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January 16, 2024 Study Session...
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. We're going to call the study
session to order.
First up, we are going to talk about PimaOnline. So, Dr. Amick?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: I'm not a doctor, but thank you.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Board members, Chair Riel, Chancellor
Duran-Cerda. Thank you so much for having us as guests to have this
conversation about online learning here at the college.
So we're going to go through a presentation, invite you to ask
questions along the way, and/or we can have questions and discussions
towards the end of the presentation.
Getting started with an overview of what we hope to do here today
is the following. Some context of why we are here, the history of
online learning, a little bit about PimaOnline. Really want to share
with you some information about the students, as well. Then the
future of online learning at the college.
I want to acknowledge we have some real time limits here, and one
of the things we will not be able to do today is to go inside some
online courses. But do want to extend that invitation to you all as
a follow-up or some other type of meeting where we can host you,
possibly meet with a faculty person so that you can see what's
happening, what our students are seeing and experiencing inside the
online learning environment. Just wanted to offer that.
This meeting came about with a conversation with Theresa asking
our dean of distance education, Josie Milliken, wondering how to
learn more about what's happening with online learning at the
college. So thank you for asking that question, allowing us to be
here today.
What I would say to all of you as board members is as we go
through this presentation, some of the awarenesses and takeaways for
you will be pointed out, but to overview them as we go into them, be
listening for how you can maintain and expand your awareness of how
online learning works at this institution and how you can expand how
to reflect that in your strategies, chancellor's goals, and really
especially reflecting and understanding how this impacts our learners
and our students.
Also wanting you to have a takeaway to understand the sheer scale
and volume of online learning at this institution and its impact.
Then probably one of the most important takeaways, it may have been
already mentioned, is how essential online learning is for the
students' academic pathway.
We're going to spend some time going over that student feedback
and that student voice of how critical online learning is for their
educational attainment.
In addition, some of what brings us here is we had this
experience in the pandemic where everything went online in the matter
of weeks. Those of us in online learning prefer to make a
differentiation there that that was remote emergency learning. It's
not to be confused with the online learning that we are offering
students today.
It has a lot more work put into the experience, much more
structured, a lot of the student service aspects are there and known.
So we don't want anyone to be thinking that that is the online
learning that we are offering to students based on those experiences.
Now that we're emerging from this shift of the pandemic, one of
the phenomena that's been experienced here at the college and
nationwide, what's being observed with online learning now,
specifically at community colleges, is this high volume that has
persisted, and the modality selection that students are making for
online learning is not just happening here at the college. It's
happening across the country.
We'll talk a little bit more about those details. But we want to
continue to share that information with you and be in dialogue about
how that can be supported for students at the institution.
As we get started, we want to have a lot of clarity about what we
are talking about here. So just to review, some of our modalities of
how students can take their courses, the most obvious one that we're
familiar with of course is in person. I go to the campus, I go to my
class, I meet with the instructor and my fellow students in person
probably several times a week.
Hybrid is driving part of that learning experience into the
virtual environment, but it's not technically under the PimaOnline
umbrella, and it's not defined as distance education by the
Department of Education. It typically means there is reduced seat
time, so instead of maybe twice a week or three times a week, a
student is coming to that class once a week, still connected in
person with my faculty and my fellow students, but some of those
activities I can conduct in the online environment.
It's very attractive for students, has less of a commitment for
them to schedule appearing on a campus. Not under the online
learning umbrella. Is taking place in the online learning software,
D2L Brightspace.
These are the two modalities that are offered for online
learning. Virtual means synchronous online learning in that a
student is required to log on at a certain day and time, and they are
directly getting instruction from their instructor in that online
environment. They are there with their fellow online students.
Pima uses the term "virtual." That is a Pima-centric term.
Other institutions call that synchronous, required virtual meeting
time, other terms. "Synchronous" is just such a word that can be
hard to relate to, so we use "virtual."
The other aspect of the modality then is what we call online,
which is asynchronous. That is the student has the higher level of
flexibility in that they can do their work as their schedule requires
them. They still have due dates. They still have requirements that
need to be turned in by dates. It's not a self-paced course, and
what we hear from students on these two modalities is a high
preference for the online asynchronous. They share why they need
that higher level of flexibility.
The virtual offering makes up less than 5% of our offerings. The
online asynchronous makes up about 43 or 44% of our offerings. You
can see that difference.
That is returning to the levels that it was prior pandemic. If
they are going to take it online, they want the flexibility. If they
need to see a faculty person, they're fine just going to the class
and not having to worry about the technology.
Next I want to share with you what has been the vision and
mission defined by PimaOnline. Our vision being that we will be a
nationally recognized leader in exemplary online learning
experiences. Our mission being that we will provide equitable access
to innovative and high-quality online learning opportunities and
student support services that empower students to achieve their
educational goal.
I'm very proud to share with you that we are fulfilling both our
vision and our mission for students, and we will have a chance to
share some of those details.
There is a lot of information or experiences folks have with
online learning, and the one thing I would share with you is it's
easy to provide online learning. It's hard to do it great.
That's one of the things that we have really focused on and
really feel that our students deserve is an innovative, high-quality
learning experience and environment that ranges through the course
that they enter into and experience, the way the faculty conduct
themselves with their learning and interactivity, and the ease of
which they can use the services or reach out to help ranging from
tutoring to being connected to knowing what to expect is some of what
helps make online learning great at Pima Community College.
So this is going back to alerting you to one of the takeaways
that you will want to have from this session. So when we think about
the current mission of Pima Community College to empower every
learner, every day, for every goal, one thing to ask you to keep in
your mindset is how are we empowering every online learner, every
day, for every goal? How are we ensuring that with our strategies
and actions? Because we don't want to necessarily single them out,
but we do want to make sure that the online learning is included as
we reflect on and fulfill this mission.
I want to take some time now to go over some of the data so that
you have a picture of what online learning is at this institution.
There are many ways to approach it, many ways to slice and dice it.
One of the ways we are starting here is a picture of the Downtown
Campus. You have been there, you know what it looks like and feels
like, you know about how many students are there. In fact, this past
semester there were 3,422 students at the Downtown Campus.
When we did our data gathering and submission for the Title V
grant, which is to specifically support Hispanic-Serving
Institutions, we did a lot of disaggregation of that data. Just for
an illustration, there are not quite the same size of the Downtown
Campus but approaching it 2,877 Hispanic-identifying students that
are exclusively online.
That just helps paint a picture of what's happening with online
learning at our institution. There is the number of students nearly
the size that attend Downtown Campus that never come to a campus.
They are 100% online and identify as Hispanic.
Part of the grant, and some of it we will talk about, is that is
a significant number. And are we ensuring that we are meeting their
needs so that they are successful in attaining their educational
goals?
Another hopefully helpful illustration is the West Campus, the
largest campus that we have at the college. As we head into the
semester, they have 8,012 enrollments at the West Campus. Now, to
put that into perspective as we enter into spring 2024, online
learning has 19,818 enrollments.
What we want the -- this is another one of those
what-can-you-walk-away-with moments for online learning at the
institution, is that online learning now makes up 47 to 48% of what's
happening at the college. In fact, 65% of our students took at least
one online course last year. So when we think about graduation and
all of those students going across, 65% of them needed at least one
online course to help attain their goal to be able to walk across
that stage.
It's significant and it's large, as we can see. Let's continue
to talk a little bit about that. So not only does online learning
make up more than what's happening at the West Campus, it is now
approaching making up more than is what is happening at all of the
on-ground campuses.
So I just want to stress the importance of this volume and scale
that we are experiencing and how we meet the needs of these students.
One thing to share is this is the normal phenomena that is taking
place at community colleges across the nation. The average is 50%
online that's being reported and expected to persist.
