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January 30, 2023 Special Board Meeting, Morning Session...
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I'm calling this special meeting, board
orientation, to order. Our first presentation is by Jeff Silvyn,
general counsel, on board governance.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Good morning. So we're actually covering a
pretty wide group of topics, and I just put them under the general
heading of board governance because that sort of fits all of it.
So I do have sort of a summary PowerPoint. There are reference
materials in the binders, which you can look at as we go through it
or take notes if that's helpful, or just save them for later as
reference materials. If there are other topics you'd like more
information on, we can plan a subsequent session. We can also get
you more materials. You can also build the binder as a reference
tool during the orientation process.
So I was going to cover a number of topics related to board
governance. If, at any time, you have a question, stop me. The
whole idea is to help you all get more familiar with kind of how
things work. It's a lot of information today, so whatever we can do
to make it easier to digest, please let us know.
One thing I thought I would just mention really quickly, for
whatever it's worth, so I have represented boards in different
capacities, both as the outside lawyer and a couple times now as
being a lawyer on the regular staff of the organization. So I have
that experience.
The other thing is I have served on some boards and been through
a lot of board training as part of that process and then have gone
through training to train boards. So I have done some of that.
Some of the topics we are going to talk about or ideas I'm going
to share with you are not specific to the Pima College Governing
Board. They are just kind of generally accepted standards of board
governance. If you go to other programs, you likely will hear them.
They're really the same standards that apply, whether it's a public
body like this or to a nonprofit or even a for-profit corporation.
That's really the first topic we are going to talk about is
fiduciary duty. So board members are generally considered
fiduciaries. In some states that's a matter of actually statutory
law, but in all states it's pretty much part of case law. So judges
have decided, based on the legal traditions of our country, that
board members are fiduciaries.
Well, what does that mean? A fiduciary is someone who acts on
behalf of another without regard to their own interest. So board
members are charged to make decisions in the best interests of
another.
In this case, one thing to think about, it's not just for others
like the current people at Pima -- students, employees, community
members -- it's really thinking about how to protect the institution
so that it can provide the same services in the future. So not only
thinking about the best interests of the institution and those it
serves today but those it's going to serve tomorrow.
If you were to look at articles or cases about the elements of
fiduciary duty, there are basically three elements. I put an article
in your materials from AGB. It's about 15, 16 pages long. So I
don't expect you to look at it today. The three main topics it
covers are these. These are really consistently how the fiduciary
duty is broken down.
There is the duty of loyalty. And that's to pursue the best
interests of the college rather than personal or other
considerations. In other words, you owe your allegiance to the good
of the institution.
You'll see how these tie together. So, for example, later we
will talk about conflict of interest. That's directly related to
duty of loyalty. I can't consider my own personal gain or family
member interests. I consider the institution.
Duty of care. That's using reasonable due diligence, care, and
skill to make decisions in the best interests of the college. In
other words, it means trying to make sure you have done your homework
before making a decision. It does not mean you have to be an expert
in everything. That's not what's expected.
So it's reasonable care. There is mindfulness to the fact that
you're all essentially community members who have volunteered your
time. That's why you have full-time staff and we have outside
consultants so you can get the benefit of expertise, ask those
critical questions, and then make an informed decision. As long as
you are doing all of that, you will generally satisfy the duty of
care.
The duty of obedience is meaning that decisions that the board
makes are supposed to be in furtherance of the college's mission and
that the board is acting and the institution are acting in compliance
with whatever the applicable standards are. An institution like
Pima, we have a lot of those. There's federal law, there's state
law, there's accreditation standards. There is a lot of standards we
are expected to follow. As elected officials, there are also
specific standards that apply to public offices. We will talk about
that a little bit more in detail later.
Just a couple of things I thought I would mention to kind of
illustrate these ideas. So again, the overarching theme is what's in
the best interests of the organization. So Pima, of course, that
means we have students, we have employees, we have community members.
And community members also of course expands a lot of different
interests. There is businesses, there's healthcare, there's people
who are just passionate about a particular aspect at Pima. They are
all part of that community.
The real challenge for the board and really the administration
also is how do you balance all of those to try and make sure you are
making a decision that's in the best interests of all. I guess one
thing I'd share something I have noticed is different groups will
advocate a particular perspective to the board, and sometimes it's
not always -- what they are advocating may not always be in the best
interest of the organization. It's in the interest of a particular
group, and sometimes there is alignment and sometimes they are not
totally aligned.
So a couple of examples I thought I would mention about that.
For example, there was a Faculty Senate session where they were
talking about workplace conditions and how important Faculty Senate
workplace conditions are to the student experience. That is
certainly true. If the faculty don't have good working conditions,
it certainly can have a negative influence on student experience.
Of course we could say, well, what about the reverse, right?
What good is for students presumably is also in the best interests of
the organization? But why I mention that is those two don't always
exactly align or not everything that seems to be in the best
interests of a certain group of employees or students is actually in
the best interests of the collective.
So specifically, for example, I started in Pima in 2013, and back
then we didn't have consistent start times for classes. So that
meant classes started at lots of different times during the morning,
right. One class starts at 8:00, another one starts at 8:15. There
was a lot of variation in classes.
That happened in large part because faculty and the
administration related to that allowed a lot of autonomy about
setting schedules. So people set schedules that worked for them.
Well, you think about that -- that was great for the employees. Not
so good for students. Because if you think about if you are a
student and I don't have consistent start times, it's hard to make
sure I can build a schedule where I can actually get from one class
to another when I need to. So something that seems like it was in
the best interests of employees wasn't really in the best interests
of students.
Another example would be we have many students who work part
time, have family commitments, et cetera. Maybe they have trouble
making some of the support hours during the week and they really
spend most of the weekends doing their classwork. Well, from that
perspective, having Pima faculty and tutors and support staff
available all through the weekend when it's convenient for the
students would be in the best interests of the students. That may be
sort of true, but it doesn't necessarily align very well with the
real-life situation of most of our employees and faculty.
So even though a particular idea might be advocated from a
particular perspective and the interest is important, like how do we
get student support at the times they need, or how do we set up
schedules and other working conditions that are conducive to worklife
balance for employees? Particular positions are not necessarily in
the best interests of everyone. So those often end up in conflict.
And then we have that issue of, okay, how do we balance all of
that to make sure that we are coming up with this solution that will
work for the broadest number of people possible?
That's kind of related to this concept of fiduciary duty.
Another aspect I wanted to mention with respect to the duty of
obedience that can be challenging at times is sometimes the rules
that apply may not align with your personal views or what you think
is right under the circumstances. Then there is a choice to be made.
So I will give you an example of that.
That happens to lawyers. There are certain rules of conduct we
are supposed to operate under, and sometimes they don't align with
your personal values. That happened to me in a situation where I
knew information about a client that for a variety of reasons seemed
like it would be a good idea to reveal, but under the rules I clearly
could not do that, even though it kind of seemed like the ethically
correct thing to do was to reveal the information.
I talked to someone who was in Arizona, sort of a prominent
authority on ethics rules. He said, that's easy. You can't say
anything. Those rules, absolutely no.
So I had a choice to make. There's my thought of what I thought
was ethically right, and there's what was the right rules under the
profession I chose, professional rules. So you may find yourself in
that same situation where a rule of whether it's the bylaws or
accreditation standard or some other rule may not seem to align with
what you think is the right thing to do, but if you follow the
standards expected of board members as fiduciaries, that's the
choice.
So just something to keep in mind. It may not happen to you, but
you may find yourself in that situation.
The last thing I wanted to mention, it's just sort of
encapsulating this idea, I think about board members in this way, and
maybe it's helpful for you, really the ultimately the board is the
guardian of mission. How do we make decisions at Pima that best
further the mission of the college? Just from a staff perspective,
let me share why that's really helpful.
When you work at Pima every day, you get caught up in day-to-day
things. There is always the urgent thing that has to be dealt with
at the moment. That makes it hard for people, employees at Pima, to
often stay totally focused on mission and that bigger picture,
because there is always demands on you every day. It's really
helpful having a board meeting once a month where the board can help
us all be grounded again, and okay, let's focus on the mission and
how do these decisions support the mission.
So at least from the staff and I guess student side, the board is
in a really unique and important position to help on a regular basis,
asking those questions about, well, how does this advance the
mission? How will we know it's advancing the mission? That's really
helpful. It's very easy, like I said for those of us in the
day-to-day, to get involved.
I'd also say that's part of why there's this division of
responsibilities that the board is responsible for the big picture,
those high-level things, and staff is responsible for the day-to-day,
because whenever there are problems or issues, it's kind of a natural
tendency you want to solve them. But when you solve them, then it's
easy to get involved in the day-to-day and the weeds as opposed to
staying focused on big picture, are we advancing the mission, and
like I said, that's where the board plays that really critical role
and helps all of us be reminded about that.
Any questions about all of that? Am I going too fast? Okay.
Okay.
Powers and duties of community colleges. So these are not all of
them, but these are the primary ones. What this is linked to, and I
printed these materials, they are in your notebooks, these are the
two main statutes that lay out the powers and authorities of
community college governing boards.
Just a little context, and we can walk through them just a little
bit, ARS stands for Arizona Revised Statutes, that's what we call the
body of laws passed by our legislature, Title 15 is the section of
the ARS that has all the education-related codes, and the 1400 series
is pretty much community colleges. So there is kind of a structure
to the numbering system.
So just when you see a citation ARS with some number, dash,
another number, that's what it is. The first number is the section
or title, and then the larger-number series afterwards is the
specific section of the statutory code.
So in the statutes related to community colleges, 15-1444 and 45
are the two main laws that lay out the specific responsibilities and
authorities of community college governing boards. Both of them have
some that are mandatory, boards "shall" do certain things. That's
mandatory language, a requirement. They also have sections that talk
about what boards "may" do. So it's an authority the board has. It
may or may not choose to exercise that authority.
They are in your materials, so if you want to follow along or I
could figure out how to open the link if that's easier and put them
up on the screen, do you have a preference?
So if you flip, there is tab behind a blue page that says powers
and duties of community college boards. Oh, sorry, I guess mine has
colored tabs and yours don't. Sorry about that. So it's under the
tab that says powers and duties of community college governing
boards.
So the first one is 15-1444, general powers and duties of
district boards. So you'll see there is a whole list. The first
list are things that boards have to do. So the first one, you have
to maintain a community college for at least eight months per year.
Of course what's interesting is it doesn't actually tell you what
that means. What does it mean to maintain a community college for
eight months per year? It's not really defined anywhere. Generally
accepted, like we do, is we have two academic semesters. We offer
classes for at least eight months a year. Presumably that satisfies
that requirement.
