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October 12, 2022 Meeting of the Governing Board...
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Good evening, everybody. I would like
to now call to order the Wednesday, 12 October 2022 regular meeting
of the Board of Governors for Pima Community College.
This is a hybrid meeting being recorded and live-streamed on
PCCTV. Welcome, Pima family, board members, staff, faculty,
administrators, guests, Chancellor Lambert, and most especially to
our students to whom everything we do is focused.
The first thing I would like to do is call for a roll call.
Mr. Silvyn, would you like to take roll?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Be glad to. Thank you, Chair Ripley.
Mr. Clinco?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Ripley?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Here.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: All board members are present or attending
remotely.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. We have four board members
present here at the District Office and one joining us via Zoom.
I'd like to now ask the chancellor to lead us in the Pledge of
Allegiance.
(Pledge of Allegiance.)
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Thanks so much.
Again, welcome, everyone. Our first order of business today is
public call to the audience, public comment. We have quite a list
here. If you could, please keep to the three minutes that were
allocated per comment.
I would like to start out with Makyla Hays. PCCEA updates and
requests.
>> MAKYLA HAYS: Hi. Good evening, board, Chancellor, colleagues
and guests. My name is Makyla Hays, I serve as PCCEA president, AERC
co-chair, and full-time math faculty.
At yesterday's press conference I heard significant
mischaracterizations from the board chair, vice-chair, and
chancellor, claiming that recent HLC complaints are from no more than
a small group of faculty that dislike the chancellor, just want the
final say, and who are either unwilling or unable to accept change.
This narrative is patently false. It side-steps the real issue
and communicates an unwillingness to consider valid concerns of many
employees, PCCEA and the board-recognized representatives for
full-time faculty and compensation and working conditions. We work
closely with shared governance bodies to ensure fair policies and
have one seat on the AERC.
AERC is the board-recognized college committee for responsible
for policy on compensation and working conditions according to BP
1.25 and AP 1.25.01. (Indiscernible) representative body that the
class and comp study should have gone through per policy. However,
this group was side-lined despite numerous requests to those in
charge of the study as well as multiple public comments to the board.
After the board voted on new salary structures before hearing
public comment, AERC representatives filed an internal grievance that
was dismissed by the Office of Dispute Resolution without commenting
on its merits. PCCEA made an unsuccessful appeal to the chancellor
and board to recognize the policy violation.
With no further recourse, AERC faculty wrote a letter to HLC,
recognizing that if the college can be allowed to ignore the AERC
role in this large-scale change impacting every employee, what
assurances do employees have for appropriate input into any other
policy change.
Faculty Senate, Pima's college-wide academic governance group,
overwhelmingly voted to endorse the AERC complaint letter last
Friday. Again, if institutional change of this magnitude can happen
without following established policy, this has implications for all
shared governance groups. To dismiss near unanimous majorities of
the AERC, Senate, and PCCEA executive board as simply a small group
of complainers who just want their way, is to dismiss collective
faculty representatives to college governance bodies.
This is not just insulting. It communicates how little the input
of faculty is valued in board-recognized shared governance roles.
It's notable that in contrast, the chancellor evaluation summary
cites high ethical standards, a successful class and class study, and
effective interactions with stakeholders as justification for meeting
or exceeding all goals this last year.
The board's self-assessment contains a commitment to refrain from
public discourse that diminishes the reputation of the college.
However, holding ourselves to high standards to correct errors and
values in (indiscernible) admissions of wrongdoing demonstrates
integrity, transparency, and ability to grow and learn, behaviors
aligning with the college vision.
When all negative topics are hidden and dealt with behind the
scenes of it all, this is not transparent and it does not allow the
community to understand how the board is directing resources to the
areas in greatest need of improvement.
To clarify, the intent behind the faculty HLC complaint is to
hold the college accountable for following established policy.
Faculty at PCC are passionate about our students and want to see this
institution thrive. We welcome change.
However, we insist that these changes be done in accordance with
board and college policy with appropriate and true stakeholder input
so that we can become the community college Tucson deserves.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Chair Ripley? I have a request to the
chancellor. First, Chancellor Lambert, if you could please take a
look into the concerns that were outlined by Ms. Hays in these
letters that were sent to the Higher Learning Commission. That's
point 1.
Point 2, I think we need to look into employee process for how
complaints are advanced, because the board didn't receive written
complaints or concerns. It was sent to us by a third party after
these were forwarded to the Higher Learning Commission.
So I think these two very significant issues need to be looked
into, because as Ms. Hays notes, following college policy is
paramount, and it should be followed both by this board and by the
employees of this college.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I would just like to add to what you're
saying, Board Member Clinco. The college is already looking into the
concerns that were brought forward. We will be glad to report back
at the appropriate time.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Before we begin, start with the other call
to the audience, I hear an echo from the first speaker.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Maybe we could take like a one- or
two-minute pause so we can sort out a technical issue.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: (Off mic.)
Please, everyone be patient...
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Chair Ripley has called for a brief pause
in the meeting to try to resolve the technical issues.
(Pause in proceedings.)
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: ...(off mic) in my opening remarks
which I actually forgot to give, is communication. I think the theme
of this week, this year, is communications. I think there is a lot
of miscommunications, bad communications, and unfaithful
communications.
I think we, all of us, every single person, is obligated to
improve our communications with one another.
One of the things, we will have a study session, first of all,
it's scheduled, I believe, a class comp study session will happen,
open to the public, and we will get to the bottom of what needs to be
improved, what went well, and what didn't go so well during the class
comp study. That way it will be an open forum, it will be
transparent, and everybody will have an input.
There is a lot of things I'd love to address, but for now, one of
the things that's been very confusing to a lot of people was
yesterday's press conference was about the HLC decision on their
focus visit. I think we are convoluting the letters that were sent
yesterday that are different and new coming from different people.
The comments that I made, that all three of us made, were
directed only at the HLC final decision and surrounding the issues
about the focus visit. So please take another look at that.
With that, any other comments?
I will go to the second speaker. Brooke Anderson.
>> BROOKE ANDERSON: Good evening, board members, Chancellor,
guests. My name is Brooke Anderson. I'm a Pima faculty member and
the vice president of Faculty Senate.
I found the overturning of Roe vs. Wade to be devastating, and I
know I'm not alone in feeling this way. Many people are adversely
affected by this decision, particularly poor and working-class women
of color. In other words, a large percentage of our student
population.
On June 27, after the Supreme Court's decision, my colleague,
Francisca James Hernandez, e-mailed the chancellor, emphasizing the
devastating consequences this decision is likely to have on our
students, many of whom drop out of college after getting pregnant,
and requesting that the chancellor make a statement in which he
express his support for our students and offer them information and
resources they need to help them stay in school.
The chancellor responded that the college was monitoring the
situation, working on the issue with his team, and planning to make a
statement.
When the semester started in August, Rita Lennon, Faculty Senate
president, and I, vice president, decided to write a statement on the
issue in support of college employees and students. We shared it
with administration and released it to the greater college community
in our September Faculty Senate meeting.
The senate voted in support of Rita and I's statement, and we
followed up by organizing a Faculty Senate-sponsored study session on
reproductive health and bodily autonomy. Our goals for the session
were to give our entire college community the opportunity to come
together and talk about the personal and professional impacts of the
Supreme Court's decision. To better educate ourselves and our
community about what Pima is already doing to support our students
and employees who are women, mothers, parents, and people who can get
pregnant. To discuss actionable next steps the Faculty Senate can
take to support the success of women, parents, mothers, and pregnant
people at Pima, both employees and students.
The event featured 10 invited faculty speakers who shared their
stories and disciplinary perspectives. Three invited speakers for
the following college services: The AERC resource center and food
pantry, Desert Vista's new childcare center, and the office of
financial aid and scholarships. And three invited administrative
speakers who made comments and shared information about existing
college resources.
58 people attended the event, and most stayed for the full two
hours. The senate now has a resource folder that includes written
statements, information on our current resources, and a collection of
ideas for further action from our college community.
The chancellor did follow this event the following Monday with a
statement on the recent court rulings. This work was even featured
in a KGUN news segment that aired on October 4, titled Pima Community
College, Trying to Support Students with Unplanned Pregnancies.
Faculty Senate president, Rita Lennon, and I have a follow-up
meeting scheduled with President Dor� on October 25. We are
continuing to work with our colleagues on this issue and to collect
feedback, actionable ideas, and resources from our colleagues. We
welcome more collaboration feedback from students.
With the board's permission, I would like to keep the board up to
date on this work and to share the event resource folder with the
board. Any additional support for this work from the board would be
greatly appreciated, as well.
Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Brooke.
Any comments from the board at this point on her request?
Thank you very much. I personally support what you're doing, and
I know the chancellor does, as well. First and foremost, the care
that we take, especially to the women in our community who are living
in fear and uncertainty because of this decision, is something that
we really need to focus on and ensure that we can do whatever it is
that we can within our powers to help them in any way, whether it's
resources.
I think one of the things that opening the first daycare center
on campus is a big show of support for the women and the men that
work here in terms of childcare, but there is so much more in terms
of healthcare that we look to you, Brooke, and your team to give us
suggestions about.
Thank you so much for what you've done. Yes, please keep on
truckin' here.
Next we have Mr. Mario Gonzales. Mr. Gonzales?
>> Can you hear me?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes, go ahead.
>> My name is Mario Gonzales. In regard to the chancellor's
evaluation, we must consider his annual goals before we can discuss
his evaluation. His goals should be qualitative, quantitative,
realistic, measurable, and achievable. His current goals are
nebulous and can't be measured, therefore meaningless.
Wrongful terminations of long-term talented employees for
speaking honestly about risk management is unacceptable.
Inability and failure to encourage, teach, and build management
board successful working team is not acceptable.
Failure to address, meets student and community learning needs
through effective broad-based environmental scan is nonexistent.
Extensive and expensive use of taxpayer dollars for self-promotion is
measurable but not a useful accomplishment.
Teaching and learning interventions that lead to student success,
recruitment, admissions, student retention, graduation, employment
are important and measurable goals. However, these important
measures of institutional effectiveness are not to be found anywhere.
Why?
Leadership includes student and taxpayer cost reductions. These
are successful goals. What happened to this concept?
That said, the chancellor should not be granted either an
increase in pay nor an extension to his current contract. There are
too many unanswered issues surrounding his performance. In my
opinion, the following needs to be resolved before the board gives
any type of consideration to either his performance evaluation,
contract extension, and financial increase.
His refusal to face the media regarding issues facing the
college. Share the initial draft HLC report. Address the AERC
concerns. Explain his reporting of the threats to fellow board
members. Explain search tactics on minority board members at the
recent college retreat. Explain his involvement and unreporting of
his role with NC3 social tech (indiscernible) and so forth. Conduct
an independent investigation on Trane contract process, and quit
lying that the attorney general, auditor general, and college
auditing finance committee investigated the process.
Intervene in his subordinance bullying of other employees. Stop
spending taxpayers' monies to bring in and hire outside firms to
intimidate, muzzle anyone that does not agree with him. It makes no
sense that the actual actors in the current success of the college,
namely faculty and staff, have not enjoyed substantial raises since
2014, and the board majority keeps lavishing the chancellor and his
chosen complicit staff with substantial raises.
This needs to stop. The chancellor's toxic, intimidating,
bullying work environment has to stop. Once it stops, then one can
talk about contract extensions and higher compensation for this
inadequate chancellor.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you for your comments.
Next we have Ms. Sally Gonzales. Sally Ann Gonzales?
>> I'm here. Good evening, Chair Ripley, board members, and PCC
community.
I am Senator Sally Ann Gonzales, a mother, a grandmother of 28,
and for full disclosure, my husband of 49 years, Luis L. Gonzales,
sits on this board. We currently have three grandchildren attending
PCC.
I had a statement that I was going to read, but I change -- I'm
just going to -- I'm going to change it a little bit and just talk
about enrollment. Well, one of my things, my statement on
enrollment, is that there is a reason why West Campus, Desert Vista
Campus, and Downtown Campus and the former Community Campus were all
in District 5.
The PCC was established for the community 50 years ago. PCC is
celebrating 50 years, and it was established on the basis of the
Latino, the Hispanic community, the Chicano community, and the
Indigenous community of this area.
Enrollment is down. I was really disheartened to hear that
currently the enrollment of PCC can actually fit in the West Campus
buildings. That means that enrollment has really declined, and since
2013, and we lost some because of the pandemic, but we have to stop
blaming the pandemic for everything. That includes opening up the
meetings to the public. Everybody else has done so. At the state
legislature we did last session, and everything is open.
Then one more policy change that I request that I suggest that
the board follow or change is to allow community to make public
comment on every single item, just like we do at the legislature.
Instead of doing it at the beginning like we are today, and the way
it was changed last month's meeting to the end of the meeting, that
is, you know, unacceptable.
We, as a community, and the public should be able to comment on
each --
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Ten seconds.
>> -- and every item that is on the agenda at the time that it is
on the agenda. Otherwise things get all mixed up, and people forget
what was said and for what item, and the votes take place without
hearing the public.
That is really unacceptable, and I suggest that the board change
that policy.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Senator, for being
here. We are well over the three minutes.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Perhaps Chancellor Lambert could schedule
a time with Senator Gonzales to explain the actual enrollment numbers
that are in the positive, not in the negative, this year.
Chancellor Lambert?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I'd be glad to do so.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you again for your inputs and
suggestions. We will take those to heart.
We do need to move on. We have a lot of people on this list.
Next person, three minutes. Margaret Savala.
>> Hello. My name is Margaret Savala. I am co-chair of the
organization People For Pima. I'm an enrolled member of the Pascua
Yaqui Tribe and a former student of PCC.
I have earned two Associate's degrees from this college, American
Indian studies and liberal arts. In addition, I'm the mother of four
children. All of my children have attended Pima. Three out of four
are current students.
Mr. Clinco, Ms. Ripley, and Dr. Hay, we have no confidence in
you. Each of you is failing to exercise oversight of the chancellor
and have granted the chancellor arbitrary and unilateral authority
over this institution.
This is a quote from Makyla Hays: A lack of transparency from
administration about how decisions are made and communicated to the
college community. Employees are feeling a lack of representation
for the voice and decisions that affect the areas that they work
with. And they feel they can't speak up.
There is a letter that's been endorsed by the Faculty Senate and
submitted to HLC, which is the Higher Learning Commission, that Pima
is out of compliance with their criterion for accreditation.
This is another quote: Those actions only reinforce
administration's disregard for established policies and due process.
Lacking any other recourse for these policy violations, we have no
other choice but to make the HLC aware.
I say do not vote for Demion Clinco, and to the board, please do
not extend the chancellor's contract. The responsibility to assure
that the chancellor complies with the HLC's criterion rests solely
with the board majority.