The other data point that I would share with you, the average
that community colleges nationwide are experiencing with exclusively
online students is 40%. Pima Community College is around the 30% of
our enrollment is exclusively online.
Greg? Just checking to see if you had a question?
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Yeah, I did. That answered one of them.
Exclusively online.
I'm curious when the students are choosing, for example, in this
choice, how often -- and you don't necessarily have to quantify this
precisely, but I'm wondering, how often are they choosing between
equivalent in-person or online classes, or how often is the class
they are looking for only offered online, therefore they're taking it
online? Does that make sense?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: You're right. It is kind of elusive. We do
have feedback from hundreds of comments and that appears sometimes
where they will say I didn't want to take this class online. I wish
I could have taken it in person. That comment does appear.
The vast majority of our comments, however, are not that. They
say I have to have it online, and if I can't get it here, I either
can't do my educational path or I have to go somewhere else, because
my life circumstance is that I need to do it online, is the far and
away majority of that.
Just to help reflect on that a little bit is the summer
enrollment. The summer enrollment is over 70% online. It's very
little that are taking place at the campuses. When we talk to the
students saying should we put this at a campus, they're like, no, I
cannot sit in an accelerated condensed course for eight weeks that
has me in that class for three hours five days a week. I've got
stuff I got to do. I need the flexibility of online in summer
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Sorry, one other related question. This
probably would only be applicable to those that are solely online,
that 30% that you're talking about. Does the college keep data on
whether those students ever utilize the campuses for other services
or do they just never set foot on one of the physical campuses when
they are exclusively online?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: We don't have that data to pinpoint that. We
continue to have a lot of visibility for the services that are
provided. One of the aspects of those services that's an
accreditation item is that we are required to offer like services
online that we offer to face-to-face students.
One of the issues with that is we are supposed to be providing it
online. They are welcome to come on campus. A little bit actually
in inverse, there are opportunities, there have been in the past, to
offer services exclusively to online students, like one example would
be the online tutoring.
So it was a question, this is going to cost the college or
students, should we constrain this virtual digital access to only
those online, or should it be accessed by all students? This is kind
of the one of the first conversations we had, Dolores, when you were
provost. So many of our services that are for online students are
accessible to all students.
Those face-to-face students say, yeah, this helps me a lot. I
can access services virtually. But we are required to ensure them
that we have them for online students.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. So I just want you to clarify. You
have stated that online classes, you're also offering them, at least
one of them, in person or no?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: I don't.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Do we offer that? Because there are some
students --
>> MICHAEL AMICK: There are many, many, many of our classes are
offered online and face-to-face, as well.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. Then I had some other questions, and
I might be jumping ahead a little bit, but how do you evaluate the
success rate of your online classes? I'd like to know how many
people actually finish.
What do the faculty members think about the method of teaching,
what's their preferred method? Well, I guess I already said that.
What is the success rate of each method of teaching?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Yeah, so our comprehensive success rate in
online learning has lagged behind face-to-face success. It ranges
from about 6 to 9% lower in comprehensive success rate than
face-to-face classes. That has been present, I think I have been in
online learning for 27 years, and it used to be a chasm between the
success rates.
We have an initiative every single year to improve that. That is
one of our No. 1 focuses is to close that gap. And we have made
progress, about 1% or 2% a year, but the college as a whole has also
been overall improving, so we are still lagging behind.
Another area where we have done some analysis is instead of that
comprehensive success rate, we have looked at, there are areas where
the success rate is parallel. So for the most part, the entire
business department has the same success rate online that it does
face-to-face. Even at times and some semesters, online, a higher
success rate, that we see face-to-face.
We do a lot of crunching on that, and so now where a lot of our
focus has turned to is in online learning, where is the lowest
success rate, and putting our efforts there. One of the newer roles
we have had is the embedded online success coach. They are in those
courses where there is the lowest success rate directly reaching out
and working with those students to try to help improve those, because
that is a very serious concern of how it impacts students, but now,
with the volume of online learning, how it impacts our overall
success rate in totality.
The second question you asked about faculty. There is a lot to
answer there. We have faculty leaders in online learning that are
some of the best in the nation. They prefer that modality, and they
lead out on it, because they understand how critical it is for
students to attain their goals.
The model that we have has those leaders helping provide
oversight as a resource and a colleague to the faculty that are
teaching online so that they have a resource of how to do things and
a best practice or any scenario that comes along for them.
The other thing that I would share is prior to the pandemic there
was maybe more faculty that are, like, I'm not sure if this is good
online, I love the classroom, I love the classroom, but emerging from
the pandemic, I have talked to so many faculty that have had a
conversion experience of I love online now, I see how it helps
students, I love the D2L tools.
So not anything real quantitative there, but...
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'm sorry. It has to do with does it take
the faculty more time? Does it require more of their time than if
they were teaching, you know, an in-person class?
I would imagine they have to prepare and different times they are
looking at the students or having the class, and then giving feedback
would be different?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: I do think teaching online can be very
demanding. And faculty will talk about how to set boundaries and
efficiencies. Because one of the things that we really insist upon
is being very responsive to a student's needs, but yet you can't be
on 24/7 being responsive, and so trying to set expectations of what
that is.
One of the things that can help a faculty person for online
learning is our instructional design unit does build and create this
beautiful course. That is something that Pima has. My previous
institutions didn't have that. The faculty individual had to build
and create their entire course and put all that content inside that
learning area.
So that can help save time. I think the demands of teaching and
instruction are high in online learning. In my experience, I
actually found hybrid teaching and learning to be the most demanding,
because I prepared and did it online, and if I was teaching online, I
would have been done, but then I had to go to the classroom and do
instruction there, as well.
I don't know if that helps.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I have two kinds of questions. The first is
do you want us to interrupt you as you go through this to ask
questions, or --
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Sure.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: -- do you want us to wait until the end?
I'm concerned I don't get to speak if I wait till the end.
(Laughter.)
>> MICHAEL AMICK: No, please.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: And the second thing is I think the board
needs to have a conversation of what a study session is. Because we
don't study much. We get talked at with a bunch of statistics, and
we really don't get a chance to get our hands in there and play
around with some things and pick your brains and things like that.
I'm wondering if we maybe should change the format that the
presentation is an overview, brief, and that then we can ask
questions that allows the expert to guide us then to the answer so
that we have a better feel for what we think we need to know as
opposed to then what you think we need to know.
Just a thought for the board. That's all.
You want some of my questions now?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Yes, please.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: What's the definition of "enrollment"?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Enrollment is, I think a way to differentiate
it is from head count, so one student can enroll in multiple classes.
So counting enrollment is how many classes have students come into.
So one class could have 30 enrollments.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: So it would be helpful for me that when we
talk in those terms that we also --
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Have some definitions.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: -- say there is 12,000 enrollments that
service 300 students. That would be helpful for me because it gives
me a better idea how many are participating in this, and is it a few,
is it a lot? Are they taking a lot of courses or taking a few
courses?
In regards to rigor, how do you determine that an online class
has the rigor equal to an in-person classroom? I have always been
fascinated at that question and have never known the answer.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Yeah. And, you know, I would characterize the
last 20 years -- my dissertation was actually on that topic, because
I taught art. That was the question of the day in the early 2000s.
Are these students learning? Are they learning as well?
So the academic academy nationwide has thrown their weight
against that question, and for the most part, a lot of it has to do
with the quality that's being offered.
So, for example, through our course development process, we have
a subject matter expert who is a faculty in that field, and the
instructional designers, web designers, and digital media producers
helped them build this with an incredibly detailed matrix to say
you're doing this activity, what outcome does it match in the course,
so that you know the work that you're doing is to fulfill certain
course outcomes?