Adopt policies in a public forum to offer programs meeting the
educational needs of the population we serve. Again, obviously key
function of the board. You set policy at the college. It doesn't
tell you anything about what specific policies the board has to
adopt. Just that it is the responsibility of the board to establish
that policy framework.
Enforce the course of study. So one of the things you will see
from time to time, the administration will come to the board with
this is a program that the college would like to offer, and this is
the degree or certificate or whatever credential is associated with
it. That will be presented to the board. You will approve them or
not, depending on whether you're satisfied it's appropriate. That
falls directly into that third category.
Visit each community college under its jurisdiction and examine
the management conditions and needs. So that's a little bit
interesting, because Pima College is a college. This sounds like
it's referring to multiple colleges. There is at least one district
in Arizona where they are technically considered to have multiple
colleges, that's Maricopa, because each of their colleges is
separately accredited.
So from an education regulatory standpoint, Rio Salado and South
Mountain, et cetera, those are separate educational entities. At
Pima, we have one regional accreditation. I just mention that so you
sort of understand why that language is there. There are some
districts that have multiple colleges. Pima only have one. We are
one. Multiple campuses but considered one college.
Again, it's interesting, you won't find anything that really
tells you specifically what it means to do those things. Those, at
Pima at least, are accomplished clearly through board meetings where
the board asks for information about specific topics, sets the goals,
looks at metrics on how the college is making progress on those
goals, all of those would certainly fit within the parameters of this
requirement.
Exclude from community colleges certain publications that are of
a septarian, partisan, or denominational character used as textbooks.
What's interesting about that is of course we do have partisan,
religious, et cetera, other materials that are part of course
materials, but they are not the textbook for any particular course.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Do we have to approve textbook adoption?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: No. I mean, we could certainly provide
information about it. It's not required. So this is also, there is
an interesting tension here between some regulatory requirements and
a long-standing principle of academic freedom.
Faculty have a lot of autonomy as a group to pick their
materials. They meet, departments meet to discuss what materials to
use. They are generally not specifically approved by the board.
We could certainly provide information. If you think about that,
that would be quite a gargantuan task to actually have to approve
every specific publication that the college uses.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: So systematically then we are not doing
this?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: You're not doing what? Excluding the
materials?
So another thing to think about is a lot of functions at Pima,
the board sets policies, so we have criteria about what materials get
used, and then administration, and in this case working with faculty,
figure out how to implement that, have more detailed requirements.
So one thing the board could do to have greater assurance of that
is we could provide information so you see what the criteria are and
how the materials are selected and make sure that that meets with
what the board thinks is appropriate.
Like I said, it's not realistic for the board to approve every
single material used in every classroom.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Jeff, a question, this is just theoretical,
but so if someone, let's say a student or somebody had an issue with
one of the textbooks that was being used, for whatever reason they
thought it was bad for, does that theoretically come to the board or
does it go through that process you were just talking about?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So that would generally go through some sort
of request or complaint process at the college. That would be
handled initially by faculty and then potentially by department
chair, dean, et cetera.
So the board is required to basically employ appropriate
personnel to run the institution. Certain employees can have
multi-year contracts, but there is only a limited group that can.
Generally employees at Pima, if they have an employment contract,
it's one year.
The board sets the salaries for the college. And you will see of
course the board voted on the class and comp system. The board, as
part of the budgeting process, will approve the overall salary budget
and obviously there is a system in place to administer that.
The board has the authority to remove employees if it thinks
that's the appropriate thing to do. The board has the authority and
responsibility to award degrees, certificates, diplomas, et cetera.
So it's interesting. This is in the "shall" section, but it's
actually discretionary, the college "may" have a police force.
Obviously we currently do.
The board has the authority to purchase, sell, and lease real
property. There is also some insurance obligations. Those will get
shared with the board every year. Part of both the budget and the
contract approval process, you will see different types of insurance
agreements brought to the board for approval.
Then there are a variety of discretionary powers the board has.
Some of those, as you will see, relate to the receipt of gifts that
are given to the college and managed for the benefit of the college.
As I mentioned before, leasing real property, so we have the
authority, the board has the authority, to both lease property,
meaning we could be the tenant or we could be the landlord, and we do
both of those.
The college, through the board, has the authority to sue and be
sued. There are certain immunities for board members, and we will
talk about that a little bit later. There is also some level of
immunities for the college, depending on what actions type of
governmental function we are talking about.
The board has the authority to enter contracts. Some of that
authority has been delegated to the chancellor. Some of that is
reserved to the board. That's reflected in one of the board policies
that talks about different types of contracts and dollar amounts.
And that's changed over time.
The board has the authority to build things and repair the
property under the ownership of the college. The board can enter
agreements essentially with other districts to set standards and
jointly purchase goods and services. We do that in many areas. It's
just more efficient. We get better purchasing power. There is a lot
of reasons why it's just more efficient to do it that way.
Employee benefit plans is another discretionary power, so we
don't have to offer benefit plans. Obviously there is very
compelling reasons to do so, and we have a variety of benefits that
are approved by the board.
There is some general authority about accepting gifts. This is
another one of those. So we can accept gifts, grants, et cetera, and
there are board policies about each of those topics with sort of
specific procedures for each of those. I wasn't going to go through
those today, but just so you know, there are specific procedures for
grants and accepting gifts.
We have the authority to enter agreements with other public
entities around Arizona, and we do that for a whole variety of
purposes. Those are a category of agreements that has been
specifically reserved to the board, so all of those will come to the
board for a vote.
The board has naming authority. There is a policy about that and
a process for that. So the college at different times has named
things -- buildings, programs, service centers, et cetera -- either
because someone has made a really substantial gift to the college or
to honor someone who has really shown extensive commitment to the
college. Again, those will come to the board. That's a
board-reserved authority.
A few years ago the legislature amended this statute. One of the
amendments they made was allowing the colleges to engage in really
kind of research and development, innovative activities. We have the
authority to enter agreements with other entities in order to do
that.
Intergovernmental agreements on reciprocity, what that means is
reciprocity with other states and their educational systems. So we
have agreements, for example, with the Department of Education in New
Mexico, and we have an agreement where students from New Mexico can
come to Pima and pay the in-state New Mexico tuition, and we have
Pima students who can go to New Mexico universities and colleges and
pay the in-state Arizona tuition. We have the authority to do that,
and we don't have a lot of those agreements but we do have a few of
those.
Pima's expressly allowed to engage in entrepreneurial and
commercial activities. There is a limited number of those, but just
so you know, it is within the authority of the college, and in this
section and in the following you will see about how that money is
exempt from certain constitutional provisions. That's expenditure
limit.
So if we do entrepreneurial activities and make money at it, that
does not count -- those revenues do not count toward expenditure
limit. Expenditure limit, the easy way to remember is expenditure
limit really applies to tax-based revenues. That's a little bit
oversimplified, but for general purposes, if you think of it that
way, that will be correct most of the time.
We can also collect fees for what are called auxiliary functions,
so bookstore, cafeteria, those kind of things, which then implicitly
means we are allowed to offer those services and take the steps
necessary in order to carry out those services.
We can contract with other state entities and travel governments
in order to generally -- it says provide goods and services. Really
it's what we do of course is educational services. The revenues from
that are not part of expenditure limit. Part of the reason for that
is if you think about other governmental entities, their expenditures
are capped by expenditure limit, so it's already subject to
expenditure limit as opposed to being counted twice.
We have the authority now to offer Baccalaureate degrees. You
will be hearing more of that as the college explores that
possibility.
I'm trying to think of what's other -- most of these others don't
apply to us. Obviously if we acquire property and we do and there is
a delinquent tax bill we pay it. That says it in the statute. Of
course we do that.
The vehicle emission control is not really an issue. If it were,
this is what would apply.
We can and do enter agreements of course with some of the
technical education districts, JTED, et cetera, and others. There is
more statutory language about that, but this essentially gives the
board authority to do that.
Interestingly there is a specific provision allowing Pima to
enter an exchange program with educational institutions in Sonora,
Mexico, and we do have agreements about that. And then of course we
have certain responsibilities to facilitate transfer.
So that's one list. So the second list of, I guess I will call
these primary responsibilities and duties. These are really the
duties that tie directly to the educational mission of the college.
This is in 1445. These are all listed as "shall," so they are
mandatory obligations of the college, and therefore, activities that
the Governing Board is responsible to make sure that we are carrying
out in some way.
So again, you will see the first one is adopt policies. So the
general operating parameters of the college are set by the Governing
Board.
The Governing Board is also responsible working with others to
make sure that we have standards in place for accreditation of
community colleges. I guess I will just mention as an aside, one of
the things that changed over time is in the past there was a state
board for community colleges, which in conjunction with the local
boards carried out a lot of these functions.
Well, that went away. The legislature abolished that board, and
now all of those duties were transferred on to the individual college
boards, and we have organizations like, there is the Arizona
Association of Community College Trustees that provides, I may not
have got all the names in that list, that our board has a
representative and an alternate to because that's one of the groups
that helps coordinate some of the functions you will see in these
requirements.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Excuse me. Was the group that was
abolished, was that the Arizona Board of Regents, or is that still --
was it a different group?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Different group. The Arizona Board of
Regents is the group that's primarily responsible for administering
the state university system. There was a completely separate state
board for community colleges. I don't remember when that was
abolished. Sometime in the early 2000s if I remember correctly.
So one of the things that happened is most of the property of
community colleges was actually owned by the state board, and when it
was abolished, all the ownership was transferred to the local
districts.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Isn't that when the certification
requirements for community college faculty went away?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: I don't know. That's a good question.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I think so.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: And then of course the main certification
requirement, if you will, is that our accreditor has certain
requirements in order for us to allow faculty to teach four credit
classes and other classes.
The standards right now are pretty much driven by our accreditor,
and in some cases by specialty accreditors, right? So for nursing,
the State Board of Nursing sets requirements for faculty. For our
aviation program, it's the Federal Aviation Administration. It's
mostly the regulators that are setting faculty credentialing
requirements.
Setting the tuition is the responsibility of the Governing Board.
That's going to be appearing on your agenda fairly quickly. I expect
probably at the study session this afternoon David Bea will probably
speak somewhat about that.
The Governing Board does have the authority to waive tuition in
certain circumstances. And so, for example, it has done so employees
at Pima can take classes. We pay the registration fee, but employees
don't pay for tuition, or their dependents.
There are certain reporting requirements for data that you'll see
we have to do. That's what STAR, our in-house institutional resource
office, handles, the reporting of all official reports that are due
to the state.