Board Chair Ripley made a statement that she would not allow a
culture of fear and intimidation to exist. This is naive at best and
cynical at worst. Employees reported to the HLC that they were
trapped in a culture of fear, bullying, and intimidation.
It's time for the board majority to recognize that you are an
office to serve the community. Remember, you are a community
college. There are serious problems at PCC, and each of you must
accept responsibility for your inaction.
Thank you for your time.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. I assure you and I stand by
my statement that there is zero tolerance for a culture of fear and
intimidation.
If there are people that are in fear or being intimidated, we do
need to know about it. We need the specifics. It needs to happen,
but it has to go through the proper processes which we will have a
study session on if people are unaware of that.
But I guarantee you and I assure you that there is still zero
tolerance for fear and intimidation, as you put it.
Next we have Lazarus Savala.
>> Hello. My name is Lazarus Anthony Savala. I'm a member of
the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. I began classes at Pima Community College in
the fall of 2019. I chose to challenge myself to accomplish my goals
as a student in order to get my Associate's degree in visual arts.
I chose this college to better prepare myself for a futuristic
degree. My career goal is to become a graphic designer. However,
working towards getting my degree at Pima has been a difficult
experience that has brought constant frustration and stress. I have
often had to scramble to fill my class schedule with the required
courses for my degree. Often, those classes have not been available.
Now, after three-and-a-half years and seven semesters at PCC, I
have almost completed my required classes, but I have not been able
to register for DAR 288. That is digital arts business capstone
class required for my degree plan. Future students should not have
to go through the same frustrating experience as my family and I have
gone through.
Mr. Clinco, Ms. Ripley, Dr. Hay, there have been multiple
complaints to the Higher Learning Commission concerning the way this
college is operated. This is an undeniable fact even for the
chancellor's propaganda machine.
I know despite your denials that you are aware that in early
October the HLC required the college to have special monitoring. You
are also aware that the focus is totally confined to this
dysfunctional board. You are also aware that the faculty and staff
have filed two complaints with the Higher Learning Commission since
last Friday.
The faculty has publicly stated that the chancellor's actions
have only reinforced his administration's total disregard for
established policies and due process.
To those who care about Pima Community College, I say, do not
vote for Demion Clinco. To the board, I say, do not extend the
chancellor's contract.
Personally, as a student, I strongly support vocational
education, but it is clear to me that the chancellor wants this
college to focus on occupational, technical education, and minimize
college transfer and academic opportunities for our community. The
board and chancellor must refrain from questioning the ethical
integrity of employees who speak to the media.
Mr. Clinco, Ms. Ripley, Dr. Hay, you have allowed the chancellor
to engage in actions that inhibit employees' right to association and
to express their views on matters of public concern.
You have allowed the chancellor to create fear through character
attacks, intimidation, and retaliation.
Our faculty is doing a great job despite the obstacles they face
from the chancellor. It is time for the board majority to recognize
that you are an office that serves the community. Remember, you are
a community college. There are serious problems at PCC, and each of
you must accept responsibility for your inaction.
Thank you for your time.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you for your comments.
Yes, Board Member Clinco?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Chancellor, at the beginning of the
commenter's remarks, he outlined some concerns about enrollment. Is
that something we can look into, or is that something that could be
addressed?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: So Lazarus, Mr. Clinco, had filed his
concerns with the Higher Learning Commission, and he heard back from
them in I believe July of this year that the Higher Learning
Commission found that he was able to get access to the courses he
needed for his program of study.
Jeff, am I capturing that correctly?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So that is correct, and I think it's fair to
say of course that the institution has reached out to Mr. Lazarus to
understand his concerns and see what the college can do to make sure
he's able to take the courses that he needs.
>> They wanted to give me an independent study.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you for your comments. We do
need to go on to the next speaker.
The only comment I have is other than we do look into every case
and we take every single case seriously, and every student matters.
But on behalf of the board and especially -- I'm pretty sure I speak
for Board Member Clinco, we both, we fight tooth and nail for the
humanities and liberal arts.
This school will never turn into purely a Voc Tech school, as you
said. Vocational technology and workforce development is indeed
hugely important to this community, to people who need jobs, but we
also will fight to maintain humanities, liberal arts, and athletics,
as well. I assure you that what you are saying will not happen.
So we have more people. Let me go...
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: One question, a comment that was mentioned
by Mr. Lazarus, reference to this course that he needs, mentioned
briefly, he mentioned that he's being emphasized independent studies,
would highly recommend, how can we help him out to really take that
course as well, too.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: I can just assure you all that the college
has been in communication with Mr. Lazarus to make sure that he can
get the courses that he needs and it's not really a good venue for us
to be speaking about a specific student matter.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much.
Next is Paloma McKenna.
>> My name is Paloma McKenna. I am 25 years old and a member of
the Winnebago tribe of Nebraska. My mother is a member of the Pascua
Yaqui Tribe and is an elder.
I was enrolled in Pima Community College from 2016 to 2021. I
graduated from Pima in 2021 with an Associate's degree in liberal
arts and psychology. My mother teaches at the Tucson Unified School
District and is active in the Yaqui community.
I want to ask Demion Clinco, Meredith Hay, and Catherine Ripley
what will it take for the three of you to wake up and see what is
really happening at Pima College? Since last Friday, faculty and
staff have filed two complaints with the Higher Learning Commission.
Two complaints. Within two days, two complaints were filed by
faculty and staff with Pima's accreditor.
I'm sure excuses will come flooding out of the chancellor's
office and his board supporters will work with him to spin this
story. Or as the faculty have stated, Pima's response to public
criticisms are swift and engage in both stonewalling and
intimidation.
These complaints are not political and are not related to the
election. These are ongoing concerns that you, Mr. Clinco,
Ms. Ripley, and Dr. Hay have woefully ignored to the detriment of
Pima employees. But it can't be spun. The reality is you,
Mr. Clinco, Ms. Ripley, and Dr. Hay have allowed this chancellor to
engage in harassment, intimidation, and retaliation against college's
employees.
Mr. Clinco, Ms. Ripley, Dr. Hay, you have allowed this chancellor
to engage in attacks on the character and reputation of employees.
Mr. Clinco, Ms. Ripley, Dr. Hay, you have allowed this chancellor to
employ a dispute resolution process that conceals policy violations
and denies employees an unbiased method of resolving complaints.
The city council and county supervisors are back to the open
meeting format, but why isn't Pima? The college is open, and I think
that you are using COVID as an excuse to prevent citizens from
speaking directly to the board. You are responsible for this
situation.
Mr. Clinco, you do not deserve to be on this board. I urge the
voters in District 2 to vote for Mrs. Theresa Riel.
Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you very much.
Next we have Francisca James Hernandez.
Francisca James Hernandez? We can come back to you if you're
having technical difficulties.
We will now go to Minnie Almader. Minnie Almader?
>> Hello. Good evening, everyone, chancellor, board members. I
am an alumni of Pima Community College. I would like to share my
expertise with you. I started as a poor student. My father was a
copper miner. My first experience at Pima College was extremely
positive. With few resources, an old car, a scholarship, work study,
I managed to get my AA, my Bachelor's, my Master's, and my Doctorate.
There are 46.9% Latino students at Pima Community College. 37.4%
White. 4.6% Black or African American. 2.9% Asian. 1.99% American
Indian. There are 1.94 students who have mixed race. 0.39 Native
Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students.
We have a very, very rich multi-cultural population. I'm very
sad to read, and that's my focus for three minutes, is what about
retention? Pima College has a lower-than-average freshman retention
rate. In order to graduate, you have to make it past freshman year.
Only 59% of students at Pima become sophomores. Nationwide, the
average is 69%. What is happening? Why are students not graduating
from Pima? And of course the pandemic has affected all of us.
I have a passion to dream and to learn and to get all of our
students out of poverty. I think each of us has to be responsible.
We should step down if we can't do that job.
I recommend an outside auditor to review how resources are being
spent on retention. I read that there were two lawsuits in 2012 by
Imelda Cuyugan and two years later by Leticia Menchaca. A 2.8
million out-of-court settlement was offered. Why can't that money be
put into retention programs?
That offer was made to one of the faculty members who refused it.
I looked at the educational attainment and salaries of those of us
that have a Bachelor's versus an AA versus a high school degree and
the salary differences. For all Americans, 32% have a Bachelor's.
For all Hispanics, only 16% have a Bachelor's. That says something.
Our equity in our society, we have to help our students get
there. The National Center for Educational Statistics also reports
that the salary from 2010 to 2020 did not increase for ten years for
someone who graduated from high school.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Ms. Almader, can you wrap it up? We
are over three minutes. Can you please wrap it up? Thank you.
>> My question is who is responsible for retention and how can
our president, our board, get together on this? I really hope that
the future will be changing.
Thank you so much.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. Your comments are
rich and valuable, and we really appreciate them. I can assure you
this is why we have open call to the audience. We need to hear from
people like you so that we can share some of the information and
perhaps arrange for a study session that's public, because we have
devoted this past year a lot more resources dedicated towards
retention, and especially in the regions, the demographics in which
you speak.
We are an HSI, Hispanic Serving Institution, we're very proud of
that. One of the things we have done is bolster our outreach with
counselors that are literally, physically sitting in high schools to
help not just recruit, not just a recruiting, hold up flags and pass
out pamphlets, but actually able to mentor and follow each student
from high school through to Pima Community College.
We have a lot in play. The chancellor can elaborate on that, but
please believe me when I tell you this board, all of us are very
concerned with this. And we aren't blaming the pandemic. There has
been a decrease in attending college, any college, higher education,
across the nation before the pandemic even started. This is a
nationwide trend.
But this is our community, and we want to take ownership for not
only recruiting but retaining every student who desires an education
at Pima Community College.
I would like to pass it to the chancellor to elaborate perhaps on
our retention program.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Briefly, Madam Chair, myself and the college
are committed to the success of our students. That's not only about
the enrollment access side but also on the retention, persistence,
and completion, transfer, and direct employment, as well.
Just to share a statistic, because I'd really love to, if you
would follow up with me or with Dr. Irene Robles-Lopez who oversees
directly our student support systems here at the college, your
numbers -- because the numbers I have in front of me for fall 2020 to
2021 cohort, the retention rate for full-time, first-time students
was 65%.
So I'd love to learn more about your data, would love to hear
your ideas about how you we can improve in this area, because we are
all committed to doing better for our students and for our community,
especially for our students of color and our low-income,
disadvantaged communities.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Chancellor. Thank
you, Ms. Almader, for your amazing comments.
Next we have Angelina Uriarte.
We can come back to you if you're not available or don't have
sound.
We also have Ms. Sylvia Lee.
>> DR. SYLVIA LEE: Thank you so much, Chair Ripley. I'd like to
say that many of you may know me. I'm a former PCC president, dean
of instruction, and dean of student development who retired with 30
years of higher ed experience from multiple institutions as well as I
served on the PCC Governing Board from 2013 to 2019.
The most important information about me is that I am born in
Tucson and that I am a proud PCC graduate myself.
I want to thank the past and current dedicated faculty, staff,
and administrators who all have cared and who still care deeply about
our students.
I do want to address some of the -- I want to say that I am all
too familiar with some of the speakers with the anti-PCC,
anti-chancellor, anti-Governing Board rhetoric, specifically from
Mario Gonzales and Luis A. Gonzales. I will call them from now on
the Gonzales Brothers.
They rotate their vitriol targets from either Congressman
Grijalva, Mayor Romero, TUSD board, and of course PCC.
With PCC, they have claimed that the board members, the two board
members that vote in the minority are marginalized. They imply it is
because they themselves are minorities.
Well, I'm a woman of color and so is Cat Ripley and two previous
board members that are Hispanic, Marty Cortez and David Longoria,
served with Lee Lambert and actually hired him in 2013 and are still
his big supporters. So it's not about being marginalized or race.
It's about wanting to ultimately control the college and get your way
no matter what the cost.
It's like a broken record, which we have heard tonight. Mario
and his brother are all the same, and they have done the same thing
since 2013. Some of you may know this, but most of you probably
don't. In 2013 when there was a nationwide search for the
chancellor, the Gonzales Brothers gave every finalist for the
chancellor position a letter saying to them to withdraw their
candidacy. Why would the Gonzales Brothers want to do that?
Well, they wanted their candidate to become chancellor. Mario
Gonzales himself even met with me when the board was making its final
decision on who to hire as chancellor, and he tried to bully and
intimidate me into not voting to support Lee Lambert.
He told me who he wanted to become the chancellor, and he even
threatened to come after me. And for ten years, he has. He even
used his anti-Semitic name-calling with Mark Hanna, one of our former
PCC board members, when he did not get his way.
Since day one when Lee was hired, they have never given him a
chance. They refused to meet with him. When Lee asked them to be on
strategic planning committee, participate in the many community
forums, they just refused or they quit.
Ten years later, they are still at it.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Ten seconds.
>> DR. SYLVIA LEE: Okay. I also want to say that I just want to
say to the media is when you give them a forum, please ask for where
their evidence is, because there is no evidence. That's why PCC has
been successful. But I do think we need to address what the faculty
union and Faculty Senate have said, and we really need to...
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Ms. Lee. Time is up.
>> DR. SYLVIA LEE: Okay. Thank you for my time.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you very much for your comments.
We have two more on the list. Therese Senne.
>> I wish I were present so you could look me in the eyes.
Specific leadership and board members may choose to deny the truth,
but I'm speaking as living proof and evidence of the reality of
intimidation and retaliation.
On day 28 of being put on administrative leave, I still have
little transparency and answers. A decision to terminate was made
simply from my reporting what I thought was an error to my direct
leadership. All steps in the corrective action policy were bypassed
because someone subjectively declared my issue severe.
I'm a respected high-performing employee of an award-winning
department with a commendable and clear record, now facing
termination for performing my job duties as prescribed by standard
operating procedures.
I have served with integrity and always considered the best
interests of the college. In return, I have only expected fair,
consistent, and humane treatment but instead have been met with
hostile opposition. I continue to follow college processes
accordingly and respectfully. However, I cannot consciously continue
to be silent out of fear.
My colleagues do not know why I am gone, and they are afraid to
talk to me. I'm sharing what unjust behavior by decision-makers does
to an already hostile work environment. Please do not further punish
me for sharing the truth. There is a fair share of employees who
have outright neglected to serve with integrity; yet they have been
permitted to keep their jobs.
I still hope my appeal process will identify the truth, but
through all of this, I have been permitted less than one hour to
defend myself. I'm profoundly concerned that those who have the duty
to right the wrongs are in corroboration or too afraid of leadership
to do the right thing.