Of course those then are measured by assessments. So there has
been lots of research over the years, especially in the sciences, are
students learning the same, are they performing the same on
standardized tests after they go through classes.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: How do we do that?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: What's that?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: How do we do that?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: By defining the outcomes and doing the
assessments.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: So do we have end-of-course assessments?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: It depends on how they are designed. Often
there is a final exam and there's a final assessment in courses.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: That would be a very easy way of simplifying
that whole question. You know, the in-class students take the same
assessment as the online students at the end of...
>> MICHAEL AMICK: We have a term paper that's comprehensive to
the class, as in face-to-face or in the online class.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: So we're doing that?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Yes.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Okay, good.
For the gen ed students, do we have any data that says our online
students that receive an AA are doing as well as the in-class
students that receive that AA when they get to the university system?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: I don't have that kind of comprehensive
detailed information. What we have received from Arizona State
University is they give us a report to the provost and chancellor of
these are the online students that have come to ASU into online
programs, and incidentally, the No. 1 online program that Pima
College students are going into at ASU is engineering online.
So we don't really have that comprehensive success. We will try
to track some down and report it back.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Well, you don't need to do it for me.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: I wonder about it too.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: If I were you, I'd be very curious.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: We do ask that question, and we hear specific
stories from students but not data points.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: When I was a high school principal, I would
get a computer printout from the three state universities on every
one of our graduates that attended that institution and what their
grades were in every course they took, semester by semester.
So, for example, the math data could go to the math department
and they would see kids are having success above average in
third-year algebra or calculus or second-year calculus, or something
like that, to try to get an indication if our courses were rigorous
enough in order to prepare the student adequately for success at the
next level.
We don't get any of that from the three state universities?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: I don't know if...
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: We can get that data. I have been
trading texts with Nic. So we can provide that for all of us.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I don't need to see it.
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: I know, but I think we should all
know.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: One of the challenges, when we have tried to
explore these types of things in the past, is that we don't require
or say to a student, you're going to get an online degree and you
have to take online classes.
The main phenomena that happens with our students is, oh, this
semester I have to take them all online. Next semester I'm not
taking any of them online. Next semester I'm going to take one or
two online.
It's such a mix of courses, and we don't require a student to say
I am an online student and identify as that, because they want to
have that flexibility.
So that's some of where we have run into that data challenge.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Well, in a perfect world, the student would
know what their learning style was and they would select courses
based on their own personal learning style. That's a reach. But we
do know students say I need to have that person in there talking to
me, and we have other students that say, hey, I can do that on the
computer and I get it.
I don't know how you get around that, but I'm curious on maybe if
there's some kind of avenue where we could prepare students to better
make those choices. The biggest shock I had at the University of
Arizona my freshman year is when I went to the basement in the modern
languages building that had 30 chairs bolted to the floor and the TV
went on to give a lecture in chemistry.
I didn't do very well with that (smiling).
>> MICHAEL AMICK: So one of the ways we try to address that need
is we have created an orientation to online learning that every
single student at this college is automatically enrolled into, and we
also have it available on our website. So even if you're just
thinking, like, I don't know if I can do online learning, you can go
through this orientation class, you know what it looks like and feels
like, and can help with some of those decisions when you were talking
about learning styles is for me or not. We do try to help with that.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: It would be wonderful if a student can
direct their own learning. I mean, I think that's what we would all
try to get to at some point in time. I'm just wondering how much
time we spend having those conversations.
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: So I can chime in here too with
advising. The advisors, when they talk to the individual students,
they ask them that question. How comfortable are you with taking
classes online? And as Michael said, as I have looked at the course
shells, there is an orientation or is online learning for you.
So students take that, and so it helps them understand if this is
the right approach or not.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Yeah, and I'm talking specifically learning
styles and not, oh, I have two kids at home and I've got to get to
work. That seems to me what I hear about online learning. I don't
have time to get on the bus and go across town and go to that campus
and do that. I have a time problem.
Those are two separate issues.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Separate but real.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Not that it doesn't happen or need to
happen, but to have the student be able to make those choices
themselves based on probability of success is all I'm saying.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: One way that we help folks approach the
possible challenges of online learning is to help develop the
awareness of whatever shortcoming you have, it gets turned up to 10
in the online learning environment. So if you have a challenge
reading, you're going to read more than you ever have in an online
course.
If you have time management issues or procrastination issues,
they're going to hit you harder in an online course. That concept
also applies to faculty. Whatever your shortcoming is as a faculty
person, students are going to see it in online. So we try help build
that awareness and provide tools to address that prior to being an
online course.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: So if I'm at a cocktail party and a parent
walks up to me and says, my student's a senior at Sahuaro High School
and getting ready to start Pima next fall, should he take online
classes or in-person classes, what's my answer?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Depends on your student.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: That's not going to help the parent.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Well, we go into a little deeper dialogue
about that particular student to help navigate those questions, help
them understand what resources are available so that they could vet
and get a deeper understanding if it's a good fit for them.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: So my answer would be I have no idea, but
this is where you go --
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Yeah.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: -- to help you with that decision? And that
would be where?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: They can contact me, Josie.
>> DR. JOSIE MILLIKEN: I think if we advance forward with the
presentation, we have a whole section on our students.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: She's just advocating we keep going through
the presentation.
>> DR. JOSIE MILLIKEN: I think as we advance forward through the
presentation and talk about our students, specific online students
and why they choose online learning, that will help to elucidate some
of the questions that come up.
For many -- well, I think we should just move forward and we get
to the student area where we go over some of the students and hear
their voices. That will really help clarify.
Then if questions come up at that point, I'm just looking at the
time, and we want to make sure that we have the opportunity to show
you what we have.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Thank you.
So just touching base a little bit on the history of distance
education at Pima Community College, online learning began in the
late 1990s and early 2000s. It's interesting, as we prepared for
this, we found some presentations to the board that were 10 years ago
where faculty leaders were here asking for coordinated support and
quality for online learning.
That's part of what helped bring me here about 8 years ago where
I was charged with implementing PimaOnline with the goal of
centralizing quality so that we could assure that students could have
a good experience. That has really been my focus in my career is
students deserve a high-quality online learning experience with
clarity and not confusing so that they can achieve their educational
goal.
We could spend a significant amount of time here helping you kind
of understand how online learning works at our college. Just an
overview is we have about, and, you know, I don't want to be throwing
out too much information so it's overwhelming, but just
comprehensively, we have a unique structure. I mentioned the faculty
leaders that Maria was asking about, how do faculty view online
learning.
We have 17 dedicated faculty leaders that they help us decide on
expectations or requirements of what students need and what faculty
need. They are leaders in innovation. They are pioneering the work
of artificial intelligence. They are very involved with the cutting
edge of education and exploring it.
We have an area of online student success and student services
that are dedicated as specific needs of online students to ensure
that there is a focus there, and helping address those. That is what
helped bring the Title V Hispanic-Serving Institution grant into
place. It really expands the support for all of our students, all of
our online students.
We have an area called the center for learning technology. This
is our instructional design unit that helps build these online
courses. There is web designers involved with that. There is a
digital media production that's involved with that.
They also have a fairly new unit of educational technologists.
One of the challenges again of doing online learning is, like, hey,
here's this cool technology. Here you go. Not helpful. We have a
process that gets feedback from the students and faculty about how
educational technology needs to be supported so it works well for the
students.
We have over 23 programs and certificates that can be completed
100% online. We have an office of partnerships and operations that
helps make sure that everything is working, and they are also charged
with supporting the oversight for the out-of-state online students
that we have at the institution.
We have a quality review process. You were speaking to that,
Dr. McLean, of how do we ensure there is quality. We have so many
courses and so many students, that is a significant concern.