Establishing curriculum. There is some overlap between some of
these requirements and some of the ones you heard. So establishing
the curriculum is a board responsibility. Again, if the college
changes major components of classes, degrees, certificates,
et cetera, that will come to the board for approval before it
happens, and then also, depending on how substantial the changes,
some of those also require accreditor approval.
The board is also responsible to determine sort of entry
requirements for different classes. Most classes at Pima of course
are open enrollment. That's not true for some specialty areas.
Nursing, for example, there are some programs that have prerequisite
or other credential requirements before you can be admitted. Again,
any program that has those, that would be part of the approval
process when it comes to the board.
Requirements about establishing vocational technical education
programs, that follows a process similar to what I just mentioned.
Those will all come to the board for approval.
We already talked about qualification for instructional staff.
Requirements related to or the ability to transfer, again, these
are all -- most of these things are not things that happen on an
annual basis. Most of these are already well-established. They were
established at some point in the past. What would come to this board
is if the college decides to make significant changes, those will
come to the board for approval so that we are complying both with
these requirements and with accreditor requirements.
There is also some requirements here for coordination with the
state board of education. The state board of education primarily is
involved in K12 education, but there are some areas, because of
course there is a significant amount of transition from people going
from K12 into higher ed, so there are some coordination functions
mostly related to data exchange, preparing reports, jointly doing
strategic plans, those sort of things. That's kind of what's covered
by the next few entries in this statute.
Again, most of those, they will get reported to the board, but
obviously the legwork for that gets carried out by different offices
around the college.
There are some specific requirements about entry for veterans,
and of course, as you may have heard or you will certainly have an
opportunity to learn more about, we have many programs targeted
towards assisting veterans to further their education.
There are certain requirements about the college requiring
publishers to provide software and some other accessibility to their
textbooks. Again, so that's a college requirement, it's not
something the board actively does, but Pima in its procurement and
academic materials requirements follows those standards. If you want
more information about that, we could certainly have the staff that
are primarily involved in those come in and talk about it some more.
Subsection 15 is about dual enrollment. So again, you'll see all
those dual enrollment agreements come to the board. You'll get quite
a few of them in a typical year.
The last requirement is sort of interesting is that all of our
classrooms have to have a flag of a certain size and a printing of
the Constitution, state requirement I guess to support civics and
patriotism. If you walk around all the classrooms at Pima, hopefully
you will in fact see there is a printed version of the Constitution
and a flag.
I just went through that really fast, but maybe it gives you a
little idea of sort of the range of activities that the college
undertakes and kind of there are some more specific ones of those
where there is a regular recurring board role, and then, like I said,
some of them only come up when there is a significant change at the
college.
That's a lot. Any particular questions about any of those?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I have a quick question. Back on 1444, No.
4, visit each community college under its jurisdiction, as I have
been reading all of these Arizona Revised Statutes, how one
interprets them is definitely significant. So how I interpreted that
was to visit the campuses.
So I agree we may, you know, we may have different opinions about
what it means, but will we ever get in trouble for interpreting it
our way?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So, well, the answer is potentially yes. So
the question -- so as you noted, there is not a lot of definition in
here, and you won't find any, especially because there is no state
board anymore that might issue clarifying language or guidance.
Right, what does it mean to visit each community college or, in
our case, campus? It doesn't say specifically what that means.
So could you get in trouble for doing that? Potentially. And
the reason I say that is because, so as I mentioned, Pima follows
lots of rules: the federal rules, state rules, accreditor rules.
If a statute gets interpreted in a way that's contrary to what
one of those other rules is, the state isn't going to have a problem
with whatever happened, but that other entity might: federal
government, accreditor.
Fortunately, I mean, there's a way to interpret these where you
can harmonize all of them. For example, visiting, there is a
guideline about, well, let the chancellor's office know, and usually
we give people a heads-up and can arrange visits. Or there also will
be organized visits to different campuses to look at different
programs, and of course if the board had an interest in a particular
program and requested it, we could certainly arrange some kind of
visit.
Sometimes it's not the what, it's the how, that something gets
done. Usually there is a way to harmonize all of these, but I guess
it's just worth noting it is possible sometimes to be in compliance
with state statute but not be in compliance with what an accreditor
or Department of Education thinks is appropriate.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: You have just mentioned, to visit a
college, inform the chancellor. Is that a written rule?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So in the bylaws we have a provision about
that. Again, it's really -- and there is multiple reasons for it.
It helps the chancellor know what board members are doing and what
they might be interested in.
It also allows us to track all of that. So one of the pieces of
evidence, for example, that we are compiling for the HLC
accreditation, reaccreditation process, is we track, we want to be
able to track the college-related activities that board members
engage in, because that allows us to provide evidence to HLC to show
that the board is looking into what's going on at the college, that
the board is engaged with community organizations or endeavors,
et cetera.
So that's another reason is so that we can actually make sure we
are compiling appropriate evidence that we are going to need to show
our accreditor.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: First page, item No. 8, help me understand,
we are responsible for removing people that require removal, but we
don't hire them? And do we enter into discipline with employees?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So this provision is about removing an
officer or employee, if, in its judgment, the interests of education
and the state require removal. So if the board thought someone at
Pima was doing something so serious that that person ought to be
removed, the board has the authority to do that. The one obvious
person the board has immediate authority over, it would be hiring or
removing or replacing a chancellor.
I think your question is really geared toward, well, what about
everybody else?
So the board has delegated responsibility for sort of day-to-day
personnel management to the chancellor, and there is a process which
includes discipline and review of disciplinary decisions so that
we're following a due process, fair process, making sure that
decisions are well thought out before, well substantiated before some
kind of discipline is imposed.
So the board has the authority to do it, and if something -- so
the board has the authority. That's one of the authorities that's
been primarily delegated to the chancellor who of course doesn't
handle these on a day-to-day basis. That's why we have an HR
department and supervisors who work together on those.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I guess part of what I'm asking is will we
find ourselves in a position where we're looking at an appeal of a
termination or an appeal of a suspension of an employee?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So the current system does not have appeals
go all the way to the Governing Board.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: So to attach a question to that, it looks
like No. 6 says the board employs everybody. Everybody's listed on
that, right? Instructors, lecturers, other officers or employees it
deems necessary? So No. 6 says we hire, the board shall do this, we
hire everybody, and then No. 8, we also remove.
So is it true that the law says it's our duty, but in the past
different Governing Boards have delegated that authority to the
chancellor?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Right. So boards have delegated, and then
what happens is there is reporting to the board about hiring
decisions and other personnel-related decisions, so the board has the
opportunity to be aware of what's going on and of course ask
follow-up questions. But the actual specific decisions were
delegated.
So in the past, the board voted to approve all new hires. There
were some challenges to that from a practical standpoint from a
couple of perspectives. So one, of course, is the board was not
involved in the hiring and interview process, so the board doesn't
actually -- they don't know what the candidate pool was like. They
weren't involved in the process to see that.
The other challenge that that -- so one was, and it's probably
not something Governing Boards want or should do, right? You're not
going to participate in every hiring process. So, one, there's a
reality about how much knowledge the board might have about any
particular decision. The second challenge that the way this was done
in the past was that the board had to vote and approve all new hires.
That's a challenge for two reasons. One is it caused a big delay
in the hiring, right? Well, I can't actually offer you the job,
because the board has to vote on it, and so that depends on the
board's schedule.
The other challenge for some people was then their name is in a
public -- it's published on a list that's open to the public, and
their employer may not yet know that they are leaving, and it puts
the individual in an awkward position, because technically they don't
actually have the new job until the board votes but their name is
already out there.
So it caused some challenges. So for those reasons, just kind of
the practicality of it, a number of years ago the board delegated the
day-to-day decision to the chancellor, which really means the human
resources department and the relevant supervisors, but has some
reporting requirements so that the board has an idea of what's going
on, and of course if the board would like additional information
about details of the process, we can certainly make that available.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: We are going to call a recess for about
five minutes. Thank you.
(Five-minute recess.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I am calling this meeting back to order.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you. Next topic, rules of conduct.
We've already covered these, so I wasn't really planning to cover
them in depth at this point. Open meetings law, public records,
conflict of interest, and some other ethical rules that flow out of
state statute.
Those were captured in the draft form I sent around. If you have
specific questions about those, happy to talk about it, or if you
have a lot of questions, maybe we set a different time because I
would like to get those finalized at some point, whichever way you
prefer.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: What specifically do you want us to sign?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So kind of pursuant to the bylaws, the
accreditation plan and just sort of some good practice, there was two
documents that we generated. One was an acknowledgement that
executive session content was confidential, and a second one is some
ethical standards and a conflict-of-interest disclosure statement, so
what it does is it talks about, it kind of runs through basic
standards that apply to public officials.
For example, you can't use your official position to get a
personal benefit or a benefit for a relative. You cannot ask for
gifts or compensation from a vendor or a potential vendor.
It's things like that that are intended to preserve sort of the
integrity and independence of the board. So there is one form that
kind of says here's what those are, and you understand you're
supposed to follow them, and if you have a question, here is what you
do.
Then the other part is if, at some point, you do think maybe I do
have a conflict of interest -- and it has happened for board members
before. We were looking at purchasing some properties, and it turned
out that a board member had a partnership interest in a real estate
partnership that owned one of them. So she disclosed that, no
problem, we documented that, and then she just recused herself from
the conversation about that.
One of the forms is just explains what a conflict of interest is
and says if you think you ever have one, here's what you do to
disclose it, and then we figure out what to do to make sure,
determine is it or isn't it. If it is, here's the appropriate step,
and then we keep that documentation so we can verify that board
members are being mindful about conflict of interest and that we have
addressed it. So that's the second form.
So again, it's helpful as evidence to show, yeah, board members
did take the time to review it, asked questions, agree that that's
what they are going to follow, and then, like I said, tells you what
to do if you have a question or concern.
Maybe what we ought to do is if, following today, you could take
another look at that. If you have questions or concerns, let me
know. If not, let's figure out how we can finalize it and maybe we
could talk about how to do that in conjunction with one of the
upcoming meetings.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I don't remember if I signed them or not,
but if you want to give me the things, you can give them to me today
if you have them, and I'll sign it and give it to you.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Andrea certainly has extra copies.
One other one I will just mention, because it might not be what
you expect, and that's endorse a commercial service or product. And
what we mean by that is, as Pima College, we don't say this vendor is
the best ever or this particular product is the best ever.
That's because as a public entity what we are trying to do is
promote fair competition and not put our finger on the scale. So if
someone wanted to know how we were satisfied with a vendor, we would
answer that question. But we don't go around promoting individual
particular goods or services, and the same would apply to employees
and public officials.
Okay. Liability issues. One of those fun questions that lawyers
get to talk to with their clients and client representatives.
