CCCS Education Excellence Conference 2023

This year's conference was at the Omni Interlocken Hotel in Broomfield. It took me well over an hour to get there with traffic, but at least they had a full breakfast for us with coffee. After the introductions and basic business for the day the keynote speaker was Dr. Philip Butler who is an Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems.

Keynote Speaker Notes:

-He used the donut theory of relationality as the base of his presentation.
-He believes in holding a space for black emotions.
-The empty space of a donut can be a metaphor for chaos.

-Internal Family Systems is an approach to spiritual philosophical systems.

-instead of using "trigger" since it can be triggering, they are using "trailhead warning" as the same thing. This seemed a bit much since people will always be triggered by something. Changing the word use doesn't change the meaning and can be confusing to people. This is so unneeded and messy that it made you start to question what he was saying.

-your body is part of active listening and you need to pay attention to your body.

-when black people are talking about their experiences it is important to remember these experiences are unique to the people who are expressing them, not you. This was him discounting everyone else's lived experiences since he thinks that only some people can have these experiences and not others. Many people can experience similar or the exact same situation and making only specific peoples' experiences matter eliminates everyone else's. This shows how little he understands of the overall human experience. 

Overall this was not a good keynote speaker. A lot of what he was talking about is all of the things wrong with DEI because of the presenter's overall lack of understanding how complex the topic is and he is only coming at DEI from a black perspective and not in a holistic way. I was saddened since last year at this same conference we had started to make progress talking about the physiological harm that these toxic views of DEI can have and then we back peddled this year to the toxic approach. 

* Women in Higher Education Leadership Presented by Hannah Brown, Kathryn Skulley Ph. D., Ann McCalley Ph.D., and Ashley Maloney

Notes:

-One of the things they talked about is the American Association for Women in Community Colleges. After working in community colleges for over 5 years this was the first time I had heard about this organization. You hear about gate keeping and this is something that leadership in the Colorado Community Colleges System have been keeping from most staff until this announcement instead of sharing and promoting it like they should have been.

-A couple of the presenters had degrees in engineering, but most of their stories were different.

*Practicing Radical Love through Course Design Presented by Mollye Russell

Notes:

-Currently love is a give and take in our capitalist society. 

-When it comes to teaching, instructors give all of their knowledge and get nothing back, so it is not a form of love. This needs to change.

-Ingredients of Love: Care, Commitment, Knowledge, Responsibility, Respect, and Trust

-Care: develop a relationship with your students.

-Commitment: Commit to your students' success. Leverage research on student success and be transparent. Smart goals are helpful with this. Transparency in assignments helps students not familiar with the US education system to be successful.

-Knowledge: Consider students as co-creators of their own knowledge. Design assessments that honors students' knowledge and provides choice. Reflective writing, writing in the discipline, and inclusive projects help get rid of success gaps which can be seen in classes that focus on tests.

-Responsibility: Hold your students to a high standard, but be flexible. Have makeup  activities for each class period created ahead of time for students who miss class. Allow students to re-do assignments to get a better grade because it allows them to learn from their mistakes.

-Respect: Approach students with a strengths based approach. use TikTok to help engage students since they use it all of the time. Russell has brought in song lyrics from the students' favorite singers to analyze it with the theories used in class.

-Trust: trust students with their own education. When your students disappear you must understand that life happens. 

-One of the panel watchers kept talking about being limited by their discipline (the sciences). They didn't seem to be able to see the creative side of teaching or how to use other mediums/disciplines to expand their teaching. I recommended using movies as an example of bad science and she seemed confused. I think I need to write a book on how to engage students with pop culture, because it can be used for any discipline. 

