the election of officers, and
allow nominations and election of board members to officer positions
at this 2023 annual meeting without regard to whether they have
demonstrated compliance with all board bylaws and policies.
Then I also have a second motion. Oh, wait a minute.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Normally we do one motion at a time. So now
the question would be is there a second for that motion?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second it, Luis?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I second it.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Would you like to ask if there is
discussion?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Discussion?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I have some discussion. I watched all of
the last couple of years of board meetings, and I know that some of
these bylaw changes were made recently.
When the vote happened, I may not be 100% correct here, but I
remember that it was a 3 to 2 decision, as were most of the
contentious board decisions last year.
So since the two members who made mistakes and broke Open Meeting
Laws, since they weren't allowed to vote for these bylaws, I think
that we should recognize that from this point on good effort,
goodwill is going forward, and considering both of the two are the
longest on the board, I feel comfortable saying I agree with the
motion.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Roll call?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Anybody? Well, is that it or is there any
discussion?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Any other discussion?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Let me just share with you what the
monitoring report says from the HLC. So it talks about board
effectiveness, and it reads, continued work on processes to improve
adherence to appropriate board and state policies with a focus.
So I just wanted -- it wasn't just about the board policies but
it's also state policies. That's from the HLC's perspective.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Chancellor, you are not a member of this
board. You are our chancellor. I don't believe that your comments
at this time are appropriate. It should come from one of the board
members.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I have a responsibility as an officer of the
college, as well as all of you swore an oath to the State of Arizona,
so did I, that we would follow the state law as well as the federal
law.
All I'm doing is sharing with you what is in public documents.
I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just simply sharing with you
what was communicated to the college. I would be shirking my
responsibility if I just did not remind all of you of that.
What you decide to do with that is a board decision, not my
decision.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Just one more thing, and I'm trying to be
courteous. Okay, again, you're not a member of this board. If you
want to be on the board, then you should run for the board. And as a
matter of fact, you shouldn't even be sitting up here. All the other
county attorneys or all the other councils don't have that.
So I'm done.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Any further discussion from board members?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: It does kind of trouble me, given the
context of -- and I wasn't here, so I can't relitigate everything
that's happened, so I don't know as much about that. So I'm still in
the learning process.
But if we are in a position where our accreditor, above
everything else, is looking at whether we are following, as a board,
bylaws and laws, and then like the first thing we do as a new board
is saying we want to make an exception to our bylaws, it just strikes
me as running in the face of what the Higher Learning Commission is
asking of us.
So I appreciate that the situation has been complicated over
these years by a number of different factors, but it troubles me that
the first thing that we would do substantively is basically make an
exception to the bylaws that the HLC is asking that we follow.
So it's not something I can support.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Mr. Chair? I'm in agreement with Mr.
Taylor. Understanding that I don't have the history that some of the
other board members have, I find it difficult to support a motion
that's going to change, basically change the bylaws on the way the
chair and the vice-chair are being selected.
And also, I would need more information to make that kind of
decision to see what kind of implications would have with the most
important thing we are facing right now is problems with our
accreditation.
So I will not be able to support the motion.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Any further discussion?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Are we able to speak twice?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: If this motion doesn't pass, I think we do
need to look into this, though, in the future. I think that board
bylaws that were made in a 3 to 2 split need to be thought about.
Bylaws I think should be agreed upon by all five of us, and I would
like to see bylaws be unanimous decision, all of us agree with them.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Mr. Chair? To be clear, I have no issue at
some point with looking at the bylaws again and making sure they are
fair and can be applied equally.
It troubles me what signal does it send that the first thing that
we are doing as a board is to make exceptions to the bylaws that are
in place, the process that was there, and what does that signal from
us to the Higher Learning Commission that's holding us accountable to
that.
I think it sends a troubling signal to do it in the way that we
are doing it. I have no issue with readdressing the bylaws and
trying to make sure they are fair and equitable. I just don't think
the way we are doing it right now makes sense or is going to send the
right signal for the HLC.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'd like to speak.
Okay. So as was stated before, the bylaws were changed back in
October. Those bylaws were put in place basically to try to silence
me and Luis, Board Member Luis. They didn't expect that some of the
board members would not be here.
Now, the other thing is that on the first violation, we did not
respond to the Attorney General's office. There was no legal
guidance given to us at all or offered. So because we didn't answer,
it was a mistake on our part, we should have answered and we didn't.
So they found us guilty.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I believe there is a motion on the table,
correct?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yes.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Okay. Let's do roll call.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. McLean?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: No.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Riel?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: No.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Taylor?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: No.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes. I just want to announce that the
motion failed 3 to 2.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Mr. Chairman, understanding that we are
already having some difficulties reaching majority decision with the
group, and understanding that the chair position carries with it not
only a lot of responsibility but a tremendous investment in time, and
understanding that none of us have had a conversation about who
should be chair and who should be vice-chair, and with that
understanding I'd like to volunteer my time, my effort to be the next
chairman of this board, and therefore, I nominate myself.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Is there a second?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Roll call?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Do you want to see if there was any other
nominations?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Is there any other nominations?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. I'd like to nominate Theresa Riel to
the chair.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Just kind of a point of inquiry or order.
Are these two separate votes, one for vice-chair -- or is it one?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: No, I think what he's asking, are there two
officer positions. The answer is yes, so we will do election of a
chair first and then do an election -- and we have a combined
position. Vice-chair/secretary is one office.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: So right now there is a motion by
Ms. Garcia for Theresa to be chair. Do we need a second?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: You need a second for that nomination.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I second the nomination.
Is there any other nominations?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Sorry, point of order again. So do we get
all the way through the chair process, and then we start the
vice-chair process, or is it like a simultaneous -- that's what I'm
trying to figure out. Sorry.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: No, that's all right. I didn't fully
appreciate the scope of your question.
The answer is we are going to finish the chair election process,
and the reason for that someone who is nominated for chair might want
to serve as vice-chair. So we would complete the election of the
chair office first, we will finish that, and then we will repeat the
process for vice-chair.
Did I clarify that now? Okay, good.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Thank you.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Call for a vote?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Okay. Do you want to see if there is any
discussion about --
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Any discussion?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you for that nomination. I do feel
that I have had quite a few years working at the college. I have the
time also to be the board chair, and I would appreciate being the
board chair. Thank you.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Mr. Chair?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes, sir.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I think it's time for the Governing Board to
have a fresh start. I don't have any experience with the college. I
have the extensive experience working with governing boards, training
governing boards, extensive experience in education and training with
Open Meeting Law violations, other governing board policies,
experience with state agencies that we will be dealing with.
I think we need a fresh set of eyes coming to the board. I agree
with Ms. Riel that we need to come together as a group. I think I
can bring to the table the open atmosphere, the cooperation, and the
understanding that will move this board in a positive direction.
Thank you.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Thank you. Roll call?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So since we have two candidates for board,
what I will do is I will call each board member's name, and if you
tell me which candidate you cast your vote for, we will keep a tally
and see if anyone has a majority.
Mr. McLean?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: McLean.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Riel?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Riel.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Riel.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Taylor?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: McLean.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Riel.
The result is Theresa Riel three votes and Mr. McLean two, and
our new board chair, Ms. Riel, 3 to 2.
(Congratulations expressed by board members.)
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Congratulations. And now we move forward
with nominations for vice-chair.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I nominate Board Member McLean for
vice-chair for all the reasons he articulated a moment ago.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Any other nominations?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So you need a second.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Is there any other nominations?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I nominate myself. (Laughter.)
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Is there a second?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Luis?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I second for Ms. Garcia. Discussion?
Since no discussion, let's do a roll call.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. McLean?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: McLean.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Riel?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: McLean.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: McLean.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Taylor?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: McLean.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Garcia. Since I nominated her.
(Laughter.)
The result is Mr. McLean is vice-chair, 4 to 1.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Thank you.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Now we are going to request a recess so we
can --
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I have two more items.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: My one suggestion is maybe we should do --
do we want to have a brief recess now, and we can talk about who is,
since we now have completed the election of officers, who is going to
run the rest of the meeting?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Mr. Chair, I recommend we take a five-minute
recess and reconvene with Ms. Riel as our chair.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Unanimous? Move on? Five minutes'
recess.
(Brief recess.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: We are returning from our short recess, and
we are moving on to item 2.2, election of Arizona Association of
Community College Trustees representatives.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I nominate myself.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Is there a second?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Are there any other nominations?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, I nominate myself as well.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Good job. (Laughter.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Is there a second?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: If there are no other nominations, we will
do a roll call.
Oh, yes. Is there any discussion?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So is this for just one position or is it
two?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So we are going to elect two people. So the
first person will be the primary representative, and then we'll
length an alternate, because there might be times when the primary
representative cannot attend for some reason and then we have an
alternate who can attend in their stead.
So there will be two votes. There will be the representative and
an alternate. First we will deal with a representative and then we
will deal with an alternate.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any other discussion?
Okay. A roll call vote.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. McLean?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: McLean.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Riel?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: McLean.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Myself.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Taylor?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: McLean.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Ms. Garcia.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: So three for McLean and two for Ms. Garcia.
Nominations for the alternate?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I nominate myself.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: There has been a motion and a second. Is
there any discussion? All in favor say aye?
(Ayes.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Motion passes. Maria Garcia is the
alternate. Thank you, both, for volunteering.
Moving on to item 2.3, the election of advisory committee board
representatives. There are three boards. Shall we take them one at
a time?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: That's probably the easiest. And for
clarification, there are two board members who can be elected to each
of these committees.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Does it matter what order we take them in?
Does it have to be the order that's on here?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: I think the board can take them in whichever
order the board pleases.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: All right. Well, I want to nominate myself,
then, for the enrollment and external relations advisory committee.
It's literally what I have done for 25 years of my professional
career is work in external relations, community engagement,
government relations. So I'd be especially interested in being part
of that committee.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Second.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So you could ask for additional nominations.
Like I said, there are two slots available, so depending on how many
nominees you get, you may or may not need more than a voice vote.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. Great. Is there another nomination?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I nominate Theresa, Chairperson Theresa
Riel, for the same one, the enrollment.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Are there any other nominations for that
enrollment and external relations advisory committee?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I nominate myself for that position too.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I will second that. And may I remove my
name just for time's sake?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: You can certainly decline a nomination.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. I'm going to decline that
nomination.
Are there any other nominations? So I'm going to take the vote.
Saying aye means that you would like both Luis Gonzales and Wade
McLean to be the two -- I'm sorry, Greg Taylor, thank you, I'm
sorry -- for the enrollment and external relations advisory committee
members. All in favor?
(Ayes.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Moving on. Let's move up to the Finance
and Audit Committee. I would like to move myself -- am I allowed to
make motions as the board chair?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yes, the board chair can make motions.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. Thank you.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Are there other nominations?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Does anybody else want to serve on the
Finance and Audit Committee? Then I nominate myself.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I will second that.
Any other nominations? I will call for a vote. By saying aye
you're voting for Theresa Riel and Maria Garcia to be the two Finance
and Audit Committee members. All in favor?
(Ayes.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Then lastly, the Human Resources Advisory
Committee. Do I hear any nominations?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Board Member McLean.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any other nominations?
Luis, are you interested?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I will. I stood the last time, so I will
continue.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I'm going to nominate you, then, to make it
legal. Is there a second?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any other nominations?
Okay. Moving on, voice vote for Wade McLean and Luis Gonzales to
be the two members for the Human Resources Advisory Committee, all in
favor say aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any opposed? Thank you.
Moving on, we are going to skip 3, since we have already
recessed, we are going to move on to No. 4. Public comment call to
audience. There are three people that have signed up to speak.
There are some words I'm supposed to read here, I believe.
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, and comments will
be limited to three minutes per individual. These time limits may be
modified by the board chair or the board.
Individuals sharing comments are expected to communicate with
decorum and respect. Individuals who engage in disorderly conduct or
who use derisive 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 address the board, may ask
staff to review the matter, or may ask that a matter be put on future
agenda. Members of the board, however, may not discuss or take legal
action on matters raised during public comment unless the matters are
properly noticed for discussion and legal action.
Finally, be advised that internal college processes are available
to students and employees for communication.
Our first call to the audience speaker is Makyla Hays.
>> MAKYLA HAYS: Hello. Good evening, board members, Chancellor,
colleagues and guests. My name is Makyla Hays. I'm math faculty,
PCCEA president, and AERC co-chair.
PCCEA is the board-recognized faculty association representing
full-time faculty. AERC is the college-wide representative group
charged with policies regarding working conditions and compensation.
I want to take this opportunity to welcome our new members, Ms.
