********************************************* DISCLAIMER: THIS CART FILE WAS PRODUCED FOR COMMUNICATION ACCESS AS AN ADA ACCOMMODATION AND MAY NOT BE 100% VERBATIM. THIS IS A DRAFT FILE AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD. IT IS SCAN-EDITED ONLY, AS PER CART INDUSTRY STANDARDS, AND MAY CONTAIN SOME PHONETICALLY REPRESENTED WORDS, INCORRECT SPELLINGS, TRANSMISSION ERRORS, AND STENOTYPE SYMBOLS OR NONSENSICAL WORDS. THIS IS NOT A LEGAL DOCUMENT AND MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED, PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. THIS FILE SHALL NOT BE DISCLOSED IN ANY FORM (WRITTEN OR ELECTRONIC) AS A VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT OR POSTED TO ANY WEBSITE OR PUBLIC FORUM OR SHARED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE HIRING PARTY AND/OR THE CART PROVIDER. THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT AND SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON FOR PURPOSES OF VERBATIM CITATION. ********************************************* February 14, 2024. Regular Meeting of the Governing Board. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Happy Valentine's Day. I'm going to call this meeting to order. Will you please stand and join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: We want to acknowledge that Pima Community College is on the original homelands of the Tohono O'Odham people and the Pascua Yaqui who have stewarded this land since time and memorial. The practice of acknowledging the land of these sovereign nations brings to the forefront their enduring connection to the land regardless of historical and current colonization practices. Let's also acknowledge that we all benefit from these lands on which we work and learn. We encourage each of you today to learn about the land we inhabit, the tribal communities connected to this land, and the ways in which you can contribute to restorative practices related to land and community. Roll call. Mr. Luis Gonzales. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Present. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Mr. Greg Taylor. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Here. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Ms. Maria Garcia. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Present. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Dr. Wade McLean. >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Present. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: All present and accounted for. Thank you. Moving on to the public comment, call to audience. We're going to remind you that we have a set amount of time. You may speak for three minutes if you would like, and it's important always to realize that we are in this together, so please be respectful and kind to the people you're talking to and talking about. Thank you so much. First on our list is Anthony Lovio. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. Good evening, and Happy Valentine's Day. Board Chair Riel, members of the Governing Board, and all present, both virtually and in person. My name is Anthony Lovio. I am a board member for the Arizona Education Association. I am also a special education teacher at Laguna Elementary School in the Flowing Wells Unified School District and an alumni of Prescott College and Pima Community College. I am here tonight in solidarity with the members of Pima Community College Education Association and their efforts to have a fair and transparent process in negotiating wages and working conditions at the college. I want to take a moment to reflect on the power of solidarity. All who came in solidarity with PCCEA, please rise. These individuals come from districts across the Tucson area. I know we have a lot of differences, but in all of our school districts we have different versions of Meet and Confer. In all of our districts, the final approval goes to our democratically elected Governing Boards. I also want to take a moment to recognize faculty and staff from the U of A, members of the United Campus Workers. What a pleasure to see them here in solidarity with PCCEA, AFSCME, and ACES. We will of course continue to be in solidarity with your union as you take on big issues at the U of A. Most importantly, I want to recognize PCC faculty and staff, members of PCCEA, AFSCME, and ACES that are here tonight as well as those that are attending virtually or are teaching class and will view this meeting at a later time. This has been a long road for you all, and we are so glad to walk with you on this journey. We are stronger together in solidarity. Thank you. (Applause.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Anthony. Next we have Makyla Hays. >> MAKYLA HAYS: Good evening, board members, chancellor, colleagues, and many guests. My name is Makyla Hays, faculty, PCCEA president, and AERC co-chair. I appreciate the attention people have paid to the topic of BP 1.25. I'm here to ask that you vote for version A, the employee version. But first I want to clear up some misconceptions of what BP 1.25 covers and what these two versions are asking of the board. This policy change will not directly change anything in regards to how individual employees handle grievances, complaints, disagreements with supervisors, et cetera. This change determines how the shared governance group of AERC moves forward with policy changes if the employee representatives and management cannot come to consensus. This board policy is not the only thing that governs how the AERC operates. There is also an administrative procedure which has a detailed explanation of the process that any and all policy changes would go through in AERC, including many steps for potential resolution prior to coming to you. If an individual employee has an issue with the policy change, this board policy does not give them the ability