*Thieves and Forgers Wanted!: Problem Base Learning for Intellectual Exploration and Profit! Presented by Marty Church

Notes:

This was a horrible experience. So as this panel was starting a co-worker and I was one of many people sitting near the back of the room. The presenter said that if people weren't wanting to come up to the front and engage in his panel that they could leave. Great way to be inclusive (I say with all the sarcasm possible). He didn't take into account that there could be reasons on why people were sitting in the back. Personally I was feeling drained from interacting with people so much. He was very exclusive and I don't think that he should be invited to speak at one of these events again because how he handled this was very rude. Needless to say my co-worker and I both left the panel to find another panel where the panelist wasn't such a jerk. The problem was that all of the other panels during this time slot was already going, so I wound up just working on my emails.

*What is Culturally Responsive Pedagogy? History, Disambiguation, Terminology Presented by Amy Buckingham, Toni Nicholas, and Jenna Alzona

Notes:

-Started in the 1990s by Dr. Ladson-Billings.

-5 Components: Developing a cultural diversity knowledge base, designing culturally relevant....

-Features: Valuing community language, practices, and ways of being. Schools are accountable to the communities. 

-Instructor CRP Competencies (8 different ones)

-If you do a midterm survey as a temperature check with your students, share the results with them so that they know they are part of the education process.

-Have students take notes for other students including those from different languages to help students that can't make it for whatever reason.

-A good thing to look into is CRP Reflexive Praxis.

*Promoting Equity in the Classroom Using OER Presented by Rachel Meisner and Megan Rector

Notes:

-Public Domain, Creative Commons License, Reuse/Repurpose/Remix/Publish are all options that can be used.

-OER Repositories: Open Stax, Pressbooks, MERLOT, BCCampus, OER Commons, Skills Commons, CCCS LOR.

-OER and Equity: Affordability, ease of access, adaptable to accessibility needs, ability to include diverse voices.

-Since 2019 ACC has saved students $2.4 million in course materials by using OER materials. Found form a survey that 17% of students have dropped a course due to the cost of course materials.

Overall I felt like I got less out of this conference then I had the previous year when it had been more days and they could target different groups on different days.

Top Picture From: https://cccsevents.cccs.edu/educationexcellenceconference/

Conversation Day 2023 at CCD (3/17/23)

This mini conference day took place on 3/17/23 and was both a time for the school to do announcements while mixing in 'professional development'. This event took place in the basement of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House which the school had been allowed to use this location for free.

The main guest speaker was Dr. Christina Habbard from EAB. Here are my notes from her speaking.    

State of the Sector    

    -Community college enrollment is down about 14% of where it was pre-covid.

    -7% drop in black males interest in attending college.

    -3rd grade is the point where kids stop learning to read and start reading to learn.

    -Parents are still the main influence on if high schoolers transition to college.

    -During covid many multiethnic students lost access to their guidance counselors and did not have that help to pick pathways in to college.  

    -Try to use personal network to answer questions and find solutions to problems.

    -If you don't put money behind it then it is never a priority.

The Employee Side

    -13% decline of employment in community colleges during covid.

    -People just need to get used to not having enough staff.

        ~less people having the skills schools need, more people retiring, and the overall shortage in workers.

    -Populations of workers at colleges is changing.

        ~as time goes by the wants/needs of workers change based on the values of different generations.

        ~move from titles and prestige to caring about work/life balance & mental health.

        ~schools need internal mobility (which seems to be lacking at CCD unless you are part of the club, as a hiring manager I've personally seen qualified applicants get kicked out of hiring pools by HR).

        ~a persons job should not be at risk if they are interested in moving up or sideways.

        ~other schools are guaranteeing internal applicants an interview. Then some schools will do post interview coaching to internal applicants that did not get the job. I really hope that CCD will listen to this one, but I don't have high hope since they are known for paying for speakers and then not following the advice that they give. Leadership has very selective hearing when it comes only doing things that support their views even if it means dismissing best practices in both business and education.

        ~schools need to compensate employees that learn new skills as their jobs evolve overtime. This is another one that will never happen since even on performance reviews employees are blocked from getting the highest marks unless they complete massive achievements for the school and this kills their motivation for even doing things slightly above their pay grade since they know it won't amount to anything. Acknowledging even small wins help to improve employee moral, but leadership lacks the understanding of this.