Theresa Riel, Mr. Greg Taylor, and Mr. Wade McLean, to the Governing
Board. Thank you for stepping forward to invest your time and energy
into Pima Community College. I look forward to working together.
Toward the end of last semester, the college released the HLC
final decision on the AERC and PCCEA complaints. PCCEA found out
shortly after the release of the HLC final decision that due to a
website glitch, the evidence that was supposed to accompany the AERC
complaint that Faculty Senate endorsed did not go through.
The HLC invited us to resubmit our complaint with this evidence.
PCCEA and senate leadership decided it would be more productive to
attempt to work internally to get to the heart of the issue first.
Though the response from the HLC was disappointing and PCCEA
disagrees with the arguments made by the college and the posted
response, we want to move forward in a constructive manner. We are
committed to working with administration to improve shared
governance, policies, and working conditions.
The AERC met with Jeff Silvyn at the end of last semester to
discuss the core of our concerns and how to best move forward. We
were able to identify some sources of disconnect about the role of
the AERC and Meet and Confer as well as some areas for improvement
with the ODR complaint and grievance process.
The AERC has made progress in organizing our resolution team
structure and tracking team conversations this fall. One such
resolution team is looking into changes to AP 1.25.01, the
administrative procedure detailing Meet and Confer, that we hope will
clear up some of the identified disconnects. Other teams are
continuing the classification and compensation discussions for
faculty and staff.
As winter break comes to a close, I'm hopeful for a collaborative
and productive semester. There are many important projects to be
worked on before summer that I look forward to updating you on.
I would invite the Governing Board to consider a Town Hall Q&A
session to introduce yourself to the college community and hear
directly from employees. It would be amazing if it were a noticed
event and we could have all of you at once or perhaps a few events
with a couple board members at a time.
I appreciate the Governing Board members listening to employee
perspectives and contributions, and I look forward to working with
you to strengthen Pima Community College and our effectiveness in
this community. Thank you so much.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Makyla.
Our next speaker is Scott Stewart.
>> Hello. My name is Scott Stewart, 8401 East Appomattox Street,
Tucson. Chair Riel, members of the board, Chancellor Lambert, and
guests.
Having served 18 to life on this board, allow me to offer
simultaneous congratulations and condolences on your recent
elections. It's a lot of work where you get to make everybody
unhappy to some degree.
I come to you today to express my support for Chancellor Lambert,
his team, and the emphasis on workforce programs that help get people
well-paying jobs and help attract employers to our community.
Talent at this level is rare. I know some of you want to replace
the chancellor. I advise against it, but at least advise you to
proceed carefully and slowly. It takes a few years for a new one to
get up to speed, and there is a lot of char when you do so.
I'd also like to express my support for the public being able to
attend board meetings and study sessions in person. It makes
communication with everyone so much easier.
As always, I remain available to any of you if you want to meet,
to trade insights, or just discuss issues. Thank you very much.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Mr. Stewart.
Our final speaker for call to the audience is Justin Lukasewicz.
I apologize if I didn't pronounce your last name correctly.
>> That was great.
My name is Justin Lukasewicz. I'm the CEO with Greater Tucson
Leadership. Chair Riel, board members, Chancellor Lambert, guests,
I'm excited to be here tonight to represent Greater Tucson
Leadership. Our goal in the community, our mission is to inspire,
develop, and promote leadership that impacts the greater Tucson
region.
Here tonight with an exciting announcement. We manage the
Community Impact Awards, which is in its 70th year. Within those
awards, we recognize the Man and the Woman of the Year, Founders
Award and the GTL alumni excellence.
I'm here tonight to let you all know that Chancellor Lee Lambert
has been selected as the Man of the Year, and we are excited to
recognize him on April 21 at Casino Del Sol at our 70th Annual
Community Impact Awards. We really are honored to have such a member
of our community that really works to build education and pathways,
new pathways for students, to gain education leadership and work in
our community, and really encourage our workforce development.
Mr. Lambert has been a leader here at Pima Community College and
has helped grow our community college into a national recognition
level. We are really proud to be honoring him this year as the
Tucson Man of the Year.
Congratulations to Lee Lambert, and thank you for having me here
to speak today.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. And I think the whole board
will join me in saying congratulations. That's quite an honor, and
you honor the college when you do great things for all of our
students. So thank you.
(Applause.)
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Congratulations.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Moving on to section 4.3, are there any
board member comments?
I'd like to start off saying that I would like to put BP 1.25,
the bit that Makyla Hays was talking about, I'd like to have that on
our next board meeting agenda.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So just as a clarification about order,
normally board remarks are related to summaries of recent
college-related activities. We do have a whole separate agenda item
just for future agenda items. Just so board members can think of how
you want to allocate your time.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair? I had the opportunity to be in
the chancellor's office when Greater Tucson Leadership came in and
presented the award, and it was very moving. But not to detract from
the award that the chancellor received, any time a CEO, a leader of
an organization, receives an award of this type, it also validates
the quality of the organization.
I think just as much as Mr. Lambert deserves this award, we ought
to celebrate the accomplishments of Pima Community College faculty,
staff, and its students. Well deserved and the leadership of the
organization, sir. Thank you.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Yeah, I can join that as well.
Congratulations, Chancellor, on all your efforts and the efforts of
the college and the success you have had, and being recognized in
this manner is an honor and achievement for sure.
Also being one of the newly elected folks up here, I just want to
thank everybody at the college and at the Foundation that have been
part of our ongoing orientation and tours. I know I still have
plenty to learn. I don't have as much experience on the college as
our new chairperson does to rely on or even experience in higher ed
as my other new board member does. So I know I have a lot to learn.
But I appreciate everybody's efforts to educate me and keep me in
the loop, and I encourage everyone up here and everyone at the
college to continue to do that. I will continue to learn, and I'm
looking forward to serving on this board. Hopefully we can move
together productively and as a cohesive whole.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: As another new board member, I'd just like
to say it's wonderful to be back at Pima Community College. I have
missed my colleagues and co-workers, and it's nice to be back here
sitting on this side of the bench at this time.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'd like to congratulate our new board
members. I too am looking forward to working with everyone and
learning from each other. Hopefully this is going to be a heck of a
better year. Thank you.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I also just want to make some comments in
reference to thanking the people, especially our faculty and staff at
Pima College that will begin again another new year, and Happy New
Year to the community of Pima Community College.
One of the things that I saw and heard about this weekend is the
faculty and staff Downtown Campus helping the community of students
reference to registration, financial aid, and the whole gamut of
services out there. I think it's ideal. In fact, I had one of my
grandkids attend that event, as well, too.
So I'm glad that we can support but also really provide those
services to the community. I think it's great. But I also want to
acknowledge and recognize the new, Mr. Taylor and Ms. Riel, that also
were elected by the community. I do thank the community that did
well. And also the appointment of Mr. McLean in reference to joining
the group. We hope to do a very positive and a clear movement this
coming year.
I think there is a lot of stuff to do, but more important, a lot
of work to do in order for us to really provide the services to the
community and all students as well, too, at all levels. Thank you.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Moving on to 4.4, Pima College's Mission
Moment. Thank you, Chancellor. Will you introduce that?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Yes. Good evening, everybody. It's my
honor to introduce tonight 's Mission Moment, and I just give you a
context for this for a moment. We really wanted to take an
opportunity to really highlight some of the excellent programming
that's going on at the college. So we have identified borrowing from
the United Way this notion of the Mission Moment.
So that's why it's here. I will just reiterate our mission
statement. Empower every learner every day for every goal, and this
Mission Moment is to showcase that.
With that, I'd like to ask Dean Emily Halvorson to join us to
introduce this piece. Before I have Dean Halvorson speak, I just
want to call your attention to when a college is doing excellent
work, you start to see a number of excellent individuals rise to the
top. Emily Halvorson is no exception to that.
She's been identified as one of six fellows nationwide through
the Presidents' Community College STEM Initiative. I want to say
congratulations to you, Dean Halvorson, for the great work you are
doing leading the college's STEM efforts and for introducing this
exciting program that we have.
>> Thank you for that introduction, Chancellor.
Good evening, distinguished board, Chancellor, colleagues and
guests. I'm Emily Halvorson-Otts, dean of sciences here at Pima, and
I have the distinct pleasure of giving tonight's Mission Moment
regarding our Pima STEM Bridge grant.
This particular grant helps to bridge students from Pima to the
University of Arizona. It's an NSF grant, or a National Science
Foundation grant, and this is actually one of three NSF grants that
we have here at Pima.
This particular grant is an S-STEM grant. The S before STEM
stands for "scholarship," and so this particular grant is almost $5
million between Pima and the University of Arizona. And the majority
of that money goes to student scholarship as well as supporting them
in the bridge to the University of Arizona.
I'm going to turn it over to Aglhaen Nieto, who is our Pima STEM
Bridge Program manager.
>> Good evening, everybody. As you will see on the screen, I
will be sharing a presentation to briefly share about our program.
Good evening, Chair, Governing Board members, Chancellor Lambert, and
faculty, staff, students, and of course guests.
I'm excited to be part of this part of the presentation, share a
little bit about our program. As our dean shared, it is the Pima UAZ
Stem Bridge Program funded by the National Science Foundation.
My name is Aglhaen Nieto, and I'm the manager of this program and
the students that you see on this screen. If you have any questions,
I have noted my e-mail address on there for you.
So I wanted to tell you in the next slide, our motivation for
this program was to increase diversity, access, and success in STEM.
We hope to do so by increasing the number of Pima College STEM
students transferring into and completing the degree at the
University of Arizona.
The program seeks to grow and strengthen students' sense of
belonging in STEM, grow in strength in their STEM community, as well
as their STEM experiences.
In order to do so, the program tackles challenging barriers by
bridging our faculty and student cultures through culturally
responsive support of STEM students. Our project goal is to address
the need of participants at PCC planning to pursue STEM and
transitioning them to STEM majors at U of A.
We implement programs to deepen their knowledge of the exposure
to STEM culture and careers, raise their awareness of what it takes
to transition successfully into U of A, and enhance a readiness to
succeed academically.
As our dean shared, our story began in 2018 when she worked
collaboratively with U of A leaders to successfully earn this
five-year grant that began in 2019. The grant total for this was
$4.8 million that we share with them at U of A, and we will be
serving a total of 90 students. All of them are currently being
served, and the program will run through 2025.
Of the three cohorts, our first consists of 29 students who are
currently in their fourth semester at U of A. Our second cohort
consists of 28 students that are in their second semester at U of A,
and we have just completed recruitment for our 33 students that are
in their second year at Pima and will be transferring to U of A in
the fall.
We have also had the opportunity to work very closely with our
faculty mentors, both from Pima and U of A, to offer training that
will help them help our students as well as nine of the peer mentors
that have worked for our program.
The effort is strategic and it's holistic, and it includes
faculty mentoring. Our students are assigned for the duration of two
years, one at Pima, one at U of A, a faculty mentor from Pima as well
as a faculty mentor from U of A.
Not only are they receiving the mentoring, but the faculty
mentors are receiving the training to ensure that our students are
empowered, that they are working hard towards their STEM goals, and
helping ensure that they are successful there.
Our students also receive or are assigned a peer mentor who works
closely with them throughout those two years, their final year at
Pima before transitioning into U of A and their first year at U of A.
These students are themselves transfers from Pima and excellent role
models that are succeeding in their STEM coursework at U of A with
experiences that our students are able to share and understand and
feel part of U of A as they transition even before they arrive.
A big part of our program also includes a scholarship, which is
$8,000 at Pima Community College, followed by five semesters of
$5,000 at U of A. So the grand total is sufficient to make a little
bit of a dent in their needs, and we supplement that by helping them
connect to internship or research opportunities and/or additional
scholarships that will help them address their financial academic
expenses.
The students also receive individual advising support through
their faculty mentors, their peer mentors, myself, staff both at Pima
and at U of A, that are all working closely and intently to ensure
that all of their different needs are addressed as individualized as
possible.
In addition to that, as my boss would call it a wraparound
services, we have our STEM transfer course where our students are
introduced to all of the different scenarios that they will be
experiencing as they transition, and so they have a period of one
year while at Pima and before transferring to begin to build those
communities, those connecting to those resources, accessing different
type of assistance that will help them with that.
As they transition into U of A, we also connect them with a
research exploration that begins very early on. For example, we have
had our students connect with industry leaders that serve as mentors
if and when our students connect with them. For example, from
Raytheon, Leonardo Electronics, SBM Offshore, Vitas (phonetic), which
is a chemical company, Northern Capital Group, and Logic Works
(phonetic), all STEM related, and our students are hearing about
their experiences, how some of these leaders in the industry are very
much like them and have related experiences. They visit with them,
they talk about what they need to be focusing on now, and connecting
them to those opportunities those industries offer.