to come to the board and present a different version for a vote. It would still need to go through the AERC. That being said, any employee or public member always can come to the board with public comment. That doesn't mean you're required to act on it, but you can now and would likely in the future hear those concerns. AERC does not determine individual complaints since we are not employee relations or ODR. Rather, the AERC looks at policy language that applies to all employees or all employee groups as a whole, such as full-time faculty or all nonexempt staff or exempt staff. For example, a concern was brought to AERC regarding demotions. Without getting into the employee's individual situation, we looked at policy to identify any holes that would allow employees in similar situations to be treated dissimilarly. A definition was needed, and the staff salary administration policy needed more clarity. After meeting with HR to determine guidelines that would apply to future demotions, these changes were finalized. They have just finished a 21-day comment period for employees to give feedback, and the board will probably see these changes as information items soon, since consensus was reached. Regardless of the version you vote for tonight, the board will be hearing from employee groups and administration when consensus is not reached. The difference is what power the board has in the final step of the process. In version B, the board would give feedback to the chancellor who would make the final decision. In the employee version, version A, the board still has that option, but the board also retains the option to make the decision as a governing body. If the board were presented with what they felt was an operational decision, the board could direct the chancellor to make the decision. But without the employee version, the board would not be able to make the final decision on nonoperational personnel policies. Lastly, I see that the AERC tracking spreadsheet again is in the board packet tonight. I'm so glad this system I built has been useful, and I also want to express how much time and effort that I, along with our employee representatives, have spent to make that system work. Aubrey has been a wonderful collaborator, and I've put many hours above what I'm compensated for, which is only the equivalent of teaching one course per semester, to make a sustainable process -- (bell ringing). Can I finish my last sentence? Okay. If Aubrey were replaced with an administrator unwilling to hear the concerns of employees or I were replaced with a leader scared to push for change or unable to devote the time to deeply understanding these changes, this policy would not be enough. So I ask you to vote for the employee version as a huge step in creating a structure that will ensure that our current system continues to serve people. Thank you. (Applause.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Makyla. I just want to point out that these meetings are always riveting, and all you employees at the college, you're always invited to come to our meetings, not just on special days when we are talking about union stuff. Thank you for being here and showing your support of your union and the college in general. I didn't see Kimlisa Duchicela -- oh, thank you. You're up next. >> KIMLISA DUCHICELA: Sorry, I'm super nervous. So if I get it wrong with the titles, I apologize. My name is Kimlisa Salazar Duchicela. I'm a history faculty here. I have been at the college for more than 20 years, and I have sat in Rita's seat for at least 6. I am here today because I am the originator of PimaOnline, and it is a testament to the innovation and inclusivity and success at this college. It was born from the work of a dedicated task force comprising a wide array of stakeholders. We sought inclusivity and we sought participation, we sought opinions, and we sought concerns. In contrast to the decision that was just made to disrupt PimaOnline, which was marked by a lack of collaboration, a lack of a spirit of transparency and open dialogue, it certainly stands in complete contrast to a culture of caring. There was a noticeable absence of engagement with stakeholders. The manner of this decision, the scant explanations, the limited outreach to those directly affected undermined the trust, the collaborative ethos that should be part of our college. It created anger, resentment among many who worked tirelessly for this college and for this institution. The fact that communication leaked to the wider college community in bits and pieces harmed us even more. The prior week, no information was provided. Then sadly, when the eventual e-mail came out, when it did, it didn't include all the stakeholders. The adjunct faculty were left out. Staff were left out of the loop. The whole process felt disrespectful and harmful and caused unnecessary anxiety. Certainly it was made clear, in many ways, that our opinions and extensive knowledge of online were not important. In a meeting after the announcement, I was directly told by the acting provost that he does not care about awards, although I would say my e-mail box would contradict that. I respond that PimaOnline's essence goes beyond its achievements and recognitions. It symbolizes a progressive educational paradigm attuned to our students' realities. To state that there was no need to explore impacts on students was naive at best. It showed a lack of understanding of our students. Our students are as varied in their daily lives as their educational needs. This decision not only threatens to disconnect these students from the central educational resource but also sends the message that their needs and preferences are secondary. It ignores the mother working on classes while caring for a baby. There is one right up there, my daughter. It ignores the son who has to go to Mexico to take care of his family. Make no mistake about it, this was an equity issue, and Pima missed the mark. I noticed on this that it says the fight was never about grapes or lettuce. It was always about the people. Cesar Chevas. This fight is about the people and the students. (Applause.