        ~if you rehire ex-employees training time is less, they also tend to stay longer then new hires.

        ~advertise job openings on the hiring managers LinkedIn.

Then there was a break from Dr. Hubbard and we found out that we might be losing the bookstore and there was discussions about what options we had. People were allowed to stand up and make suggestions to the whole crowd. I took a turn and brought up the option of open source material. Many cheers went up through the crowd and I even heard one person say I was preaching to the choir. For those of you that don't know what open source material is, it is items that both schools and students can use free of charge. A lot of it is primary source material or items built by other educators to help out their peers.

Then next Dr. Hubbard did another talk.

Serving Today's Learners

    - minority students are more likely to enroll part time and less likely to complete their degree. (She didn't give a reason for this, but most of the time this is due to them either having to work or having family responsibilities).

    -Hispanic students are 12% less likely to complete a degree when compared to white students.

    -Non-consumers are people that on completion of high school they choose to not go to college and directly enter the workforce.

    -After covid students are voicing that they do not want a fully online experience.

    -72% of students that drop out do it for non-college related reasons.

    -Talked about one stop advising without calling it that directly. It showed that she was not versed in the different types of advising models, but had an idea of how students should be advised. She covered how students should have one point of contact for everything from financial aid to academics.

Then to wrap up the day the CCD Executive Council and this turned into a disaster. First off when they were talking about HSI an employee asked what an HSI is. HSI stands for Hispanic Serving Institution. An employee not knowing what this means is a really bad sign, but at the same time not surprising since the only reason CCD has the HSI title is due to their high enrollment of people that identify as Hispanic and not due to what they actually do to serve those students. I felt really bad for this employee, but at the same time just a few months before I had to ask my boss if we were an HSI since we never really talked about it at the school, didn't have an HSI committee, or had the supports in place that other HSI schools I have worked at had. I had already been at the school for a year when I had to ask my boss that question, and as someone in middle management I should have not only been aware of that fact, but have been part of helping to drive the knowledge and support systems for those students. This then caused me to publicly ask if the school was going to start a HSI committee or do anything formal with DEI. To this Dr. Marie DeSanctis, president of CCD, responded that employees should lead this work and that she would not be starting one. Last time I checked it was the president of a college who was responsible for leading college wide initiatives and not just pushing things off on the employees. Presidents are to lead the employees and the current CCD president does not lead or inspire the staff at CCD and this event made it clear to all that attended.

2020 NAFSA eConnection: A Digital Program for Our Community Days 1 and 2 (May 26th and 27th)

NAFSA is a professional organization for educational workers that specialize in international students.

NAFSA tried to do a digital conference to make up for not being able to have one in person due to the COVID pandemic. I said tried because the first 2 days was a failure. The videos kept freezing, going black, or losing sound. It was not just me. The chat box was working and many people were posting that they were experiencing the same thing. This meant that there was an issue with the technology and not just peoples connections which one of the people in the chat tried to blame it on. I understand that trying to throw something together quick right now, but I am a firm believer that if you can’t do something right then don’t do it. The first 2 days reflected badly on NAFSA because of this. Also when you tried to report the tech errors it gave you a message that an error had occurred. Day 1 I just gave up after fighting with it for over an hour.

Day 2 not only did the tech errors keep happening, but then there was also the annoying trend for things not starting on time. At a normal conference it is expected that the presenters would be late because of having to travel between different rooms, but that doesn’t happen when everything is digital. When I asked about it:

 

Lots of tech issues…..

So what did I get from the first 2 days of the conference, not much…I may have gotten something out of it if the tech issues weren’t happening every few minutes and I had to keep restarting the panel every time it froze. I can only hope that things will get better before day 3.

Top Image From: https://nafsa.digitellinc.com/nafsa/live/7/page/68?events-search-input=&events-search-date=2020-05-27&events-search-track=0

The other images were screen shots directly from the chats in the different panels.