The next section is I want to allow you a couple of seconds to
read the impact that our program has in our own students'
perspective. We have listed a couple of them here. Then the images,
you see them connecting with their faculty mentors, with each other
in our beautiful STEM labs, having that experience, being very
individualized, personalized, and something that the students I feel
are experiencing in a very intentional way with us.
The next part is I will be sharing some videos with you. So
quiet for a couple of seconds. You can read these.
Our scholars' perspective, I'd like to introduce you to one of
our students. Her name is Genesis. She's a computer major. I will
be playing a video. Following that I will play Matthew Rios', this
is in their own words, and they just want to share a little bit of
insight on our program.
(Video.)
>> Hi. My name is Genesis Benedith. I am an Afro-Latina,
Jamaican descent. Growing up, I had never considered pursuing a
career in STEM because I just assumed that there was no place for
people who looked like me or came from the same background as I did.
But that eventually changed when I decided to attend Pima Community
College.
In the beginning of my college journey there, imposter syndrome
really did get the best of me. I didn't think it was possible for
someone like me to become a professional in STEM. But that changed
when I received my acceptance to the Pima UAZ STEM Bridge Program.
The Pima UAZ STEM Bridge Program connected me with a network of
like-minded community college students who are just as passionate
about research as much as I am. The peer mentors were one of the
most impactful resources that really helped me transition from PCC to
the University of Arizona.
I was matched with a peer mentor there that studied the same
major that I was interested in. She was able to help me prepare for
the first day of classes.
Not only did the STEM Bridge Program provide me with guidance and
support as I transferred to the University, but I also gained a sense
of community just by being around the other STEM Bridge scholars
within my cohort. So all of the opportunities and services offered
within the program actually helped me reduce the feeling of imposter
syndrome.
With the program resources, I have the opportunity to transfer to
the University of Arizona to pursue a Bachelor of Science in computer
science with a minor in professional and technical writing.
Now that I have the resources to pursue and fund my higher
education at the University of Arizona as an undergraduate student, I
can focus on applying to graduate school, and there I will specialize
in human computer interaction and user experience.
Every day at the University of Arizona, I am reminded about how
grateful I am to be a Pima UAZ STEM Bridge scholar and all of the
wonderful resources that has helped me mold into the well-rounded
STEM student that I am today and am continuing to grow into.
Thank you for allowing me to share my experience, and thank you
to Pima UAZ STEM Bridge Program and all of its coordinators.
>> So thank you to Genesis for sharing that with us. I apologize
the video was not in your screen immediately.
The next one I want to share is our current cohort 3 student,
Matthew Rios.
>> Hello, everyone. I'm Matthew Rios. The positives that this
program has had on my life, they are innumerable. This is a program
that just keeps like giving. I'm doing better than I ever have in
school. Definitely a lot less stress as far as where my studies are
concerned. I have been able to focus really hard on the material and
really feel like I'm getting this, and I'm taking it along with me
and ready for the next step.
My peer mentors, my faculty mentors, that would be Tecla,
Dominguez, Dr. Suzanne W, Dr. Berman, they have been incredible.
They have provided a lot of cool resources for me. They lend an ear.
I can reach out to them. They are very good at following, you know,
following up and, you know, getting me information that I have asked
for. It's just really, you know, you can't really ask for more. It
really is, it's the program that I dreamed of, and I didn't even know
it existed.
I see myself, like I have people ask me, like, what it's
provided. I'm already considering graduate school, because this is
really helping me -- I think this is really going to help me, I mean,
it is helping me a lot with my undergrad. And my family, it's
provided a financial buoy. Also that support system really helping
me along.
The hard stuff hasn't really been hard. It's been challenging,
but knowing that I have that support system and the time and people
who are actually invested in my success, it's incredible.
Actually, some very tangible positives that I have gotten from
it, I was offered an internship the other day by my ethical hacking
instructor. That only came about because I had to talk to him about
my grades for the grade summary. I don't know if that would have
happened otherwise.
I could go on and on. It's just been great, and I'm looking
forward to next semester already, like going to finish this one
strong of course, but next one is going to be really hard, but I'm
ready. I feel I'm ready.
I know I have like a strong, like, a team of rock stars that are
going to be there to help me. So thank you, all. Thanks for the
opportunity. I'm definitely not squandering it.
I don't know. Just thank you. The program is incredible. I
couldn't -- I'm a lucky person. I'm very lucky, very fortunate.
>> So I believe that you can see that every learner every day for
every goal is one of the goals of our program.
I thank you for your attention and your continued support and
helping us help all of our students reach their full potential.
>> I will just conclude again with thank you for this opportunity
and to ask if anyone has any questions.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: No questions, but it sounds like an amazing
program. Thank you for everything that you're doing.
>> Thank you. It is a phenomenal program, and it's something
that is a passion project of mine, and every time I hear the students
speak I get a little choked up at how much we are impacting them in a
positive way.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Great. Thank you both so much, and we
really appreciated hearing from the students too. That was really
touching. Thanks so much.
Now we will move on to section No. 5, the reports. If we just go
in order?
The first report, academics, from Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda.
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you very much, Chairperson
Riel.
Good evening, Board Chair Riel, members of the board, Chancellor
Lambert, colleagues and guests. Happy New Year to all of you, and
I'd like to welcome the new board members and welcome back our
existing board members. I'm looking forward to working with all of
you.
I'm going to be giving you an update. This is actually the
second update I have given to the board regarding chancellor's goals
and the academics update.
The chancellor's goals right now are at the midpoint of the year,
and academic affairs meets significant progress in our goals. As you
know, our commitment is to student excellence through an equity lens,
and by that, I mean that we are preparing all students across all
demographics. We are also increasing the relevance to meeting the
evolving needs of our learners in our community and across the
country, too.
Academic affairs is focused on the culture of continuous quality
improvement, and we are focused on instructional technology, as well
as pedagogy, various modalities, teaching and learning, so we can
equip our learners for the skills of knowledge and abilities that are
needed in a 21st Century globalized economy. As we all know, we want
to prepare our students so there is social and economic mobility.
This is an overview of the chancellor's goals regarding
academics. So you can take a look at that, and I know you also
received my executive summary that goes into detail.
Tonight I would like to go into depth with three of the goals,
subgoals, and they are subgoal 1, 5, and 6. Just to let you know
that I have been holding individual meetings with the subgoal owners.
This is a regular basis so we can enhance a collaboration and make
sure that they have the supports that they need as well as any other
resources or communications that we need to clarify. It also helps
us identify the opportunities and gaps that we need to address as we
follow this process.
For the first goal, general education and the AGEC reimagining,
before I go a little more into it, I want to provide some context,
especially for our new board members. The gen ed refresh is actually
the result of an ABOR decision, and that's the Arizona Board of
Regents. So in February of 2021, the ABOR updated their policy
regarding gen ed and their philosophy for general education.
So they are saying now in their policy that they want to prepare
students to pursue careers for advanced study and take their place in
the republic and the world, and also to provide foundational
cognitive and behavioral skills necessary to adapt quickly to change.
That of course impacts or community colleges and the AGEC, so the
AGEC is being reimagined, as well. So that is to make sure that our
students understand why they are taking general education and how it
will benefit them in the future.
So as you see here, we are also working with, if you look at the
second bullet, Pima Community College has been selected to
participate in the AAC&U 2023 Institute on ePortfolios. This is
going to really enable our learners to electronically collect their
work over time and integrate what they have been learning inside and
outside of the classroom with their instructors, advisors, as well as
potential employers.
This is a high-impact practice, the ePortfolios, and it's a
strategy that they offer to enhance learning, success, and career
development. So we are very excited that we are participating in
this.
Also, academic affairs and workforce have been collaborating with
Dean Michael Parker and Ian Roark, our vice chancellor for workforce
development, in this innovation to extend work-base learning to all
of our learners. That follows one of the new AGEC guidelines, which
is skills for productive life category.
We are also exploring internship courses for our learners to
participate in that as well and apply the skills that they acquire in
the general education coursework.
I did want to, before I go on, let you know that the leads for
this particular subgoal are Dr. Michael Parker and Dr. Josie
Milliken. Both are deans.
I will go to the next one, and this is our subgoal 5, which is
digital literacy and fluency task force. The leads are Deans Jim
Craig and Jeff Thies. And also our vice-chancellor for academic
excellence, Morgan Phillips, has been helping out with this process,
as well.
You have heard the chancellor and many of us at the college talk
about moving at the speed of Industry 4.0 and the four super powers
such as automation, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and
mobile technology. We want to make sure that our learners are
prepared and have the skills and are equipped to use those tools so
when they graduate and they get a job they are part of that
globalization and the fast-changing labor market. This is being
coordinated very closely with the gen ed redesign as well.
We are addressing the skills gap in technology to expand access
and to increase student success. This was very evident during the
pandemic when we went virtual and online instruction where there were
gaps. We already knew, but this was highlighted, so we really want
to help our learners of all ages so they are prepared with the tools
that they need as they graduate and fulfill their goals.
Also, we are examining college-wide needs and opportunities, and
faculty will have opportunities to engage in these technologies for
valuable input and feedback. As you can see, I included the timeline
and next steps for this one.
And the last one I wanted to briefly share with you is the HLC
assurance argument. You will be hearing more from Wendy Weeks, who
is our accreditation liaison officer.
She's leading this effort as well as criterion needs, which are
outstanding group of individuals at the college who are helping lead
this. As you can see, the purpose of this is to support and monitor
preparation for the assurance argument.
We did have a callout for writers. We probably should call them
editors more than writers, because the criterion leads are actually
writing the document, but we need editors to help us with the
fluidity and making sure that we have a cohesive and unified voice.
We initiated an executive HLC steering committee that also
provides leadership and guidance for quality improvement and making
key decisions to cover various responsibilities and functions.
There have been assurance arguments convenings with the leads
since July, I believe, and you can see the next steps, and I won't go
any further because I know Wendy Weeks will be sharing a little bit
more later with other administrative reports.
With that, I will stop there and see if there are any questions.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I have a question. Forgive me if others
know the answer to this already. As I said, I'm still sort of
learning in this process.
But, you know, one of the things, and maybe it's just because I'm
only seeing part of the picture here and not the whole thing, but I'm
looking for like measurable outcomes associated with each one of
these things. For example, the No. 5 that was presented around
creating the task force, which is great, I mean, I have nothing
against creating a task force, but presumably that task force exists
to move the needle on digital fluency and literacy.
So is the task force then deciding how that's going to be
measured, and is there a goal about what percentage it might increase
over what period of time?
Just, again, maybe it's just me, but I would love that context,
especially since I'm new, as we are going forward about what are the
metrics related to each one of these things? How are they being
measured, and what's the goal in terms of moving the needle?
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: That's an excellent question, Board
Member Taylor. We have also our dashboards for each of these
chancellor's goals, and the chancellor will be sharing with you and
the entire board the status, and we have multiple spreadsheets that
include everything that you mentioned, the KPIs of how we are
measuring, what we are measuring, as we go along through the process.
So the digital task force, the literacy task force is new, but
once it's decided as to the recommendations, it's going to be decided
how are we going to measure our students as they achieve digital
literacy and fluency.
I don't know, Chancellor Lambert, if you'd like to elaborate on
the dashboards you will be sharing periodically with the board
members.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Dolores?
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Yes.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So, you know, in the previous times
whenever they did measurements, and you talk about the dashboard, you
know, it's not specific enough. For example, Board Member Taylor
here was asking about how we're going to complete these gaps. So in
my view, I would like to see, okay, we contact 100 people, 100 people
took classes, this is a level they are at, this is what they got from
it. Those things have failed in the past. So I'm hoping that we are
going to get better data when it comes to measuring.
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you, Board Member Garcia, for
your feedback and the entire board, too.
I have invited some of the subgoal owners. Jim Craig is here,
and I don't know if Jeff Thies is here, but they are the ones leading
the subgoal, and they are taking into account with your feedback and
understood about being specific with measurable outcomes and
providing updates to the board as to how we are doing and making sure
that we are progressing and moving the needle.
As I said, with the pandemic, we saw there was a tremendous gap.
Technology is changing. I mean, medical technology, I understand,
the chancellor has mentioned, and through articles and books that we
have read, in 74 days it changes.
So we have to be constantly upskilling and reskilling ourselves
as well as our students. So thank you for that feedback, and we will
make sure that with all of our dashboards for the chancellor's goals,
not just only in academics but with the others, that we provide
sufficient information to show and prove that we are moving the
needle.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Chancellor, I didn't know if there was
anything you wanted to add on the dashboards, but maybe there is some
reason why they are separated, but it would be wonderful to integrate
that in with these presentations so we can sort of see it side by
side so that we can get all the wonderful work that you and your team
are doing, and can see what the measurements outcomes are that are
associated with each one of those. It would be helpful for me, just
so I can keep in mind what needle are we looking to move for each one
of these things.