As a member of AERC, I am well aware of the precise intention of
policies. College policies and mission statements are being outright
ignored or manipulated to suit ulterior motives. Unwillingly caught
in the crossfire, I'm also deeply concerned that this behavior will
continue.
No one will be willing to step forward in truth about anything if
they see how unfairly I'm being treated. I am also concerned the
AERC, ODR, and HR are being used for appearance only.
I urge the public not to dismiss complaints because you were told
that they are not validated. If given the proper due process and
thorough investigation, relevant individuals and evidence would be
apparent. It is a misrepresentation to say that there are only small
groups of employees and community members with concerns.
It demeans the gravity of these complaints. The community has a
right to know about the misuse of policy and the imbalance and abuse
of power.
I am only one voice, but I matter. I'm a human being with a
family, a recent breast cancer survivor, I have worked very hard for
every ounce of my career. I do not deserve to be collateral damage
of leadership's narrative.
The real shame here is this game of smoke and mirrors and
self-interest. You are not what you say. You are what you do.
I have and always will be continually committed to serving the
greater good, and all I want is to be able to continue doing my job
at Pima.
For the staff at the college, this has never been about having a
final say or greed. It is about being treated and working in an
environment with equity, integrity, and human decency.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Sorry, you are -- we have already given
you 30 more seconds. I'm sorry. We do need to cut you off the three
minutes.
>> I'm still waiting for my due process. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. Any comments?
This is a personnel matter, so we will look into this with legal
and with the chancellor. I assure you this will be looked at
seriously, because I don't have any of the background information on
this case. We will confer with legal and chancellor.
But it is a personnel matter, so we won't be able to discuss this
right now.
Board Member Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I just want to make a comment. I don't
know who's keeping track of a clock, but we had one speaker that did
almost four, almost five minutes, but if it's going to be three
minutes, let's maintain it.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: This was actually the longest over time
that we had.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: No one has gone further than --
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Not this one. No, I'm looking at the
clock right here. I have allowed a few people to go over to finish
their thoughts, but I have been cutting people off as necessary.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Okay. We can clarify it. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for
respecting that. We have one more speaker.
Michael Guymon.
>> Hello, Chair Ripley. Thank you very much for allowing me to
speak. Pima Community College board members, I hope you can hear me
okay.
My name is Michael Guymon, president and CEO of the Tucson Metro
Chamber. My comments are mainly going to be focused on the HLC
letter that was sent on October 6, last Thursday.
There has been a lot of talk, a lot of discussion, even some
reports based on a draft report from the HLC. The letter has
confirmed that every recommendation except one was refuted due to
lack of sufficient evidence.
The HLC maintained the recommendation of the college clarify the
roles of the Office of Dispute Resolution and Human Resources
regarding employee complaints, which I think some of these have come
up during the discussion this evening. But the bottom line is that
the allegations presented by two board members during the focused
interviews have been summarily dismissed due to lack of evidence to
support the allegations.
There has been, again, a lot of talk of these allegations which,
in my opinion, has really taken the conversation away from the
purpose of the college, which is to serve the students, which is to
serve the community, which, in my opinion, the college has done
extremely well.
You know, Pima Community College was at the brink of losing its
accreditation. That accreditation is not at risk. The success of
the college is clear. The fall enrollment is up by 9%. There has
been discussion of enrollment. Fall enrollment is up by 9%. High
school dual enrollment is up 26%.
Harvard University, one of five exemplary U.S. community
colleges. Aspen Institute, top 150 community colleges in the
country. Forbes listed them as the fifth-best employer in Arizona.
I really can't find a better partner in Pima Community College,
especially with the work that the Tucson Metro Chamber has done in
workforce development, which is relatively new, but we knew that we
could find a strong partner in Pima Community College to develop the
kind of programs and to sit down with industry...
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Five seconds. Go ahead, wrap it up.
Five seconds.
>> ...to make sure that the skills that we need in this community
are developed.
The HLC letter is clear. The allegations are not true. They are
not supported by evidence. I'm a strong supporter of the college and
Chancellor Lambert's direction. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much for your comments.
That concludes our call to the audience. Any comments from the
board?
I'm sorry, I need to go back to some people that perhaps had
technical difficulties.
Francisca James Hernandez, are you here?
Anyone else who -- I think that was it. Francisca James
Hernandez. Angelina Uriarte.
Okay. Sorry that you couldn't join us. Perhaps next time please
do voice your concerns at the next meeting if you can.
Okay. We will move on. Before we get to the Mission Moment, I
wanted to just share a few of my remarks before we go on, just to
take a minute here, because I think this is important.
I would first like to convey the sadness and collective grief of
the Pima Community College family over the tragedy that occurred at
the University of Arizona campus. Our hearts go out to the family of
Professor Murad Dervish, his friends and his colleagues at the
University of Arizona.
There is no sense to be made of this tragedy. We can only
reflect upon our own lives, how we wish to spend each and every
moment, value every second we have with loved ones, friends, fellow
students, and colleagues.
With that said, I really implore you all to reflect on what's
most important in our lives and to give each other a little bit of a
break. When you see someone that needs help, please reach out.
Later today, we will be hearing from our chief of police on
safety and security as well. This is something we take very
seriously.
Here at Pima, we are sister to the University of Arizona. We are
deeply affected and will be hearing more today regarding the serious
and careful work we have devoted to safety and security of our
people, our facilities, and the campus.
The decision to make our board meetings still hybrid is twofold,
threefold, really. Yes, there is health, but there is safety and
security, which safety and security is my, as chair, is my
responsibility. That is a decision that we have made based on a lot
of input from our security forces here.
We will go back to public. We welcome that. I prefer it. I
would rather be in the company of all of you. But with that said, it
does open up, when we have a hybrid board meeting, it does open it up
to more people that can attend who wouldn't otherwise be able to come
here in person. So we are happy for that.
Anyway, I would also like to briefly touch on, since it was
brought up, the decision by the Higher Learning Commission regarding
the dismissal of the reviewer's report and the recommendations and
for granting the board's request -- I repeat, the board's request --
for continued monitoring.
The request for monitoring came from myself and our vice-chair.
We appreciate that their letter affirms the college's and the HLC's,
Higher Learning Commission's, reliance on fact-based evidence, not
hearsay, not innuendo, not acquisitions that have no documented
evidence. We will hear more about how HLC demands fact-based
evidence in their work later in this meeting.
We therefore welcome the HLC's continued monitoring of the board
as we ramp up and continue what we are already doing. We will do
more of it and we'll do it better. Monthly or twice monthly training
sessions based on board rolls and responsibilities, Open Meeting Law,
board conduct and ethical behavior, and board obligations to this
community and to our students.
As chair, I have tried to encourage board conduct and ethical
behaviors, as our sole purpose as board members is to provide
oversight, to ensure that Pima Community College, the chancellor,
function smoothly, efficiently, and effectively as optimally as
possible, both operationally and administratively in order to provide
the best possible education for our students and our community.
Lastly, let me say this as clearly as I can: We, the board, will
hold each other accountable for breaches in ethics and unlawful
behavior. This is how it works. We have to self-monitor.
We have a full agenda, so I don't have time to go into that. We
will go into it more, and we will have a study session that will
address the HLC response and their final decision basically.
Because there is a lot of confusion out there and we really want
to be able to tell everybody exactly what they want to hear and what
they need to hear.
So we have a full agenda. I don't have time to thank every
person that has done a fantastic job this past month. Know that we
are all immensely proud of you. However, I will limit to a couple of
personal shoutouts, one to the Adult Basic Education for College and
Career time, ABECC, led by assistant vice-chancellor Laurie
Kierstead-Joseph. Seeing you all last month or a few weeks ago, and
every time I see you all it brings me pure joy because it is pure joy
and unadulterated joy that I see radiating, seriously radiating from
your students. That is all you.
Our refugee program brought me to tears when I visited ABECC when
speaking to bright and talented young people from the Democratic
Republic of Congo, where I once served in the military. You cannot
know what their lives have been like unless you have been there.
Thank you, Laurie, and your beautiful team.
I also went to West Campus last week just Friday for emerging
leaders program. Immense gratitude to the Student Life coordinators
at all of our campuses for the devotion, personal attention,
professionalism, enthusiasm, and attention to detail they place every
single day in ensuring our students are taken care of in every way.
I had the pleasure of speaking at their emerging leaders
conference last week, and I was blown away by Jennifer Wellborn's
staff and all the leaders at every campus. It was a beautiful breath
of fresh air. Thank you so much for that.
Finally, I'd also like to plug Pima Community College Arts, PCC
Arts, for their fall play, Bagels and Ballet, which I plan to attend
this weekend, Sunday. Thank you for keeping the arts alive, for
without it, the crudeness of reality would be unbearable.
With that, I'd like to return back to the agenda, and the next
thing is our Pima Mission Moment. We have 10 minutes, and I'd like
to turn that over to the chancellor.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, I'd like to invite Phil Burdick
and our presenters on our partnership with the Gospel Rescue Mission.
As you know, Madam Chair, recently we were part of an event that was
held there to recognize Pima's commitment to providing the training
for the folks who are housed, who typically have been homeless, who
have been previously incarcerated. Some have been former drug
addicts, issues with alcoholism, and many other challenges they have
faced.
We are just so honored to be part of that. Phil, I turn it over
to you.
>> PHIL BURDICK: Hi. Good evening, everyone. Let me turn it
over to Marcy Euler who will share a few words and one of the
students who is at Gospel Rescue Mission and underwent some of the
job training programs.
Marcy?
>> MARCY EULER: Thank you. Chair Ripley, governing board
members, Chancellor Lambert, faculty, staff, students and guests.
Thank you for inviting me to share a new partnership between Pima
Community College, Pima Foundation, the HSL Family Foundation, and
the Center of Opportunity.
This project was born out of a need to support the rising
population who find themselves homeless or on the brink of losing a
roof over their head. The partnership has a potential to be a model
for the state and the country to move homeless individuals to a
self-sustaining living wage.
Humberto Lopez, local businessman and philanthropist, developed
the Center of Opportunity in partner with a local homeless shelter
that provides many wraparound services beyond a bed and a meal.
What was missing was a robust training program to allow learners
to gain the important skills that allow meaningful transition to the
workplace. To address this issue, PCC Foundation was gifted $250,000
to invest in providing training at the Center of Opportunity.
The programs offered on-site include information technology,
culinary arts, commercial driver's license program, and a building
and construction technology lab is being built at the center to train
plumbers, HVAC, carpenters, and the skilled trades in the building
industry.
The first cohort of IT students has completed their coursework,
and the second cohort is in progress. Culinary and CDL are also
underway.
On September 22, Mr. Lopez pledged an additional 250,000 towards
this project. Pima Foundation, alongside the workforce development
team, were also recently selected to receive a large sum towards this
project over the next three years, and you'll hear more about that in
the future.
But my words are nowhere near as powerful as a student who has
participated in the program. Please meet Shannon, a Center of
Opportunity guest.
>> My name is Shannon Chanesca (phonetic). I am Mescalero Apache
and Taos Pueblo. I'm from New Mexico. I lived in Washington state
for many years, and I was a caregiver, live-in caregiver. My person
ended up going into long-term care, so her family was moved.
I didn't have enough time to get resituated, and so that's why
I'm here. I really signed up for the Google IT course so I that can
stay a little bit longer so I can get a full-time job and get an
apartment. I just wanted to do that and keep going, but in the end
I'm a part of a community now.
For me, this Google IT means a lot to me. I didn't know I wanted
to go into technology, but I really like the Google IT course, and I
plan to keep going to Pima. I have already talked to them. Even
though I do have a degree, it's not...
(Applause.)
>> But I really would like to go on to school. I already have
education but not anything applicable, because I don't want to work
in politics (laughter)...
I got that degree because it's a Master's in public
administration and a minor in tribal governance. I will not work for
my tribe in that capacity. I really want to work in the education
part. I really want to work with students. I really want to work
with people going back to school. I really want to teach technology.
So thank you for that. That's what I've got from this.
>> MARCY EULER: So Shannon is one of many students that are
involved with us, many learners at the Center of Opportunity, and we
are thrilled to have this partnership based on the funds that we have
developed. Not just through what Mr. Lopez has given so generously,
but other folks are noticing this, and we believe this is something
we can sustain for an extended period of time to really make a
difference and move people who are homeless into good, living-wage
jobs that can truly transform their lives and that of their families.
I'd love to answer any questions you might have.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Marcy. Shannon, I
was there, live and in person, when she gave that very moving speech.
Again, she's just one person and there are hundreds of those same
stories that are just heartwarming.
It's another testament to the fact that Pima Community College is
not just on the campus. We reach out and we are able to reach people
that really, truly need it and can have a shot at a second chance.
It was so moving. I can barely get the words out, because it was
truly amazing. Again, once again, a shoutout and thanks to Humberto
Lopez family for the amazing, generous gift which truly helps.
The Gospel Mission is amazing for what they do. If you haven't
been there, other board members or people listening, go visit. I was
blown away. I actually didn't know what to expect. They have an
amazing program set up to help people in our community, important
people of our community.
Thank you, Marcy. Any other questions or comments for Marcy?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Thank you, Chair.
Marcy, I want to congratulate you and your team for pulling this
together. It's an outstanding opportunity for our students, and it's
really a cutting-edge example. Again, Pima Community College is
leading the way for the state and for the country.
I'm very, very proud of you and the team and the students who
you're helping. So thank you very much.
>> MARCY EULER: Thank you, Dr. Hay.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Again, it's a win, win,
win. It's a win for our community. Now we will have viable
community members who have certifications and education that can get
real jobs and support their families.
It just keeps -- I don't like the term "trickle down." It
trickles out, it trickles up, it trickles everywhere. And it's not
even a trickle. It's a hose. Yeah, so spray the joy all over.
Thank you so much, Marcy. Any other comments? Chancellor?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you to the Foundation. Thank you
for what you do, Marcy.
>> MARCY EULER: Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thanks so much for that Pima Mission
Moment. Next we will have time for administration reports.
First up is safety and security update from Chief Michelle
Nieuwenhuis, our Pima Community College police chief, and Bruce
Westberg.
Chief, I hand it over to you.
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: I'm working on it.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: We see something. It's up. Just needs
to be expanded, I think.
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: Thank you, Chancellor Lambert, Board Chair
Ripley, board members, representatives to the board, students, staff,
and community members.
We have not provided an update to you on safety and security
since spring of 2021. So I am here to give you some updates on the
initiatives and focus of our work in the past year and a half.
Here you see our staff personnel working with our Student Life
coordinators for the first week of school, training outreach
opportunities where we provided students some breakfast items and
wanted to make sure that they understood that we were a resource for
them, we were on campus, and we wanted to start week one of starting
to build those relationships with the students.