So we went through this whole list of obligations at the college
and for some aspects the board in particular has responsibilities
for. Some of the ethical things we just talked about, conflict of
interest, for example, those are responsibilities, standards that the
board has to meet.
For some of them there are consequences for violation. So there
is actually a criminal statute. Misfeasance is knowingly failing to
perform a duty you have. For example, by state law, Pima County must
pass a budget by a certain date. There are certain requirements
about that. If the board didn't follow them, that arguably is
misfeasance.
Or let's say that the chancellor leaves, and the board says, eh,
we don't need a chancellor. We'll just manage the college. We don't
need to hire a chancellor.
Well, there's a statute that says you're supposed to hire a
chancellor and certain things. Maybe it's a violation of that.
So anyway, the idea is if there is a duty you know and you just
refuse to do it or fail to do it, arguably it's a misdemeanor.
Another statute to be mindful about is using college influences to
influence the outcome of an election.
So that applies to staff as well as to board members. So the
idea is that, again, political entities, we are supposed to be
neutral in an election. We don't take a side. That's true for a
ballot initiative, it's true for a bond measure, it would be true for
an election of any of the board offices.
So just be mindful of that. This is another one where sending an
e-mail is a real easy way to violate the law without realizing it,
right? If you used your Pima College e-mail account to send out
e-mails to people, hey, there's a fundraiser for Candidate X, you
should really go, you just probably violated that statute.
Influence means basically signal to someone how they should vote
in a particular election. It's not likely to come up with respect to
a ballot initiative or a bond, because we don't have any of those
planned. We have done them in the past. Then we did a much more
in-depth training about during one of those elections here's what you
can and can't do.
The most likely way this will come up again would be in 2024 when
we have board seats up for election. We will certainly talk about it
in a lot more detail when campaign season kicks off, but in the
meantime it's probably not likely to come up, but just be mindful of
it.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Just to clarify, I know we'll go into depth
later, but can you define "resources" in there for me?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Sure. College resources would be in your
position as a board member using a college room, using our website
for something, using our e-mail. Resources is really any, I don't
want to use a definition by making -- a resource is a resource. Some
tool or capacity that the college has.
Part of why this -- we will talk about it when there is a pending
election more for board members, is as a candidate or as a private
citizen, you have First Amendment rights. You can participate in
political activities. You just can't do it in your capacity as a
board member.
So give you another example. Let's say we are having a board
meeting, and there is some election going on, county election, state,
federal, some other election. If you used, for example, board
comments to opine about the election and really people should do
this, that's a problem because we are using a college resource,
right? It's college time devoted to college business. It's streamed
through our web service, posted on the college website. That's using
college resources.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: So I'm not a resource. So like, for
example, using your fundraiser example from a second ago, if I
participated in a fundraiser -- obviously there is no elections going
on right now -- but I participated in a fundraiser, someone
introduced me or identified me as a member of the board, I said you
should vote for this person, that's not...
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Correct. You might just want to say I'm not
-- if you wanted to be really careful, you'd say, I'm not here
speaking on behalf of Pima. I'm here speaking on behalf of myself
and I endorse so-and-so.
Well, that's okay. As an individual, you have the right to
participate in the political process. That's why I say when an
election comes up, we can talk about this in a lot more depth, but I
don't expect that to happen at least probably for about a year.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: So along that same 15-1408, it says using
facilities is also, to influence the outcome of election would not be
okay.
So when I was a candidate, a nonboard member, I was photographed
in front of Pima's logos and Pima's buildings. I walked through
Pima's buildings. I did all sorts of YouTube little, whatever those
YouTube shows are called, but as a board member, would I be allowed
to do those same things in six years when I decide to run again?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Here would be the distinction. Our campuses
are open. Any member of the public could come here and take a
photograph outside of a building. So if you came, someone on your
campaign staff or a friend took the picture, that's not a problem.
What you wouldn't do is have our PCCTV crew or others take the
photographs for you, because you are now using college resources.
Does that help?
Candidates or people could use college facilities the same as
anyone else. What you can't do is sort of use your position at Pima
or actually have Pima employees related to their regular work now do
something that's going to be connected to a political campaign.
It's a good question. That's why when we get closer to an
election we should talk about it in greater depth, because there is
lots of things you can do. There is some you can't. Better not to
cause a problem.
This actually is a good example of because of something that
happened at a community college that legislators were really unhappy
about, this law got passed.
On a happier note, immunity. So when board members are acting in
good faith and having conversation and making decisions at a board
meeting, you have absolute immunity from that. So when the board is
basically carrying out its responsibilities and exercising its
discretion and making decisions for the college in the formal process
where that's supposed to happen, you have immunity from any claims
arising from that. If someone is unhappy, I don't like what you
decided about tuition or property tax or approving or not approving
this course, you cannot be sued individually for that.
There is also liability coverage available for board members. So
Pima has a really comprehensive liability coverage agreement that, so
again, as long as board members are acting in the course and scope of
their duties, there is both defense and indemnity. So defense is the
college, through its liability carrier, would provide legal
representation. Indemnity is if there were a judgment or a claim, if
there were actually damages awarded, then that would get paid through
a combination of the liability coverage and the college.
So it doesn't mean that board members don't get sued and named
individually, but as long as they are acting within the boundaries of
their responsibilities and what they were doing was actually
something related to college business, there is coverage in place.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Jeff, so if we get served, what do we do?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Tell me right away. Most of the time what
happens is people will actually contact, because general counsel's
office or legal department is listed on the website, usually they
will contact us first to talk about that. But if you got served, you
should notify us right away so we can put the carrier on notice and
get legal counsel arranged immediately so that there is no delay.
I was just going to mention a few things. Relationship with the
chancellor, so specific responsibilities, this flows both from kind
of general principles of what boards do as well as some of the
statutory provisions we looked at before.
The board is responsible for hiring the chancellor, delegating
authority to the chancellor, which is done in a variety of ways
through the employment contract, through the bylaws, through board
policies, through the goals that are set for the chancellor.
Supervise the chancellor, so regular valuation. There is a
formal annual evaluation, and then on an ongoing basis the board
provides feedback. Goal setting, which I mentioned before. If and
when appropriate, replace the chancellor is also the responsibility
of the board.
Any questions about any of those?
Role of legal counsel. We have discussed this a little bit. I
will not spend too much time on it.
So the role of legal counsel at Pima is defined really by two
sets of rules. One is the Arizona Rules of Professional Conduct.
Those are rules set by the State Supreme Court and Arizona State Bar
and Board Policy 6.01.
There is a board policy that specifically discusses the role of
counsel on the relationship. So when I got to Pima, I was the first
in-house legal counsel, so that's one of the first things I did is
say, well, we ought to have a board policy about this. This language
tracks what was used at Maricopa and other community colleges. It's
a pretty close model.
Part of this was to clarify that the college is the client.
Obviously Pima is not a person, so it can't do things. It does
things through people. The client then are the authorized
decision-makers, so starting with the board, chancellor, and whoever
has been delegated a specific responsibility.
The client or the authorized representatives decide what the
objectives are. The job of the lawyers is to provide advice and
implement the decision.
That's really simply what the role is, and so one consequence of
that is so my job is to help, whether it's the board or an
administrator or staff member understand what rules might apply and
kind of help them think about here's what your options are and here
might be the tradeoffs of those options and ultimately they make the
decision.
So I guess I just say that because if it ever sounds like I'm
telling someone what to do, that's not what I'm doing. It's not
meant that way. A benefit and a hazard of being a lawyer is you just
give advice, clients make decisions, and then you carry them out.
I know that's really quick, but I'm trying to cover everything
within our time, and we can certainly cover any of these in depth
later. If you want at some point to take the time and read that
board policy, then I'm also happy to answer any questions.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: This isn't exactly along what you are
talking about, but if one of us or the entire board wants to look at
changing a board policy, when will we be told, or is that just
something we are supposed to know how to do that?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So if a board member wants to -- so if you
look at the board policies, there are dates when they are supposed to
be reviewed and updated, but really at any time if any board members
thinks we should really look at this issue, then let the chancellor's
office know and we will kind of talk about how the process works.
Typically -- so sometimes board members have initiated requests,
you know, I think we should look at this issue, and typically what we
will do is probably have a study session so we can talk about it more
in depth and have people from areas impacted provide information.
Typically what those people would do, depending on what the
direction is from the board, might provide some ideas. Well, if
that's what you are trying to do, then you could change this or
change that.
Board policies as a whole are all assigned to different
administrative units, and in the next session I do with you I'm going
to have my colleague Seth here talk, he will talk more in depth about
that. But essentially different units of the college are responsible
for periodically updating board policies, and then they'll come to
the board, here is what we're thinking, what's your perspective, is
there any particular things we should be mindful of, and then provide
recommendations.
It's always a two-step process with the board. There will be a
reading, kind of discussion meeting, to just talk about it. Then
there will be a later vote. It could be more than that depending on
how many changes or ideas there are. But there will always be
separate meetings of let's talk about it, look at possible
recommendations, get direction from the board, versus the meeting
where the vote actually happens.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Specifically what are the requirements if
there is an amendment or a change in a policy, public readings,
number of public readings, what's our responsibility?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So the minimum requirement is one public
reading and then at the next meeting it could be voted on.
At Pima, the other thing we always do is we don't change board
policies unless we do a couple of other things. One is it goes to
all the governance groups, Faculty Senate, Staff Council, et cetera,
for them to have an opportunity to look at it and comment.
We post it for 21 days, so anyone at Pima or the community could
make comments. We collect all those comments. We provide it to the
board and the unit that's kind of the lead on that policy to consider
it and figure out whether they are making good suggestions or there
is other things we should take into account. So all of that will
happen before the vote meeting.
So if the real question is how long does it take, it's usually a
few months if we are going to do the thing from, if we follow the
normal process and make sure we are circulating it and giving
everyone an opportunity to comment, it's at least two months.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: If it affects personnel, does that take
longer?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: No, it would be similar. The only exception
would be let's say there was a change of law or some emergency thing
happened, then clearly the board could change the policy. We'd
probably still go back and do a review process to see if adjustments
were made. But you could adopt an interim policy quickly if you had
to. But typically, whether it's personnel related or college
operations, the regular process, and this is actually in -- so below
board policies there is administrative procedures.
Well, the administrative procedures for board policies and
administrative procedures talk about going through, circulating to
the governance groups for their review, 21-day, now sometimes it
happens concurrently, so it goes to the governance groups and
immediately will post for 21-day comment so it's not one after the
other, they are running concurrently, but at least two to three
months.
Okay. Board procedures, some of these I think you're already
familiar with. Agenda development. The chair, working with the
chancellor, will collect any input from board members about how to
develop the agenda.