Is there anything else you wanted to add on the dashboards,
please feel free.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I think there is different levels to all of
this work, so like this digital literacy piece, we have to first
establish the baseline, which we have not fully done yet.
So we are still in this process of trying to figure out what we
want to focus on in terms of digital literacy. So that work is
underway. Once we better understand the problem we are trying to
solve, then we can start to set the actual KPIs and the measurements
that go along with that.
You'll see in some other areas we already have that in place.
But that's a different facet of what the work they have been doing on
the academic side.
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Any other questions?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Dolores.
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: The next report is from Dave Bea, and I
guess he has two in a row. Operations college-wide and the financial
report for the fiscal year.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Good evening, Chairperson Riel, members of the
board, Chancellor Lambert, colleagues and guests.
I do have two in a row. They are quite different, although I
guess there are some intersecting elements to them. The first one I
will do will be following up just in order that Dolores did hers, an
update on the chancellor goals for the areas that I am overseeing
from an executive level, which is the operational piece.
I'm going to share my screen with you. Maybe I will do this one.
Let me go ahead and start with this one and I will go back to the
goal update after.
It is my pleasure tonight to give the board a summary of the
fiscal year results as published in the annual financial report that
was sent out by the auditor general's office in late December. This
is the culmination of a lot of work between the finance office
throughout the district and then the auditor general's office works
for months, sampling different pieces of information, transactions,
verifying and validating the information provided and summarized in
our financial report.
The quick and dirty, it's sent out directly to the board members.
If the new board members haven't yet received it, we will get you a
paper copy, and it is linked on the website and we will provide
information to you related to that.
This is what the cover looks like of the financial report this
year, and then the key information that's related to the financial
report, the thing that you're always going to look for when you issue
an audited report, is did you get a clean audit.
So I grabbed the screen shot of the key statement that the
auditor general's office includes in our audit, which is the part
that's highlighted there or square, in our opinion, based on our
audit and the report of other auditors, financial statements referred
to present fairly in all material respects the respective financial
position of the activities and component unit of the college.
I paraphrased it a little bit. That is the end-all, be-all that
essentially is that we received a clean audit.
In terms of the actual performance, it was a generally positive
result for the year, focusing starting with the operating revenues
and how those came together for the year. We do side-by-side
year-over-year comparisons just to get some context in terms of the
performance of the college.
Overall our operating revenues increased a little bit year over
year, a slight increase in tuition and fees, tuition increase, and
slight enrollment, I think very slight enrollment increases, but
let's say tuition increase would be the reason for that.
The bigger results are increases in property taxes. That's
totally planned and expected. There are increase in state
appropriations that results in Proposition 209 revenue, that's the
Smart and Safe legalizing marijuana revenues that the college
receives a share of the proceeds from that legalized marijuana sales
now.
The other increases, the most significant one is the increase in
federal grants. That's one of the thematic areas in the results, of
the financial report this year, is significant increases in federal
aid coming through the HEERF funds, the Higher Education Relief Act
funds, and also expenses that are related to that.
So the biggest change year over year is the big increase in funds
from the federal government to support the college during the
pandemic and then result of the pandemic, and then the expenses
associated with that.
I will take a quick note. Investment income shows as a negative
here. That's as a result of interest rate increases. Our
investments are completely in bond and fixed instruments. As a
result of that, when interest rates go up, there is an unrealized
decrease in those assets. It's not a loss in actual money. It's a
decrease in the value of the investments.
So we are not actually losing money, but according to accounting
standards we have to show it this way. That is to say, the reason
for that is to say if we sold those bonds, if we were in a bind and
we had to sell our investments, we would take a little bit of a loss
on those.
That isn't what we are doing. We are planning those out, as
their investment vehicles mature, that is they run out, they finish
up the duration of the bond, we then reinvest them, and then the
added benefit, and this is what we will be talking about in the
budget cycle, is that now that interest rates are up, our returns
from our yields that we get from the bonds are actually going up now.
So we mature off older, lower-interest vehicles and then buy
into, reinvest the money that we have available then into
higher-interest underwriting vehicles.
We talk about this regularly with the Finance and Audit
Committee, so Chairperson Riel, you will be hearing more and more
about investments as well as some more detail related to the audit
through that group.
In terms of expenses and changes year over year, again, the
biggest related changes to this were as a result of the increased
funding that we got to support COVID-related response, reinvesting in
information technology resources was one of the big one things. We
also shored up some of the safety and security-related elements
around the college, putting up sneeze-guard-type walls, things like
that, and other COVID-related personal safety-type expenses.
But a lot of the investment that we did and were able to use the
federal money to really shore up and improve our IT infrastructure,
Wi-Fi at the campuses, not only reach a broader range of spaces at
the campuses but run at a much faster rate. So we definitely took
advantage of the federal money to ensure or to improve and shore up
our information technology infrastructure.
The other thing that you'll see with our financial statements is
that as we are building the buildings, particularly through the
revenue bonds, but then coming next year and thereafter, the
health-related improvements that we are doing, there is a lot more
expenses now coming into line. So we received the revenues for
revenue bonds a number of years ago, and then it takes time to then
spend that money down, so then you see expenses going up in contract
services and...(indiscernible), so forth.
Overall, total expenses went up a fair amount year over year.
Again, that is mostly related to the increased revenues we received
temporarily, the one-time funds, especially from the federal
government. You can also see a big additional share went to
disbursing money directly to students.
In looking at the operating expenses by type, the employee
compensation and benefits went up due to planned salary increases
that were budgeted that year, and then contractual services, supplies
and materials, those are the things I talked about, increases in our
investment related to information technology systems and licenses,
they increase in student financial aid. Those are the big increases
again mostly related to how we spend the federal (indiscernible).
Overall, looking at the net position, the operating revenues that
I mentioned went up a little bit. Operating expenses went up quite a
bit, again because of primarily one-time expenses. Those were offset
by one-time increases and nonoperating revenues.
Overall, positive result, there was an increase in net position
of $28 million. That is a very positive result, given the challenges
that would have been through as a college.
In terms of our net position, this is the one thing that we want
to look at more on an annual basis, what does our snapshot look like,
and then looking longitudinally, how are things looking in terms of
our overall net position, those are our assets, how we have money
invested, either whether we have it invested in cash, cash
equivalents, short term, long-term investments, what kind of
liabilities we have on the books as well, and then serving what the
overall position is in terms of how much we have invested in capital
plant, and then how much money you have available in either
unrestricted or restricted assets. So overall, the picture is
positive. The amount invested in capital assets went up about $6
million. That's net of debt and depreciation.
That's because we are adding new buildings and then buildings are
newer, we're adding new equipment, so that's where that number
increases. Increase overall in our restrictive net position. Then
also an increase in our unrestrictive net position.
We are in a very positive place overall. Total net position is
about $207 million. Then just to quickly summarize all of what I
just said, we received an unmodified opinion from the auditor
general's office, so that is what we are looking for is a clean
audit.
One note, and I talked in more detail with the Finance and Audit
Committee about this issue, GASB 87 was implemented this year, which
is a Government Accounting Standards Board, has different rules that
we follow in terms of how you report different elements of the
finances and the assets, that sort of thing.
GASB 87 is related to leases. There are four leases that we
actually chose to retain, according to pre-GASB 87 standards. All
other leases follow GASB 87. There are four leases that are
operational equipment leases, and we chose to continue using the
prior, the pre-GASB 87 standards for those items, so they are
reflected in the financial reports.
It does not hide any liabilities or anything like that. They are
all shown. It's just they are not shown according to any standards,
and that's because of the complexity of taking these leases, which is
capitalized equipment, but it's multiple pieces of equipment. The
complexity of having to restate all of these different pieces of
equipment, some of which are capitalizable and some of which are not,
restating those according to the new standards would have been overly
difficult to do, would have been likely to result in errors, and we
got from determination that these are immaterial to this financial
statement.
We will be working on those leases this year. We have four
remaining leases that each year we use these to purchase capital
equipment and lease purchase them, essentially. We will be looking
at the terms of those leases, and we may actually make the
recommendation to purchase them outright to buy out those leases so
we will have more (indiscernible).
It's worth saying because I just want to say because it is
something that is not according to the GASB 87 standards. It is
immaterial in terms of the financial statements. Again, I talked at
greater link with the Finance Audit Committee about that at the
meeting.
Lastly, and I said this already, but the financial statements
indicate strong financial position, increases in expenditures that
were related to plant, personnel, salary increases, pandemic-related
expenses, facilities, and then the different grants related to that.
The last thing I want to add, and this isn't in the materials we
gave you but I added this to the presentation tonight, this shows the
reserves ratio. So there is a board policy that talks about our
reserves and how our reserves we target to have a certain amount of
reserves on hand, and any amount above that target is open to capital
reinvestment.
So what this shows is the growth in our reserves over the last
number of years, and then this is the target threshold that that's
the number that, according to that board policy, we have to maintain
reserves above that. If we dip down below that, we have to have a
plan that we discuss with the board. So it's not that we can't dip
below that. It just means we have to have a conversation with the
board on what our plan is to get back up to that threshold.
It's a very conservative and healthy threshold that ensures that
the college is in a very strong financial position, but it also gives
us a target for when we can use some of the reserves and the
investments that we have on hand to reinvest in the capital. That's
one commitment that we have for that now is to improve, to renovate
the health programs at West Campus and that project is underway.
With that, I do want to give a great deal of gratitude to the
folks listed here. These are the folks who actually worked on the
audit throughout the process. They have been working without a
director, someone who took a job at another institution recently, and
just did a smashingly amazing job keeping the audit going and
ensuring that we were able to finish it according to our standard
timeline, which is to be published before the end of the calendar
year.
So I want to give a great deal of gratitude and thanks to those
folks for the work they did, especially with implementing the GASB
standards, which were very onerous.
With that, I will ask if the board has any questions.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I have two questions. First of all, I guess
I should join you in thanking Brenda, Marisa, Melissa, Tim, Steve,
Bernard, because that stuff makes my head spin. So the fact they
want to do that and are good at it is fantastic.
I have two questions from the revenue slide. If it makes more
sense for you to answer them in the study session in February, that's
fine, because maybe it's a more in-depth answer than I think. But my
two questions is I'd be curious to know of that 77.8 million in
federal dollars, you said a lot of it came, like how much of that is
one-time COVID money that's going to disappear, and how much of it is
money you think is going to sustain? That's the first question.
Then the second question is I like that the state appropriations
went up by 319%, that's great, but I'm curious to know, like let's
say we were Coconino Community College or Arizona Western College and
we were actually getting the per-student allocation from the state
that at least I, for one, believe we should be, what is that dollar
-- what should that dollar value be if we were actually getting the
state appropriation that I'll use the word should be, even though I
know that's not my decision, it's the legislature's decision, that we
should be getting.
And again, you can answer that when we meet in February, that's
fine, if you don't have those numbers in front of you.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: I can give you rough approximations, and they
are great conversations that we will continue to have. We also, with
the new board members, will be having orientations and I'll be able
to go through this information with you all at that point and that
will give you an opportunity to, one, sort of give you the
foundational information that you need and then also for you guys to
ask questions since they come up.
To answer the questions, typically in a given year -- the one
time is around 40 to 50 million roughly. I'm not going to be able to
give you an exact number, but it's in that neighborhood. We do
get -- the federal grants that we typically get go directly to
students, so that's just a wash. That's just a flow-through directly
to students. Then whatever federal grants that we get, so Title V,
Title III grants that have specific purposes, it isn't something that
we use to offset our operational expenses. They have obligations
that come along with them.
So the one-time funds, the fact that we were able to use some of
those funds to really shore up our infrastructure was a one-time
benefit and not something we will really be planning on, but it also
isn't something that we became reliant on operation. So that's the
first question.
The second one, in terms of state appropriations, I think the
best way to answer the question is prior to when they started the
cuts in 2008, so when the fiscal crisis happened, that's when they
started reducing the college's budget appropriations, we used to
receive routinely about $23 million.
And then when, instead of comparing it to the number you
mentioned, the $9 million, again, a lot of that is sales tax,
legalized marijuana sales tax related, about 2 to $3 million of that
is actually coming from the state, so it went from $23 million down
to about 3. That's probably the best piece of information to sort of
get in your head what is it really. For us to get that kind of money
back would be fantastic, and it's also going to be -- we will have
more conversations about legislative challenges and the budget going
forward. But that's the kind of loss that we experienced between
2008 and now.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: So just to confirm that I understood you
correctly, it's like a $20 million gap?