This was up at Northwest Campus. Our gentlemen here were sharing
bagels with the students that morning.
Our first item was some interactive threat training that we
completed at Northwest Campus this last summer. This was in
coordination with Pima County Sheriff's Department school resource
officers, Oro Valley PD, Marana PD, and the Tucson Police Department.
This was response to active threat training that was provided for
a week in June. This was an eight-hour training that provided
individuals with skills for how to respond during a threat, medical
First Aid, and training, and those were followed in the afternoon by
live simulated scenarios.
We had a pretty good number of college employees that were able
to participate in that. We took those concepts that were covered in
that training, essentially the run, hide, fight, and we coordinated
with the VPs to make sure that divisions and departments that were
interested in receiving that kind of training had those concepts
applied to their space, their work environment, their office space,
so that they understood what their options were in the place that
they work.
These are ongoing and still available as needed by request. We
have also e-mailed a college-wide invitation to a Secret Service
presentation on prevention of targeted school violence. That will
take place at the TCC on October 24.
They shot that out far and wide. They want all K-12, higher ed
basically staff and employees, the ability to attend that and receive
that important information and analysis and research done by the
Secret Service.
This last summer we were able to complete fire evacuation drills
at all of the main campuses. This allowed us to assess the response
of our CAT teams, the safety systems that are in place, and our
ability to check their effectiveness and also identified areas of
improvement for us since we have really not had in-person evacuation
since prior to COVID.
One of the things we identified was our CAT teams' inability to
really communicate effectively. About six months ago radios were
ordered for them. Those were delivered. That will allow all of the
CAT teams to communicate within their teams during an emergency.
A training program has been developed, and we will start with the
Desert Vista CAT team this month. They will be trained on how to use
that radio and to have effective communication among their teams.
All locations, moving forward, will have that same communication
capability in training offered.
We continue to review our draft department policy and language.
This requires us to insert the IACLEA, which are the International
Association of College Law Enforcement Administrator standards, into
those policies which lace the path for us towards accreditation.
There are over 600 standards or individual policy language components
that have to be embedded in our policies.
Some of these also require that we vet them through additional
college departments such as HR and legal because of the nature of the
content of those. We continue with those in that path towards our
accreditation.
We are engaged with our regional partners with regard to
coordinated active threat response protocols, but in addition to
that, we are currently conducting single officer response to active
threat training for our internal department personnel. These are
scenario based and are being completed at M&S over this past weekend,
and we will conclude those this upcoming weekend.
I want to thank the PCC employees who have volunteered to be our
role players. They have committed their time on their weekends, and
this really contributes to our realistic training environment which
improves our training experience.
In February of 2023, we are planning on sending many of the
behavioral assessment team members to a NABITA conference in-state.
That's the National Association for Behavior Intervention and Threat
Assessment.
I just want to remind everybody, behavioral assessment team is
one of the prevention and monitoring tools of the college with regard
to individual behavior concerns and cases. That is on the front end
kind of on the prevention and case management end.
This last winter, February of 2022, we were able to provide COOP
training, Continuity of Operations Planning, to all of the campus
VPs. This will move us towards our efforts with emergency response
planning. This will develop a plan for each campus that outlines
operational contingencies after an emergency if that has occurred.
After COVID, we determined we needed to reassess the security
measures for our board meetings. A thorough review of the protocols
and the boardroom layout and infrastructure were conducted and
recommendations made that include security screening at all board
meetings for all attendees. This was recommended to include study
sessions and retreats to ensure the safety of our elected officials
and the attending public and staff.
Prior to COVID, we had in-person meetings. It was pretty clear
we had holes in our protocols. We had employees that would come down
the stairs or the elevator, and they would bypass the security, and
if you're going to have safety and security protocols, they need to
be relatively foolproof without exceptions.
So it was just easier to move forward post-COVID with applying
those security measures to every individual that attends the board
meetings. Then we don't have staff get confused about who has an
exception to the policy and the practice and who does not.
The department passed its biennial audit from Arizona DPS.
That's the body that governs our access to the state and national
criminal databases, along with motor vehicle. Access to those
systems is one of the criteria that allows us to actually exist as a
police department.
We have continued with our evidence room review and purge. Cases
have been reviewed up to year 2017 and evidence has been purged up to
year 2014. We had case evidence in that evidence room dating back to
the late '90s. Some of that has to be retained because of the nature
of the case, but we had a lot of evidence that just really needed to
be purged out. It was a matter of putting resources towards that
project.
That will continue for a bit longer, but we have made tremendous
progress. Additionally, two cameras have been installed in that
evidence room to ensure the integrity of our evidence room content
and practices.
All department supervisors will soon begin crucial conversations
for accountability that will help develop our leadership staff. This
will continue into 2023 with additional development training with the
help of OED.
I really want to thank Tina and her team, Dina and Jessie, for
providing us this opportunity. We really wanted to jump start this
for our team and make sure that we are getting good, quality
leadership training across all of our supervisors.
Lastly, I have spoken with Dr. Dor� about bringing cultural
relevant training to our police personnel in spring of 2023. My
command staff and I will meet with those trainers sometime in
November when I return from vacation. We will discuss bringing that
important training to our department to ensure that we are listening
to and meeting the needs of the diverse community that we serve.
This mosaic presents just some of the fine women that work
somewhere in our police department. There was a group of us that
were out at National Women's Police Day on September 12 at the West
Campus.
Does the board have any questions?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any questions from the board?
Board Member Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Thank you for the update. It was very
informative.
Only question I would have is reference to the campuses we have,
what is the staff, what are the demographics in reference to the
whole security team?
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: You mean as far as minorities, males,
females, things like that?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes.
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: That's a good question, Mr. Gonzales. I
don't know. This is a sprinkling of the females because it was
National Women's Police Day. This is a sprinkling of some of the
women that work in a variety of the divisions within our department,
but I would be happy to provide the board with that information
moving forward.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: That would be good. Thank you.
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: You bet.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. I think the last bullet
that you had was more training on cultural relevant training,
basically.
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: Yeah. I just wanted to ensure the board I
meet with every applicant that applies for our police department to
wear our uniform and represent our department and our community.
I definitely seek out diversity opportunity as much as I possibly
can. We really seek out those underrepresented communities within
overall society, because I really feel like that diversity broadens
our ability to connect with our community and have a better
understanding. You know, the more we can share that diversity
internally, the more we are better to meet the needs of the broad
community. Yeah, very focused on diversity within our department.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Any other comments? Board Member Hay?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Thank you, Chair Ripley.
I just want to thank the chief and all of her staff for all they
do every day to keep this campus safe, the students safe, and the
staff and the faculty.
It's only a split second between things being normal and people
being shot and killed. The Blue is in front of that and in front of
us and protecting us. I want to thank you from the bottom of my
heart and echo what happened at University of Arizona was just awful,
and it was the police who were there in seconds responding, putting
their lives on the line.
Thank you for all you guys do.
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: Thank you, Dr. Hay.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any other comments from the board?
Chief Nieuwenhuis, I would like to personally thank you for all
you do on a daily basis. You have your hands full in an oftentimes
thankless job on five campuses. I commend you for your leadership,
first of all, your managerial skills, let alone your operational
wisdom and knowledge and experience. It's so important and we are
very fortunate to have you leading the safety and security of our
campuses. So keep going.
I would also urge you, and we can talk about this at another
time, and if you haven't already, I'm not sure if you have
collaborated at all, especially in light of recent events at
University of Arizona with the University of Arizona campus police,
to get together and figure this out collectively as how do we keep
our campuses safe.
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: Yeah. I think we will definitely be
interested. I know I did excuse Bruce from having to be here
tonight. He had something later this evening.
We are really interested in seeing if the University of Arizona
PD will share their after-action report with us. I was already
planning on convening a small group.
There were several of us that actually heard that call over the
radio for the three hours that, three-hour duration that that call
took. We had the ability to monitor University of Arizona's PD radio
traffic. We definitely heard some things that we want to ensure are
not barriers to our response to protect our community, and we want to
meet with our facility's folks and Bruce, the emergency manager, and
make sure if there are, unfortunately for the University of Arizona,
if there are lessons we can learn with their tragedy, we certainly
want to do that.
If we can get that after-action report, we are probably not going
to be able to broadly share it, but if it can improve our processes
and the way that we respond, we will certainly look to do that.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much and to the
chancellor. On one end it's response and what you are doing, and
physical prevention and reaction time is so important, but also, for
another forum perhaps, Chancellor, is prevention and training
throughout the college, and getting to the bottom of why violence
occurs.
There is a lot of violence we probably could never prevent.
There is mental health issues, et cetera. But there is ways to
provide training to our staff, our faculty, all our employees,
students even, on taking care of one another and being able to, when
you see something, say something.
Even if the see something is a student in distress or employee in
distress, nip it in the bud and take care of each other and take care
of our people, and what we can control and mitigate, let's try.
I would turn that to you for another discussion, Chancellor.
Anything else for our chief of police? Thank you so much for
your efforts, Chief Nieuwenhuis.
>> CHIEF NIEUWENHUIS: Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Next we have chancellor's goal update.
I believe Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda is not available. Is there someone
else speaking on that?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Just for the public, unfortunately,
Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda is not feeling well. She's doing better, so
that's the good news. Unfortunately she could not make tonight.
We have Kate Schmidt who will be doing this presentation on
behalf of the provost.
Kate? Kate, we can't hear you.
>> KATE SCHMIDT: Yes, you'd think I was new to Zoom. You know,
Dolores did ask me to share that these are complications relating to
a positive COVID test, and I think it's just a reminder that even
though we think we're out of the woods, if we're boosted and
immunized, it's still a pretty serious illness.
So I'm giving -- essentially I think later on the agenda the
board will be voting on Chancellor Lambert's goals. So we are giving
a little bit of the context of what's in those goals for academics.
On this call are many of my colleagues, deans, other academic
administrators to answer questions I might not be able to answer.
So thank you for having me. The chancellor's goals in academics
for the '22/'23 year, there are six of them, and some have subgoals.
They are well aligned with the college's '21/'25 strategic plan, the
provost's goals, the Strategic Enrollment Management Plan that we
commonly call the SEMP, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan,
and the Education and Facilities Master Plans.
Each of the chancellor's goals and the subgoals in academics
support the strategic plans, Achieve60 Pima County, two institutional
targets we are all familiar with, increasing completer counts to
6,000, and to double the completer counts of Hispanic Latino,
American Indian and Alaskan Native, and Black or African American
learners by '24/'25.
So the very first goal is for us to develop a transformation plan
for general education or transfer education to ensure relevance into
the future with a focus on increasing those completers and those who
will transfer.
The ABOR who monitor the three state universities in February of
'21 passed a new policy asking the state universities to update their
general education curriculum. That then has a knock-on effect for
the community colleges. The state has not looked at the general
education curriculum statewide since the mid-1990s, so this is about
30 years old and ready for a refresh.
So now, as a college, we will be working with Arizona transfer
and other community colleges around the state to really reimagine the
AGEC, Arizona General Equivalency Curriculum. Those are the courses
you can you take, a student can take at Pima in a block, and have
those really count towards the general education requirements of the
first two years of a four-year degree.
There are many principles that are being put forward. Dolores
wanted me to really focus on the students needing to understand why
they are taking a general education curriculum and how it will
benefit them, that we are going to be focusing on courses that
already have a good transfer history to be the foundation of that
curriculum, and learning outcomes will be expanded to clearly
demonstrate the connections among disciplines. It's also one of the
principles is that the students will acquire 21st Century skills.
Goal 2 in the chancellor's goals is really focused on completing
the work in the strategic plan that is due in the next year, by June
30, 2023. So these include things like continue to expand our
credentialing to include industry credentials and microcredentials,
continue the enhancements to guided pathways, restructure all of our
programs around areas of interest with clear credit and noncredit
pathways, leading to high school equivalency, industry credentials, a
PCC award or another completion point. Expand high school dual
enrollment, implement the auto confer process, which means the
college can identify students ready to graduate and process their
completion records accordingly rather students self-selecting for
graduation or completing a graduation application.
Goal 3, part of the strategic plan is to implement a college-wide
effectiveness process which includes a cost saving analysis focusing
on course and program offerings to increase academic efficiency.
That's due by February 2023 and it's a project I'm involved in.
Goal 5 related to the strategic plan priority on technology needs
today and into the future to create a digital literacy fluency task
force charged with planning and implementing college-wide
expectations around technology literacy.
Goal 4 in the chancellor's goals around academics, and this is
per the priorities identified in the Education and Facilities Master
Plans is to explore the establishment of centers of excellence in the
arts and in science.
Then finally, and probably most importantly, I think it's the
sixth chancellor's goal is we are preparing for the HLC assurance
argument, and that's due in the academic year '24/'25. This work is
underway with the committee's form that are listed on this slide. An
initial gap analysis has been completed.
Also wanted to note that the provost has just hired a project
manager to work on the provost's team to help keep all of these
projects on task and to figure out some ways to report out our
outcomes and bring that kind of information back to the board on a
regular basis.
So that's it. Are there any questions for me or any of my dean
colleagues who are on the call?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any questions from the board?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, can I just highlight something?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes, go ahead.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: These are smart goals. They're specific,
they're measurable, they're achievable, realistic, and they are time
bound.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. That's important.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Madame Chair, I would applaud the
chancellor and his team also to linking them to the strategic plan,
which is absolutely how we move the whole thing forward. So thank
you for that.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Kate, for being here
tonight, filling in. That was excellent. Thank you.
Sorry, I apologize. Board Member Garcia has their hand up. Go
ahead.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes, I'd like to know how they are going to
be measured. How are these goals going to be measured?
>> KATE SCHMIDT: So I think in a later agenda item there is the
actual document with the chancellor's goals that probably has more
detail and also the other two sections of the chancellor's goals. I
think that's probably a question for later on the agenda.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I have one more thought. There was a
program recently where 19 students were in a certification program,
and 11 of them failed. My concern -- I can't say the program -- but
my concern with that is are we looking to see, before we put people
in a certification program, what their abilities are to be able to be
successful in that program, and if not, what help do they need in
order to be successful?
>> KATE SCHMIDT: It sounds like you're asking about ensuring
that we have sort of those guardrails in place to ensure that as
students come in and express an interest in a particular program that
they can succeed in that program.
I don't know that I can speak to that specifically, but I think
that's sort of the goal of many of these interventions and
activities, so I think we could bring back some of those specific
examples either in a study session or in a future board meeting.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes, thank you.
Chancellor, I guess we need to find out which program you are
talking about, because it would be very important to look into if you
could, Chancellor.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I'd be glad to, Madam Chair.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any other discussion or comments?