Parliamentary procedure I put in, should be in your notebooks,
sort of an annotated script, if you will, that just walks through
each sections of the meeting. It's not a script in the sense of you
have to read this. It's just sort of here's an example of what you
could say and kind of how it works with some examples.
So that may also be another good thing for you to just take some
time and take a look at it, and then if you have follow-up questions
or you think that maybe there is a way we should change some of that,
then let's have that conversation.
Where did this come from? So we don't follow Robert's Rules
exactly. Robert's Rules is like an encyclopedia. It's really
cumbersome, and it's not intended for small bodies. It's intended
for legislators with 100-plus people.
So we follow a simplified version of Robert's Rules that's pretty
consistent among most small boards, which is where what you are
seeing comes from. For example, in Robert's Rules, there's no such
thing as a friendly amendment, but in our board meetings it makes a
lot of sense and it's a practice used by most of the smaller local
governing bodies. What you are seeing in there is basically Robert's
Rules but modified for smaller organizations.
Last one on this, responding to complaints, so there is a process
in the bylaws for about reporting complaints, concerns. Generally,
depending on what it is, you go to the board chair, the chancellor or
me or all of us or any combination of that, and depending on what it
is, then we will work with the board to figure out what the
appropriate remedy is.
The one, I guess, caution I will raise, part of the reason we
have this process is so board members are not investigating
complaints themselves. There is a lot of reasons not to do that.
The other thing I would just share is you will of course get a
lot of complaints, especially because you're new, right? When Lee
joined Pima, lots of people came to him with complaints. Every time
there has been new board members, people go to them with complaints.
One of the reasons we have a process and we want to make sure we
do a thorough review is sometimes people have a sincere belief but
they are mistaken. So we want to do a thorough investigation to make
sure that what they are saying is true.
I will share, I kind of have learned that lesson myself the hard
way. I had one time where someone came into my office, shared a
concern, and I thought, well, that is concerning. I can see why
you're concerned about that. I went storming down the hallway to a
manager's office and had a conversation, and of course what I found
out was the person didn't know a lot of things about what happened.
Based on their little piece of information, they had a serious
concern which made sense, but when you knew the full picture it was
really different.
The other experience I had was in an employment case, an employee
came forward, a female employee came forward and complained about
sexual harassment, and she had a couple of e-mails to verify her
story. When you heard what she said and you looked to the e-mails,
it was very concerning and it seemed like there was a serious
problem.
When we did the thorough investigation, interviewed some people
and looked at all of the e-mails, it turned out it was the other way
around. She was actually the aggressor and the male had tried to
break it off, and she was upset with him.
So what I thought was one thing turned out to be radically
different, which is why we just want to be careful that we follow an
appropriate process so we do the best possible to really get a full
understanding of what the situation is and what happened.
There is people at Pima who are trained in how to do that, and in
appropriate situations we also bring in outside people to do it, so
that way we have people who are really expert in doing it and we can
rely on their experience and skills.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Real quick question. I was looking at that
last Article 12 about the complaints, and on No. 2B or 2A on the
very, very end it says the recipient of the complaint, including an
individual board member, shall notify the board chair and college
general counsel of the complaint who shall notify all board members
as soon as possible.
Is that referring to the board chair or to the general counsel or
both of them doing the notifying all the board members as soon as
possible?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So they don't both have to do the notifying,
but in the past, what has happened is if there is a serious
complaint, if it came to me, then I will notify the board chair. If
it comes to the board chair, they notify me and then we figure out
who should send the notice.
We don't send duplicate notices, I think is what you are asking
about. There is usually a consultation, and then we figure out who
is going to send the notice and what should it say.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Going back to board procedures, the
adjournment, seems like we have two options. One is the chair asks
if there is any more business. If none, you adjourn. Or there is a
motion to the adjourn.
What's the chair's preference?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I'd say to save time, right, that
four-and-a-half seconds, if there is no more business, I will just
adjourn, if that's all right with everybody else.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Fine.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: That's a good example of if we followed
Robert's Rules strictly, you can't do that, but it doesn't make sense
in a small board like ours where the chair can just ask, right, does
anyone have anything else? No? Great. We're adjourned. Works
perfectly well.
The last thing I just wanted to mention was Andrea sent out some
materials just about kind of how travel process and charges work. I
just want to make sure everyone got that. If you had questions, we
will figure out how to do some follow-up.
This afternoon at the study session, we are going to show you
kind of what the calendar of some of the major outside-of-Pima
training opportunities are so that you could all think about what
events you want to go to, how you want to prioritize, et cetera.
So that will be this afternoon. But for now I just want to take
a moment to make sure you all got the materials from Andrea, and if
you have questions about how travel gets arranged or how things gets
paid for, let us know and we will make sure to get those addressed.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I might have either overlooked it or not
paid attention. I did get something recently about the SAP Concur or
something like that. I clicked on that link, and I tried to see what
it was about, but I didn't have the appropriate password. So I
didn't do something correct.
(Discussion off mic.)
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Okay. Apparently there are a couple other
steps we need to take, so we will get those materials to you and then
sounds like we need to get you log-in credentials.
There is a training that goes along with that. It's a pretty
simple system to use, and it allows you to upload receipts and kind
of streamlines the process.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I use Concur in my regular job. It is very
easy to use as far as expense management goes.
The quick question I had is the thing that's in this binder
mentioned something about a card. I don't know, am I supposed to
have a card that I'm using?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: You may not have it yet. So all board
members are going to get a travel and expense card through the
college. I think they have probably been approved, but you probably
just don't have it yet.
When you make airline reservations, when you pay for a hotel,
when you do all that, if you use that college card, that
automatically feeds into the travel management system, and so it's
easier and then you don't have to use your own card. You just have
to be careful of what you're paying for with which card.
So if you accidentally charge something on your college card,
which would not be the first thing that's happened, then you just
disclose that and then we figure out how you pay the college back.
If there is no other questions about that, I'm going to end this
section. I think the chancellor is next.
I know we are throwing a lot of stuff at you today. So anything
you think of now or later, just make a note and then we will figure
out how to do some follow-up.
So this afternoon we are really going to be talking more in depth
about the travel opportunities. If you have specific questions about
scheduling or booking things or how to pay for things, then what I
would say is after this afternoon, let's get you an individual
appointment, and then you can arrange whatever it is that you need to
arrange. Or if we need just a more general orientation, we can do
that too. At the end of the study session.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I'm speaking specifically about the
conferences we may go to and what the college thinks our
responsibilities are when we attend those things.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yeah, so that's on the agenda for this
afternoon at the last segment of the study session. We are going to
have a calendar that lists what those big conferences are, and then
we thought, we would speak with the board, you would speak amongst
yourselves to decide which ones make sense, what are the priorities,
who should go, all those sort of things, and then we will figure out
the logistics.
I'm talking about the one this evening. So the 4:00 to 6:00, the
last segment of that is like 20, 30 minutes just about travel, and so
we'll put up a schedule. If you have questions about what those
events are, we will figure that out, and then you can figure out
amongst yourselves how you want to kind of divvy those up.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Do you need a break at all? All right.
Good morning. What I thought I'd do this morning is just really
talk about the vision and direction of the college and what it's
rooted in so you have a sense of why we are going in the direction we
are going in. So I will talk about the master planning work that
went on, and then I will share a little bit about some of my own
community engagement work that I have been doing at the local, state,
and national level. But a lot of time will be spent on this first
part of it. Please ask questions as we are going along.
When I first arrived here in Pima, I talked about the need for
community colleges especially to close five gaps. So I will talk
about each one of these and how they really became the focus for the
work at the college. Not specific goals and objectives as much as
here are focus areas and why these are focus areas.
The educational achievement gap, you all know that as a country
and as a community, we struggle with our students coming in
college-ready, and it disproportionately impacts students of color.
So that's why educational achievement is a big focus of what we
are doing, and then as the work progressed here at the college, we
initiated a design effort around developmental educational.
That's one of the areas that we received a Bellwether award for
the work that we have done. So we have done great work, and I will
be glad to share more about that later if you'd like.
Another big area, no surprise, global and diversity. So back in
2005, '06, the senate, U.S. Senate commissioned an Abraham Lincoln
Study Abroad report, and one of the conclusions coming out of that
report, no surprise, Americans know less about the world than the
world knows about America. It is to our detriment that that's the
case.
Well, it's not gotten any better since then. So what happens in
that report is at that time probably less than a quarter of Americans
actually held a passport. Then when Americans would go travel
abroad, guess where they would go travel abroad to? Primarily Europe
or other Western nations, again to the detriment of the United
States.
Of course some rule changes, so that number is up higher now
because to go to Mexico you have to have a passport. To go to Canada
you have to have a passport. But that hasn't really changed the
reality that Americans aren't really going to these other countries
where we know less about that are critical to our national security,
to our economic security.
That's why a big focus on global is, so what's the next-best
thing we can do as a college? Well, bring the world here and create
powerful learning opportunities for engagement with students from
across the globe. Because most of our students cannot afford to go
to these other countries.
However, we have done some things. We have really upped our
Study Abroad Program here. We have sent students to Ireland, to
China, and they come back and they think of the world differently,
having had those experiences.
So that's why that focus on global. For me, yes, it brings in
revenue, but it's not about the revenue as much as about the learning
and the engagement opportunities for our folks here in Tucson.
And then the diversity piece I think speaks for itself that we
have to be ever vigilant and make sure that all of our students not
only have access but more importantly complete and go on to better
opportunities in the community, especially opportunities that allow
for a livable, sustainable wage, as well as being a more well-rounded
individual for the broader society. So that's kind of the global.
The technology gap, again, no surprise there. This is
transforming every aspect of our lives, but back then, that was back
when, you know, a lot of colleges weren't really moving into the
online space. A lot of folks resisted the online space. Many folks
thought, well, this is just a passing fad.
Well, I think we all know the answer to that now. It's not a
passing fad. It has been a transformative area of what we do in
higher education. And the likes -- Coursera has really just outpaced
everybody. Going through the pandemic and coming out of the
pandemic, they have really transformed the landscape around the use
of online education.
Now, I'm not saying it's perfect, because there is issues with
it, but just know that that was the initial focus around technology.
So when I got here, I worked with faculty to create a task force that
ultimately led to the creation of PimaOnline. Thank goodness we did
that, because that positioned us nicely going into the pandemic.
But technology is more than just online, just so you know. Now
we are focused on what we call the four super powers. That's based
on an article written by Pat Gelsinger. He was the former CEO of
VMware. He's now the CEO of Intel.