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Yeah.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Just wanted to make sure I heard you right.
>> DR. DAVID BEA: Yeah. You did a great job of weeding through
my gobbledygook. Yes.
Any other questions related to the financials?
By the way, the other thing that happens, for the new board
members, so finance and audit, we have the auditors come in to that
committee to both discuss how the audit went, we also have an
executive session where staff are excused from that discussion, so
the board members, the members of that committee, can actually have a
conversation with the auditors to discuss, you know, how did the
audit go, that sort of thing, and not have any concern that staff are
influencing it or anything. It's a Sarbanes-Oxley best practice type
approach.
That will be happening soon. In addition to that, the auditor
will be coming to the regular board meeting. That's something
statutory now for the auditors to present to the board as a whole.
So in one of your upcoming meetings we will be scheduling that.
Okay. Let me share my screen now. I do have the other one up.
Okay. So as Dr. Duran-Cerda was mentioning, we each, each of the
executive vice-chancellors, we each have assigned areas of the
chancellor's goals. Mine are on the operational side, not totally
surprising. Just a quick summary of the things that we are working
on and give some highlights, we did provide you all with an executive
summary that gets into a little more detail, but I will highlight
what the general topics are of the areas.
The first one is to develop a three-year budget plan that is
looking at the college now with the enrollment levels where we are at
and having a realistic sustainable budget, and going forward and
developing, sort of recalibrating the institution's path. We had a
good study session with the board in December, and then we have study
sessions already in the spring schedule to talk about that with the
board.
That includes things like staffing ratios, other metrics that we
use to sort of ensure that we have the stewardship of the college's
resources.
The other piece to that falls into the second item, which is the
new overhaul of our class comp structure that we rolled out in July
as an ongoing obligation to that, so we have to fold that into the
budget, because as it's based on ensuring that people are compensated
according to their market values, jobs that they perform, experience
they have in that job, that as they get a year of experience at the
college, that they move up in their value in terms of comparisons to
the market.
So that has an ongoing obligation. We also are working on other
mechanisms for compensation, including some concepts related to
merit-based pay. So moving into the second item, so first part of
the budget part is to fold that into an ongoing budget plan, making
sure that we can sustain the increased costs associated with that,
with revenues and other approaches, whether it's reductions, other
kinds of reductions in order to ensure that we are able to provide
the compensation increases that are built into this for increased
revenues. We will talk with the board. That's what the budget
development's going to be all about.
In terms of an update on the class comp study, we are still
finishing up the appeals process. We've finished up about 282 of the
roughly 350 appeals we received. So we are almost done there. It's
taken a while, because some of them are more complicated in terms of
they involve multiple positions, making sure job descriptions for
multiple positions are aligned, that sort of thing, and then
reviewing them versus market data and so forth.
We also already started our conversations with AERC groups, both
from the faculty and staff side, to help them prioritize
compensation, what are their compensation-related priorities for the
upcoming year, and to start having that conversation about what kind
of merit-based pay, performance-based pay structures could work at
the college.
It's a very difficult proposition with the college's structure
and with what kinds of performance-based structures that would be
objective enough that would trigger all kinds of other concerns.
So we are working with those groups and having conversations with
them about what kinds of ideas might work, whether it's something
like a college-wide type, if the college meets certain performance
objectives, then everyone at the college receives a merit-based pay
structure of some sort, something like that. And we will talk more
with the board as we go through the spring about those kinds of
conversations.
Moving down to the key performance indicators, the strategic
planning and data group is working with different areas to help them
identify key performance indicators within their areas, so they are
focusing right now on academic student affairs, campus vice
presidents this year.
One thing that they have done already that I think is going to
make a pretty good, is a pretty good improvement for the college, is
there is now a structure for recommendations, high-level
recommendations of changes that will indicate both data that's being
used in the decision-making but also what constituent groups were
included in the conversations and involved in the discussions,
recommended change. That's already gone out through ELT, starting to
use that new format now.
The next one down is really focusing on college committees and
creating an archive for those college committees where folks working
on those committees know that the work going into the committees and
the recommendations that come out of it are lasting and don't just
disappear to the sands of time, so to speak, so they are working on
that project and identifying the best possible mechanism for that.
Then the last one is related to technology and ensuring that the
college's technology is (indiscernible) with the college. There are
a couple of key elements to this right now is really having the IT
group work directly with academics to try and identify different
technologies that can be integrated within the curriculum, virtual
reality opportunities, those kinds of things, augmented reality,
those kinds of things that will facilitate the educational experience
for the students. Working on getting a demo day with different
technologies that are out and about so that people can see some of
the opportunities that are out there.
We also participated in a group of other colleges in Arizona
looking at ERPs and also other elements of administrative systems, so
that's constantly looking at does our system, are there better or
other opportunities out there, how do we plan to (indiscernible)
enterprise system, and what's the best way to do that to make sure we
are maximizing use of the college's resources in getting what the
systems are that we need to (indiscernible).
There's a lot of work going on in IT there, really getting
integrated with all the college's operations. That's a quick and
dirty summary of the college's goals. A lot of things will be
happening in the spring related to my areas.
With that, I will ask if the board has any questions.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any questions? Thank you. We appreciate
those reports.
Okay. Moving on to the next report, update on spring enrollment
planning from Phil Burdick.
>> DAVID ARELLANO: I think I will be providing that update for
you today.
Good evening, Chairperson of the Board, board members, Chancellor
Lambert, colleagues and guests. I'm David Arellano and I serve as
the dean of enrollment management. This evening I'd like to provide
a brief update on our spring enrollment efforts for the college.
So to begin, I'm going to look backwards a little bit at our fall
enrollment period. And the National Student Clearinghouse most
recent report indicated that enrollment declines at community
colleges have begun to slow compared to a year earlier. However,
overall, the community college sector still experienced a half
percentage enrollment decline across the country in fall '22.
We saw some improvement going on, and when we look at that
particular trend and that momentum, it really does continue for us
here locally here at Pima with strong head count and enrollment
increases for spring.
So when we look at data from January 4th, we had an 11.9%
increase in head count and a 13% increase in enrollment.
When we dive deeper into this data and start disaggregating it,
we can see increases in our Black or African American, Hispanic or
Latino, and White ethnicities, as well as when we look at this data
in a gender perspective, we see our male population is up 21%
compared to last spring. When we think about some of those pandemic
losses, it really did occur in populations for students of color and
in the male gender.
Then lastly, our online and our on-campus enrollment is up with
our five campuses seeing a 19% increase with in-person enrollment
compared to last spring.
So I'm going to transition over to some of our efforts that we
have been putting in place since early fall, and with spring
registration opening up this past November, we have had so many
different enrollment initiatives to really support and engage
students.
So we conducted marketing campaigns for brand new prospective
students, our own current students, former students that may have
attended with us and have stopped out, in a variety of formats, and
those formats include what we would call a traditional mail, digital
advertising, radio, text messaging campaigns, and e-mails including
phone calls.
And so another exciting development of a lot of that outreach has
been the development between external relations and student affairs
where they, through collaboration and joint work, worked on a virtual
tour. If you haven't had a chance to see that on our website, I do
recommend it. Students are now able to take a tour of all of our
campuses and get a glimpse inside of some of those key and
highlighted program areas so they can look inside of the dental
hygiene clinic that we offer and see what's going to be offered in
that program and some of those unique features of that and the value
that it will provide to them.
This is really super important, because it allows students to see
all the great things that we are offering to them from wherever they
are at.
And then in addition, so the community engagement team out of
external relations has hosted and supported over 100 community events
since September 1st, just really engaging our community, making sure
that they understand the value that Pima Community College offers and
helping them with admissions and registration.
I also want to talk about some of the work we have done with our
proactive enrollment advising and outreach efforts to all students,
and so since that beginning of the spring enrollment period, we have
held over 12,000 advising sessions between our enrollment and program
advisors. We have sent out a lot of text messages, over 25,000 in a
variety of text campaigns that engage new students, nudge new
students from a retention and persistence perspective to enroll for
that next term.
We have held Super Saturday events, and these Super Saturday
events are what I would call kind of a one-stop enrollment center
concept where students can come in and get services from admissions,
financial aid, academic advising and registration. To date for our
Super Saturday events for the spring, we have had over 200 learners
come into our Downtown Campus and get help from our great advising
teams, and our next Super Saturday is this coming weekend at the
Downtown Campus on the 14th.
To capture I think some of the success that we have had with
Super Saturdays and I think really the essence of the great work
staff is doing, I want to share a powerful story from one of our
students. This particular student had become a stopout, like many of
our students came, attended, life got in the way, but was finally
able to come back. Came into a Super Saturday event after 12 years,
met with our enrollment team, got readmitted, met with an advisor,
figured out what they needed to take, and eventually registered for
math and humanities courses to complete for her degree.
The comments and feedback we got from this student, she was just
so impressed with the help and the services that she received from
these events, and these events I think are really a good opportunity
for the college to showcase the support and the services that we
have, but also help and assist and guide those students through the
registration process.
And finally, I will conclude with this slide that really provides
a high-level overview of our next steps for enrollment and retention,
and with that I will pause with any questions or comments.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: David, so one of my questions is how are
you advertising your Super Saturdays?
>> DAVID ARELLANO: Yeah, so we are doing Super Saturday
advertisements through our social media accounts. We are doing text
messages to students, based on the different populations they may be
in, brand new students or continuing students, and we have had some
local news coverage highlighting the event and doing some advertising
for us.
So we have had a lot of I think success with it. In addition,
it's on our web pages and all of our services and internally,
embedded into some of the systems that we have that students would
access every day.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Have you considered going to the high
schools and junior highs and advertising there with pamphlets to the
parents?
>> DAVID ARELLANO: Yeah, we have considered that. You have all,
and for the existing board members, Board Member Garcia, our dual
enrollment and high school transition team is also out there
spreading the word about these events, but in conjunction with our
dean of dual enrollment, we are talking about ideas related to doing
specific events for parents and high school students. So we are
going to be working on that for this upcoming fall registration
period, so I will definitely be sharing more about that with you all
in the future.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Thank you.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I'd also like to know are there any plans
to reach out to some of the other campuses? I know that there are a
lot of students that, you know, if they are on the far east side they
won't be able to get to the Downtown Campus, and also, I'm sure it's
the same with Desert Vista and also for the Northwest Campus, if a
young student doesn't have a vehicle, having it only in one location?
Anyway, are there any plans to have it elsewhere?
>> DAVID ARELLANO: Yeah, we have definitely taken that into
consideration. What's unique about Downtown Campus, it's right on
our bus line. It's easy access, central, within the city, off of
I-10. I think that's been a major point and ease of access for
students, but there are those conversations how we can expand that
out and making sure that we have the resources to do so, that that
can be effective and provide that holistic support that we have been
providing on Super Saturdays.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: One more thing. Have you guys considered
doing like a special showing at the different schools and then doing
the videos with what's being offered at the college? Like have an
assembly, get permission from the superintendents or principals from
the schools?
>> DAVID ARELLANO: Yeah, and I won't speak to all those details,
but our dean of dual enrollment, James Palacios, has been working
closely with the superintendents. He works with our academic affairs
to bring programs out, to bring faculty and our program advisors out
to the high schools to get them that program information to talk
about what careers they can do at Pima Community College, and I think
it's really tied in with the efforts he's been doing with dual
enrollment and getting more students on a pathway to a specific
program or career.
So we can definitely get that information to you that that team
has been working on.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Of course we still haven't reached out to
the seventh and eighth graders.
>> DAVID ARELLANO: Yeah. Holistically supporting I think
college enrollment and looking at postsecondary education, I think
the sobering data elements out there is when we look at Pima County
postsecondary attainment or enrollment rates it's at 43% of all of
our high school seniors, and so yet those efforts downstream into
middle and elementary school need to be started early in conjunction
with our K12 partners to grow that college-going culture within those
school districts and just within our community.
Because at 43% postsecondary enrollment rate, that's really a low
point in the state, and it's something that, you know, collectively
we need to work together to improve.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Thank you for all the information. You
always do a great job.
>> DAVID ARELLANO: Thank you, Board Member Garcia.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I have a question. Well, one, I appreciate
the mention that you made in the enrollment numbers about
disaggregating the data. I'd love to see, and you don't have to
produce this right at the moment, but if there are future
presentations, I'd love to see that data in black and white to be
able to disaggregate what that change is.
I'm not sure which demographic categories the college tracks.