Thank you so much, Kate, for being here.
>> KATE SCHMIDT: Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: We do send out our support to the
provost for a quick recovery.
The next item is HLC update.
Chancellor, I think we do have Dr. Nic Richmond on the line.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, did you want to take that out
of order? We also have Dr. Dor� who is going to present on the
centers of excellence.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Did I miss that? Okay, I almost
skipped Dr. Dor�.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: We can take it in either order.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: That's fine. Dr. Dor�, please go
ahead.
>> DR. DOR�: Thank you. Good evening, Board Chair Ripley,
members of the board, Chancellor Lambert, students, colleagues and
guests.
So I'm going to present on the chancellor's goals related to the
centers of excellence and the student support areas. As Kate
mentioned, all these goals are still being approved. Significant
progress has already been made on many of these initiatives, and I
just want to give some little updates with you.
As Kate said, these goals too have been developed in alignment
with our Educational Master Plan, our Facilities Master Plan, the
strategic plan, and our institutional goals, the Diversity, Equity,
and Inclusion Plan, as well.
Of the significant milestones that have been achieved in line
with our Educational Master Plan and Facilities Master Plan, and
strategic plan, I just want to highlight two. We have completed the
IT Cybersecurity Center of Excellence and the Automotive Technology
and Innovation Center, and we are seeing significant enrollment,
which was part of our strategic plan, is to increase the enrollment
in those areas. So we are seeing significant enrollment increases in
those areas.
Next I'd like to share some of this year's goal, and then the
upcoming milestone schedule throughout the year.
So the first is the Aviation Technology Center. As many of you
know, we are planning a ribbon cutting for October 20th. The
contractor is completing the final punchlist, but the staff and
students are now completely occupying all of those spaces.
What this will allow us, as we had already planned, will be to
double our completers in the aviation technology program. So that's
really critical in terms of high-wage, high-growth jobs, and really
creating more graduates for this area.
Then the second thing I'd like to highlight is our advanced
manufacturing center. So complete building work on the advanced
manufacturing center is just a little behind schedule. We were
supposed to have everything completed by the end of November. Now it
looks like we are going to have that all done by December 15.
So that project is seeing significant activity. While this will
be so important to our region because the manufacturing sector is one
of the fastest-growing sectors in our region, this is again going to
allow us to significantly increase our completers in all of those
manufacturing sectors as well.
Third area I'd like to highlight is hospitality leadership. We
are continuing to work on the center of excellence in hospitality
leadership, which includes the construction of the bakery and pastry
kitchen, the Aztec Grill, and the student-run restaurant.
The board recently approved the equipment package for the bakery
and the pastry kitchen, and the crews are working diligently so that
those spaces will be ready for classes in the spring of 2023.
Then in terms of student engagement data, one of the goals I want
to highlight is to support the strategic plan priority, really to
rebuild the learner-facing and community-facing processes with a
focus on standardization and simplification, and then access to
removing those barriers that really limit our learners, as Board
Member Garcia was articulating.
What we are doing is using that student engagement data that was
obtained in 2021/'22 to really identify all of the changes that are
needed. Then those recommendations will be due by December of 2022
in terms of some of the work that we are going to be doing around
really improving our student processes.
Then finally, there are some additional subgoals for the centers
of excellence in terms of some other upcoming milestones. We will
plan to have classes being held in the new West Campus science labs
in the spring of 2023.
The health sciences center of excellence construction is
beginning in the spring of 2023 where we will take both buildings
offline. And then the programmattic meetings have already begun for
the development of the Drachman properties.
Then finally, you know, workforce development innovation division
has finalized really some standard operating procedures for the Pima
FastTrack, and now we are working to scale those microcredential
programs that we have had tremendous success in those areas.
That just gives you some highlights of some of the chancellor's
goals in those areas. I'd be happy to answer any questions.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Dr. Dor�.
Any questions from the board?
Thank you so much for your support of our new centers of
excellence, and I look forward to seeing the progress made on those.
No other questions? Any comments, Chancellor?
Finally, we have the HLC update. I turn it over to you,
Chancellor.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, this HLC update has two
different parts. The first part is going to Dr. Nic Richmond talking
about the accreditation assurance process.
Nic?
>> DR. RICHMOND: Thank you, Chancellor Lambert.
Chair Ripley, members of the board, Chancellor Lambert,
colleagues and guests. If you just give me one moment to share my
slides.
Per the reporting schedule that was approved by the board last
month, I'm going to be showing an update on Criterion 1 today.
Criterion 1 is all about the institution's mission, specifically that
the institution's mission is clear and articulated publicly, and that
it guides the institution's operations.
Criterion 1 has three subcomponents as listed on the slide here.
For the presentation today, I'm just going to touch on a few
highlights of some of the evidence in this area, but I would like to
draw everyone's attention to the executive summary that's also
provided in the board packet, which provides much more comprehensive
information across this particular criterion.
Among the evidence that we have that speaks to this particular
criterion, is one, that the mission is publicly posted. It's
available on the college's website, for example.
It's also learner and community focused. This is a piece that
relates to subcomponent 1A where it looks for us to kind of
articulate the constituents we serve through the mission of the
institution.
Another note is that Pima's actions and decisions focus
specifically on its educational role. Now, within 1B, which looks to
ensure that the institution's mission demonstrates a commitment to
the public good, there is a specific language that the institution's
educational responsibilities take (indiscernible) over other purposes
such as generating financial returns for investors.
We do not have investors. We don't generate financial returns
for anybody, and so our educational role is front and center as the
central purpose of the institution.
Lastly listed here related to 1C, which focuses on providing
opportunities for civic engagement in a diverse, multicultural
society and globally connected world, we can look to evidence from
the work of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office in this
particular area as one source of evidence for the work that the
college does here.
As I mentioned, and I will just repeat this, there is additional
evidence outlined in the executive summary that accompanies this, and
we are also early in the HLC process. So we are in the process now
of gathering evidence and assessing it and identifying the best
sources of evidence we have.
What I do want to include, though, is some employee perception
information in this area. The college employee satisfaction survey
is a really useful source for us to understand employee perceptions
in the area of mission as well as a number of other areas.
It's our goal to present this data in the November board study
session and release the full results after that, but for today's
purposes to ensure I was providing the board with the most current
information, I'm including here six statements that relate to the
mission and longitudinal results for the college from each of the
administrations of the employee satisfaction survey, 2013 through
2022. And also in gray we see the comparison group results.
Now, on this slide we have three statements directly related to
the mission and purpose of the institution. You can see over time
with the exception of 2019 we have had this gradual systematic
increase in employee satisfaction in regards to these statements.
At this point for the first two of these there is now no
statistically significant difference between Pima and the comparison
group per Ruffalo Noel Levitz who administered this survey. There
does still remain a statistically significant difference for the last
of these statements that the goals and objectives of this institution
are consistent with its mission and values, but you will notice there
has been improvement over time for this one.
On this slide, there are some statements related to students and
the community. Because we specifically reference our students, the
community we serve within the mission statement, these also are very
relevant statements for us to look at as we look for evidence about
mission at the institution.
In this case for these three statements, according to the
analysis by Ruffalo Noel Levitz, there is no longer any statistically
significant difference between us and the comparison group, and
again, you'll see a general increase over time for the responses for
this statement, which is particularly evident in this last statement
that the institution is well respected in the community.
Now, this of course isn't the only evidence around this piece,
but I wanted to include this, as in the past we have looked to this
particular survey for evidence in this particular criteria, and I
wanted to share that with you all today.
So what's next. During 2022/2023, the evidence is being gathered
and analyzed in the area of Criterion 1. If any weak areas are
identified, they will become the focus of attention as we get later
into the year.
In addition, not noted here, something that's a more recent
addition to this, what we are discussing is establishing community
and/or student groups to support work on the accreditation process so
we can ensure we hear from the constituents we serve and gather their
insights as we work on the accreditation process. So that's
something we will also be looking into for Criterion 1.
With that, that's all the comments I have to share and I'd be
happy to take any questions.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Dr. Richmond.
Any questions from the board? Any comments? Chancellor?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I'm just pleased to see the progress we have
made, and you're seeing evidence that in terms of Criterion 1, the
college is in a very solid position as we move into our reaffirmation
process.
Thank you, Dr. Richmond, for your leadership in this area.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. I just notice we do have a
question from Board Member Garcia.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Dr. Richmond, if you could provide us with
when you do the surveys for the different groups, if they are
categorized by group in the total amount of people that were actually
surveyed? And then give us the percentage?
It doesn't mean much to me if it's just a chart and a graph, and
I don't know how many people, and if it's not segregated.
>> DR. RICHMOND: Absolutely.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Seems it's more accurate. Thank you.
>> DR. RICHMOND: I'd be happy to provide one of those in a full
report. Just as a note, we had approximately 600 responses in the
most recent year, and we disaggregate the results, we see for all
employees, all faculty, and separately for adjunct faculty, and the
data when they are released will include all of those populations.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: But I would like to see it separated, you
know, like the students in one group, the faculty in another, the
staff in another, because, you know, I think it's important to know
exactly who's responding and how many.
>> DR. RICHMOND: Absolutely. We can provide the response rates.
The results and the groupings we have are provided to us directly
from Ruffalo Noel Levitz. There is a limit to how much we can
disaggregate, because we are using directly the reports that they
provided to us.
But you will see responses for all employees, all faculty, and
all adjunct faculty, which are the specific groups the college has
requested through the analysis.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. That would be very helpful
because that way it will give the chancellor a better insight on
where we can look at issues and how to improve ourselves.
Also, was this an outside -- this was not an internal survey; is
that correct? It was a contracted outside survey company?
>> DR. RICHMOND: Yes, that's correct. This is a survey designed
by Ruffalo Noel Levitz. They are responsible for the administration.
We send the link out, but it's their survey, the results go to
them, and then they prepare the results which we then release to the
college community.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Did employees have any kind of input on
some of the questions?
>> DR. RICHMOND: Yes. We have some custom statements, and new
for this year, in collaboration with Carleen Thompson in human
resources, there was engagement with AERC and a number of new
statements were added at the request of that group.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Great. Thank you so much. I do urge
everyone to, the next time we do a climate survey, please
participate. The more who participate, the more accurate we can be.
It's the only way we can really get an overall picture and serve
everyone appropriately.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, to that point, I have been
talking with Dr. Richmond about taking a more holistic approach to
understanding employee engagement, because when you look at from a
human resource perspective, this is just one component of being able
to measure that. I don't want us to lose sight of that. This is
just one component.
There are other means in which we get employee feedback. So we
are going to be looking to create a more integrative holistic system
over time.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: That would be great. Thank you so
much.
Thank you, Dr. Richmond, for that, and for all your work and
devotion to all of this. Thanks a lot. We appreciate what you do.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I'm going to ask Wendy Weeks to join us
next.
So, Dr. Weeks, were you going to build off of what Dr. Richmond
just said, or are you just going to go right into the focus visit
review process? And I think Jeff is going to tag onto that, as well.
Am I correct?
>> WENDY WEEKS: I think Mr. Silvyn is going to go first.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Good evening, everyone. So I'm going to
just give a moment of quick context, and then my colleague, Wendy
Weeks, is going to provide additional information.
The context is we received a few days ago from HLC their decision
on the focus visit report. Not the focus visit report. On the focus
visit process. There are two, generally speaking, categories of
action items that are now expected from the college.
One is they are monitoring for a number of criteria. The second
is we have to do -- and those are predominantly focused on
board-related activities. That is due in September of 2023. We have
little bit less than a year to work on that and develop our evidence.
The second rough category is what's called an embedded report.
That's additional information we are supposed to provide in
connection with our assurance argument, which as you heard earlier,
that's a project we are working on which is due in the 2024/2025
academic year, and that's the one that relates to clarification of
the respective roles of the office of dispute resolution and human
resources.
We thought it would be helpful for Wendy Weeks, she's our
designated Pima College liaison to HLC, to speak a little bit about
what is monitoring, what's an embedded report, and what's the type of
evidence that HLC will be expecting the college to produce so that we
can be thinking about that as we shift to working on those projects,
and as the board discusses the HLC decision at the study session next
week in more depth.
>> WENDY WEEKS: Thank you, Mr. Silvyn.
Good evening, Chair Ripley, board members, Chancellor Lambert,
and guests. Thank you for that, Mr. Silvyn. You covered part of
what I was going to talk about, so you have saved me some time here.
Yes, we have two reports due, and the first one is an interim
monitoring report. This is going to be a stand-alone report all on
its own. And it is due in less than a year. Less than a year to
gather evidence and also make sure that what we are doing is working,
analyzing our evidence, is really a short time frame. That's the
first one.
The second one is an embedded report. So it's going to be very
similar to the first one only it's going to go directly into our
assurance argument that we will have in 2024/'25, but it's going to
be the same thing.
So they are allowing us more time for that one to collect
evidence. But with that, they will also expect that we have better
evidence for it, we have assessed it, and we have made some
improvements as we go along.
So we need to put a plan in place on how we are going to address
these items. And the plan ultimately needs to produce evidence of
our implemented plan, as well as our analysis of the results of the
plan, which we call continuous quality improvement.
For short, you'll hear us call it CQI. Continuous quality
improvement, we need to assess what we are doing.
On the next slide, I have listed some types of evidence for
Criterion 2C as provided by the HLC. So these are directly from the
HLC. This is not an exhaustive list. Some of them may not even
pertain to us. However, I wanted to get us all starting to think
about what types of evidence we can collect that would be pertinent
to our reports.
I look forward to working together with you to develop our plan
and a timeline to get these reports completed. So again, this is not
an exhaustive list, but by getting you thinking about it, I'm hoping
we can all come up with some evidence areas that work for Pima
Community College, that work for us and the situation we are in.
Subject to your questions, that's the end of my presentation.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any questions from the board?
Thank you so much. I would just like to add that this is
excellent. I would actually expand on and we will talk about this
more at our study session, but the professional development piece is
the most important, because based on the HLC, Higher Learning
Commission's final decision, three of the four recommendations that
they brought forth are directed at the board.
It pertains mostly to training and practices. It focuses on
roles and responsibilities, what are our roles, what are our
responsibilities, adhering to policy and bylaws and process, and
adhering to code of conduct and ethics.
I think that's going to be, the best way we can do that is to
continue our training sessions which are in the form of study
sessions, more personal training, and just keep that documented. We
can go forward with that.
But we do look forward to our self-monitoring and improving. So
thank you very much for the information, Dr. Weeks.
Anything else from the board?
Okay. I mean, I need to add one more thing. Based on just
recent events, I think overarching, the academic in me is looking at
this from a broader perspective. Really the bottom line here is
communication. I think communication, lack of communication, bad
communication, I'm going to say this over and over again, but we
really need to communicate and we need to all agree that we are going
to do better.