So we now have an office dedicated to making sure all kinds of
quality assurance is met in these online courses. From the minute a
student steps into that course, we take that very seriously that
there is clarity of information, accuracy of information, because
that can be the point right there where they say, I can't do this,
and log out.
We have also under online learning, which is a little unique, is
the Learning Management System, the online environment. D2L
Brightspace is managed by my area. That's been awesome, because it's
so collaborative with the faculty to ensure that it's set up and
functioning the way it needs to for students and faculty.
It's utilized across the whole college. Every class that's
offered here has a shell created in that online learning environment,
and they use the electronic gradebook. They have over 700,000
log-ins a month into this environment, so just kind of sharing that
piece.
We host a PimaOnline educators conference once a year with 300
folks from Pima attending. About 25 from across the nation. We have
received national recognition for how we use our LMS to do that. One
of the amazing things about PimaOnline is how the national experts
have evaluated and responded to it comprehensively. We have received
national awards for our faculty being recognized as outstanding
online instructors.
Our students have been recognized. Our online classes have been
designated some of the best in the nation. We have received
accolades for innovation and educational technology, and most
recently have been recognized as the best online learning community
college in the top 100 from Newsweek and the top 10 from Forbes.
It's very overwhelming and important for you to recognize the
comprehensive acknowledgement of the good way that we are doing
online learning.
Also wanted to give you some of the financial picture. This does
cause me to remember one other financial thing I wanted to share with
you, and that is in regards to open education resources. OER is a
free free-of-copyright textbook that students utilize in their
courses.
When I first arrived here in 2015 and '16, the students were
coming to the board saying we've got to reduce the textbook costs,
and we started an initiative in PimaOnline to create a complete
degree pathway where a student would not have to pay for one
textbook.
The spring of 2017 I remember meeting with President, at the
time, Lorraine Morales to share that we had saved students $27,000
that they did not have to pay for textbooks. We were so celebratory.
Last semester, we saved students over $980,000 that they did not
need to pay for textbooks, and this initiative has saved students
over $11 million. Think about that with student loans. There is not
$11 million worth of student loans out there in our community that
our students don't have to deal with. So I did want to mention that.
Here's the operating budget for PimaOnline, a little over $1.8
million. Please note this does not include any of the salaries.
It's just our operating budget. One-third of that budget is going
for D2L Brightspace, the Learning Management System, that is used
across the college. I just wanted you to have some of that financial
picture. We think it's a bargain for half the enrollment.
So now what we really wanted to get a chance to share with you,
information directly from our students. Again, going back to some of
the three or four takeaways for the board, we advocate for really
understanding the voice of the online student and the needs of the
online student.
I mentioned that our students have been recognized and they are
contributing to the culture of PimaOnline. Webster Rose was our
commencement speaker first time we came back in person after the
pandemic, sharing his inspiration with us.
Namrata Patel served as a senator and a huge advocate for online
learners and their needs and would let us know, you can't do this,
you have to do this for online learners.
They both completed their programs 100% online.
We have been doing all kinds of engagement with online students
in a variety of ways and just wanted to share with you a little bit
of what that looks like. When we have our conferences, we take the
time to ensure that we have a panel of online students. It is one of
the most popular and favorite amongst conference or retreat
attendees, because they get to hear directly from online students.
What do you like? What doesn't work? What bothers you? Do you like
this? It's been a really great method for one of the ways that we
get direct student feedback.
Just sharing with you some of the data, Dr. McLean, you were
referring to this of why do students take online learning, these are
national statistics that we're looking at comprehensively here, and I
want to go ahead and step to some of the data we have from PimaOnline
students.
So again, very important that we hear from our students. We
partake in a survey every two years called the Priority Survey of
Online Learners where students give feedback about every aspect of
their online learning experience. They share how important it is to
them, how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with it.
It also surveys why they are taking online learning, and you can
see some of the examples here of how important online learning is for
them in their educational pathway.
With this survey, we first implemented this survey in 2016 in
which online learning at this college was below average in every
single category compared to the national data point.
We will be doing it again this March. We do it every two years.
Two years ago we were above average in over 75% of the categories in
student feedback and student satisfaction.
So getting to some of the direct voice of our students, this is
from the survey. We received I think over a thousand comments. So
going into some of the qualitative feedback, that's important for us
to know.
I could not have taken this path if I had not had this
opportunity to go to college online.
That summarizes a lot of what we hear from our students. For me,
it's always super fun to ask a student why are you taking this
online? We put them in these categories, but they always have a
really interesting story to share. The most recent one was Nadia had
just moved here from Wisconsin with her significant other, and she is
starting a business, a dog-sitting and dog-boarding business, and
she's, like, I have to take my classes online because I have to be
here with these dogs and take care of them.
So that was one of the more unique ones I have heard recently.
Also family needs. Whether it's taking care of children or a
significant other or older family members, they need to take it
online, they can accelerate it online, and the student sharing that
it was a good experience for them.
Other comments from students. So happy to have taken my online
classes. They fit my schedule. I like being able to take my classes
strictly online because it gives me the ability to work full time.
This is something that we're hearing from our students more and
more because of the economic situation. The high cost of rent.
Students are sharing I have to work. I have to be able to make my
payments.
So without online learning, I would not be able to go to college.
I'd have to wait and try to get the money and then be able to go and
work less.
It goes back to that point of really wanting to make sure that
you can manage your time. We have a time management calculator in
our online website that can help students identify that.
This other comment here, just trying to round this out, an
in-person class was too far away, what you were kind of asking about
previously, Board Member Garcia, about it was not offered at the East
Campus, it was offered at the West Campus, we do get some of those
comments.
Here's a student that was face-to-face. The pandemic taught them
that they could be online. It helps them balance their work, school,
and parenting. A foreign student thanking us for having online
learning available.
So just giving you this picture of the direct voice of our online
students.
Now, I just want to shift a little bit into this student success
department focus. There is a lot going on on this screen, but, you
know, getting into some of your questions, Dr. McLean, we have the
orientation to online learning. We have sessions that students can
sign up for to say, hey, teach me, help me prepare to be on online,
want to talk directly to a person to help me with that.
We have other students employed as PimaOnline navigators. They
host hours. Folks can log in on the weekend, talk to a student. I'm
not sure what I'm supposed to be doing right now but I have to get
this done, they can connect with a navigator. I talked about our
coaches as well that were focused on those low success courses and
want to improve that.
A lot of what I just showed you ties into this Title V grant
that's going to allow us to expand on our success coaches, expand on
an engagement coordinator who just started today in his role. Also
looking at some engagement software that the University of Arizona
also uses.
The main focus and what we hear from our students, they want a
sense of belonging in that online environment, just like we are
seeking to provide that here at the college in our campuses.
Starting to conclude here. I just want to go back to some of
those concluding takeaways, asking you to continue to expand and
reflect on the awareness of online learning at the institution and
its sheer scale and volume and how that plays into strategies and
supports and being aware of how critical online learning is for the
attainment of educational goals that our students have and that they
share with us.
With that, I want to ask Jeff Thies to come forward and speak to
some of the future of PimaOnline that we have been dialoguing about.
>> DR. JEFF THIES: Good afternoon. How's everybody doing?
I'm going to be brief because I know you probably still have
other questions you want to ask Michael, Josie, or myself.
So one of the challenges when I stepped into this role is to
focus the college on two things, and they are actually part of the
chancellor's goals. One of them is kind of in that persistence,
retention, completion, and we have to disaggregate, we have to look
at students by race, ethnicity, by age, by program, by modality. In
other words, are they taking classes at a campus, multiple campuses,
online and campuses, fully online.
We have to be thinking about that in an efficient and an
effective way moving forward. So what is the future model of how we
support our students regardless of the modality, keeping in mind all
the great successful things that we have done in the PimaOnline
division over the late eight years, but also recognizing we have a
limited resource pool, right?