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Kimlisa. I just want to mention that when I took the lead and build and those courses, you were one of my teachers, and I really appreciate the great job you did. So thank you. Okay. We're moving on to section 1.6, Pima Community College Foundation update. >> MARCY EULER: Good evening, chancellor, board chair, Board of Governors, guests, and everyone who is attending virtually. Just very briefly, I don't want to read slides, but I do want to provide with you some information on what's happened since the last time we met. So as you know, Pima Foundation is the philanthropic partner to the college. We support the students, faculty, and programs that are important to the institution in our region. Our mission, vision, and purpose are here for you to read at a different time. Some recent highlights. We regularly advertise in BizTucson magazine for a variety of different reasons. This month we said thank you to the Jim Click Automotive Team for the Ford ASSET funds that have stood up that program. It started last January. Mr. Click and his business associates have made sure that we had the money in order to have the equipment and the students taken care of for this cohort that will be completing in December. In January, we received $110,000 from the Oro Valley Chamber of Commerce, and that is for scholarship support. It is an endowment mostly, some spendable money for students so that while the endowment grows we were able to provide those scholarships to students. It has also been matched 50% by the Hillman Foundation. That same day we got $80,000 from the Rotary Club of Tucson which is part of Pima START for the Center of Opportunity Project at the Gospel Rescue Mission. Also to be matched by the Hillman Foundation. The next day we got a $200,000 check from Mr. Adamson who is the chair of the Hillman Foundation matching funds that came in through November 30th, from September 1st to November 30th. So we are in a $10 million challenge, and November 30th, 2024, is the end of that challenge to help us raise $5 million. Also, a week or so ago, I was part of testifying at the state legislature to change the law to allow us to be able to have a Pima College license plate, much like you see with ASU, NAU, U of A. We are trying to make that a reality for Pima. So that's me, and Jonathan Paton to the left-hand side is our lobbyist, and then you can see Phil Burdick in the back, and the senator who supported our bill is there as well. We are keeping our fingers crossed. We passed 7 to nothing, and we will go to the house next. Some upcoming things. Well, this already happened. We got a $500,000 check today. I will show you that in a minute. We had a tour of aviation from a number of folks with the Rotary Club of Tucson who gave us the $80,000. March 21-23, the National Association of Community College Entrepreneurship is holding a summit at Pima's Downtown Campus. I think I might have this wrong. I put October 21. It might be October 19 is the Rotary Club car show. We are the beneficiary. That will be our second year to go toward that Pima START. As soon as we have our fliers together for purchasing tickets that are also the entry for the car, the Corvette, we will make sure and let you know. Also, I wanted to say congratulations to the Bellwether finalists, both the legacy award and the instructional programs and services category finalists that are coming up. That is near and dear to our heart at the Foundation, because in 2020, we were actually a finalist based on our participation in the Earn to Learn program, and we were able to go to San Antonio. It's a big deal. While there are lots of people that are deserving of congratulations, that one is particularly close to the Foundation's heart. Last time I indicated that our portfolio was at 15.4 million. As of the end of January, we are at 15.9, and our endowment has gone up $100,000. Scholarships through December 31st of this fiscal year we have given out 240,000. We will give out another 100-some-odd-thousand for spring semester. We have been supporting programs that includes athletics as well as departmental support to the tune of half a million dollars, and we expect to spend another million before the end of the fiscal year. My team. Remember, you're all on my team, right? Everybody is on my team. But these are the people who actually work for me. This is how you can contact us. If you have not been on our e-mail list to get our little weekly e-mail blast, you probably didn't see what we sent out today, which was all about what I want to share with you now. So this morning at the health professions center of excellence, our board member and friend, Mr. Greg Taylor, and his associates from Arizona Complete Health provided the Foundation with a $500,000 check for providing both program development, scholarships, and an endowment. Here is Greg being interviewed by Pima TV, and here is a picture of all of us with the big check. So on behalf of the Foundation -- and by the way, PCCTV and Phil Burdick and his team did a lovely job with the media event. Over here I will put the big check around, and Valentine's Day, it's really hard to find orange flowers that match Pima colors, I will just tell you that, so you got red instead of orange, but we got the blue bow. Thank you so much. We are extraordinarily grateful for that gift. And it will be matched 50 cents on the dollar. It will have an additional $250,000 added to that fund. So thank you. (Applause.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Greg, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but will you just mention to everybody here what was involved in that gift from your company? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Yeah, absolutely. We have a regular community reinvestment program, so it was something that I pitched as part of that review process. You know, I'm happy to say that my colleagues recognized the importance of what Pima is doing in the healthcare space in terms of preparing the next generation of healthcare workers, everything from nurses to techs to everything in between that are so critically needed across Southern Arizona, across Tucson, across the whole state. So we are very excited, Arizona Complete Health, myself, and my colleagues, about the new health professions center of excellence opening on the West Campus later this year. To break it down a little bit just for everybody, so 100,000 of that will go to program development specifically for programs around long-term care workforce as well as care coordination and behavioral health that can be added into the health professions center of excellence. There's another 100,000 that will be made available immediately for scholarships. Then the other 300 of that 500 will go into an endowment, which will allow it to award scholarships into perpetuity, long before all of us are retired and, you know, beyond. So we are really excited to make this perpetual investment in Pima. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Next section, 1.7, summary of current events from Governing Board members. Mr. Gonzales, would you like to start us off? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Good afternoon. Luis Gonzales. Hello to everybody that's present right now but also our people that are at the virtual, watching this live. I just want to say Happy Valentine's Day to everybody. I know it's a big day for the community, but also, more important for myself and others, it's the beginning of Lent. It's Ash Wednesday today, too. As you see by my forehead, I did have a Mass this morning that I attended with the senior centers in our village. They asked me to do some readings, which I was very honored to be asked. It's the start of our, if you don't know, it's a start of our Lenten season in reference to the Pascua Yaqui and Yaqui members not only from here but also all the way to Guadalupe. It's 40 days of Lent that we sacrifice and really believe in reference to what's said in the Bible, but more important, it's a bringing of the communities together. Families, children, they all participate. It's a big event. It's not a regular event. It's a commitment, because all the participants that are in the Lenten ceremonies from the church to the people that are outside, there are various categories, they are there for a reason. The reason is because all of them have been ill. They were promised by either their family members or parents or grandparents reference to commit 40 days in reference to making a promise to the Creator. So that's the storyline behind it. Again, I just want to say congratulations to the staff, but more important, to the community in reference to celebrating this day, which is very imperative for each of us. I just want to say two events. Actually three. Two events, one of the events we attended at Pima Community College in reference to several chefs that came in from Italy. It was on a Saturday, and myself and Mrs. Riel were out there. I think it was great promoting the culinary program that we have out there as well, too. The second report I want to do is we just came back from a conference. That all went very well. I have been there before, but the new people haven't been there. But I'd like -- this conference we attended, it's a big conference. ACCT? ACCT. One of the main things we have, they provide trainings to all the trustees. But more important, and I'm a firm believer that this works, as I mentioned to our chair, Ms. Riel, is that I need more cards, because my thing is to network in reference to what works and what does not work in the various parts of the nation. Because we, as a part of the nation, as trustees, we need to be united as we are and move forward providing the best services we can to all students across the nation. I met a couple of people that were from Hawaii. In fact, I did attend the Hawaii AANHPI, which is Asian Pacific Indian Native American core group that we had there, and I met a few people in reference to my networking, which is fantastic. The last thing I just want to say is that I recommend that to everybody, and it was so exciting, but more important, I'm going to let my colleagues here, that we invited three students, and they were marvelous. They were great. Aside from the conference and their presence there, they also did the congressional runs where we met with congressmens out there. I'm going to leave it up to them to elaborate on the three students. That's my report for right now. There is a lot to do. I think it's very good to come but also share with the community the efforts that as a board we're doing. I think it's great, but there is a lot of work, as well, too, as we all know. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Mr. Gonzales. Mr. Taylor? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Thank you. I can continue on what Luis was saying there. Yeah, it was a great privilege, and it was an excellent experience to attend the Association of Community College Trustees Legislative Summit in Washington, D.C., that was a combination of a conference as well as congressional visits where we had a chance to meet with some members of Arizona's congressional delegation. We talked about a number of issues, but the two that I was hitting on hardest were the importance of short-term Pell to be able to propel our workforce programs forward. And then what I think is the ridiculousness of taxing Pell Grants. It seems like they should be exempt from taxes, and this impacts our students more than four-year universities, because some of that money ends up in their pocket, but for the federal government to say here's dollars to support you while you're making your education with one hand, and then with the other hand say now you've got to pay it back, it really puts students in a ridiculous position. So there was a lot of support for that among the folks we were talking to. That doesn't mean it's going to pass. There's a lot more folks down there than just the Arizona delegation, but I think that they heard and understood those issues. One thing I took away from the actual conference itself, and it's a credit to Pima with all the work that we have done here already in this, but without a doubt, all of the federal officials that we heard from, whether it was elected officials or whether it was the Department of Education or any of the others that were coming to speak with us, they are relying on community colleges to do that workforce development work that's going to be critical across multiple areas of our economy, not only social services but that and beyond. So we are it. I think Pima has done a good job among community colleges of being a leader in developing those programs. We were doing what they need us to do. So it was nice to see that. And a lot of what we have done so far, we were on the right track as a community college in terms of what the nation is relying on community colleges from a public policy standpoint to step in to be able to do. And then, thank you, I realize when I was talking about the grant from Arizona Complete Health, Marcy, I didn't get a chance to say thank you for the flowers, but this might get me out of the doghouse for being here on Valentine's Day rather than with my wife. If she asks, I bought these and I brought them home. (Laughter.) We'll see how it goes. Thank you, Marcy. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, thank you, all, for attending and for those of you online. I'm not going to repeat everything these guys have already said, but I am going to say that I don't know whether you realize how much advocacy goes in to supporting Pima College from this board. It is extremely important that we talk to our congressional people, our state legislators, to ensure that funding is not cut from the college. So, you know, the programs that Pima, your salaries, everything that is given or is provided costs money. So it's really critical. And I am so proud of the team that we have here and the Foundation, the faculty for all the support, and the training that you give our students, we would not be anything without all of us together. So thank you, everyone. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Sorry, wait. I just realized I forgot one thing. I meant to mention the students who joined us by name. I don't think I did that when I was talking. Roxanna, Minerva, and Brandon were the students who joined us in D.C. They have incredible stories of resilience and what Pima has done to transform their lives. Everybody was much more interested in them than they were us, rightfully so, because they were much more interesting, but they did an incredible job representing this college and their fellow students in front of all those elected officials, so I wanted to give kudos to them. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Greg and Maria, for your comments. Dr. McLean? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Would it be helpful if I mentioned your wife? (Laughter.) Marcy, thank you very much. Thank the staff of the Foundation. What a wonderful report. Just so everybody knows, this money is going to go to help young people, older people in our community, help attain the goals that they have made for themselves. Board Member Greg Taylor should be thanked immensely for his efforts and the contributions of Arizona Complete Health. As we have been explained, this is going to give scholarships to students forever. I don't know how many hundreds and hundreds of students will have a positive impact in their career aspirations because of this donation. So thank you ever so much. Next year I'll come and speak and mention your wife and if it did any good. Thank you. (Laughter.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: So Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. I just want to mention that right now my heart is full of love for all of you and what you do at the college, and I really am very thankful for all of these people sitting up here with me because it's a great group of people to work with. They have already pretty much said everything that's happened in the last month and a half, so I have nothing to say. I will tag on one little bit. I have been up to the state legislature three times and up in Washington, D.C., once, and I think it's very, very important to lobby and advocate for education. So take a minute over the next couple of weeks and write your congressmen, your senators, congress people, senators, state legislators. I notice some of my AEA retired friends, the first three times we went up together. It's really important when you talk to these people, when you make that human connection, when they see a bill or something come through, they are going to remember your face and the words that you said, how you spoke about how education is helping your family, your children, yourself. They'll remember not that it's just SB whatever the number is, but they're going to remember that you came and talked to them. So think about that and use some of your time over the next year to advocate for Pima College. We haven't had the state funding, it got cut I think in 2015, we used to get 25 million. We don't get any of that now. So when you reach out to your state legislators, right, that would be a great thing to remind them that Pima College is a gem down here in