Spring 2020 Faculty-to-Faculty Conference

February 21, 2020

Just a quick disclaimer: I am openly talking about this conference because it was open to the public and the Department of Education even openly invited prospective students to it on their website.

Before the conference broke into the specialty groups there was a panel of academic advisors that were answering questions. I asked how their schools handled course subs. They all seemed a little skittish about this subject and said that academic advisors do not advise on this at all and they leave it up to the academic departments to even suggest this idea to students. I found this interesting, because this is what I was used to. Some of my background is in the for profit/private sector where degrees are very prescriptive. There is a list of courses you have to complete and students only see these courses. Then there are additional courses for that are specific to a certain topic that are approved alternatives and the students only have those options if they really complain about not wanting to take a certain course. An example of this is that 1 American History course shows to the student, but there are 3 other history courses the student could take (or transfer in). They would not allow subs for this course in a subject that was not history related in some way. I used to think that restricting students this was a bit much, but now after working in higher education for over a decade and learning about the Guided Pathways model that it is actually good.

The Guided Pathway model is intended to help students to only take classes that apply to their program and be smart about the electives they take. I am aware of some schools (both 2 year and 4 year schools) out there that are doing/approving weird course subs. This normally is for not only for say 2 different types of sciences, but way out there ones like a liberal arts course for a science course. Right now Guided Pathways is a big buzz at the community college level, and is starting to move to the 4 year schools. At the same time, course subs that are way out there go against this model. This basically means that schools that are doing this are not practicing what they preach and could also be breaking their educational contracts with both the Department of Education and their accrediting bodies. For non-educators reading this, what is printed in a school’s catalog (like a degree program outline) is a contact that must be enforced. I will talk more about this in a later article where I cover how students need to know how to advocate for themselves. I will fully admit that for my Biology minor I got a course sub in which I replaced Human Anatomy with Domestic Animal Gross Anatomy. Both of these courses were Biology courses and covered anatomy with a lot of bodily systems overlapping. I do understand that course subs in situations like this can help students with both time and money, but allowing a course from a different subject could negatively impact a student. Some jobs still want a copy of transcripts and if they see important courses missing and then other random courses on the transcript it could also impact the person from getting a job. There are a lot of larger issues that educators need to think about when doing course subs.

Another issue that was raised in some of the panels I attended is that the 4 year schools are not following/accepting the degree with designation as dictated by the state law. An example of this is victimology which is on the Criminal Justice degree with designation. At least one 4 year schools is not allowing this course to transfer in as their victimology course because of it being a lower number in the numbering system. What does this mean? 100 and 200 level courses are considered lower level where 300 and up are considered upper division courses. Even though the course material is basically the same, the 4 year schools are not giving students credit for courses they have taken. They will throw this course into the elective pool and then the student must either retake the course there or take a different course to complete that section of the degree check. This is a huge disservice to students and needs to be looked into.

I was very happy with the cooperation that I saw between the 2 year schools and the 4 year schools in the Anthropology panel. This was a huge difference than my experience at the last Faculty 2 Faculty conference. At the last conference I experienced aggressive arguments between schools. I will entirely blame Anthropology’s openness on the very subject matter they teach. For those who don’t know what Anthropology is, it is very person focused. I don’t want to say that they were willing to work together in the best interest of the student (the person) based on their training, but that is what it basically was. My experience with the sciences is that each thinks it is better than the others and people in the field think that they know better than their peers. In Anthropology they are more open to others’ ideas and willing to cooperate. I will admit I am more than a little partial to Anthropology since my first BA was in it, but I have 2 degrees in science and an additional minor in Biology. I think my experience on both sides has helped me understand why each side does what they do.

As to the venue, it was much better than the last venue. The food could be argued to be better…but please no more Qdoba. We in education are getting tired of eating it at every meeting…. I will admit that there was a lot of walking that could also be hard for people with disabilities. I parked in one of the lots that was recommended and the first thing that came to my mind as I was walking up to the building was that it was not very handicap friendly, and there was not a lot of handicap parking (to be truthful I didn’t see any handicap parking, but I’m hoping that I just didn’t see them).