And how do we distribute our human and operational resources in a
way that continues to move the needle forward for success for our
Hispanic/Latino students, Native American students, students that are
fully online, students that are part time and only taking six
credits, students in a Level I cert, students in an associate's of
science looking to transfer to the U of A. What are we doing to
improve student success?
Those are the two kind of deeper thoughts that are going through
the process of how can we help support our students. A lot of what
you see in the Title V StriveOnline Grant is supporting students from
those wraparound services, giving them a location. Although it be
virtual, we realize that some students, it's kind of like DoorDash,
right? I never would have thought people were going to have to
deliver food on a regular basis to people. The store is half a mile
away. But how is it we're at a point now where DoorDash and these
other companies, it's not like we are all confined to our houses
still, right, like we were in COVID, but people got used to a luxury,
maybe not even a luxury, keeping their life simpler in one way so
they could be more dedicated in others, right?
So that idea of flexibility and accountability and support that
we need to have, refocusing always on the student success, their
experience at the college, how can we make it better, how can we get
to our institutional targets, because that's the provost's office's
guiding light is institutional Target 2 this year, and all years
obviously, but we really are hyperfocused on Target 2, which was the
idea that we were doubling completers in those three areas, right?
Our Hispanic-Latino, our Native American, and our African-American
populations.
So how does the resources that we have, kind of the neutral,
zero-sum game of resources that we have our access to best utilized
to support our students moving forward.
So we held some forums in the fall to get some feedback
college-wide on the different types of models that could exist in
PimaOnline, starting from a decentralized model to a fully
centralized model. Think of the fully centralized as what U of A has
done by purchasing Ashford, what the University of Idaho has done by
trying to purchase the University of Phoenix. They have stand-alone
colleges that have their stand-alone employees.
We're not suggesting that we go anywhere near that, but there are
variations between that and there is no PimaOnline and we just expect
the college to operate online modality courses within its regular
structure. So you can imagine there is a blend of possibilities in
between those two extreme scenarios.
I'll end it at that so we have some time for more questions.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I have one. In terms of that last slide
where you're talking about the future, in terms of what we, as the
board, have the power to give you, like, what do you need? What are
you lacking or what barriers can we help you bring down in terms of
being able to move forward in the direction that you want?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: So I think one of the things was the
objectives that we noted, just to ensure that part of the reflection
is how are we serving every learner, every day, for every need, and
including that awareness that online learning is 47% to 48% of what's
happening at the college.
>> DR. JEFF THIES: I think although it's an ongoing
conversation, has been for a while, is just understanding where we
are with respect to having brick-and-mortar spots in this
online/virtual place, and how is it that we manage the current five
brick-and-mortar campuses and this online space. It's not going
away, right, so how does that factor into a lot of the decisions that
need to be made moving forward.
>> DR. JOSIE MILLIKEN: One other point to that is, Dr. McLean,
you were asking earlier about that component of learning style and
then also that component of need for flexibility, the ability to fit
it into a life. One of the pieces of that is that in reality, some
students sacrifice what they know might be the best modality for
them, face-to-face, when they take online because they know it is the
only option that will offer them the opportunity to succeed.
One of the beauties of that is that with our course developments,
we can use utilize strategies like a strategy called UDL, Universal
Design for Learning. It's a strategy to use to develop online
courses so that they meet the needs of different learners with
different styles of learning.
So that one of the things that we know, that research has shown
can increase success rates, are those wraparound services. So the
Title V grant is going to offer a great opportunity to elevate
student success.
Peer-to-peer mentoring, providing that sense of belonging,
research has shown that that peer-to-peer, higher than anything else,
higher than instructor-to-student, can elevate a student's
opportunity for success. So the Title V grant is going to help with
a lot of that.
Still, there are other areas where we know that we could, if we
had the additional resources, we could provide the additional
supports to students to achieve a higher level of success. Because
when they enter an online classroom, they don't see people around
them. They don't see students walking by in the hallway, and that
can feel isolating.
But the more that they have that support and have these
opportunities to connect with others in the environment, the greater
their opportunity for success.
So to Chairperson Greg Taylor, your point, one of those things is
resources, and carrying this information forward, both the student
need for online learning, the community need for online learning, how
it serves students in the community, the value of the online courses,
and the consistent quality of improvement efforts, and the need that
to even provide additional student support does require additional
resources.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Can you give me an example of one of those
things that we don't do now that could be implemented to get more of
that connectedness?
>> DR. JOSIE MILLIKEN: Sure, exactly. What you'll find
nationally is that it is not uncommon to find a success gap at any
institution of higher education between online and in-person.
One of the resources that we know from other institutions that
have utilized it that has helped is to have faculty mentors, and
these are mentors hired specifically for that role. They don't teach
classes as a faculty member would. Rather that isolated role that's
specifically there to serve faculty and help them interact more
-- they are skilled and experts in strategies for that
instructor/student interaction.
So that's one additional resource that would help. And then the
more we have a growing demand, to integrate success coaches into
online courses. That's another area where there is just a lack of
resources, to be able to provide that success coach resource in as
many online courses as we'd like to. Particularly those that are
struggling with a lower success rate compared to others.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Thank you. This is more of an editorial
comment than a question, but just, you know, what struck me when you
were talking, especially when you were talking about budgets, you
know, I kept thinking back to what we spent a million dollars on that
air conditioning thing and 29th Street a couple months ago. I'm not
saying that was the wrong choice. I mean, there were a lot of
reasons why it was. But that million dollars could have increased
the budget for a third of our students by 50% in terms of what was
going on on here.
So when we're having conversations and Dave's presenting these
things and I keep harping on efficiencies, you know, and talking
about all this physical infrastructure that we maintain, because we
do that, we can't do things like this. This is a third of our
students that are fully online, and so we are so hamstrung by this
physical infrastructure that we maintain, it really does impugn our
ability to do things that could make a meaningful difference for
giant chunks of the student population. For whatever that's worth.
>> DR. JOSIE MILLIKEN: As vice president of distance education,
Michael Amick shared earlier, is that we know that this is a lot,
that we went through a lot of information today in a very short
amount of time.
So we would be happy to coordinate through the chancellor's
office some individual or group meetings and tailor those
specifically to questions you'd like to have to be able to expand on
what we went over today.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: I do have a few more questions.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: So do I. A comment first. I would prefer
to have the slides and you abbreviate the presentation, because what
I was fearful of, and what I said earlier was, you're going to talk
and then we're not going to have enough time to talk, and we are
almost 10 minutes over. So it did happen.
I think another piece of this, when we see a budget -- I'm not
talking at you. I'm talking to everybody. When we see a budget
slide where it says the tuition revenue is this, the expenses is
this, net tuition revenue is 1.879, that tells me nothing. It
doesn't tell me what the cost is.
There is going to be, my prediction, several conversations about
differentiated tuition. What does this mean to that conversation?
In other words, how much does it cost us to deliver a unit to a
student online versus how much does it cost us to deliver a unit,
same unit, to a student in person?
It's going to help us make some budget decisions in the future
that's going to be essential. I think sometimes we skirt around
that, because even when Dr. Bea gives us a presentation, well, it
costs it us this much for increment, it costs us this much for an
operating expense increase, and it doesn't tell us how much it costs
us to educate a student.
So I think in the future, when we get these presentations, I
think we ought to start thinking that way, if it costs more to do
this, we maybe need to charge the student more. If it costs less,
then we may have a profit that would offset some other operating
expenses.
That's the kind of stuff I would like to see in these
presentations so that we can use that data to make good, informed
decisions about what we want to do as far as the budget is concerned.