This is up and down and across the board. Communicate
truthfully, communicate with good intent and always, always, always,
keeping in mind why we are here, and that's for our students and
making this institution a better place for the community.
Communicate, communicate, communicate. It's the good, the bad,
the ugly. We need to hear it. This is why call to the audience is
important, and this is why your reports are really important,
Dr. Weeks. Thank you so much.
Anybody else? With that, I think that concludes the
administrative reports.
We are going to go on to reports from representatives of the
board. First up, student report, Atheena Martinez.
You have five minutes.
>> Hello, Board of Governors. I have a few updates to share with
you all regarding the Student Senate. We have confirmed our date for
the fall semester Student Senate Town Hall meeting. It will be
Tuesday, November 29, 2022, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., Amethyst Room
Downtown.
The event is currently posted on PimaEngage, and there is a form
in the event for students to submit comments and questions to have
their voices heard on student issues and things they'd like to have
addressed. During the Town Hall, Student Senate will provide updates
on what we have been working on during this semester.
Student Senate plans to be involved in the upcoming new student
welcome event at Downtown Campus so we can better understand and get
to know our fellow students. As of today we are attending the events
and making ourselves known to the students at all Pima events which
can be found on the PimaEngage website.
Any questions or concerns can be directed to our e-mail at
pcc-studentsenators@ pima.edu.
That would be all I have for you at this moment. We are working
very tentatively to have more information for you guys in the
following meetings.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Atheena, for that
report. Thanks so much for all you're doing for the students.
Next we have adjunct faculty report from Sean Mendoza.
>> SEAN MENDOZA: Chairwoman Ripley, Chancellor Lambert, members
of the board, honored guests. Since our last meeting, adjunct
faculty continue to participate in college governance committees,
like the AERC, professional development, and All College Council,
just to name a few.
In each committee, individual action groups are tasked to address
specific governance issues. One group in particular was formed by
the AERC to create a greater alignment of the terms and conditions
and institutional publications. For example, the (indiscernible)
system, initially introduced and created by the adjunct faculty, can
only be found under the full-time faculty section of the employee
handbook but not mentioned in our adjunct faculty guidebook.
It is our hope that the work of this group will eliminate any
confusion as it pertains to the responsibilities, processes, and
services available to adjunct faculty.
I'm also excited to restart our work with the tier system with
the provost's office, slated to begin at the end of the month. It's
my hope that we will review and explore ways to support our adjunct
faculty and to ultimately nurture student success. I look forward to
providing you an update on this matter in November.
In closing, I'd like to spend the next 18 seconds in quiet,
thoughtful reflection of our colleagues at the University of Arizona,
especially for the family, students, and colleagues of Dr. Thomas
Meixner. Please join me in 18 seconds of silence, a second for every
year of his time with the U of A.
(Moment of silence.)
>> SEAN MENDOZA: Thank you for your participation. I didn't
know Dr. Meixner, but as a fellow educator, his passing is a terrible
reminder of the current state of our society.
While disagreements can and often do lead to violence, as
educators, we have a sacred duty to stand as examples of peace and to
guide the next generation of our community's leaders.
With safety as our foundation, I challenge my fellow educators to
not give in to fear or anger, comment on social media, news outlets,
and in our meeting rooms but to nurture a dialogue of understanding,
tolerance, and inclusion in our classrooms.
Thank you, and that ends my report.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much for that, Sean. And
just to add to that, the adjunct faculty as well as our permanent
faculty, you guys are leaders in your classrooms.
That comes with a grave responsibility for not just the academic
portion of what you do and what you convey to students, but sadly in
this day and age security and safety and well-being.
So it's a huge responsibility, and so thank you so much for
having the courage to teach and to stand up and lead your students.
Thank you so much for what you do.
I do want to make at this point as well, because I don't think a
lot of people know this, but there are upwards of over 900 adjunct
professors at Pima Community College. That's an extraordinary
number. So thanks for keeping all that together, Sean. Thanks a
lot.
Next we have the staff report from Erika Elias.
>> ERIKA ELIAS: Good evening, Chairperson Ripley, members of the
board, chancellor, and guests.
The Raquel Rubio Goldsmith lecture on ethnic, gender, and
transborder studies will be held Thursday, October 13, at the
Downtown Campus in the Amethyst Room. At 5:00 p.m. the reception
will be held and 6:00 p.m. is when the actual lecture itself is going
to be. This is free and open to the public.
The following day, Friday, October 14, there is going to be a
scholarships fundraiser for the ethnic, gender, transborder studies
and the Mexican American studies as well. This is going to be held
at Brother John's, and the tickets are available for purchase at
PimaFoundation.org.
I also wanted to point out that October is depression and mental
health awareness month. These are topics often not discussed in our
personal or work lives, and yet mental health disorders affect
millions of American workers every day. If you or someone you know
is struggling with depression or mental health, please reach out to
someone, get them help.
If anyone at Pima you know is struggling with mental health,
there is different counselors that are there to assist you. If you
are not sure what resources are available, please reach out. We're
here to help. That concludes my report. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. An extremely
important message that you're giving. I hope everyone has been
listening carefully to each and every word you have just uttered.
It's crucial. Thank you so much, Erica. And I do look forward to
next Friday's lunch, as well.
Next, if there aren't any other questions, faculty report from
Denise Reilly.
>> DENISE REILLY: Welcome. Good evening, Chair Ripley, members
of the board, Chancellor Lambert, colleagues and guests.
As Faculty Senate Governing Board representative, I am the
elected representative for the large body of faculty at Pima
Community College. I am a conduit or communicator for faculty, those
that teach students day in and day out in all programs at the
college.
I wanted to read what our committee charge is as a group. The
Faculty Senate is the representative body of all faculty, full-time
and adjunct, that participate in the governance processes of Pima
Community College. It is an integral part of the community college
structure and operates under the policies and procedures of the
college.
Through its president or other authorized representatives makes
appropriate recommendations to the Board of Governors, the
chancellor, presidents, and other administrators of the college.
In the spirit of communication, our deemed theme of the evening,
the Faculty Senate officer team is still committed to shared
governance, transparency, technical and learning system improvements,
and academic student success.
Again, in the spirit of communication, which includes shared
viewpoints and divergent thinking, Faculty Senate is continuing
sponsored study sessions once a month.
This is an opportunity for faculty to gather as a whole body to
express ideas, concerns, and solutions to large-scale issues that
affect faculty, academics, and student success.
Our first study session, which was well attended, as mentioned
earlier in public comment, focused on women's reproductive rights.
Our next study session, our second one of the year, is focused on
safety and security. Especially in light of the faculty shooting and
fatality of Thomas Meixner, the head of the hydrology atmospheric
sciences department at the University of Arizona.
Faculty Senate represents a group of dedicated teachers
continually adapting to change as evidenced by the multiple
modalities of delivery during the pandemic and postpandemic to
include continual professional development in teaching and learning.
We take our roles seriously and don't make decisions lightly.
The Roe v. Wade statement was endorsed in September's Faculty Senate
meeting by the Faculty Senate. The AERC faculty member letter to the
HLC was endorsed in October's meeting.
In summary, I mentioned last month that faculty are the heart and
soul of the institution. That is not to diminish the roles of others
at the college. However, faculty want what is best for the students,
the workplace, and the community. We seek strong leadership and
administrative support to achieve that.
As faculty Board of Governors representative, I will continue to
communicate on behalf of my faculty constituents. Thank you, and
good evening.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Denise. We look
forward to all and any inputs from the faculty.
Next we have, finally, administrative report, Jim Craig.
>> JIM CRAIG: Good evening, Chair Ripley, Chancellor Lambert,
distinguished board, PCC family and friends.
I'm Jim Craig, dean of business and information technology. You
have already heard some great stories about the Gospel Rescue Mission
Center of Opportunity and the work we are doing there and the events
and the great contributions that we got out of that event.
You heard from one of our students, too, and one thing you need
to know is it may look like a workforce initiative, but it's really
more than that, because the course, the Google IT course, for
instance, is fully transferable to our four-credit programs and for
our transfer programs to universities. It really ties everything
together very, very nicely.
You also heard about the emerging leaders student summit that was
held Friday, October 7. This was a wonderful student success skill
development. It helped students identify their strengths, how they
could interact with others not just in academic courses but with
student organizations and career development. Participants had an
opportunity to strengthen their individual leadership abilities as
well.
There is so much serious work going on at the college right now.
One that I wanted to highlight tonight is a student success
initiative that's underway that started, been ongoing but started,
specific initiative this summer. It focused around the DFW or drop,
fail, withdrawal retention and reduction efforts that are underway.
With an agreement that we should probably change the name to student
success, because it's a more positive framing for these efforts.
The initiative of course is also influenced by the college
strategic goals and the other goals of the college. The group met
this summer to collaborate and develop a plan. Part of that was a
survey that was given to faculty as soon as they came back in terms
of action steps to student success with a real focus on equity.
So the question was really to share an action item for the
important goal of increasing the number of learners, particularly
Hispanic or Latino, American Indian, and Alaska Native and Black or
African American learners who successfully complete a course from the
drop deadline to the end of term with a passing grade of C and above.
Faculty were very responsive. We had 144 responses. Then some
immediate dialogue going on during the September 2nd Faculty Senate
meeting. At this point, the Faculty Senate president began attending
the meetings and will continue attending on a regular basis.
This collaboration is so important too because it models the
culture of belonging and trust and collaboration and open
conversation and mutual support we promote in our classroom spaces
and working with each other.
The progress on this was discussed with faculty at the October 7
Faculty Senate meeting and plans to narrow down the steps to maybe
three or four that we focus on as a college on or before the November
4 Faculty Senate meeting.
The ABECC, you heard about earlier, too, is a subrecipient of a
recently awarded USCIS grant. Under this grant, adult ed team will
be working closely with Catholic Community Services to provide
citizenship preparation, English language instruction, and
naturalization services over the next two years. This collaborative
grant with CCS is the only USCIS grant awarded in Arizona.
ABECC also celebrated the HSE graduation, high school
equivalency, and that was held on Friday, September 23rd, at the Leo
Rich Theater. HSE graduates from all over Pima County were invited
to participate in the in-person live-streamed event. This is the
third year that Pima County's Court Alternative Program For
Education, or CAPE, school from the juvenile detention center
collaborated with PCC ABECC to provide the HSE graduation.
Dr. Josie Milliken, dean of distance education, joined colleagues
at the Arizona Community College Administrators Conference and
offered a presentation titled Mindfulness Techniques and
Contemplative Practices For Administrators. The presentation
explored how mindfulness techniques and contemplative practices prove
valuable for administrative leaders and provided tools and strategies
for calming the nervous system to enhance focus, improve
productivity, and promote productive and collegial dialogue and
experience a heightened sense of well-being. I know I want to take
Dr. Milliken's workshop very badly. (Smiling.)
Finally, October is also Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and for
this month, I'd like everybody to focus on think before you click.
You know, cybersecurity hackers, identify thieves, and other
criminals out there in the digital world, really like to play on our
emotions. Whether it's through an e-mail or a chat or a Facebook,
they try to hook us with positive emotions that we can get excited
about and also negative emotions like fear or trepidation. So we all
need to remember to think before we click.
Just to remember that if we have an emotional response to
something, count to three before you click on it and make sure that
it's safe for you to move forward.
That concludes my report for this evening. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thanks so much, Jim. That was
excellent. You talked about a lot of things. We appreciate
everything that you reported on. It's amazing.
Thank you so much, also, to all of the reports by representatives
to the board as well as the reports from the other representatives.
We rely on this, and sometimes we won't hear about all these things.
Again, the good, bad, ugly.
Thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for the warnings.
I think one of the things I wanted to add to this is we rely on all
of you all, and you're doing excellent work, to do the things that
you need to do.
We keep and we hold the chancellor accountable for all of those
things, and when things are going well, it allows the board to do
things like two of the board members, myself included, are members of
the community outreach committee. That committee is going to be
stood up next Friday. I really look forward to that, because it will
allow us to enhance and look further into the enrollment, recruitment
and retention programs so that you all can do what you do with more
students and with a higher quality of offerings.
Thanks again, Jim. Thanks to everybody for your reports.
With that, I'd like to turn it over to the chancellor for his
report. Thanks a lot.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, thank you. I first want to
start out to let you all know that I reached out to President Robbins
to let him know that our hearts were with him and the University of
Arizona and to offer our condolences.
Secondly, I wanted to share that Strada and Gallup came out with
a report called Why Higher Ed? Let me just share some key findings
from that report.
This should be no surprise. They surveyed over 86,000 students
representing over 3,000 institutions, and this is some of the
findings. Work outcomes was the No. 1 response for why students go
to college by 58%. The next-closest item to that was at 23%, which
was for general motivation to learn more and gain knowledge.
But what they also found about that last piece was those most
likely not to complete happened to mark that that was the reason why
they went to college. I think this is a very important reminder to
us that why someone would come to us is ultimately to lead to a good
career to build a future for themselves and for their family, and
while they are with us, we hope to instill with them the larger
values of what it means to be a good citizen and the things that come
with a solid liberal arts education.
Let's not lose sight of all of those pieces. When I first came
here, yes, this college was focused on transfer education. That is a
very important part of our mission. But what it got lost coming here
was we were not investing in career technical education. We were not
investing in Adult Basic Education for College and Career.
So my work was to bring those two areas up on par with the
transfer. Students come to us for one of those three pieces, and
they are all interrelated. They are not separate. So if it feels
like, yes, CTE gets more attention, some of that is because they were
neglected for so long. But their needs are different than transfer
needs. I want us not to lose sight of that.
Some of those programs need better lab facilities. They are more
equipment intensive, so it takes more resources for those types of
programs. So let's not lose sight of that. I think that Why Higher
Ed, just as a reminder to us, why students come to us, but we give
them so much more and we will continue to give them so much more.
Also, I want to thank Marcy Euler and the Foundation for the
incredible work they are doing for us. I mean, the partnership we
have with the Gospel Rescue Mission, with Bert Lopez and the HSL
Family Foundation, the Center of Opportunity, is just a testament to
this college's commitment to our community. The least among us in
our community, and that's a shining light of what this college is
doing to support it.
As you said, Dr. Hay, this is becoming a model, not just for our
community but for our state and I dare say for the nation. Tucson,
again, and Pima Community College is at the heart of really leading
the way on a much higher level. I couldn't be more proud for our
faculty, staff, and administration and the board who are integral to
all of that success.