Southern Arizona and we could use the state support. Thank you for being here. We will move on with our meeting. >> JIM CRAIG: Empower every learner, every day, for every goal. Chairperson Riel, Chancellor Duran-Cerda, distinguished board, administrative reps, PCC family and friends. I'm Jim Craig. I'm the dean of business, IT/cyber, and hospitality leadership. That is our mission. The Mission Moment I'm going to tell a story about today is about fulfilling that goal one student at a time. I first would like to acknowledge the incredible leadership team in the IT center of excellence. Chris Bonhorst is our academic director. Will McCullen is our advanced program manager. Mona Currien (phonetic) is our department head for online. Theresa Noon is our manager for our Title III his STEM grant. The center of excellence for IT and cyber was completed with construction in 2021 with approximately 12,000 square feet with some very innovative and unique features. It has a student-run production data center. It has a cybersecurity operations center. It has a live-fire Cyber Warfare Range and has a fusion center as well. Very excited about the layout and what we've got so far with the center of excellence. The amazing thing about the center of excellence since we stood it up is the phenomenal growth we have had, the great success we have had. Now, when you're looking at enrollment numbers, it's important not just to look at percentages, because, you know, 80% of 3 is not that many. But over 83% enrollment increase since 2019 that gets you up to 5,177 enrollments is very significant. That's what we have done with this program in a very short period of time. By the way, that's equivalent to having 514 full-time students. So the growth of this program has just been phenomenal. We have also been laser-focused on institutional goal No. 2 and have dramatically increased the percentage and the raw numbers of our Hispanic students, our women students, and our African-American students in the program. That's all been a great success, and we're very proud of what we're doing and how we are outreached to the community to serve those underserved community members. We have a number of different partnerships that we have built over time, most notably is our recent Raytheon apprenticeship for IT/cyber program. It's the first time Raytheon has done that with any community college, and we were the model for them. They are since expanding that all over the world because of the success that we have had with them. So we are very excited about that. We also are serving the community in so many different areas in so many different ways. From the Gospel Rescue Mission to the Second Chance programs that we are running at the prison to a whole number of other pieces. We've written core curriculum, custom curriculum for some of our tribal partners, and are reaching out constantly to see how we can involve the community and help them out. We have also been designated as the center for academic excellence nationwide from the National Security Agency, which is a very big honor for us and something that we have just acquired. So we are very proud of our connections locally, statewide, and nationally. But the main story is with our students, like our mission statement says. Success one goal, one student at a time. So at this point in time, I'm honored to introduce you to one of our IT/cyber students, Jocely Valles. She is a student in our advanced certificate program. She already completed the beginning certification. She's also an IBEST student. She's working on her GED as well. And she's a peer mentor for our program. Without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Jocely. Go ahead. (Applause.) >> Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me here. My name is Jocely Valles, and I am very honored. I'm a single mom of five kids, four boys and one girl. They range from 14 to 5. They're a handful. I was raised by my grandmother so everything I do is really to make my kids and my grandmother proud. Like Jim said, I was in the IBEST program. I actually got my GED already. I completed my first certificate. I'm on my advanced certificate for the support specialist while on track to getting my associate's and now working in cyber defense. With this program, with me being able to go to school as a single mom full-time and have that time with my kids has been invaluable. I have been able to not only motivate myself but my kids as well. I have my daughter, who is in her student leadership programs now, and every single one of my kids has benefited from this. It's not only helping my generation but it's helping their generation. That has been amazing. I have had the opportunities to work in the data center, so as an intern, I'm currently a peer mentor, which I get to not only help other students who are starting off and are in the same position as I was, but who are continuing their education and we're just kind of building a community where we're all gathering together. It's just been so amazing. I've gotten to meet so many people, so many different experiences that I would have never had had I not come back to school. I'm thankful for every single opportunity, and I'm taking advantage of every single opportunity. So thank you. (Applause.) >> JIM CRAIG: We're so proud of Jocely and the other students that are transforming their lives and their family's lives. It's just so inspiring to be around Jocely and the other students at our program. Thank you so much for being here. So moving forward, we desperately need to support the growth of this amazing program even more so than we already have. We have a grant that has a number of resources that we're going to need to justify institutionalizing them so we can continue to teach and to support the students with programs like peer mentoring. Then we need more full-time faculty as well. Finally, we are in somewhat of a desperate need to expand our facility. 