He talks about the enabling technologies of AI, artificial
intelligence, cloud computing, mobile, and the Internet of Things,
are really what's underlying all of that technological transformation
you're seeing in our community and across the globe.
Obviously, you know, the most recent manifestation of this is
ChatGPT. So we are going to have to grapple with the realities of
ChatGPT into the learning environment.
I have played around with it. I don't know if any of you have
played around with ChatGPT. I have asked it questions, and it's
pretty good but it has not answered my questions fully, and in some
cases has gotten it wrong.
Go ahead.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Chancellor, I don't know what ChatGPT is.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: OpenAI, artificial intelligence.
What's the best way to describe this? It's using the technology
tools to help you scan and search the entire global database around
any topical area you want to put into it. It will write your papers
for you.
It is now writing papers for people, because you can just ask it,
write me a paper on Topic X, and it will write a paper for you,
drawing on all that data that's out there and creates an incredible
document for learners.
People have played around -- it has passed law exams, has passed
medical exams, it has passed other exams. That's how powerful of
technology this is.
Some colleges are fighting against it. Some colleges are looking
at how do we embrace this and integrate it into the learning process.
What's happening is students are using it to write their papers, to
do their homework.
So I don't think we are going to be able to control that side of
the equation. So how do we bring it into the learning environment
and help students use it responsibly.
It's an enhanced version of using Google. Think of it that way.
It's an enhanced version of using Google. Because it will do work
for you, like write your paper, like answer your questions on exams,
et cetera.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I was in the middle of the debate over
whether or not the state was going to allow students to use
calculators on a state assessment. It evolved to -- it went from a
significant issue, highly divided, to why are we worrying about that?
Do you see that coming?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Yes, absolutely. Because it can be
perceived as a threat, the threat being people are legitimately
worried that these technologies are going to replace the human piece
of the equation.
So I think that's a legitimate worry, especially on the part of
faculty and staff in certain areas. But I'm of the mind, let's
figure out how we make sure we are a relevant part of the equation
and that we don't get displaced because we have shown how we add
value on top of the technology as opposed to just letting the
technology take over.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I don't think I'd ever be worried about
faculty or, you know, the teachers getting replaced. I think my
worry as a former educator is that this is going to replace students.
If students aren't doing their own learning and thinking, at some
point they might realize that they are not where they need to be.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Well, but it goes hand in glove. Because if
students aren't where they need to be, then they aren't going to show
up, and then you won't need faculty because you won't have any
students to teach. I want us to keep that in mind.
I think we're in a position to show how you leverage the power of
these tools to enhance learning and enhance productivity and not be
afraid of it. That's really more what I want to illustrate here.
Just like the calculator, right? The calculator didn't end up
replacing anybody. It just enhanced that learning experience and
enhances the work experience.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I think that's the right approach. We
grapple with AI in healthcare a lot in my regular job. I have talked
to physicians that have said -- I don't know exactly which AI they
are using, there's a lot of them out there in the healthcare side --
but will say, I have a patient presenting with these symptoms, what's
the most likely diagnosis, and the AI will come back with something
that they hadn't even thought of, because they are prioritizing one
thing over another.
There was one I was seeing the doctor thought maybe the person
was having a heart attack, and the AI said no, no, no, they strained
a muscle in their ribs. It turns out, yeah, they strained a muscle
in their ribs. They weren't having a heart attack.
It can be powerful when you can integrate it where it could help
that physician make a decision, but it wouldn't necessarily replace
that physician in that scenario. So, yeah, it makes sense.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I think the other thing, especially when you
think about AI, is that data analytics piece. How do we make sure we
are integrating more data analytics into what we do, because data is
going to become ever increasing in its significance, but how do you
make sense of it, how do you use it for good as opposed to some of
the things we are seeing happening in some pockets.
Just keep that in mind. Technology is a big focus. It's going
to transform every facet of what we do.
Thank you, Theresa and Greg, for coming out to the Ford ASSET
ribbon cutting. As you know, today's modern vehicle, in some cases,
over 100 million lines of code that power the vehicle.
So what does that mean for someone who is working on today's
modern technology of a vehicle? It goes beyond that. By the way, a
car has more lines of code in it than a fighter jet does. Sometimes
people don't realize that.
Then the other thing that's going to happen is just the explosion
of semiconductor, the chips in the car, the chips are going to be
everywhere. You can actually put chips in paint and paint your walls
with these little microchips in them, and they give you all kinds of
data points about your indoor living conditions.
So that's why the whole issue around semiconductors is a big deal
as we go forward. Obviously our state's becoming a center for
semiconductor technology.
Let me go to sustainability and then come back to skills.
Sustainability, there is two parts to that. One is the whole green
component, and then the other is just the organization itself. Let
me just highlight why I think those are critical pieces.
So I don't know if you ever read Jared Diamond's "Collapse," but
if you haven't, I highly recommend it. He was really signaling what
we are starting to really see happen more and more today.
People were signaling that even before he came out with his book,
but it's real. Whether we agree with it or not, the warming of the
planet, access to vital resources is something that we've got to be
mindful about.
So how do we educate and train our learners for that? But also,
at the same time, as an organization ourself, how do we make sure
that we are being responsible stewards for the use of our facilities
and the like.
So that's one of the reasons underlying this notion of turning
the whole college into a living learning laboratory. I mean, we have
this wonderful ability to use the data that comes out of the building
for our students to learn on. Why not leverage that?
That's what we are doing. That's partly part of the partnership
with Trane is about, turning the whole college into a living lab.
We're using, going back to technology, the digital twinning
technology to create a virtual replica of the college so that the
students aren't using the data that's happening in real time.
They're using in a lag way but by using that digital twinning piece.
It's lagging a little bit so they can't interfere with our
physical operation, but they can learn a lot from our physical
operation, especially in the space of energy management systems and
the like.
Then you're going to see more programming around sustainability,
whether it's in the curriculum as well as, and some of our training
programs. So we have set a goal to reduce the carbon footprint of
the college by 50% come 2030. The modernization of our facilities
and reducing energy usage, about 25 to 30% of that will happen just
from the Trane partnership. That shows you how much energy is wasted
from how we operate our facilities.
Then the other side of sustainability, and this is no surprise,
states have been cutting their support for public higher education
for a long time now. When I first got here I said to the board,
don't be surprised if the State of Arizona zeros out our state aid,
because I could see the trend line of what was happening, especially
as we were coming out of the great recession. A lot of states were
struggling, but no state struggled as much as Arizona.
Then when you looked at the data from that time, the State of
Arizona had cut higher education the most in the country. Then by
the time you fast-forward to 2018, our state had cut higher education
well over 50%. No other state cut higher education by that amount.
No other state.
So what are you going to do? For us, that translates into -- at
the time I got here, we were still getting about 7.5 million. But at
the height of our state investment at this college we were at about
23 million. So imagine every year having $23 million more for our
operations that we no longer have. So that's what we were faced
with.
And then we have other issues in this state, the expenditure
limit, because what else is happening, not just here, but across the
country, is the birth dearth. Birth dearth is low fertility rates
have translated into what people are calling the sansdemic, sansdemic
meaning fewer people to do the work that is needed to sustain our
current economy at its current levels.
We are projecting in our county probably in the next 10 years
about a 17% decline in the high school population. Enrollment-wise,
we cannot make our enrollments by focusing on just K12. Just not
going to get there.
So how do we keep our enrollments at a reasonable, healthy level?
We've got to go to all these other groups that are much more
difficult to reach, and they have different expectations in terms of
they want more convenience, they want access on their terms, they
don't want necessarily a full degree, they want shorter term. So
you're seeing us evolving into that reality as we speak.
The skills gap, I mean, there's probably not a week that goes by
that you don't hear about the skills gap. There is different facets
to that, right? In some cases it's not always about the people.
It's about whether the people have the actual knowledge, skills, and
abilities to do the work. That work is being heavily influenced by
the technology today. So how do we make sure that we are closing
that gap for our community.
So when you take all of these together, I put them in that center
piece there, which I like to refer to as the liminal space, that
liminal space being that transition point from an industrial error
curve onto the digital curve. If we can close all five of those
gaps, that will firmly move us from a 20th Century-based higher
education model on to a more digital era, forward-thinking learning
institution. That's where we are headed.
By the way, this concept of the two curves is based on a book
written by Ian Morrison called "The Second Curve." He wrote this
book just before the turn of the 20th Century, and he was basically
telegraphing to all of us across really the globe that this
transition was underway.
Ian Morrison, just so you know, he's the former president of the
Institute for the Future. You may know that name, Greg, I know he
does a lot of consulting work in the healthcare space. Focus a lot
about that space but it really applies to all of us.
That's what we are doing. How does that manifest itself? I made
some references to it earlier, and that is the focus on the
institution or the organization is going to decline. The focus and
emphasis will be on the individual learner. They will dictate the
terms of their experience, not the organization.
So how do we keep pace with that reality? You're already seeing
this happen where students are getting credits from a lot of
different institutions as we speak. How can they stitch that all
together into the certificate, into a degree, or depending on what
they are doing, being able to be able to sit for a licensure. And so
that's an example of that transition.
So the degree and the certificate, although they won't go away,
they won't become the only outcomes from a learning institution. So
we are going to have to make ourselves more and more relevant to what
that learner wants.
I liken it to, I sometimes use the analogy of the Apple playlist.
That is we can create our own playlist on our phones or tablet
devices and just choose whatever songs we want and put it on there.
That's what students are going to do in terms of their learning.
They are going to stitch together the courses they want, and then
they're going to go shopping with institutions who are willing to
give them that degree for having done that.
Where is this really happening a lot? You're probably familiar
with Western Governors University. At Western Governors University,
competency-based model, in one year for the price of probably less
than $7,000, I can do a full Bachelor's degree in one year doing this
model.
So this direct assessment you talk about, Wade, this is what's
going on. By the way, our governor, if you heard this, he signed,
just before he was going out, an agreement to bring WGU into the
State of Arizona.
Even if they weren't here, they were already here. So you are
starting to see this evolution with University of Southern New
Hampshire, another big player in this online space and this
competency base. ASU has become gynormous in the online space, and
if you heard recently, ASU signed an agreement with YouTube. So it's
already happening.
So how do we remain relevant to today's learner and the future
learners? It can't be the way it used to be. That's why I think if
we focus on those five gaps, we will position ourselves nicely going
forward.
Any questions? I know not everybody is going to agree with what
I'm saying, but step back and look at what's going on. If you read
"The Great Upheaval," "The Great Upheaval" is really just chronicling
all the things that have been going on in terms of the evolution.
But what harm is there if I'm wrong? Think of it that way. What
harm is there if I'm wrong? But if I'm right, what's the harm?