Also, I just want to build off, I know if Dr. Francisca would
have been able to speak tonight, she would have highlighted the
Raquel Rubio Lecture Series coming up. I just want to mention that
the keynote speaker for that is Arturo Vargas, CEO of NALEO. If you
get a chance, please come and hear him speak. It's a great
opportunity as we wrap up the recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month.
Also, I just want to shout out to our international programs
folks that we just were recognized with the Gilman Award for top
producers for providing scholarships to low-income students to be
able to study abroad. This is a major accomplishment for us to be
thought of in the same breath of many other leading colleges and
universities in the country, to support low-income learners, to have
that study abroad experience.
But it doesn't stop there. I also got a letter from Secretary
Blinken recognizing Pima as one of, I believe it was 43 institutions,
as Fulbright his leaders.
(Applause.)
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: That puts us in the top 10% of his
institutions to support international education with the specific
focus on our Hispanic Serving Institution mission.
Again, all of that happened under the leadership of Dr. Ricardo
Castro Salazar. I couldn't underscore that more than to say thanks
to his leadership, this college has elevated its international and
global profile to the levels you're now seeing us being rewarded
with. Thank you, Ricardo, for your leadership.
Let me say a few words about the HLC. I think sometimes it gets
lost. And that is it's about continuous improvement. How do we, as
a community of educators, working individually in our respective
communities but collectively in support of our great nation, continue
to improve and to support the success of our students and our
community?
That's the heart of what I think accreditation is about. How do
we get better together? It's not supposed to be I got you. I'm
going after you. I'm filing complaints with the HLC. All that.
It's about how do we get better together? It starts with us
communicating with each other here at the college. I want you all to
know I'm committed to building bridges, to collaborating. I will
talk to anybody. I have an open door. Please, never hesitate to
reach out to Gabby to schedule to come see me.
Some of you people know that when they do that, we make
adjustments. It may not always be what you want, but I factor that
into what ultimately is, I hope, a collaborative outcome that meets
the needs of most of us. May not always meet the needs of all of us,
but for most of us. Sometime it would be great to meet the needs of
all of us. It's always about our students and our community, and
that's what my commitment is to this community, to this board, to our
faculty and staff and administration.
I want us not to lose sight that the Higher Learning Commission
is there to help us get better. However, with that said, if we
ignore what they tell us and we don't follow through with the things
they point out that we need to do, then there is a hammer. I have to
point that out.
Pima should know this all too well. Twice the college was placed
on probation. One of the main reasons for that has been the
Governing Board. What I'm afraid of, if we don't take this
monitoring opportunity, this is a gift they handed us, to really look
at how we improve together, and I'm here to support the board to do
that, that we put at risk this college's accreditation.
What I really worry most that we have already been twice because
of the board. Will they give us a third time to be on probation? Or
will they put us on show cause? You don't want to be on show cause.
It is very hard to recover from show cause.
I ask each of you, we've got to put aside our differences and
focus on the mission of the college. I know some of you don't like
me. You have expressed that. I get it. But I'm here for the same
reasons why you're here. And that is our students. Let's focus on
that.
If you see that, that's why Harvard University selected us as one
of the five exemplar colleges. You can't ignore that. That doesn't
happen out of the blue. Please do not ignore that. The Ed Design
Lab would not have chosen Pima to be one of the six pilot
institutions for this country. By the way, that micropathways model
is now starting to become more ubiquitous across the country, and
Pima was one of the leaders for that to happen. Let's not lose sight
of that.
Aspen Institute for two cycles in a row chose us as a top 150
institution. Aspen doesn't just choose colleges out of the blue. To
be an Aspen 150 college says we are doing something right.
And NACCE, the National Association of Community College
Entrepreneurs, identified Pima as one of the future leaders for
entrepreneurship training in the country.
Thanks to Marcy Euler, who delivered a successful pitch in Boston
recently, she brought home a $5,000 check as an example of our
leadership not open in this community but across the country. Please
don't lose sight of that great work.
So I'm here to work with you, board members, to take seriously
the four items that they specifically called out that they will
monitor of the board under 2C. But also, let's not lose sight of
that HLC president's decision to not find sufficient evidence to
support the recommendations of that reviewer's report.
So that should be behind us. What is in front of us are the four
items plus the one piece around tightening things up around HR and
our dispute resolution center.
Let me remind everybody, the dispute resolution center was
created coming out of the last accreditation. We put that in place
to give folks an avenue to bring their concerns forward. Now we
recognize that we need to do a better job of clarifying the
distinction between HR and that, and we will do that. This is about
us being a team. Teams that are successful work together. They work
through their differences.
Please let's not lose sight of that. I'm here for the same
reasons why we're all here.
Let me just close with just some fine examples of two of our
employees here at the college. Libby Howell was just recognized by
her peers for public relations with the Impact Award as the PR Pro of
the Year.
Libby? She was sitting out there. I mean, that speaks highly.
A lot of that was because of the work she did to help us with the $15
million that we got from the governor's office and a number of other
things. She was nominated by a couple of legislators for that
recognition.
I will close with our provost, Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda, is being
recognized as the Humanities Alumna of the Year by the University of
Arizona.
Again, these are fine examples of what happens when a college is
focused on its mission. Great success by an organization leads to
great success and recognition by its individuals. There is a number
of us who have received that. Let's stay focused on the glass is
half full, not the glass is half empty.
Thank you. Thank you, all, for being part of this great
institution.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Chancellor.
Any comments from the board? Any questions?
Thanks. One of the points that you mentioned was the three focus
areas on our students and transfer being one of them. That will be a
topic of discussion for our study session. Any of those that are
interested in hearing about that, it's going to be very informative.
Again, transfer students are hugely important. Anything we can do to
improve that and make it smoother, we welcome.
The other thing, and I just want to reiterate, because it is the
topic at hand, is the final decision from the HLC president and her
staff on the focus visit. I mean, there was a press release, but the
press has been unclear, and I think it's a convoluted and confusing
story sometimes, but precisely, just to make it more clear, there are
actually three things that the board needs to do. This is coming
right out of the findings.
Board members must use resources provided by the institution in
preparation of our board meetings. This is coming from the HLC.
Processes to ensure transparency of decision-making at the board and
senior leadership levels. We have to work on that.
And also, continue to use board training, which is pretty much
the same thing, more training sessions, more study sessions, to help
all board members understand their role, responsibilities, and
governance.
So these are three things that we, as the board, I hope will
continue, I hope all board members will agree that we do need to
continue to work on over the next year, especially in light of the
fact that we have our affirmation process for accreditation coming up
next year.
With that, thank you, Chancellor. We will move on to the next
item on the agenda, which is information items.
So the information items were provided to the board for general
information purposes only. And again, I reiterate, these items were
provided several days ago. If any board member has clarifying
questions regarding any of the information items, please let me know
and we can have the chancellor follow up or add the topic to a future
agenda or study session.
With that, the consent agenda. Again, the consent agenda was
also provided last week to our board members for review.
May I have a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: All in favor, please signify by saying
aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Do I hear an aye from Board Member
Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: These are not the action items, right?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Consent agenda, sorry.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. Aye.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: With that, the consent agenda is
approved unanimously.
With that, I will change my page to action items. Item 5, action
items. We will now consider the action items on the agenda.
Mr. Silvyn, would you please read the first recommendation from
the chancellor.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you, Chair Ripley.
The chancellor recommends that the Governing Board approve the
report on the 2021 through 2022 board self-assessment. The text of
the report is attached to this item.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: With that, I open the floor to
discussion.
Without further discussion, I would like to call for a vote. All
those in favor, please say aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: All those opposed?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Oppose.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Oppose.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Three ayes and two opposed.
Mr. Silvyn, do you have that recorded?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yes.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: With that, the item passes 3 to 2.
Can you please go to the next item.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: The chancellor recommends that the Governing
Board approve the proposed list of board strategic priorities for
2022 through 2023.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I open the floor up for discussion on
the consideration of the Governing Board priorities.
Yes, Board Member Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: No, I should have brought my hand down.
I'm okay.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Any other discussion on
this item?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, I think it's fine to approve
them the way they are now, but knowing that we will likely need to
make some amendments following the HLC discussions.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Yes, again, yeah, we are
open to amendments as well to our priorities. As such, it should be
a living document.
With that, I'd like to take a vote. All those in favor --
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: What if we amend the motion to accept the
strategic goals as submitted, and then we will rereview them in two
to three months based on the conversations of the next few weeks?
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: I agree.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: All those in favor of the motion as
amended by Board Member Clinco, please signify by saying aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: All those opposed?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Nay.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: No.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: So 3 ayes and 2 nays.
Mr. Silvyn, do you have that recorded?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: I do. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. The priorities have been
approved, 3 to 2, without discussion.
The next item, consideration of the chancellor's evaluation. Do
I hear a motion?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'd like to table that.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Mr. Silvyn, I'm sorry, I misspoke.
Could you please read the recommendation.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: The chancellor recommends the Governing
Board approve its report on the chancellor's 2021 through 2022
evaluation.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I believe Ms. Garcia has her hand raised.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Board Member Garcia, go ahead.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. I'm going to apologize beforehand,
but I've got to tell you that I cannot approve it. My reasoning for
that is --
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So just a quick point of order, Ms.
Garcia.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Wait a minute.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: We have to make a motion. We have a
technical -- we haven't made the motion. So we --
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: You just, for parliamentary procedures,
we have to make a motion and then we can do the discussion piece.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay, got it.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I would move we adopt the chancellor's
evaluation.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Now I open for discussion. Please go
ahead, Ms. Garcia.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. So I'm recommending that we not
approve it, and the reason being is, as you all know, I withdrew my
evaluation. So based on that, I would recommend that we not approve
it. I was threatened with attorneys that I could get sued, so no,
I'm sorry.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any other discussion to that end?
Okay. Without further discussion on that item, I call for a vote.
All those in favor of approving the chancellor's evaluation,
please signify by saying aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Opposed?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Opposed.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Opposed.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: The action item passes 3 to 2. Please
take note, Mr. Silvyn. And please announce the next action item.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: The next recommendation is as follows: The
chancellor recommends that the Governing Board approve the
chancellor's annual goals, objectives, and timelines for 2022 through
2023.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I open the floor to discussion.
Ms. Garcia?
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'm sorry. Well, I guess I have to say,
and I think the goals are good, but I would like to see more, like,
some quantifiable objectives, like how are we going to measure them?
I know that we do this little clock and centers of excellence get
built and they are on time so you get a little thing here. But
somehow, for example, like on enrollment, dual enrollment,
completions, all those sort of things, you know, we should be able to
have a listing on the improvements that have been made.
That's what I would like to see.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you for that remark.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I have asked for this in the past.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you for that remark. I do agree
that there needs to be metrics, and I think that's something the
chancellor has agreed upon.
Before I go on, Board Member Hay has a remark.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Thank you. I would also add that any time
we want more details and the actual monthly or quarterly reports on
all the chancellor's goals and objectives, we are free to ask for
meetings with the chancellor and ask for those details any time at
any point between the board members and the chancellor.
If any board member is in need of more information, detailed
lists, please meet with the chancellor and do that on your own time.
Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. I'd like to add too that at
our monthly meetings, we do hold the chancellor accountable, and he's
required -- he's not even required to, he does this of his own free
will, report on one or more of the goals, and he gives us an update
with charts and data and numbers at every board meeting.
I think this is important that we keep that going, that we hold
him to that. And again, like Board Member Hay said, any time we need
any information or any metrics or any data, we need to ask the
chancellor to fill in all of those blanks. I assure you and I think
the chancellor, do you agree, that you will do that?
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, in reference to Board Member
Garcia's point, if you go back to our SEMP plan, you'll see that we
actually have those goals and those metrics built into the plan.
So we have actually, if I recall correctly, we have broken them
down by high school. So those are ambitious goals. We may hit them;
we may not hit them. But at least we have set the targets and we are
working towards fulfilling that.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yeah, and I think that is important and
it's important to have metrics and it's important to track those.
Board Member Gonzales?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes. I also just want to follow up on
what Chancellor Lambert mentioned, and I will say in reference to
requesting information. A couple of weeks ago, Chancellor Lambert,
we did a meeting, myself, Maria, and Mr. Silvyn and Mr. Burdick, in
reference to some of the stuff, issues that we wanted to get back.
I did follow up with a letter. I'm still waiting for the
information in reference to the request. That was about a month ago,
three weeks ago, Mr. Silvyn, when the three of you were on?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: I'm not sure what you are talking about, but
I'm also not sure how this is germane to --
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: It wasn't Mr. Silvyn. It was Dor�.
Mr. Phil Burdick and yourself. What I'm trying to say, I did request
the information, I didn't follow up on the minutes, but I have not
received that information.
One of the topics was the southwest side, as well, too.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Point of order. This is not related to
the topic.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Oh, it's definitely related to the topic,
related to the topic because I request -- we called a meeting in
reference to what he wanted to, what are the needs and wants in
reference to what we wanted to see. And the major topic was
enrollment.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Chair Ripley, I'm not sure how this is --
the chancellor's goals, and how this is germane to the discussion we
are having now.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Well, it is really relevant. It comes
around and comes back to requesting the information. We did have a
meeting, Dr. Dor�, Mr. Lambert, and Mr. Burdick, as well, too, and
Ms. Garcia was on that too.
It basically involved in reference to enrollment. I did follow
up with a letter to you, but I did not get the information.
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Mr. Gonzales, Board Member Gonzales, if I
missed something, my apologies. But I will also say this, we had
Mr. Palacios present on the dual enrollment topic at the board
meeting.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: But we requested specifics as well, too,
and you assured me --
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I sent you a follow-up e-mail, and I have
not heard back, but I will go back and take a look at that. If I
didn't respond fully, that's on me and I'll own that.
I also asked believe that I had asked for that clarification, but
we also thought, we were under the impression that Mr. Palacios'
presentation addressed many of your issues. If it did not, then we
will be glad to follow up.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: That's one of the reasons I did the
response as well, too.
Second, in reference to requested information...
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Point of order, this is not on the topic
and not on the agenda, and should not be discussed at this time.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Well, it is relevant in reference to
information.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Yes, but the --
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: But the topic, the motion on the table is
about whether or not to approve the chancellor's annual goals,
objectives, and timelines. I'm having trouble seeing how this is
relevant to that. I mean, I realize I'm not a board member, but it
seems like a separate topic.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Point of order. We need to vote on the
chancellor's, for his future goals, objectives, and timelines. At
another time we can talk about any unhappiness with your previous
meeting with him that I was not privy to, but we are approving his
goals for this coming year at this point.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Call the vote, please?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: With that said, all those in favor of
approving the chancellor's annual goals, objectives, and timelines
for this coming year, please signify by saying aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Those opposed?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Opposed at this point.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Opposed at this point.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: The vote is 3 to 2.