>> DR. JOSIE MILLIKEN: If I may, if it would help, one of the
reasons we included that slide was to highlight that our LMS, our
Learning Management System, represents about a third of the budget,
and the point there that that is our facilities budget essentially.
But that serves the whole institution.
So in these conversations that we have had, the shaping the
future of PimaOnline, that's part of that conversation, does it all
belong in one budgeting area.
I don't know if that's helpful, but that was part of the intent
in including that slide.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I'm not sure I read that, but Pearson is the
one that provides that service?
>> DR. JOSIE MILLIKEN: The LMS is D2L Brightspace, and that is
the Learning Management System.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Are you looking at this slide?
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I was looking at slide 32. It's in there a
couple of times.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Yes. Sorry.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: You don't have to answer that. I'm just
trying to make a point. And the point is give us the information but
don't read it to us, and let us assimilate some of that, and then
maybe we have more time for this kind of conversation, which...
>> MICHAEL AMICK: We only went through half the slides.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Well, I was thinking, 46 slides, one minute
per slide, and we don't get to talk.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: We only wanted to have this as additional
information, just as you've cited. I will say that Dave Bea does ask
those questions, especially related to these partnerships, and we're
trying to illustrate the amount of revenue that comes in. But he
does ask us to expand on what are the actual costs, what are the
comprehensive costs for anything that's not core to just PimaOnline,
any type of partnership.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: I'm sure he does, and you can imagine the
questions we ask him when we're talking about the budget. Just for
future reference, that's my personal opinion. I don't know how the
other board members feel.
>> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: We wanted to provide, this is more
of an introduction, an orientation to PimaOnline, and we can have
subsequent study sessions or more conversations, or as Josie said,
you could meet in pairs or they can go through a demo with you so you
can see fully what the Brightspace is.
That's the portal where each faculty member, not just PimaOnline,
but the entire college, uses to enter the classroom, the virtual
classroom. But we'll keep that in mind about the format.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: So I want to say thank you. I have benefit
of having taught online. I did teach, build, lead, all those
courses.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Awesome.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Before they required all of our faculty to
use the D2L gradebook, I was telling everybody in my buildings at the
East Campus, this is the coolest thing. A student comes up to you
and says, hey, what's my grade? Look online. I showed so many of my
fellow faculty members how to put it on the D2L gradebook. So I
firmly believe in all of that.
Now, having said that, I have two concerns. The questions we ask
are super important as far as getting data, right? If we don't ask
the right questions, we don't get the answers that are beneficial to
us, trying to grow our programs, trying to make them better, right?
And I think, you know, some important questions are the questions
of would you prefer to take this in a different modality? If so,
how? Because I think that's really important, right, for people who
are naysayers to online learning, if you can show that 62% of our
students say, no, this is the best modality for me, right, and then
if some say, then why didn't you take it in your other modality?
Well, it wasn't offered. That also gives the college some
information that I don't think we are getting right now. So that's
my first thing about the data.
My last experience teaching online when I retired, when I was
adjunct I taught one semester, and it ruined me for teaching forever,
I believe, and the reason for that is because the students weren't
prepared, the students weren't willing to do the work online. It was
a Calc I class, which I think in best of times is a tough class to
do.
So I think we really need to make sure we're doing -- by the way,
only one student passed with a D. Nobody else passed in the class.
So that means all of those students, no retention, no persistence no
whatever, right? I had 5% of my grade they had to do a video and
present it because of the lead class I took, they showed us how to do
the videos. I thought that was brilliant. Then 5% of their grade
they had to participate once a week in a virtual meeting that I would
have online. I'd have it every day, but you didn't have to go every
day. You had to go only one day.
All of the students did hardly none of that. When, at the very
end of the semester, I said why didn't, you missed your D by 47
points. You would have had all of those points, you would have had a
C. Well, it was only 5%.
So I think that a lot of times students don't realize what those
percentages mean. You can miss your D or your C or you're a by 5%.
Why make that mistake?
Then the last thing I wanted to say was is this a moneymaker for
the college? I don't mean to be crass or rude or any of that. But
is it more, is it financially more efficient to teach online than it
is to teach in classrooms?
>> MICHAEL AMICK: So I just want to say I'm sorry that you had
such a challenging experience. I hear those stories. I have heard
them constantly throughout my career. And again, it's my focus to do
the work so that there are items in place that you, as a faculty
person, and those students have a better experience. I'm very
thankful for the work our team has done to address that.
As far as the financial item, you know, I think maybe Dave Bea
could speak more directly to what our financial situation is when it
comes to online learning, but that is a common topic and common
question nationally.
Depends on who you talk to and how it's analyzed. Some say that
it saves a ton of money, because you don't have to deal with
facilities costs. But what really comes out is if you want to do
online learning with a high level of excellence, you can't just do it
on you don't need anything, we don't need to structure this. There
is significant structure and significant resources that are needed to
do it well, especially for the students, and they deserve that.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Just my final question, this is not part of
my knowledge. When I was teaching, online classes were in the
department. So online math was part of the math department, and I
heard that it's not that way anymore. Maybe not now, because we do
have a lot more things, but that would be one thing that would be
important for all of the board to know why we moved from a
departmental-type modality, I don't know if that's the right word, to
where it's housed under PimaOnline, all online courses. And I could
be wrong there. Maybe that's not the case.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: That was such a problem when PimaOnline was
implemented that we put all that data back, so the curriculum and the
enrollment counts are by the area for mathematics.
It's our job to build the course and provide all the services for
the faculty that are teaching it, the students that are taking it, so
that they have a high-quality experience.
So it's kind of both. The curricular aspects definitely belong
to the academic division. But we do have faculty leaders. We have
mathematic faculty leaders that do the scheduling for online, do the
support for those faculty. So it's a mix.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you all so much.
>> MICHAEL AMICK: Thank you so much for all of your questions,
and hope to continue to follow up with them. Thank you.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Then our second item is Libby and Joseph.
ACCT legislative summit agenda.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Chair Riel, members of the board, I'm Joseph
Mais, director of government and community relations. I'm speaking
on behalf of Libby who has a little tickle in her throat, and out of
abundance of caution is masking tonight. I will be the standard
bearer.
We are planning our annual trip to D.C., as you know, in
February, in a few weeks. I thought for the agenda I could quickly
go over what I have in this packet for you. I could talk a little
bit about some of the priorities of things we want to make sure we
cover while we're in D.C. with our elected officials, and then I'll
briefly introduce the students we are bringing along with us.
In your packet, we have a lot of things sort of pulled together.
The first page is sort of the itinerary so you can see what
expectations of your schedule will look like.
Right now our contract lobbyist, Tracy Tucker in Washington,
D.C., is planning meetings with members of congress. She always has
a tricky job doing that, but this trip in particular is a short week
for congress and so it's harder to pin them down on times. That is
not in here, but I will be updating this as those meetings land. I
will have another copy of that when we have our journey.
There is some material from the Association of Community College
Trustees that is their legislative priorities and some of the things
happening, just an FYI in that first section.
In the second section is information on Pima Community College,
introducing who we are, and important information for members of
congress. We often refer to these things as leave-behinds, because
we will make copies of these that we can leave in the congressional
offices to give them information about our schools, some of our
successes, some of the things we do. It includes things like
enrollment and number of our demographics and information about, for
instance, the percentage of students online.
In section 3, we have the talking points. So this is the
document that we want to make sure you get a chance to look over.
These are the things we want to make sure we sort of touch base on
when we have meetings with elected officials in Washington.
The next section is just a quick outline of those elected
officials, so it tells you who they are and some of the statements or
their own introductions from their online websites, and some of their
key posts in congress, their committee assignments.
Then the last section has data from our daily registration
report. One was pulled today for this spring, and the other one is
from the last day of the fall report.