Well, there won't be Pima. That's the risk. So just keep that in
mind.
You wanted to say something?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I just wanted to mention, I do, I am
excited about all of the, you know, things that are happening to
education, but once again, from my perspective of being a math
teacher, I did look up -- a community member sent us an e-mail
recently about WGU, and said, why isn't Pima College doing something
like this?
I looked into -- it took quite a while, because you had to get
past their firewall and had to sign up for whatever, but I think it
was $7,000 per semester, and you could take as many units as you
wanted.
But I'm thinking about someone who wanted to get a degree in
math. If you wanted to get a degree in math and you paid $7,000,
there is a good chance that you could maybe learn well two classes.
So in that aspect, Pima's tuition is way cheaper than WGU.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Yes.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I want to be careful about we don't put,
you know, the -- it is great, it is exciting, but it might not be the
fix for every single occupational and educational path.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: No, no, absolutely, right? It's not going
to work for everything. But it's also recognizing that today's
learner wants it faster, cheaper, and still expects high quality, and
that there are providers providing those options to today's learners.
Whether we agree with those as the best options or not doesn't
matter. That's where the puck's moving. So keeping that in mind and
how do we position ourselves. I think the community colleges are in
a unique position, because a lot of the stuff is taking place online.
There are some things at some point you can't just do online. At
some point you have to put a needle in someone's arm. At some point
you have to get under the hood of a car. At some point you've got to
climb aboard the airplane and go through the body of that plane.
So there is a lot of pieces that just can't be done in that
modality, but how do we help people understand that so that they
realize they've got to come back to a physical place.
Underline all that, math underlies all of that, right, as an
example. So how do we make sure everything is integrated in a way
that they see the value here at Pima and realize they have to come at
some point.
So I think what we saw coming through the pandemic and as we are
coming out, is a lot of our faculty have really gotten to the point
of saying, okay, this can be done in the virtual space, but this part
can't be done in the virtual space, and how they integrate those two.
We have seen a lot of that evolution happening here.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I think this is a real healthy conversation.
One of the things that bothers me is when we talk global, national,
and Pima County, the message that's being sent to our young people,
and even our middle-aged people, is you can make a considerable
amount of money in this community without learning anything.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Right.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Yesterday we were going to the basketball at
University of Arizona and we had in-laws from out-of-state and we
want to go to breakfast. Well, if you're in a hurry, you can't go to
breakfast in Tucson because you have to wait in line.
The servers that I have interacted with are very intelligent, and
they are mostly young people because I think the old people are
sitting home with their feet up. But how does the community dictate
what is employable? How do we compensate the long term for our
students to go to school and go into a profession that they can live
longer and healthier as opposed to carrying big dishes with plates
and trimming trees and chain saws and all this kind of stuff?
Because you can survive in Tucson with that kind of income, but
you can live very nicely if you get a good education with skill sets
that are employable with employees, employers that pay more money.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Right.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I think that's a dilemma that we are facing
right now is what's the incentive? What do we do to show these
students to entice them to work harder at a higher level, get a math
degree, become an engineer? I don't think K12 is doing a very good
job of that. So a good conversation, but where do we go with this?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Right, right. So that's where your Pima is
going. So that's what the centers of excellence are in part about,
is what you just raised.
So our vision, our master planning work is centered in those
focus areas I just identified. So we went out and contracted with a
firm, it was two firms, where we did a GISing, Geographic Information
Systems analysis of our entire service district, to look at where are
the opportunities to those good-paying jobs, those family-sustaining
wage jobs in this community, and how can we realign the assets of
Pima to better create the pathways that lead to what you're
describing? So that kind of underlied the work of the Educational
and Facilities Master Plan.
The other thing that we did that's unique was we integrated the
two. A lot of places will run these parallel planning tracks, but we
integrated the two to say, okay, you only need facilities to do this
over here. Facilities are not their own stuff. So why are you doing
them in isolation of what it is that you should be focused on.
That's why we brought them together.
So coming out of that were the centers of excellence. Those
centers of excellence are aligned to the job opportunities here that
lead to the family sustainable wages, and there are some exceptions.
I will touch on that here, going back to your point.
But how do we know we got it right? We pressure-tested it by
holding forums and brought in folks from the community and asked, did
we get this right?
They absolutely overwhelmingly said, you got it right. That's
where the center of excellence for Applied Technology comes from. It
has three verticals in it. There's the transportation vertical,
there is the manufacturing vertical, and then there is the
construction technology vertical in the Applied Technology.
So that's why the investment at the airport to expand, because we
knew that there was demand for being an A&P technician, airframe and
powerplant is what A&P stands for, and those are really good
family-sustaining paying wages in this community but also across the
country.
Because we were able to show the data, we had the business
community validate what we were doing, that's why the state was
willing to invest in that expansion of that effort. We worked with
JTED. JTED was essential to that work, along with the other high
schools in the area and the business community. That's an example.
Well, then we have another center of excellence in hospitality,
culinary, and tourism. Well, those don't necessarily start out at a
family-sustaining wage unless you can persist through that into
management levels where you can get to a better pay piece, but it
puts you on a pathway that we can build off of.
And then healthcare is another center of excellence that we have.
We are doing the big renovation work at West Campus to double the
size of our ability to train and educate in the healthcare space.
Then you have IT cybersecurity is another area, public safety,
all the ones I just mentioned all lead to those family-sustaining
wages in this community.
But there are also realities around that. You've got to have an
applied STEM foundation to really get into those career tracks.
That's why we have created an IBEST model, integrated best
educational skills training that contextualizes the learning of those
developmental skills into that program of study. So we are starting
to see success in that. We are doing more co-requisites, as well,
and so again, those are some of the positive things. That's aligned
to the opportunities here in this community. Our challenge is
getting those folks to want to come here.
So Brookings did an analysis of all 50 states, and they looked at
the metro areas, created these MSAs that are already out there and
looked at, so how many jobs do you have that are low-wage jobs? So
in Tucson, when you isolate Tucson, about 49%, adult working-age
population, are in low-income jobs. 49%.
When you break that down, about 12% of those folks who work in
those low-income jobs already have a Bachelor's degree. About 8%
already have an Associate's degree. And then when you combine those
two categories with the some-college category, that number jumps up
to about 56%.
So even with what we do, it's not leading to family-sustaining
wages for some members of our community. But what we found,
launching the micropathways, is we are recapturing some of those
students who probably would not have come back. Then we are getting
on, the micropathways are an onramp into the larger programs. Some
of those folks may want to go on. Some of those folks may want to
just go directly that may help them with the current work that they
are in.
But it's going to be an ongoing challenge, there's no question
about that. The demands in the healthcare space alone, Pima alone
can't meet the need. There is just no way. We just don't have the
capacity.
But those are some of the best-paying jobs in this community. We
could probably turn the whole West Campus into just a healthcare
piece, and maybe we'd get closer, but the cost to do that would be
beyond what we'd be able to afford. So keep that in mind.
The other thing that we are doing, it wasn't in the master
planning work, but we got work underway now, we are looking at
applied Baccalaureate degrees. Given the rules that are at play in
the State of Arizona and the Higher Learning Commission, we are only
going to be able to launch two at this stage. So we are in the
process of vetting which two. The way the legislature created that
law was it could only be in this applied area. It had to be that
there were jobs.
So we can't go out and offer a Bachelor's in liberal arts, as an
example. So my challenge to the team is I don't want to do what
everybody else is doing. Let's figure out where there is opportunity
that leads to good jobs here where you need a Bachelor's degree, and
these will be the two.
Now, Maricopa has an advantage over all of us, because each of
their colleges are independently accredited. Because of that, they
can do 20. So you have seen Maricopa launch a number of Bachelor's
degrees. Well, it's because they can do 20. Plus they have been
working on this long before that law got passed.
Now, I will say this now, we are going to have to go out and
promote this in the community before we launch it, because when I
first got hired here, I was told that one of the issues they had with
the prior administration was they were trying to turn this into a
four-year institution. So when you start to offer Baccalaureate
degrees, that's what you're starting to become is a four-year
institution.
So I think we are going to have to go out and do some educating
in the community before we launch, just to make sure we understand
those resistance points and why. But this is not like it was back
then. I think that's an important part of the education piece. This
is not like what it was back then. But we are moving down this
track.
Then a lot of other things you are seeing us do, you can trace
back to that master plan work. Not all of it but a lot of it. They
talked a lot about career pathways, guided pathways, so that's the
work you have seen us doing, and especially in the transfer space.
Because a lot of the career technical ed programs were pathways,
but the transfer side was less so. And then there was a focus on
teaching and learning centers, refugee and immigration centers.
You're seeing that all coming out of this work that we have done.
Any questions about that?
Now, I have been trying to get us to position for the future.
I'm talking 10, 15, 20 years from now. We don't know what this
community is going to look like that far out. But can we leave Pima
in a place for when things do evolve it can evolve with it?
Yes, we are in that moment where population seems to be dropping
off, but that's not going to be forever. Then it's going to I think
climb back up. When that starts to happen, is Pima ready to step in
and into that void and do something about it? But if we are only
thinking about right now, we are going to box in future leaders of
this institution if we are not thinking ahead that way.
So one area I will signal now is you're starting to see this, in
California especially, the whole housing cost piece. Their employees
can't afford to live in the community in which they are working.
Their students can't even afford to live -- so some of those colleges
are looking at building housing for their employees.
Well, Flagstaff is already there. Flagstaff is already
struggling to try to attract and keep people, because the cost of
living up there is just such that it's become a challenge based on
what they can afford to pay, right?
I think we need to think about that. So making sure that we have
the available real estate for a future expansion in that way becomes
important. I will let you know West Campus, that property does not
belong to Pima Community College in the sense that we get to control
how we use that property. That is Bureau of Land Management land.
So we can't just go and do what we want on that property. We've got
to get clearance through the BLM, and it's intended to be used for
educational purposes.
So if we wanted to modify the use, we'd have to have serious
conversations. I mean, there is a lot of real estate out there, as
you know, and over the years I have had developers coming wanting to
do things out there. I said, no, we can't. Sorry, we have this
restriction on us.
Downtown Campus is ideally situated, but it's in a small
footprint. So that's why we have been expanding the footprint of
Downtown Campus to allow us to position this college for the future
should we need to do.
We have been in discussions with NAU to have them potentially
co-locate onto our Downtown Campus, and we would build a facility
together. So as a result of that, that's one of the reasons why we
purchased -- I always get the name -- St. Elizabeth's. You know
where St. Elizabeth's, right there on Stone, not Stone, Speedway and
just down from Stone, so we purchased that property there. Right now
they are still in there, but I think they are going to vacate soon.