Please, Mr. Silvyn, note the votes, and the action item passes 3
to 2.
Next item, please, Mr. Silvyn.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: The chancellor recommends that the Governing
Board nominate two board members to serve as the voting delegates for
the upcoming Association of Community College Trustees leadership
congress, which is being held October 26 through the 29th.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Chair Ripley, I'd like to go ahead and
nominate Mr. Gonzales and myself to serve as the delegates.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any discussion?
Without further discussion, I'd like to call for a vote. All
those in favor of appointing Board Members Gonzales and Clinco to the
Association of Community Colleges Trustee leadership congress voting
delegates, please signify by say aye.
(Ayes.)
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: This action item passes 5-0
unanimously. Thank you. Next item.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So the last action item, 5.6, direction to
legal counsel is no longer necessary.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: With that, I'd like to go on to the
next agenda item.
Regular board meeting, remarks by Governing Board members.
I guess I will start with, respectfully, Board Member Garcia on
Zoom. Please start.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. Hold on.
Well, okay. I received two complaints filed by the faculty and
staff with the HLC on October the 10th. I have reviewed each
complaint and find that they are factually based and supported, by my
experience serving on the Board of Governors for nearly four years.
The complaint filed with the faculty and staff contain allegations
that are extremely serious.
The chancellor failed, administration has finally been exposed.
No effort by the chancellor or board majority can deny or invalidate
the fact the employees have reported that this administration has
supported -- wait a minute. Supported that this administration
supported by this board majority have engaged in harassment,
intimidation, retaliation against employees who have publicly
expressed criticisms of the college.
The chancellor has attacked the character reputation of employees
in ways --
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Point of order. Chairwoman Ripley,
Ms. Garcia is impugning members of the board, which --
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: He has created --
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: -- adopted in the bylaws --
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: What was that?
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Point of order. Your comments are
impugning the integrity of members of the board. It was specifically
outlined in the changes to the bylaws in our last study that that's
something that we wouldn't conduct.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, okay. Then I'm just going to say
that in my opinion -- am I entitled to my opinion?
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: You're entitled to your opinion, but I
need to state this now and for the future, that the remarks by the
Governing Board are intended for board members to report to the
public any of the current events and anything that we have been doing
in support of progress at the college.
But please continue.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. So he has created -- well, now I
don't even know where to go with this. It's just that in my opinion,
I guess I'm going to say it as an opinion, but I think we need to do
a better job, and the chancellor needs to do a better job, and
administration and specifically HR in addressing concerns. We heard
a person today talk about being terminated.
These issues of intimidation and retaliation have surfaced since
the beginning when Bill Ward was let go. So please, please do
something about this. Please make it right.
My concern is not so much about the chancellor's, you know, his
initiatives and what he's done, because he has done a good job about
that. You know, I mean, I admire for what he's done. But what I
don't appreciate is the fact that I feel that employees are
retaliated against, policies are not being followed.
Okay. So I'm not a purchasing person that can go through every
little detail, and anybody can spin whatever they want because they
have the facts, they have attorneys that they bring in to intimidate
us.
I mean, I've got -- they have done that to me. I can only
imagine what it must be like for an employee.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Point of order, Chairwoman --
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: With that, I will end it. Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. My only comment, thank you
for your comments and for your passion, but however, none of us here
have any of these facts.
As a board, we have to conduct ourselves as a board and we need
to get the facts and the truth before we take any action or even
express opinion or favoritism to anyone who is impugning the college
or anyone on the board or the chancellor.
We do need facts. I mean, yes, we need to hear, we welcome and
we need to hear criticism, need to hear complaints, but it has to go,
in a college upwards of more than 2,000 employees, we can't take care
of all these complaints. It has to go through a process. It has to
go through Human Resources and Office of Dispute Resolution, and if
that fails, then the person or the organization needs to call the
full board and the chancellor for a meeting.
I think a lot of people claim they don't know that, that it's
available, but we have never been asked for that.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So, yeah, so that suggestion is not really
part of the college processes.
>> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Allowed.
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: There are a number of processes where people
can bring complaints and concerns that will be looked into, and
people should, by all means, take advantage of those. But if there
is a problem but people don't come forward and share the specific
evidence, we have no way to look into it or to fix it.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. That's what I implore of
all of you. It goes back to communication. We need the facts, the
who, what, when, where, and how of all of these events before we can
cast judgment and be judge and jury over any of these complaints.
We need to listen to them all. We need to hear them. So with
that, we, as a board, can't be the judge and jury until we find the
truth and the facts.
I agree with you in the sense that we do need to look into every
single complaint and take every complaint seriously, and I know we
will hold the chancellor accountable for all of that.
I don't know all the circumstances involved behind a lot of the
accusations we heard at the call to the audience. I need to get
those facts. We all do. We need, as a board, we need to hear the
facts before we can really do anything as a board. It's only fair to
all the parties involved. Otherwise it's not fair. So with that,
thank you for your remarks.
We will go around the room. Board Member Gonzales, please
provide your remarks.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: My only remark that I have for tonight, I
really want to thank the faculty and staff, that we did attend the
September 23rd ABECC and graduation meeting, myself and Chair Clinco
and Ms. Garcia.
It was an outstanding event. I think it was very supportive from
the families in the community in reference to bringing those people
together. As mentioned earlier, I know there was a joint meeting
with the court system, acknowledging those young people, bright ideas
but also bright futures in reference to the event that night.
I know that there is a lot that Pima has done. It's a lot of
good and positive. But I think that we can all do, as mentioned
before, we can all do better, as well, too, at all levels.
I'm very familiar with what was said a while ago with reference
to the information that came forth in reference to the -- information
that was in the media, and I want to tell the community that the
board majority will not conduct open meetings like the county
supervisor and the city council, because they don't want to hear your
voice. As you mentioned a while ago, if we do not bring the people
here, how can we not hear them all?
I think that's one of the things that I really would like to
open, and we had some discussions on it. I think that needs to
happen, as well, too.
I have reviewed the two complaints filed by our faculty and staff
to the Higher Learning Commission. I am in complete agreement with
the complaints and totally support our faculty and staff.
The Faculty Senate endorsed the first complaint on October 7,
2022. I have been informed that the vote to endorse this complaint
was 48, zero nays, and one abstention. This can only be seen as
inrefutable evidence in support of the contents of this complaint.
This complaint raises undeniable facts that the institution is
not in compliance with the commission Criterion 4 accreditation.
I have served on the board since January 2019, and the
allegations contained in this complaint are based on facts known to
me. I have personal knowledge of lack of transparency by the
chancellor and general counsel.
I agree that the chancellor responds to the public criticism is
met with swift action, and he engages in both stonewalling and
intimidation. I want the public to know that the faculty and staff
at Pima College filed two complaints within two days to the
Commission. These complaints document the magnitude of Pima's
failure to comply with the Commission's criteria for accreditation
and its own practices.
It is in fact that the chancellor has used internal, external
counsel to intimidate and harass faculty and staff. These willful
actions are continued attack on academic freedom.
I trust the Commission will act promptly on the two complaints
and accept the validity of our faculty and staff requests for release
from this hostile work environment.
I just want to mention this, that yesterday I requested
information, because I know there was a press release. I do know
that I was not invited. I don't think Ms. Garcia was invited either.
But I had concerns from the community, they told them they were not
allowed to be in the press release, for whatever reasons. You guys
have the reasons.
Second, I did meet with the chancellor. He gave me a call. They
set up a meeting, 11:50. Strange that continued, continued
reinforcement that I do not return phone calls.
We set up a meeting at 11:30 and it was changed to 11:50. We met
for approximately 5 minutes with a real brief, real super brief in
reference to the HLC report. One of the things that I did ask to be
sent the full report on my Gmail, I mean, the PCC mail, and I was
assured today that I would be given the black and white of the full
report, and half our meeting is almost over, and this is all I got.
This is not the HLC report.
But those assurances were made by yourself, Mr. Chancellor, and
never brought before me.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Chair Ripley, I mean, I just, for the
record, all of the -- every single document related to the Higher
Learning Commission's focused visit of the college and the final
decision are available on the college's website. All you have to do
is do a search in the search bar for HLC, and it will come right up.
On a second point, Chair Ripley, Mr. Silvyn, I think one of the
things that Mr. Gonzales just said that I think we really have to
look into is that he has facts known to him related to these
complaints.
If that is the case, Mr. Gonzales, I certainly hope you will come
forward and share them with legal counsel.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Like I mentioned, I will end with this
again, Chancellor Lambert, you assured me that you're going to give
me the black and white. I think Silvyn was on there. They told me
that they were going to send it to me, and I got the e-mail, but you
told me I was going to get the black and white today.
No, this is --
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: If you would like, after the meeting we can
go upstairs and I'll print it for you.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: You told me that I was going to receive it
when I got here. That's what I'm saying.
And, Chancellor Lambert --
>> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Board Member Gonzales -- Andrea?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I told him that I wanted the black and
white, too. Yes. Well, they told me they were going to deliver it
to me.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: So it might have been a
miscommunication and we will take responsibility that Andrea might
have misunderstood. But we'll get that printed out. You do have the
full report. It's not very long. It's a very short report. It's
their final decision and you have it, so we will definitely print
that up for you.
Moving on, please --
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Really appreciate it.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: It's 8:30. We have Board Member Hay.
>> DR. MEREDITH HAY: I do want to make a few comments, which I
rarely do, so I will take my time. Thank you very much.
I am pleased that the HLC did a thorough review and found that
all the accusations and back-and-forth were unfounded. But the one
thing that was clear from the HLC is that the board needs to monitor
itself. It needs to do a much better job of monitoring itself.
And each board member has pledged an oath to follow the board
policies and procedures. And just now, just today, two board members
have intervened and inserted themselves into the policy of reviewing
complaints from employees against the college.
Part of our policies that we voted on just last month was the
board will follow the procedures and not get involved in employee
complaints until they reach the board level.
I would like to have a go on notice that two board members are
already violating board policies and procedures that they swore to
uphold. It's incomprehensible why they would do that. We all want
any complaints to be fully investigated, but as a board, we cannot
get involved in these complaints. We have to let them go through the
process, go through the order, and then when they come to us, then if
we are asked to adjudicate something, then we will. But that is
against board policy and board behavior, and you have violated
everything you swore you would do.
I just want to go on notice that the HLC has said the board is
responsible for governing itself. We will be accurate. We will be
responsible. We will keep our members accountable for their deeds
and their actions.
Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Hay.
Board Member Clinco.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you, Chair Ripley.
I also want to thank the HLC for their decisions of the focused
visit. The message is so clear. First, that the college's mission
is not at risk. We are doing a great job. I'm so proud of the work
this college is doing. All of the accolades we are receiving
nationally really verify the extraordinary work that everybody
collectively is doing. Chancellor Lambert, the administrative team,
all of the faculty, all of the staff, the entire system is working in
tandem to achieve these extraordinary goals.
But I want to just reiterate that these focused visits, and the
chancellor mentioned it, are really an opportunity for continuous
improve for the college and for the board. To me, it is deeply
concerning that individuals circumvent the college's internal
complaint process by trying to weaponize complaints to the college's
accreditors to score political points.
Let me say that again. It's deeply concerning that individuals
circumvent the college's internal complaint process, and we have
them, to weaponize these complaints, using the college's accreditors
for political gains.
I'm incredibly appreciative for the thoroughness of the HLC's
recommendation because they were based on facts. I look forward to
working with my fellow board members in implementing the HLC's
recommendations for monitoring of the board, which the board
leadership specifically requested as part of the focus visit.
This monitoring will allow us to continue focused attention on
board members being better prepared for meetings, increased
transparency, more training for board members, and meaningful
dialogue between the board and the college executive leadership.
Most importantly, we look forward to continuing our work and
holding ourselves accountable to following the college's bylaws, like
Dr. Hay just noted, accreditation standards, and Arizona state laws.
Thank you.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Great. Thank you so much. I just want
to conclude by saying thank you to all that have hung out this long.
We are going to end in a few minutes.
I want to stress again, I've said it a million times today, but
communicate, communicate, communicate. We need to here, because
clearly, yeah, we are doing a great job, an amazing job and being
recognized nationally and statewide, but clearly, clearly there are
some very angry people out there. I think this is deeply, deeply
hurting the chancellor personally, and I know for fact, I have talked
to him, and he's very concerned. He wants to fix this. But we need
to hear from you. We need to know the facts.
If you have facts, Board Member Gonzales, you need to share those
with the board. We don't have the facts. We need the who, what,
when, where, why, how. It also needs to go through the correct
processes.
This is a large organization. So please communicate in the
proper channels, and if the last resort is coming to the chancellor
personally, he needs to meet with you. He cannot refuse. Then the
full board can meet as well.
Please communicate. Please let us know. We want to fix, all of
the people that were on the call today, we want to fix and make this
a great place to work for everybody.
It's a hard challenge, Chancellor, to make this a great place for
all people concerned. With over 2,000 employees I don't know how you
are going to do that, but we need to at least strive for that. It's
a goal. Thank you so much for that.
With that, are there any items that the board would like to
submit for future agenda?
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: The last time we met, discussion reference
to the public coming face-to-face with the board, I think it's
imperative, as mentioned a while ago, in order, as you mentioned a
while ago, communicate, communicate, what better venue is to really
see who are the people that are complaining, who are the people that
have issues and concerns. And we are here to hear the complaints or
concerns, be it positive or negative.
I think we need to open up, board meetings open up to the public.
That's my request.
Second --
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Hold on. May I stop you for one second.
This should just be a request for future board items. This is not an
appropriate time to state what you want the outcome to be and why.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Right. We will agendize that for the
next board meeting if that's your request, to talk about that, and we
will -- absolutely it is in our sights that we do need to open it up
to the public as well, with considerations for safety and security,
especially in recent --
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Again, the point of this section is just to
express the topics that you want on the agenda. None of this is on
the agenda, so this is not an appropriate time to have a substantive
discussion about yes, no, or specific actions.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Duly noted.
Any other agenda items for the November board meeting? Any other
requests?
With that said, we have completed all items on the agenda.
Is there any further business?
Hearing none, is there any objection to adjourning?
>> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Chair Ripley, I think Mr. Gonzales has
something.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: One last comment.
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Point of order. Chair Ripley, the comment
section is concluded.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: The comment section is concluded, and
we will agendize, if you have more agenda items, please refer to them
and we will agendize them in November to talk about it.
>> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Okay. It comes back to --
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Point of order, Chairwoman Ripley, the
comment section is concluded.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I'm sorry --
>> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I would move that we adjourn.
>> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I'm obligated to parliamentary
procedure. Meeting adjourned.
(Adjournment.)
*********************************************
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