So going over a couple of important things that I wanted to make
sure just to bring to your attention regarding the talking points,
one of the things we always want to do when we are in front of our
members in the federal legislature is to thank them for their work.
We have a delegation right now that is very supportive of Pima
Community College and has done a lot for us.
In particular, we want to express gratitude to both of our
senators who have done quite a bit of work to help in their
appropriations priorities that are still being finalized and
negotiated, $2.5 million for the college related to the health
professions.
That same program was proposed by Congressman Grijalva in the
House of Representatives, though the bill that the House passed did
not have that 2.5 million, but we can still thank him for the efforts
he made on our behalf.
Then we met with Ciscomani's staff. A few of the board members
were at that tour that his staffer did of the health professions
construction. In that, she mentioned that Ciscomani would be looking
out for that when the sort of two sides are negotiating a budget and
trying to make sure that we can keep something in there or at least
look out for Pima in some ways. So we can thank him for those
efforts, as well.
The other big issue, just to highlight, is the short-term Pell.
Short-term Pell has been a supported bipartisan item for many years,
and Pima has been pushing for that for a long time. It's hard to
move legislation that's federal level, and so those things take a
long time, but this year the House of Representatives did in fact
pass a bill.
The bill in its form that the House passed has a couple of things
that Pima might be concerned about, but I think there is still a
negotiation with the senate that hasn't passed a bill yet and has a
different bill in mind. We have shared with senators some of our
concerns there.
The second point I would make is that the bill that, in its
current structure, if it does pass, is really a tester bill. It's
not a very large authorization of money. So if it was passed, it
wouldn't have much of an impact on Pima regardless, right, because
the amount of money they are talking about is a pretty small sum for
a national program.
So a lot of it is meant to be sort of testing the waters and
seeing how this program goes so that we can make it stronger in the
future so we don't have to make, you know, we don't have to pound our
fists about our disagreement with the bill in its current form,
because it's largely insignificant currently in that it's very
significant to get this done, but it's maybe less significant the
details for now.
Then the third point I would make is that we definitely want to
be seen, and we make strong efforts here as partners in solving the
problems rather than sort of focusing on our disagreements with the
stuff. I think we can share, especially with the senators, that we
would like to see their bill move forward with some of our
priorities, but we don't have to focus on the negative parts of the
bill per se.
I'm happy to answer questions as we go.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: My experience when dealing with either the
state or the federal representatives, that they tend to light up when
the students start speaking. I'm wondering, is our strategy this
year to let one or all the students make this presentation, and then
we listen to the comments made by the elected official or staff, and
enter in after that conversation has started?
What do you expect us in that regards to do?
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Yeah, that's a great question. I did suggest in
my conversation with the chancellor that it maybe makes sense to have
the students go first, because as you said, the elected officials in
Washington, they do light up when they see students. That is such a
selling point for the college.
So I do think it makes sense to maybe have them be the first
speakers, and then we can move to board members and others who want
to share their thoughts. I don't want to make the decision for you,
but I think that makes sense.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Well, that has my vote.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Great.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Because there is just no question that their
influence is going to be greater than ours.
And can you give us a sense of the anxiety that's going on right
now about November with the people that we hope to speak to? I mean,
there are some that are going to be there no matter what happens, but
it seems to me that there is an upheaval going on right now with the
Rs and the Independent, whatever she decides she's going to be.
I would suspect we're not going to talk about any of that.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Right.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: But there is a comfort level with
Congressman Grijalva that probably doesn't exist with most of the
other ones. Do we need to make a statement about support in the
past? Is that one of our strategies?
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Support? I'm sorry, you said make a statement
about --
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Their support of us in Southern Arizona.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: I do think it's important to thank them for the
work they've done for Pima. I think, yeah, it is a good idea not to
wade into the political atmosphere.
I think one of the benefits of February is that we are still
early enough that it isn't the center of attention quite yet. I
mean, we can still have a conversation about our policy priorities
without, and people will be listening to the staff and the elected
officials will be listening without being completely distracted by
the...
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Perhaps worth consideration is having the
students make a presentation on how you can help us, and then let
maybe us thank them for their support that they've given us over the
past, and divvy it up that way, that we can speak somewhat
politically in that regard, that thank you so much for what you have
done for us, and ask Chair Riel if she gave Ciscomani an A or a B,
and can she change the grade. (Laughter.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: He was a great student. I'm sure he got
As. I don't remember, but I remember how great he was.
So this is a little off the topic, but there was that letter that
was written to the HLC, and they also forwarded it to all of our
elected officials.
Is that anything that we feel the need to send, you know, them
the results of what HLC said, or do you think that they don't even
care, they don't need any, you know, evidence that HLC didn't think
what was written was accurate or affecting the college?
Yeah, if they didn't read it, we don't want to send them
anything, but anyway, I was just wondering what the, you know, what
the process in those kind of situations is.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: So my gut reaction would be to say we don't
bring up topics to them that they don't bring to us, especially if
it's things that are touchy.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Just sort of building on what Wade was
saying, I agree that the students should be first. In my experience,
last year, like you said, the elected officials were far more
interested in talking to them than any of us, and so would I
(smiling). I think putting them first makes sense.
The other thing, I think there were probably too many of us. I
mean, we were a big group with, like, all five of us and then the
three students and then the staff that were along.
I wonder if, and it may make sense if we are maybe more strategic
about which of us in terms of the board members are attending which
one of those meetings, make it no more than two or maybe three of us.
You can divvy that up based on however you want. Maybe we assess who
has relationships with who, or if no one has relationships, some
other criteria to use.
The meetings were short, because they don't have ton of time, and
I feel like sometimes introductions consumed half of it when we were
just going around the room trying to say who everybody was rather
than getting into the meat of what the actual issue is.
You're certainly not going to offend me if you're, like, Greg,
don't go to this one, go to that one. Wherever you need me is fine.
It may make sense for us not to be this group of 12 or whatever we
were last time trying to cram into all those little conference rooms.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: I appreciate you saying that, and I do think,
this is a thing that Tracy raises often as a concern, and I did
mention it to the chancellor, as well, when we spoke earlier that it
is something we should think about, ways to limit our number.
One thought I had, if you're amenable to it, is maybe we can have
the list of meetings and then say, you know, have, like you said,
based on your relationships or your preferences, have the board
choose sort of one or two that you go to, and so that we have one or
two, no more than three board members at any one given meeting.
Then the students, we can do the same thing with. I also told
Tracy I'm comfortable standing in the hallway while everybody is in
the meeting, if that's necessary, to a larger meeting.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I'm fine if you want to send it to us, but
honestly, if you want to recommend for each one, and we can always
change it, but that might help get it going, if you think me and
Maria should go to this one and Wade and Theresa should go to that
one, whatever it is. If someone needs to call me and tell me who do
I know or who do I have a good relationship with or not a good
relationship with, I'm happy to have that conversation.
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Wasn't that the way we did it the first
day? Because I didn't go to Mark Kelly's meeting. I think some of
us were doing something else.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Yeah, we did have one last time. Senator Kelly
was addressing all of the community colleges of Arizona in a big room
in the hotel, and then we had a meeting with his education staffer.
So we sort of split into two groups.
Then I think there was one day when we did -- on the House side,
the rooms are even a little smaller too so that becomes trickier as
well.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: One of the things I'd like the group to
consider, we haven't made a decision, but the board members that are
elected and have a six-year term should probably have priority to
those meetings. That's just thinking about it.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: It also may help us if we were given the
information on who the staffer is in their office that's going to
meet with us when we're not meeting with one of the officials in case
we might know them or know of them or something like that, help make
that decision on who should go where.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. We can name the
staffer. Sometimes there is a change where you meet with the staffer
when you didn't plan to. I mentioned before that often it's not a
slight to meet with the staff. The staffers do a lot of the legwork,
very knowledgeable, very often the experts that the elected officials
look to for the movement of legislation, and so it is a great person
to speak to in that sense.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: This is not something you don't already
know, but if the students can make it personal, can tell an anecdote
how the Pell Grant helped them, could have helped them had it not
been taxable, something along those lines, I could have bought
groceries for my family or I could have paid my car insurance, or I
could have done that and it would have helped me stay out of loans.