I'd love to see that broken out by those categories to see in black
and white. I very much appreciate the mention of it, but I'd love it
to be in the slides as well.
And then maybe this is a limitation of the data, I don't know,
but I'd also love to know, like, which programs are these students
enrolling into? As enrollment is increasing, which are the programs
that seem to be attracting more students, and conversely, are there
programs that are sort of lost leaders, if you will? What are the
ones that seem to be not having a lot of interest? I'd love to know
that in terms of how we are moving forward with hopefully enrollment
growth.
>> DAVID ARELLANO: Thank you. We do have that information, our
amazing analytics team, STAR, collects all that information, and we
have it within our systems where we can filter out by different
demographic, ethnicities, even at the program level. That is
information that the institution does have and can provide at the
board's request if there are specific questions related to
demographics or program-level data.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, David.
Our next administrative report is from Wendy Weeks for the HLC
update.
>> WENDY WEEKS: Good evening, Chairperson Riel, board members,
Chancellor Lambert, colleagues and guests. Thank you for having me.
The first thing I would like to do is I would like to say how
grateful I am for Ariana Laguna. Without Ariana I couldn't get these
presentations done, and she has done a lot of the logistics for me
with the HLC.
We are going to talk about the three projects going on currently.
So the first one is a multi-location visit. A multi-location visit,
this is kind of a normal visit. This occurs every five years. Every
five years we are going to have one of these.
The HLC will tell us what locations they want to visit. So these
locations have to do with areas, high schools, other locations where
we offer programs.
Now, I put a definition up there about a program, because the
interesting part is that the way they define a program is if 50% of
the courses are offered at a location, that's their definition of us
offering a program. So we may have a program here at Pima that is 10
courses. But if we offer five courses at some other location, they
consider that a program.
So these visits will start in February. I have the dates up
there. I have the locations they are going to visit.
At this point in time, we have done a lot of work with them. We
have turned in documents that have been requested by the HLC. We are
in the middle of setting up the logistics. Ariana and I will be
visiting most of these locations over the next two weeks, as they
have some additional questions for us, and I have never been there.
I'm kind of new to this position, so I haven't seen these sites
either.
This is our first one, and these are the due dates that are
coming up. I'm doing these in order of when things are due.
Our second project is our monitoring report. So I know the
monitoring report has been mentioned tonight. This is a report
that's going to be due September 1st. On September 1st we are going
to have to turn in a report on the strides we have made, and it's
Criterion 2 up there, it's integrity, ethical, and responsible
conduct. Back in October we had a study session with the board
coming up with ideas on how could we show that we have made progress
in this.
And the way you show the HLC you have made progress is you have
to have evidence. So evidence is the tricky piece. It's really hard
to say we did do this. They want proof. What is our evidence we did
do this?
So in your board packet, Andrea gave you a copy of what was
approved at the November board meeting by the board at that time on
evidence we were going to gather between now and that time.
So those of you who are new to the board, welcome. You will be
hearing a lot more about this. We will be having discussions about
some of those pieces of evidence we are going to gather. We are
going to be talking about this a lot more in the next month or two.
And the third thing we have going on, our last project right now
with the HLC, is our comprehensive evaluation. So again, this is a
regular evaluation. This one happens at our 10th year. So we are at
Year 10. We do have the dates for it, which are December 9 and 10 of
2024.
One of the first things I'm going to ask each of you to do is put
in whatever kind of calendar you use December 9 and 10 of 2024,
because we are going to need you. We are going to need you. When
the HLC comes, they are going to want to have conversations with you.
Please block that time off for us, because we really need your input.
With that, you're going to hear a lot more about the criterion.
There are five criterion, and there is federal compliance. I know
some of you heard about that from previous board meetings and some of
you heard that with your onboarding, but you're going to get a
presentation each month on the criterion.
So, for example, next month I believe is Criterion 4. We have a
lead team for each criterion. These teams are in the ballpark of
four people, and there is five criterion and federal compliance. So
that's at least 24 people right there.
But we have other people on this team who are assurance argument
system administrators and things like that. So we have a very large
team. You're going to be meeting them and you're going to hear some
of the specifics about it.
We start a meeting, as was mentioned by Provost Duran-Cerda, in
July of 2022, and we were looking at the gaps. Gaps are areas where
we know that have been identified in the past or we have
self-identified where we need to do some more work. So those have
been looked at.
Right now we are getting into actual pieces of the assurance
argument. So again, you'll be hearing about these monthly. We will
have criterion people here. You'll get to meet lot of these people.
Lastly, we have an embedded report that's due in the assurance
argument. The topic of the embedded report is on this slide, and
again, it was something that the HLC identified. So this is
something we have to do follow-up with as well, but it's going to go
directly into our comprehensive evaluation report.
With that, I am happy to take questions.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I have a couple of questions. I don't know
if you would answer or Chancellor Lambert would answer, but whomever.
The first one is I remember watching on YouTube, now that I'm on the
other side of the screen, the discussion about the criteria or the
things that we measured for that September -- and I don't want to
like derail a train that's already left the station, because I know
there's a lot of work that goes into that, but in terms of the
timeline, is there an opportunity for the three of us that are new to
this board if we were to put it on an agenda somewhere to have some
input into what that is or have some further discussion, or does that
need to keep moving because of the timelines and everything?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Let me take that question, Wendy.
So next week in the board retreat, we have structured it in a way
where we are integrating in this piece into the retreat. So
absolutely you'll be able to input into the document to enhance it,
et cetera, and better refine what is met by certain items that are in
here. So the answer is yes, but we've got to move. What I worry
about is gathering the evidence to demonstrate that the board and the
administration are meeting the expectations that have been
identified.
How we go about that is up to us. But a big emphasis area is on
board's roles, responsibilities, governance, and the like.
So I think that's an area that's a constant, ongoing piece. We
couldn't wait for you all, three of you to be seated, because it
takes a while to plan and get presenters in place and so forth. So
we leveraged the opportunity to make sure it gets done this month.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: That makes sense. I appreciate it.
And then the second is kind of a two-part question, two related
questions. I remember reading an article I think in the Arizona
Daily Star in mid-December that said the U of A was exploring
changing its accrediting body from the HLC to something different,
and forgive me, I don't remember what the other thing was.
So the two questions that are related to that is, one, if the U
of A does move forward with a different accrediting body, does that
impact Pima at all in terms of our ability to transfer and
interoperability?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: So the short answer is no, because we are
all still regionally accredited, and so the whole advantage of being
a regionally accredited institution, and really they are all becoming
national accreditors under this new model, is that our credits will
transfer. The real issue about transferability is more nuanced than
just the accreditor piece. This is a national challenge for
community college to transfer to universities. There is challenges
on both sides of that equation.
So the short answer is it won't have to impact us, but what it
does give insight into is the Trump Administration rewrote the rules,
which allow colleges and universities to forum shop, so to speak, so
you're starting to see some little glimpses of that. However, I
think the Biden Administration is looking at rethinking that, but
they have to go through a rule-making process as well.
So it will be interesting how those pieces evolve.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: So the second question kind of evolves from
what you just said, but I'm curious, and not that I expect either of
you to be able to speak for the University of Arizona, I'm not
expecting that, but I'm curious, like, they are all accrediting to
the same -- like what's the difference? An institution of higher
learning that wanted to shop for their accrediting body, like what
criteria, like how are they substantively different than one another?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Fortunately and unfortunately, I have been
in two different regions. In the Northwest Commission I would say is
less structured than the Higher Learning Commission. So that's an
important piece. When we were there, they went to a new model where
you're being accredited on a seven-year cycle versus a ten-year cycle
that we have here at the HLC.
But that seven-year cycle, there is other interim reports you are
doing. So there are more touches, if you will, so each has their own
nuanced way. Then you get into things like faculty credentials for
dual enrollment.
So the HLC has arguably a higher standard of who can teach
college-level courses that you might not find from another region.
So another region may be more flexible.
That's a real issue because on the dual enrollment, as an
example, we can only scale dual enrollment up to the capability of
having the faculty to teach it. So if the K12 system doesn't have
Master's degree-prepared teachers in that discipline, that's a
limiter on our ability to deliver.
So those are important differences.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Thank you.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Wendy, I don't know if you want to add to
that.
>> WENDY WEEKS: Nope. I think that was great. Thank you so
much.
Anything else?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you so much, Wendy. We appreciated
your report.
Okay. Section 5.2 of this reports is reports by representatives.
Our first is the student report, Atheena Martinez.
Atheena, are you there?
>> Yes, I'm here. Hold on.
Hello, Board of Governors, and welcome to the new members to the
board. Happy New Year. At this time we have a couple updates.
First we are making an anonymous Google forum where students can
connect with us if they feel a need to remain anonymous with the
questions or concerns they have for us.
This will be updated to our PimaEngage under Student Senate.
With that, the last thing I have to report is that the Student Senate
has finally decided on a project, one I believe shows a sense of
community and one that will show the diverseness of our fellow
students. Our project is to create a quilt and show how students'
lives were before college and during. Maybe they are more open and
free to be themselves now. Who knows?
We want to display it for all future and current students to see
and know they are not alone on their journey. We hope to display
this quilt throughout PCC and truly initiate its movements so that
all students, including our adult education students, will be able to
view it.
As of today, we are still attending events, making ourselves
known to the students at all Pima events, which can also be found on
the PimaEngage website. Any questions or concerns can be directed to
our e-mail at pcc-studentsenators@pima.edu.
That's all I have to report.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you so much. We appreciate what you
are doing for the students at the college.
The next report is adjunct faculty report from Sean Mendoza.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Chair Riel, looks like there are couple
where they indicated there is not a report. Adjunct faculty and
staff report, we might want to confirm that, but the note indicates
those two don't have a report this month.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: In my document it shows that the adjunct
faculty report has no report this month. Also shows, unless the
staff submitted something, it also shows the staff has no report this
month.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. So then the next report is the
faculty report from Denise Reilly.
>> DENISE REILLY: That is correct. Thank you.
Good evening, Chairperson Riel, members of the board, Chancellor
Lambert, colleagues and guests.
I wanted to share with you as you're on the board docs right now
that unfortunately my actual report was incorrect previously, so it's
been corrected this evening. It's a four-page document. So if you
look on the faculty report that's attached, it should be correct in
there now, but it was incorrect before. It was only a one-page
document. Okay. I will continue on.
Happy New Year and start to the spring 2023 semester. Thank you
to our returning board members for continuing to do the important
work for our college and community. Welcome and thank you to our new
board members for answering the call and stepping up to the
incredibly important role for Pima Community College and the
community at large.
I'm Denise Reilly, your faculty representative, and I'm in my
third semester of this term. You will see me through the end of fall
2023.
I'm full-time faculty in the division of college readiness and
student success or also known at STU faculty. I'm a proud,
passionate educator of 23 years in the State of Arizona in public
education. I have served in the roles of high school teacher,
counselor, club advisor, coach, career counselor, and full-time
faculty.
My children attend public schools in the Unified School District
of Marana. While my colleague Sean, who did not make a report
tonight, reports on behalf of the adjunct faculty, I report on behalf
of all faculty with a special lens to full-time faculty.
In this role as Governing Board representative and Faculty Senate
officer, I attend monthly Faculty Senate meetings, also monthly
meetings with the administrative leadership team, and report to each
group about each group. I'm happy to answer any questions that you
may have, as I'm a conduit and voice at PCC for faculty.
As full-time faculty, we teach courses in all modalities, across
all campuses, contribute to overall college initiatives, support and
serve on various college committees, hold faculty advising office
hours for students, update and improve curriculum as needed, as
mentioned in a former report by the provost, and professionally
develop each year.
I submit a written report to you monthly that gives you an idea,
a snapshot, or a summary of all the meetings attended and the
ongoings related to faculty at the college with links to each of the
individual reports. I welcome you to attend, they are public for
you, to attend any of our Faculty Senate meetings beginning this
Friday, once a month.
Faculty are the heart and soul of any educational institution,
and we thank you in advance for supporting our role as faculty at
Pima Community College.
Thank you.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any questions? That's all.
Thank you, Denise.
Then the last representative report is the administrative report
by Jim Craig.
>> JIM CRAIG: Good evening, Chair Riel, distinguished board,
Chancellor Lambert, PCC family and friends. My name is Jim Craig and
I'm the dean of business and information technology. It's my
pleasure to be your representative for the administration.
I'd like to take a minute to actually also congratulate Emily
Halvorson, dean of sciences, for the CCPI STEM fellowship that she's
been selected to receive. You may not know this, but that fellowship
is really focused on community college faculty and administrators to
nurture their leadership skills in order to grow and diversify the
STEM technician workforce. It's actually funded by the Advanced
Technology Education grant from the National Science Foundation and
it provides an honorarium of $5,000 annually for two years to each of
the selected individuals.