Overall it was a very enlightening conference, and I hope that good things will come out of it.

P.S. There is a rumor that a cyber-security degree with designation could be in the works!

P.P.S. On a personal note as a professional I love the unexpected things that can happen at a professional conference. In one panel I sat beside a gentleman I had never met before and he turned out to be the professor for the current online class I am taking and is the Chair of the department for my current graduate degree. Education is truly a small community and you never know who you will bump into.

Fall 2019 Faculty-to-Faculty Conference

Conference

For the opening Dr. Timothy Mottet made an interesting point “the degree is not just a sum of classes a student completes, but the sum of skills that they can than apply to their chosen field.” He also made sure to point out the meta-major and Guided Pathway approach and made sure to mention Community College of Colorado directly. The opening also had a lot of talk about trying to stop students from taking extra classes or having taken the wrong class at the 2 year level.

Open Educational Resources was another big buzz. They talked how there were even free text books through this, but the important thing was what are departments and faculty thinking about when they pick the required material for their courses. Schools can have a direct impact on how these costs impact students and can take action to change this. I was so happy when they talked about this. I have no idea how much money I have lost to the text book racket over the years (21 years and counting as a college student). This is something very simple that can be done to help students, but from my experience most faculty don’t care. I don’t know also how many classes I have taken where I had to buy a book my professor had written…. My most recent course had loose leaf books that could not be sold back to the book store and because of this students are forced to buy new books if they cannot get a used copy from another student. When I asked the book store about this the manager said that publisher were switching to the loose leaf format to cut down the used book market. This is a serious issue that schools need to start taking more seriously. I could go on and on about this topic, but let’s get back to the conference.

Engineering

I choose to sit in on the discussions because of how much of a mess it has been and the trouble that one of the local universities have given on this. Over this past summer there was a working group to try and develop a degree with designation. The current form of the degree with designation is stuck on the elective section. Apparently the GT pathways matrix can be modified with reasoning. One option relating to this would be to remove the second English requirement from it since some schools do not feel like there is any room in their 4 year degree for a second English course. There was a lot of back and forth between the schools and I recommended that they try to match the structure of the ECE because it gives each school more freedom as to what classes they require. This got shot down as soon as I mentioned it and was told that they had been told to move away from this. They say that this will cause issues for students who change what school they want to get to. That is a possibility, but it has been working for 2 other degrees with designation. I’m not sure who directed them from this option, but they are slowing down the process and creating more hard feelings between the schools by doing this. One person recommended trying to do a bridge program to help students catch up with certain courses, but that would be up to each 4 year to deal with. Right now they are trying to get the base engineering dwd to focus on mechanical engineering and then later maybe add dwds for the other types of engineering.

Chemistry

This group was also looking to possible go above the 60 credit requirement in order to make both the 2 year and 4 year schools happy. The current Chemistry degree is out of compliance. Some of the four years had been accepting O-Chem for some chemistry degrees and not for others. At present there is talk to remove the reverse transfer part of this degree to remove the road block for students that are currently in place for this degree.

Business

One person in this group said that he was a strong supporter of the schools having different electives because most of the students he interacts with knows or has an idea of where they want to transfer into. This is in stark contrast with what the science groups were saying. The schools were having a hard time deciding what math to require. One of the reps from a major university felt that based on all of the disagreement that doing individual agreements

Facilities/Food

Getting to CSU Pueblo can be frustrating if you do not know how to get there to say the least. I had to do several U-turns and even one dirt road to get there. The map they provided was little help. They had a very light breakfast which did not seem like much to people like myself that had been on the roads for hours that also had not had time to eat due to trying to get all the sleep we could before making the long trek. Then lunch really sucked. They didn’t have enough of the ‘normal’ sandwiches and way too many vegie ones. The vegie sandwich I got stuck with was slimy and gross. The food for this event really needs to be improved.