Because if we can send the message we're trying to keep our kids out
of debt, and if they could make that more personal, it certainly is
more effective, I think.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Yeah. Thanks for that, yes.
Any other thoughts?
I can briefly give a sort of overview of the three students we
are taking, which is exciting.
We have three students again this year. One is Roxanna L., who
is first-generation American, first-generation college student. She
is receiving a TRiO grant, so can help us to emphasize the importance
of TRiO in her studies.
She's doing her associate's in chemical engineering in Northwest
Campus right now.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Excuse me. Can I ask you -- you said
first-generation American?
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Yes.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: What does that mean?
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Meaning that her parents are immigrants.
Minerva Torres is a nontraditional student. She came to the
college to do adult basic ed for college and career, and she is a
student ambassador for the college. She came from Honduras where she
was a professional, and then her family emigrated to the United
States and couldn't stay there.
So all of her professional degrees and all of her expertise sort
of had to be put on the shelf and she had to, in many ways, start
again. So she learned about the adult basic ed and the English
learner studies. So she started to learn English. As she got better
at learning English, she became a student ambassador.
She moved into the ESL program, and now she's also doing her
degree in translation/interpretation. She was a keynote at the
Arizona Adult Ed Initiative. She's pretty inspirational.
Then the third student we are bringing is Brandon Warren, who is
an aviation student. So we can highlight our center of excellence
there and some of the unique offerings that the college does there.
Brandon's story is interesting, because he originally did an
associate's degree in criminal justice at Pima, and then finished
that degree and discovered, in applying for the police academy, that
he was color-blind and so ineligible.
He went to sort of his fallback plan and he started again, and
he's doing this aviation degree, and it's another exciting story.
Also a Pell recipient.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Could you maybe put those short bios on a
sheet of paper and send it to us so we don't embarrass ourselves in
front of the students? Which won't guarantee that, but it will help
us. (Laughter.)
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Could we have a little mixer to get to know
them before we're there? So instead of us talking about ourselves,
when we're there, we're just ready to go, and we have sort of talked
about who's going to say what and that sort of thing?
>> JOSEPH MAIS: I'd love to do that. Yeah, I'll see. It's
sometimes tricky to work their schedules now that they are starting
their new semester.
But another thing I was thinking along that line is we
traditionally do a dinner with the chancellor, and the chancellor
mentioned she'd like to do that again that first night when we
arrive.
One of the mistakes I sort of made last year, we had gotten off
the plane, came to this thing and we all sat at one end of the table,
and I'd like to sort of find a way where we can mix in so that the
students are around so that board members have a chance to talk one
on one with students rather than having to shout across the table to
say hello.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: (Off microphone.)
>> JOSEPH MAIS: New restaurant? Okay.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: If we can't make it work when we are still
in Tucson, I wonder if there is a way, instead of using -- I agree
with everything you said, by the way. But instead of using that
dinner, I don't know when everyone is arriving and all that kind of
stuff, maybe there is a way we can all get together not around a
table right before we go to dinner or something, just have a chance
to kind of socialize without the restaurant noise and yelling across
the table and all that kind of stuff, to combine those together, if
we're not able to do it based on their schedules when we're here. At
least we'll all be there presumably that first day.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Well, we have a few weeks before the trip, and
so I will see, will work with Andrea and see if we can find a
workable time for everybody to get together.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Give us a quick overview on what the
orientation for these students looks like.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: So we invited the students, and then we do a lot
of the paperwork and stuff. Then I have done these sort of informal
Zooms, essentially. During our interview process, we give them a lot
of the background of what we expect from them and what would be
helpful when they are making their visit.
Then I have sort of a meet for them to meet one another. It's
online. And then we talk about other things. We go over making sure
that you're prepared for the D.C. weather and all those things
(smiling).
Then we go over, once again, sort of things that would be helpful
for them to share. The students, I think, they're telling their
story, and they're sharing sort of the bits we have said, you know,
it's helpful to highlight that you're a TRiO student, stuff like
that. And they take it very well from there.
>> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I got that text message from Andrea earlier
telling me I need to get on my e-mail and fill out that White House
form, which I did. Where does that timingwise, assuming it happens,
where does that fit? Maybe I just missed it when I was looking at
the schedule.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Yeah, so that is complicated, because we don't
know until, I mean, it's sort of the way the White House works
whether we will be able to go at all, and if so, what the time is,
window is, and which day it is.
There is sort of a two-day window that they were asking about,
which is the Tuesday and the Wednesday. On the agenda, the Monday is
sort of full of conference activities. Then Tuesday is sort of the
first half of the day, and then the afternoon is meant to be visiting
Hill time, and then the same on Wednesday.
So they'll give a window for visiting, which can be as long or as
short as you want, but it's probably about a 20-minute tour. It
should be workable.
I think if there was a conflict, we could decide, you know, once
again, which members are going to be joining the meeting and which
ones are going to go on the tour instead, which is a difficult choice
to make, but it might be necessary if there is a conflict.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Can we submit our spouses' names to visit,
to do the tour, yes or no?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Andrea re-sent it today and said we have to
fill it out, and if you're bringing somebody, they have to fill it
out.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Can you give us a brief overview of the
impact that the U.S. Department of Education has on this college,
what purse strings are aligned and available?
>> JOSEPH MAIS: So I don't have a complete picture of that. I
think that's probably a better question for Dave, Dr. Bea, but we do
have in the sort of that part 2 of this, we do have a lot of sort of
examples of grants and funding.
We are waiting. Some of this will be updated also, where we are
trying to get specific numbers for the calendar year 2023 about the
number of active grants and the dollar amount that we do annually.
We haven't gotten that number, that figure yet, but we will have that
in the final document for this.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Does that money go through the U.S.
Department of Education?
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Some of those grants will be through education.
Some of them will be through other federal agencies. But this is
meant to be all, the full picture. Then you can see here we also say
the total Pell Grants that disbursed in the 2022/'23 school year was
almost 24 million.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: So that grant you were talking about, was it
Title V?
>> (Voice in audience.) Correct.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: That's through the U.S. Department of
Education?
>> (Voice in audience.) Yes.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Knowing a little bit about that might help
us, just on the side, have had that conversation about reinforcing
what that means to distance learning or something along those lines,
that if we do get a chance to mention something like that we could do
an, oh, by the way, we thank you for appropriating that money for the
department to give to us to make an impact on our online students
that have alternative learning styles or something.
So we might know that. We could catch a staffer and mention that
to them, as well. Because I'm not so sure they are always aware of
how that money flows to us sometimes and what impact it could
possibly have on our students. Just a thought.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Great. Okay.
Any other thoughts? Great. Thank you.
>> DR. WADE McLEAN: Are we going to get a budget, a federal
budget in the near future? No. Always good news, right?
(Laughter.)
And I take it the governor's budget is dead on arrival? Most of
it? Yeah, okay.
>> JOSEPH MAIS: Thank you.
>> In the budget she submitted, that did not give us any money.
You mean that budget?
>> MS. THERESA RIEL: Yeah, I think she did mention higher
education, but there was no money allocated. At least they are
thinking about us, but... put your money where your mouth is, right?
(Smiling.)
Anything else? That's it?
Okay. We're going to adjourn this meeting. Thank you,
everybody.
(Adjournment.)
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