So congratulations again, Emily.
Pima Community College is one of 11 distinguished recipients of
the Strada Education Network Employer and Community College
Partnership Grant. These two-year grants of up to $400,000 each were
awarded to innovative collaborations across the country between
community colleges and employers in their region.
Recipients will also participate in opportunities to learn from
other community college and employer partnerships through a community
of practice and building connections across regions.
PCC's focus will include emergency medical services, machining,
building construction technology, automotive technology, advanced
manufacturing, and information technology.
These will enhance partnership between Pima Community College and
employers to meet labor market needs, provide access to skilled jobs
in high-growth areas that catalyze economic resilience.
Employers reduce their hiring risk by partnering with PCC on
programs like our Pima FastTrack that introduce learners to a new
career path where they can develop entry-level skill sets.
Pima FastTrack completers enter with a better understanding of
the industry they are entering and with more skills than the
traditional new hire.
On December 9, the college held its first data summit. Over 60
faculty, staff, administrators attended this summit to engage in data
conversations aligned with the student experience.
The equity and retention team of Amanda Abens, Jacqie Allen,
Oslen M (phonetic), Hilda Ladner, and Jeff Thies planned the event as
part of an overall plan to bring awareness to equitable student
outcomes, not just for the classroom, by the way, but for all
services across the college.
The event targeted 18 spanning the entire student experience at
the college. The goal was to provide the teams the opportunity to
expand their knowledge of data, availability, and data
disaggregation, discuss the challenges and successes with other
teams, and take next steps in creation or continuous improvement in
support of student retention. We plan on having another data summit
this spring.
Finally, Aurora Sardina is an Iraq veteran, mother, Latina,
Tohono O'odham member, and now a security cybersecurity expert as a
recent graduate from PCC with her AAS in cybersecurity. After years
of working in the service sector after an honorable discharge from
the military, Aurora had been looking for a career that would offer
job security, stability, and intellectual stimulation when she
enrolled in Pima in 2018.
After many years of not utilizing it, she finally used her
post-9/11 GI Bill toward her higher education. While self-doubt can
emerge, she says, Hey, we won't know until we try.
So that's what it's all about. For now, Aurora is savoring her
achievement of graduating from Pima and setting an example for her
teenage children. As a first-generation college graduate, she wants
to see their potential and pursue their dreams. She's successfully
transferred to the University of Arizona where she will pursue a
Bachelor's degree in cyber operations with an emphasis on defense and
forensics. Aurora wants to join the fight to stop child sex
trafficking. Eventually her goal is to serve the nation once again
by joining the Department of Defense.
Thank you. This concludes my report.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Jim.
Section 6, information items, our first is a financial report.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, you skipped my report.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: You skipped 5.3.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I apologize.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: That's okay.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: So 5.3, the chancellor's report.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Well, Happy New Year, everybody. I know we
haven't started the new term yet, but many folks are just returning,
especially our faculty. We will be welcoming them back very soon
here with courses starting I believe on the 19th.
So congratulations, Board Member Riel, for becoming the chair
person for the board. Greg, Board Member Taylor, congratulations
also on your election. And I also want to welcome Board Member
McLean, Dr. McLean --
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Thank you.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: -- for being appointed to the board.
I thought I'd just share just some high-level things for you this
time around. So going back to the question that you asked earlier,
Board Member Taylor, about kind of the measurement system, so I'm
going to talk really high level at the moment.
The federal government uses IPEDS, Institutional Postsecondary
Education, I forget what the D stands for off the top of my head.
But that is used for first-time full-time students. That's the group
that we are tracking through these different momentum points,
different measures. So usually we are looking at persistence,
retention, completion, and access. So those are kind of like the big
four, if you will.
But the challenge with IPEDS, it's only looking at first-time
full-time students. So what Pima has done, along with a number of
other community colleges across the country, as well as the other
nine districts in the State of Arizona, we have voluntarily joined a
consortium that uses the VFA, Voluntary Framework for Accountability.
It's a more holistic view of the mission of community colleges.
We don't just serve first-time full-time students. We serve a
lot more students than that. It also takes into account our
developmental education pieces as well as our workforce pieces, so
it's more holistic.
What happens in our world, we will speak certain things and you
may be thinking one thing and we are talking something else. I just
want to -- maybe sometimes just reminding us, are you talking from
the VFA or from IPEDS? We typically will be talking from a VFA
framework just because it's a little more comprehensive.
Let me just touch on some metrics that we use in that measurement
system. We look at fall to next term, and I will share with you the
data from Pima, just so you have a context for this. So fall to next
term persistence rates is what we look at.
At Pima, we, for 2019, essentially we have closed the equity gaps
from all the different demographic groups that we have at the
college. Whether we are looking at our Hispanic Latino students, our
African American Black students, our Native American students, and
our White students and our Asian students, you're seeing that we are
doing pretty well. Where our gap lies is in the gender piece, when
it comes to persistence, females outpacing males.
Then it allows us to have comparisons to the other colleges, as
well. So Pima does pretty well compared to the other Arizona
colleges.
We also refer to persistence rates fall to fall. So it gets
confusing, right, when you start to get into again that looks very
strong for Pima Community College across those demographics I
mentioned. Also notable, the gender gap.
Then we look at AGEC, so that's unique to State of Arizona, and
if you look at our completion rates for AGEC, we are pretty much from
the equity standpoint in line across those demographic areas. Again,
the real gap is in the female to male gap, in that area.
Now, the number is the issue. We are at 23% in terms of
completion. We've got to get that number up. We need to set
appropriate goal around that. So you'll hear us talking more about
that piece as we go forward.
But where we really fall short is on the transfer and on the
completion side. So that's where a lot of the work is. When the
provost was talking, she didn't show you these metrics. She was
talking about the activities we are engaging in to help us try to
improve those things.
So what we will do in the future is better align those activities
with the actual measurement system that we have, and then we can show
you what our benchmark is compared to other institutions.
I think that's what you're asking for.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: That's exactly what I was asking for. The
only thing I would add is also the goal, is that this percent -- that
could be a one-year or three-year goal or whatever it is, five-year
goal. I'd just love to see this is where we like it to be in X
amount of time.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: And she, for example, has set a very
ambitious goal. It's aligned to the state's goal of 60%, so we have
harmonized that with Pima County and called is 60%, 60% completion of
either a certificate or degree that has value in the marketplace for
adults 25 to 64, I believe it is.
So that's the overarching piece, and then the provost has set a
completion goal of doubling our completions. So we are probably
around, I want to say about 3,800 a year-ish. We want to get to
about 6,000. Then doubling per the different key demographics.
That's the overarching piece that she's working from, and she just
talked about the activities. So I want to help clarify that.
Also, we are looking at getting better at -- these are lag
measures that I'm talking about, that's what these reports reflect,
these lag measures. We are trying to do a better job around the lead
measures so that we get more quicker feedback on how we are
performing so that we can address intervention strategies more
quickly.
For example, the provost is looking at ABC or WDF rates. We know
where you are, and as you know, Board Member Riel, that you're going
to know if a student is going to, probably very early on, whether
they are going to be on track for a certain grade. Can we intervene
sooner as opposed to waiting until they get to the end of the term?
It's like, oh, now here you are.
By that time, it may be too late and now you're on probation with
financial aid, that risk of losing your financial aid, as opposed to
could we have intervened at that moment you gave that first
assessment and saw this person isn't tracking very well, let's get
some help in there.
Those are the things we are working on to strengthen. That's one
side.
The other side is relevancy of our programs. So there may not be
clear measurements about that. That's where you see are we
integrating the virtual reality and some of these newest technologies
as enhancements that will help improve these measures. So that's
what we are trying to get a better handle on.
Again, I think I understand what you are asking, and so we can do
a better job of translation around the presentations.
Now, with David Arellano's presentation, he actually has a very
voluminous, what we call our SEMP plans, Strategic Enrollment
Management Plan. That sets goals by high schools, so we have
identified the goals we think we should be able to optimize in terms
of enrollments by high school, which rolls up into an overall
enrollment goal, if you will.
So the detail is there, if you want to see that, or we can show
you the high-level number, and that way you kind of see what we are
trying to aim for.
I will put that all in a larger context, and that is I highly
encourage you, if you haven't read The Great Upheaval, I think we got
you all copies. That's where the puck is going for higher education,
and we have to not lose sight of that reality, right, that higher
education is being -- we are in the process of being disrupted. It's
hard to feel it completely, but you know something isn't right.
So the competition is fierce. We are losing market share, not
just Pima, but to the Courseras, these are the online providers.
They are taking more and more market share.
If you look at ASU, as an example, I think you can see that,
their enrollment growths are explosive in the online space. The U of
A is also moving into that space. We have to be in that space. But
we have to be in that space with a competitive product, if you will,
that students want to take -- that's one important piece, this
technological piece.
But the demographics, the low fertility rates are hitting this
community. We had the state's demographer come and do a presentation
at the college. State of Arizona is not looking good, and Pima
County especially is not looking good.
We don't look like the pyramid. We look more like a boa
constrictor. That's going to affect enrollments. We have to just
understand that's going to affect enrollments. We won't be able to
grow back to a certain size, but can we do a better job of optimizing
what is already in the community. 43% college-going rate, I think
there is room to expand that. That's why the emphasis on dual
enrollment.
But what we need to do is try to get more of those students to
also transfer after they are finished. So we're going to do a summer
bridge program with Sunnyside, and if goes well, then we want to
scale that to other schools. Those are just examples. But I
encourage you to read The Great Upheaval.
Now, since I think you are going to be our state rep, the state's
going to be doing a statewide conference for the board. I believe
they are going to bring in Scott Van Pelt to talk about The Great
Upheaval but also the gentleman from the National Student
Clearinghouse to talk about those demographics and the program areas
that are of interest.
Going back to the program, I know you asked a question about
that. We do know which programs are starting to attract students, so
a lot of our center of excellence areas, looks like that's starting
to attract those learners. Our male numbers are going up, and I
suspect they track with those centers of excellence pieces. The two
areas where we have had the most drops in enrollment have been with
our male students and with our White population. We are not
performing to the numbers in the community. So just know that both
of those are powering back up.
With that said, let me just hit two other pieces and then close.
I do a lot of work in the community, as you know. I mean, and so I
want to say to the faculty and staff and administration and to you as
a board, that award is a reflection that Pima has more things going
right for it than not.
If you want to find something that's not working, you will find
it. But if you want to find the things that are working, that's how
Emily gets that recognition. That's how I've gotten this
recognition. That's how the college has been recognized by Harvard.
That's why Forbes is recognized -- we can't discount those things.
Those are real.
That doesn't mean that everybody agrees, because they don't. I
don't want to sugar-coat that. But I don't want us to lose sight of
that. I want to thank everybody because of all of what we have done
together that I get to be the one standing up in front of the
community to accept the Man of the Year award. That would not happen
without each and every one of our great employees.
And then I look forward to our retreat next week. I think that's
an opportunity for us to really reset. I think I would look at this
year as the year of reset, reset things with our relationship with
the board, the board and myself, my team, and get really centered and
grounded and stay focused, because the disruption is such that we
can't afford not to be together. Otherwise we are not going to
weather that storm.
So that's my report, Madam Chair.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: So a question for the information items.
Do we go through each one of them?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: No. So for information items, we just note
that -- typically there is actually a little statement about that,
but essentially they are just background information that was
provided to the board.
If a board member has a really brief kind of minor question, we
can deal with it, but it's more it provides some background
information and it might spark your thoughts on a future, more
in-depth agenda item, but we don't usually discuss them.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Then moving on to the consent agenda.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, I move we approve the consent
agenda as presented.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any comments? I have a point of privilege,
another question.
So the three of us weren't part of the executive meeting or the
regular meeting last time. So, I mean, when we vote to approve this,
we're assuming that none of us were there, so we are just saying
since everybody else is okay with those minutes that it's good.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I have a question, though.
On the consent agenda, you know, we had the special session, and
the data that was presented wasn't as complete as I would have liked
it. But this is not the time then to go back at that; is that
correct?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Which item are you referring to?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I was referring to, was it Nic Richmond who
presented the data on the faculty and the adjunct faculty was, like,
it was a report on how well they accepted the survey...
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: So you're talking about the minutes and the
capturing of her report?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Right.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: So the question is did the minutes capture
her report accurately, not whether you agreed with her report.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I think that's what you're referring to,
right?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Right.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Right. So correct me if I'm not
interpreting this correctly, but the other issue would be if the
board would like further discussion about that or to bring it back or
detail, et cetera, we can do that, that's a separate question from
whether the minutes --
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: -- are a fair summation of what happened at
that meeting. So if you do want further conversation about that
topic, then that would be a perfectly appropriate thing to request
when we get to the section future agenda items.