Then we are probably just going to level it for now and then look
at where this NAU conversation goes, and that could be a potential
home for that facility.
We have been working with Pima County OneStop to create an
integrated OneStop center, in this case, it would be on our Downtown
Campus. We have to have a place to put that.
What we are looking at, thanks to those hotel properties that we
have acquired, we have some square footage that we can work with, so
that may be the place where we site our Pima OneStop, at least in the
temporary period until we figure out a better solution.
So what is a OneStop, right? It's bringing all these different
services that people go to in different parts of the community,
housing services, job placement services, and put them all in one
place, and that's happening in other parts of the county, by the way.
But what's missing is it's not on a college campus where folks
today need to go and get that skill. So they will go there and then
they'll leave. But if they go there and are on a college campus,
make it easier.
So the earmark we just received with the county, it was
2.-something million dollars, was to help give us some seed money to
do this. So we are very fortunate that we were able to get an
earmark.
We got earmarks for other additional funds. The first year that
they brought back earmarks, we also got funds there, so the last two
years we have been successful in that effort to generate revenue to
help support some of this.
Any questions?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Yeah. This is maybe a very specific zoning
question, so I don't fault you if you don't know. Obviously limited
land that the next thing that pops in my head is up. So how high
-- I assume there is some zoning regulation about building heights or
floor amounts? Do you happen to know what those limits are?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I have Jeff here, so if I say it wrong he
can chime in. Because we are a state-owned entity, we are not
subject to the same local zoning restrictions that others are
restricted to.
Let me just say that first, right? But there is a reality,
right? We live in this community. So if we wanted to build a
10-story facility at Downtown Campus, who is that going to upset,
right? So we need to be mindful about that.
Certainly going three stories, four stories, I mean, our
manufacturing center is a three-story facility. We haven't gotten
big, big outcry about that. But I think if we wanted to go higher,
we're going to have to have -- and we do, when we do those projects,
we talk with the community. But there probably is going to be some
limiter, not from a legal standpoint or zoning standpoint but from a
community standpoint.
Going back to the St. Elizabeth property with NAU, Catholic U,
they recognize that they can't just function out of Washington, D.C.
So they have been looking at locating in other parts of the country,
and that was part of the original mission of Catholic U was they
wouldn't just be in one place.
So they came to Tucson as the first place they wanted to start
their expansion efforts, and so we worked with the mayor's office and
with the, oh, I forget the name off the top of my head, but an outfit
out of Washington, D.C., to figure out what would make a lot of sense
in terms of how we partner with Catholic U.
We are now partnering with Catholic U. We offer a business
degree. So it's a two-plus-two model. Two years with us and then
they transition over to Catholic U, but they start out as a Catholic
U student.
It's going well. It started out a little slow because of the
pandemic, but it's going well. I think where it's going to evolve to
is Catholic U is going to want more of a presence in Tucson. We are
hoping that that St. Elizabeth property could also be about
university partnership expansion. So we can accommodate -- because I
rather they come and partner with us instead of going across the
street building their own thing and now we are in competition versus,
hey, we are working together and we're sending a strong message
because of co-location, and let's provide more Baccalaureate
opportunities for Tucsonans and give them options besides just U of A
and besides NAU, and in some cases ASU.
So Catholic U is here, so we are very excited about that. They
brought down the cost of their degree significantly by partnering
with us. I think you can get your four-year degree on average is
$10,000 a year when you couple our part into it. Because ours is
really affordable, right, but when you average it out it becomes
pretty reasonable for them.
Anything else? That's kind of high level around the master
planning work here and the vision of the institution. There is other
elements that I have left out, but I want you to know there was a
strategy behind all of this, that we didn't just come up with these
ideas and start doing them.
But there is a lot of intentionality to it, and it was very
data-informed. We worked with our employees, because we wouldn't be
able to do any of this if the faculty aren't buying into it, if the
staff aren't buying into it. You saw it firsthand when you were at
the Ford piece. That's because they are all engaged with that.
Now, we've still got work to do to get more folks engaged, so
what we are doing now, I will say this one last piece about the
centers of excellence, we are in conversations to create a center of
excellence in the sciences.
We are going to have a summit. This is where we go out and start
to pressure-test with the community. Sometime I think March-ish.
We'd love for you to all come and be part of that. We just listen.
We share what we are doing and then we listen.
We are looking at having the science center of excellence be
housed at the Northwest Campus. Then another thing we are looking at
and I will be having conversations creating a center of excellence
around the humanities. When you factor in the educational piece that
we already have, factor in, we have the vote center, voices on the
economy piece, and if you look at what we are doing with ethnic,
gender, transborder studies, and then we start to integrate more of
the behavioral health pieces, all of that runs out of our humanities
part of the college, can we create a center of excellence centered in
the humanities.
Again, this is aligning to the needs of the community. Then the
community being part of helping to shape and form what that looks
like. Then we have a center of excellence for the arts. We are
looking to build that out. That was part of the original work that
we were doing. So we have not evolved that much at this moment, but
we are looking to do that.
Now, the other thing that happens sometimes in these centers is
we go out on benchmarking tours. We go out and look at who is doing
this well across the country so that we understand -- our goal is not
just to do it. It's to do it knowing that we want to be best in
class. What does best in class look like? How can we bring that
thinking into what we are doing?
Anything else?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: You said that arts was part of the original
group. Is there like a timeline you're operating under? The only
reason I think about it is I don't remember when I read this article,
so forgive me, but I feel like there was some, for lack of a better
word, controversy recently.
I think the U of A ended its musical theater program and there
were some groups that were kind of decrying that, that it was so
important. Anyway, just made me think, you said the center around
arts...
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Some of the timeline is based on the
resources that we have. So like, for example, when we have centered
on Applied Technology, we knew we could bring the money in to be able
to do that project, so we put that on a timeline. So that's already
close to being fully realized in that way, because that involved a
lot of capital investment to do that.
Another one that we were looking to launch was our public safety
piece, moving it from the 29th Street Center to East Campus, but we
were running into challenges on the resource side. So we can't fully
optimize the potential there without being able to generate revenue.
So we went and asked the governor last year for $20 million
investment. Well, we didn't get it.
So we are looking at making another run at that by asking
Governor Hobbs if she would invest into this. We'll see where that
goes. Because it is construction dollars, and we were trying to get
it out of the ARPA money. Former administration thought you couldn't
use ARPA money for construction projects. We have researched it.
That's not the case. You can use it for construction projects. You
just have to use it within a specified time frame.
A lot of this is dictated by what are the opportunities in this
community, do we have the resources, do we have the engagement level
we need from the faculty and staff to create the project. Then we
create the project plan.
So we were in process on the arts side to start to build towards
a project plan. Then our dean, his wife got a great offer on the
East Coast. He left us and joined her on the East Coast. So we have
had to take a step back. We now have an interim dean in that role,
so we have to come back and revisit it.
We have lots of the facilities already, so it may not be so much
about a place as much as does the curriculum, is it modernized and
enhanced enough. Do we have the right partnerships in the community
to strengthen all of that, and is there enough interest in terms of
student demand for those areas. So we will be doing that work.
Anything else on this particular topic?
So in order to pull a lot of this off involves being engaged with
the community. When I say "community," I'm talking at every level:
the local level, the state level, and the national level. So I'm on
a number of boards, a number of committees at each level. I thought
I'd just share with you just a few examples of that.
So here in our community, I'm on the Southern Arizona Leadership
Council. I'm on the board of directors for that group. I'm also on
the Sun Corridor board of directors. That's the economic development
organization for our community. I'm actually on the executive
committee of Sun Corridor.
I'm on the Tucson Airport Authority board. Then I'm on the
United Way board. I'm the past chair of the United Way.
So those are just some examples of some of the work I'm doing
locally. Then a lot of our employees obviously are on different
things as well locally.
I'm on the Banner advisory committee here, and then we have some
of our executive leadership on the different boards of the hospital,
local hospital boards as well.
I'm on the Arizona Chamber board. I'm on the Arizona Commerce
Authority board. So that's the statewide organization that is
focused on economic development.
So for us to have a seat on that board is very major for our
community, because you don't get a lot of Southern Arizona folks who
get a chance to be -- it's usually dominated by Phoenix folks.
Downside is I'm going to probably be approaching my term. But I have
the relationships. So that's the nice piece about that.
Then let me see what else I'll highlight. So we were involved in
the reskilling and recovery network. I don't know if you're familiar
with that. The Western Governors Association partnered with the
American Association of Community Colleges and created this
initiative to really help our communities as we went through the
pandemic.
So we formed a piece here in the State of Arizona, and then we
submitted our proposal. Our proposal was accepted. So Pima took the
leadership role in creating the reskilling and recovery plan for the
State of Arizona. That's huge that Pima took that lead.
Then locally I was asked by Sun Corridor to lead a similar effort
here in our community, so we created a recovery plan for us here
locally. So again, it's just an example of the impact we are having
at the state and local level.
But it ties back to the national stuff. I'm involved with the
apprenticeship work through the American Association of Community
Colleges. I'm on the president's advisory committee to the president
of ACCT. I don't know when he's going to term me out, but I have
been on there for a number of years, so I could end up getting termed
out. I'm also on the community college workforce consortium, on
their executive committee.
I'm involved with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and
Universities. I'm directly on the membership committee for that.
I'm also on the membership committee for the Higher Learning
Commission. Recently I was asked to sit on the credential engines
board. What credential engines is about is bringing greater
transparency to credentialing, because there is already over a
million unique credentials in the marketplace in the United States,
over a million unique credentials.
What is a credential, right? Lumina is one of the big
foundations that supports colleges and universities. So that's who
Lumina is. So they define a credential as a degree or certificate,
licensure, so those are things that make -- but there is no quality
control over this. It's just a bunch of organizations creating their
own credentials.
So credential engine is trying to take all of that and create a
better, more transparent system so that learners as well as folks who
would employ folks who get these can make better sense of what this
actually means. So I'm on that board.
So Barbara Gellman-Danley from the Higher Learning Commission is
on that board. Ted Mitchell from the American Council on Education
is on that board. The chief strategy officer for the Society of
Human Resource Managers is on that board. Microsoft -- I think you
get the idea, right?
So Pima has been able to position itself in some very unique,
high-level parts of this country. That's why you're starting to see
the kinds of success, because we've really gotten Pima's name out
there, and we are being asked to participate in a lot of
transformative work tied back to what we were just talking about.
Those are just some highlights of my personal engagement with
things. I hope this board would want to see me continue to do that.
Because I think that has a lot to do with why you're seeing the
things happening here at the college.
Any questions? Lunchtime, right? Thank you.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: We are going to call for another recess.
(Lunch recess.)
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