I guess the other thing I was going to say just assure our new
board chair about the accuracy of minutes, at least with respect to
the regular meeting, remember they are recorded and posted. So if
there were really a question about what happened at a meeting in
addition to the minutes, there is a full recording both audio and
video of everything that happened.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: So there is a motion and a second to accept
the consent agenda. All in favor say aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any opposed?
Moving on to item 8, action item, the board is going to discuss
and give direction regarding the format for upcoming board meetings.
So just to start off, I would like to also ask a question. When
we were talking about this in December, Greg and I were talking and
Greg said, you know, he was okay with them being public meetings
unless there was specific information that we weren't aware of that
would make it, you know, unreasonable to have them in public.
So, I mean, that's where we should start off, I would say, is
what are the reasons -- I mean, there are many reasons to have them
public and open to all our constituents and all of our employee
groups and students, et cetera. But what are the reasons why we
might not be aware of why we should not have them public?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: By "public" you mean the option to come in
person? I just want to make sure I'm following what you're saying.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Maybe I can start us out with, so the board
had made a decision, and the board had never voted to change that
decision. So as your chancellor, it's not my place to decide
something that was decided by the board.
So I just want to put that out there. Because the board hadn't
come together in this environment again to build off of prior board
decisions, then that's why we are where we are now.
With that said, what we did was we used the data coming out of
the Pima County Health Department. They have their metrics that they
look at in terms of COVID rates. Then they use a red, a yellow,
green to talk about the different levels. So we track that to
determine our comfort level with -- the board did. We just
presented, here's where things are.
And they made the decision to -- the board meetings are always
open. The difference is open in what way, right? So they have not
been closed. I want us to be careful about our terminology. It's
just we didn't open this for people to come into this room.
So one of the big metrics, going back to the metrics, was the
hospital bed utilization rates. So if the beds were all full, well,
that means that other people can't access that care. So that was an
important metric in all of this.
So with that said, I think now we provided some of the updated
data here about where those metrics are. Then I know now there is
the RSV that's become an issue and the flu has been an issue. But
again, with the data here, I think that puts you in a position to
decide what you think is best going forward
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, I will make a motion, for
discussion purposes, I would move that beginning with our next
meeting that all of our meetings are in person, meaning that the
public can come into this room and watch and participate in the
meetings live.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I second.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: And maybe this is potentially a friendly
amendment, but for me, it's important from an accessibility
standpoint, because I completely agree with you, people should be
allowed in this room to come in person, but I think whether it's our
students or constituents also lead busy lives, so I think having the
option to do a public comment or to attend via Zoom in addition to
having the option to come here in person is important because it
increases the number of individuals that can potentially participate.
I remember watching my kids' school board meetings in the middle
of dinner in the height of COVID. I definitely couldn't have come
down there in person even if I wanted to.
So if you're amenable to it, and from the second, I would agree
that we should reopen this room for the public to be able to attend,
but I would offer a friendly amendment to retain the Zoom option if
someone prefers that for whatever reason.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, before I accept that friendly
amendment, I'd like to ask staff if that were to occur, are we going
to have to throw more resources at the meeting, or are we prepared to
do that without additional costs?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I'd have to go back and ask the team, but I
think generally we were moving in the direction of being able to do
what Board Member Taylor was talking about.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Hybrid meetings.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Hybrid meetings, yes. If you want to know
what it costs us to do that and is there going to be additional
costs, we certainly can bring that to the board.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Okay. With that, I will accept the friendly
amendment with my motion and the second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Do we do friendly amendments here?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yeah, so --
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: It's a new era. Friendly amendments.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So it is a regular practice, has been a
regular practice of the Pima College Governing Board and it is
reflected in the bylaws.
If someone makes a motion and another board member wants to offer
a friendly amendment, then it's up to the person who made the
original motion, they can decide, yep, I accept that. If they accept
that, then that's the motion on the floor. If they don't accept it,
then it's a request to amend, and then the board would have to vote,
and if the majority votes in favor of it, now you have a new motion,
but we have allowed for friendly amendments.
One other quick thing, if there is other information you would
like about the public health related status at any point, so the
college, as the pandemic and public health situation picked up, the
college created -- we have a task force, the pandemic advisory
committee. It has representation from, you know, faculty and
administrators who have a background in healthcare, has facilities
who have an environmental health safety background, legal. It's a
multi-disciplinary group.
We look at that data on a regular basis, and as the chancellor is
indicating, we look at leaders, what's the testing positive rate,
what's the trends in neighboring states, we look at all of that and
the group makes recommendations to the rest of the college about are
there ways in which we should monitor operations in order to minimize
the risks.
There is a group that looks at that on a regular basis, and I'm
sure would be -- I'm going to volunteer that I'm part of the group.
Certainly as the board at any time wants any additional data or
particular aspects you're interested in, we have the ability to
provide that information.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: One more question, does the person who
seconded that also, does he or she also have to agree to the friendly
amendment, or are we good to vote?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: No, the practice has always been if the
person who made the original motion accepts it as a friendly
amendment, the motion is now amended.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. I just have one more question. It's
not directly related but it's close. When last semester, in I think
it was October, there was a board meeting on the 9th or the 12th, and
then there was a public, I'm not sure if everybody was invited but
there were people here to talk about the HLC report, and my question
was was that put to a vote at that time to have it be open?
Because, I mean, not open, but public participation here. My
question is I know that we are voting on it this time, but is this
always the case that items like this actually need to be voted upon?
Or is it another thing that the board, if we all agreed, we don't
need to take time here to do?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Generally the board can't take action except
in an open-notice meeting, and part of what may have, I don't know
what to call it, created some level of confusion, the level of
remoteness, virtualness, if those are words, that we used at meetings
did vary over times during the time, and that was being in
consultation with the board of, well, there is a new spike, what do
you want to do about that? Or things seem to be returning back to
normal, what do you want to do about that?
There was ongoing consultation between the chancellor and the
staff that organized board meetings and the board at board meetings
about what do you want to do.
The other thing that the board can do is per the bylaws,
organizing the work of the board is primarily the responsibility of
the chair in consultation with the chancellor. So the other thing
the board can do and has for certain types of situations said, well,
we'll let the chair and the chancellor figure out the logistics for a
particular board meeting.
So you could decide whether to do that or not. The other
question would be whether you want to build into that motion some
level of flexibility that if -- so if there were certain thresholds
met, that that would trigger a different type of board meeting or
delegate to someone the authority to make those decisions.
You also don't have to make that decision tonight either. We are
not in the middle of -- you may decide we are not in a situation
where we need to make that decision tonight and we could do that at a
subsequent board meeting.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, I don't think we are at that
point. I think we ought to let the people in, and then if these
issues become more problematic, then we come back to the table and we
talk about how we want to make that decision.
So I call for the question.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Can I ask just a clarifying question from a
staff question? Does your motion include any element of whether we
should have some spacing element built into the seating plan? In
other words, we should think about how much the capacity of the room
is for people? Do you want to do that?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Do you want me to answer? My position is we
make recommendations to the people, recommend social distancing,
recommend wearing a mask, details like that worked out between the
chair and the chancellor.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: The chair and the chancellor? I'm sorry,
is that what you said?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Yes.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I disagree with that. And I'm going to
tell you why.
In the past, the chair and the chancellor were the only ones who
communicated and voted and did things without letting the entire
board know. If we are a board, then we should all participate, okay?
It makes it a lot easier instead of -- you know, one of the rules of
HLC is are you autonomous to make decisions in the best interest of
the college? Well, when you have different agendas, that may not be
the case. I don't want to see us get into that again.
So please consider that.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I do think I read that somewhere that it
needs to be just a board decision for agenda items and things like
that also, not just between the chair and the vice-chair and the
chancellor.
Yeah, we will definitely reach out to all of us. We will all be
paying attention.
So can I call for -- you called for the vote. Are we done
discussing?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Is what you just said in the motion? I'm
losing track of what is in the...
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: No, it's not in the motion.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Did you just call for a vote just now?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I did.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I'm just clarifying what exactly are we
voting on.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Perhaps Mr. McLean would restate the motion.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I will try. That we have our meetings in
person, open to the public, but also allow for people outside of the
room to participate in the remarks from the public.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Then there was the bit of socially
distancing, being self-aware, wearing a mask, that sort of thing,
offer those, not requirements, but just reminders to the public?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: If I might offer, even though I'm not a
board member, a friendly amendment. Perhaps one way to phrase that
is we would recommend the same health protection measures that the
Pima County Health Department recommends, so recommendations, not
requirements.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I don't think I'm ready to go that far,
because they make a decision and we automatically have to agree to
it?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: What I was trying to do to simplify it, but
I perhaps haven't done that, would be to say that the recommendation
from the board to the public about the meeting would mirror what the
Pima County Health Department does.
So if the Pima County Health Department recommends that there
should be social distancing at meetings, we would recommend that too.
If they recommend people wear a mask or if they're not feeling well
wear a mask, we would mirror that recommendation.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Not require it. Just our recommendations
would match whatever the county health department recommends, I think
is what we're talking about.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: That's what I was trying to suggest as a way
to simplify the concept. But if you don't like that, then that's
entirely up to you. Obviously you're the author of the motion.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I'm happy with the motion and the amendment.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: All in favor say aye?
(Ayes.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any opposed?
Okay. Moving on to No. 9, request for future agenda items.
I did mention earlier, because I had read it in that little
splurb, so that's why I thought that was the time for me to say that,
but I would like for the board to look at board policy 1.25, and
that's basically, used to be called Meet and Confer, and it had to do
a lot with different work groups feeling like they -- not feeling,
actually involved in the whole process.
The reason I'm bringing this up is I don't ever remember having
300+, 500+, whatever it was, complaints about pay raises before. And
I do agree that this time it was because the whole pay structure got
changed in a lot of the different areas.
But I think that the more people involved in these class and comp
decisions means more eyes, more brains looking at it, and that would,
you know, ameliorate the situation and maybe we'd have fewer
disgruntled people at the very end.
Anyway, if there is any way that we could maybe even have it in a
study session or talk about it before we actually vote on it, you
know, just to bring people up to date and maybe have, you know, David
Bea come in here and people from the different, people who are
contributing to AERC, I think that's the letters, the different
groups that were also participating in that so they could maybe give
us, you know, what worked and what needs to be improved.
Thank you.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Do you need a second for that, or --
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So this is just board members suggesting.
This is a topic I would like at a future board meeting, and then, as
the chair, vice-chair, chancellor, staff figure out a meeting
schedule and organizing, then we will take those topics and figure
out how to schedule them and get further input from the board.
This is purely a this is a topic I would like in a future meeting
section of the meeting.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So I have some. I would like to add to
revisit the chancellor's goals, review our bylaws, specifically BP
105, BP 106. Also general counsel representation for the board. I'd
also like to have a review of the hotels' repurposing. Legal fee for
board members. The Trane project and cost. I think I covered
delegation of authority to the chancellor. Bylaw No. 5, Article V.
Then the other part is how information is collected on
enrollment, because one of the things that the chancellor mentioned
was the fact that with different programs, you know, they have come
up with a system. And, you know, I'm under the impression that when
you count enrollment or FTSEs, you know, some of the programs are
small, like the general ed, and how do you really count those? How
can those really be an enrollment? How is that done?
I think for all of us it would be really beneficial for us to
know exactly how the data is being collected and what's being
counted.
I'd like to know what the graduation rates are.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Along with the enrollment too I would like
to -- I don't know if this is the right way to say it or put it, but
when we see graphs, I would like to -- I would like them to be more
explanatory. I don't want to have a title of graph being an
enrollment trend and then a bunch of numbers and that's all we know.
I mean, we can guess if it's FTSE or if it's head count based on a
size of a number, but people who aren't familiar with those different
ways we talk about enrollment, it could be completely misleading if
we don't know what they are.
I'd like to have, especially on, you know, enrollment numbers, I
think that's something that needs to be clear and very well defined.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I have one more, I'm sorry, that I missed.
I would like to have a special session on the board considering
offering Bachelor degrees and science degrees.
You know, if we want increase enrollment, we want to continue it,
there are some programs I believe and the faculty could be more
beneficial in helping us. I know it's not going to happen
immediately, but we should really consider those, because it's a lot
cheaper to have it at Pima. Plus we would have the retention that we
need and people would go through the program.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any others? Okay. Well, thank you so
much. Item 10, adjournment.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I move we adjourn.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: All in favor?
(Ayes.)
(Adjournment.)
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