12,000 square feet isn't much when you have 5,100 enrollments. We're excited about the problem moving forward, but we're anxious for the college's support to keep this moving. There are so many other areas we want to expand into and grow with new related programs. We are up to the challenge, and I thank you for your time today. Thank you. (Applause.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Mr. Craig. That was wonderful. A quick question, Chancellor and Jeff and Dave Bea. What is the procedure and the process for figuring out how to expand the East Campus so we can -- this is the second time today that we have had great presentations showing that we need more buildings, more facilities over on the East Campus. So what is the procedure and the process for the board learning and knowing how these processes take place? >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you for the question. We have a lot of areas that need growth, such as cybersecurity, and it's right now vital in the workforce area to look at right now reallocating, looking where there is growth, and using that data and information and community input as well as advisory committees that from the community give us advice, looking at what the community needs are, what the students want, too. So in looking at that data and providing it to you, we can have a discussion as to where there needs to be growth, and so that can be through internal processes with discussions with students, with faculty, with administrators, and then presenting to you options perhaps as to where certain programs could go, where they could expand. So there has been talk about perhaps cybersecurity moving to the Downtown Campus -- we have been talking about that for several years -- for the synergy, because of all the things that are located right now downtown as a hub. But we haven't continued that conversation. So there have been some spots of conversation, but we need to get more data and more information from the community. So those are some of the processes. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Board, I'm going to move action item 5.2, board policy 1.25, to this time, and then we'll follow along with the agenda as it was printed. We have a lot of teachers and staff and employees that most likely don't want to stay here till the end of our meeting, and I appreciate their support for their colleagues. I would just like to ask someone to make a motion concerning board policy 1.25. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'll make a motion to vote on board policy 1.25, version A. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Do I have a second? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Discussion? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, my issue with adopting this policy tonight is strictly based on timing. We're in the process of trying to attract applicants for the chancellor's position at the college, and I'm fearful that taking these kinds of actions at this point in time might detract from getting all the qualified candidates we can. I also believe that the permanent chancellor that we hire, hopefully in the very near future, would need to have input into this decision. I caution us that it appears that the culture with the board right now is a very positive one. We're going to have three, possibly three new board members in January of 2025, and it's possible that the whole culture of the board could change. If we're looking at hiring a chancellor in an effort to maintain some positive leadership for the next five to ten years, I would think that the continuity of that culture would help determine whether we want the board intervening in these decisions or the chancellor intervening in these decisions. For that reason, I wish we could defer this conversation until we have a permanent chancellor onboard. Thank you. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I think, in my view, I believe that we should approve this version A. I have sat on this board for five years, and I believe that this will serve our faculty and our staff. We need representation from our unions. I also believe that it will not affect a chancellor in applying. I think that if you're sure of yourself and you know the direction and you have the support of the board that that will not be a deterrent. So that's it. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: So I also support version A, so I'll support the motion when we vote. But I say that with -- there is a lot of people who I have abiding respect for who have talked to me or sent in comments that are warning of moving forward with that version. I want them to know that I hear that. I don't entirely agree with all the arguments that are being made. I do believe that this might have an impact on the chancellor search, but here's why I think we should do it anyway. It was clear to me when, not only in conversation we have had, but certainly when we brought together that large group of faculty and staff and leadership with all of us a couple weeks back now, that there is a lot of pain and mistrust within this institution. Some of it based on real things, some of it based on perceptions of things that are not accurate to what happened. I think us putting this policy in place, I hope those folks will see as an action on our part to put institutional safeguards in place that will prevent any one individual from railroading over shared governance or inclusiveness and that we need to go forward. So I think what we can gain from putting this in place outweighs the risks, which I think are real, and I'm not dismissing them, but I think on the whole it will benefit the college I hope to have this in place to begin to heal some of those wounds that happened long before I was on this board, so I don't claim to fully understand all of them, but it was very apparent to me that they were there. So I hope we can continue to move through this healing process together and people can feel confident, like I said, that there are some institutional safeguards in place to prevent some of the things from occurring again in the future no matter who we bring in as a chancellor, although I promise we will pick someone who will do this job well. That's it for me. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you for your comments. Luis, do you have anything to add? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: (Off microphone.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I'd like to call this version the shared governance version, because that's what shared governance is when everybody works together and they decide they make the best decision for the college, and then this duly elected board just ratifies it, says yes, that's what the law of the land will be. I just want to point out that I believe this is an amazing place, and I believe that with shared governance, culture of caring, all of these things that we are moving toward and improving the college in ways that hadn't been working recently, I do believe that we're going to have the best and the brightest want this job. Because who wouldn't want to work in a college where everybody is working for the best outcome for our students and our faculty and our staff and our administrators? So I just like the shared governance version, and not that I don't completely admire the administrators at this college, they do a great job, but this isn't the shared governance versus administrators. This is allowing the board to do what we were elected to do, which is to govern the college and sign those decrees when they come through. So I guess I'll call for a vote. All in favor of the version A, the shared governance version, say aye. (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any opposed? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Nay. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Motion passes 4 to 1. Thank you. And thank you for all showing up and supporting your college. (Applause.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: You can stay. There is going to be great things coming up. So feel free to stay. One other thing, before everybody leaves, I'd like to mention we are having one of our next HLC Town Halls tomorrow here in this room, I believe. It's from like 10:45 on. 35- to 40-minute presentations from all of the different areas that the HLC is going to be making sure that we are improving and being the best college we can be. It's really important for you all to understand what's going on for this reaccreditation. So if you have any free time tomorrow between 10:45 and 3:45, we'd love to see you here again. Thank you. Safe drives home for those of you who are leaving right now. Moving on to section 2, the reports. Our first administrative report is going to be a legislative update from Jonathan Paton. Thank you for being here. >> JONATHAN PATON: Thank you. Well, it was mentioned that today is Valentine's Day and that it's also Lent. One more thing: It is also Arizona Statehood Day. So Happy Arizona Statehood Day to everybody. I'm here at the state capitol working on a lot of issues for Pima College, and I just want to go through some of them right now. Probably the biggest issue that we are facing and that the entire state is facing -- or actually, let me give a caveat. I'm going to be talking about a number of things happening at the state capitol. Keep in mind that these, it's a snapshot in time. There is a legislative session we are in the middle of right now, and there is a very good chance that things will change dramatically as we go through the session. So many of these bills I might be talking about, they may be going forward, they may not be going forward. We'll find out about new bills that suddenly appear on the horizon. I just want you to keep in mind that it's all in a state of flux except for the very first item that I'm going to be talking about, which is not in a state of flux, and it's a very serious thing that's going to be lasting throughout the rest of the session, and that's the state budget. Arizona is facing a $1.7 billion deficit right now in the state budget. I have been asked a lot by folks in the community and folks on the board and elsewhere exactly how this problem happened. This budget deficit that we have is not a structural deficit. What I mean by that is if you can kind of liken it to your own situation at home, you have your salary, you have the income coming in, and you have your bills, your mortgage, you have your car payments, and everything is in alignment. You have enough money coming in to pay for your bills that you have every month, but one thing is that you were waiting on a Christmas bonus. You had already bought a ticket to Hawaii. Well, that bonus, all of a sudden, doesn't come in, and now you're out all that money that you put into your vacation to Hawaii, and you have to scramble to come back with that money. That's exactly what happened with the state budget. There was a budget surplus, or so everyone thought, and they spent money on one-time spending for a variety of things, for road projects, we were a beneficiary of that, given a few million dollars here at Pima College in addition to what we would normally get through STEM. And all of that money was basically -- it's kind of like that Christmas bonus. So right now, the state legislature and the governor are trying to find ways to claw that money back and to find other ways to cut things so they can pay for that Christmas bonus money that they thought they had. That's affecting every agency and everyone else. It doesn't impact the basic funding of government, things that are formula funded, things that are ongoing spending. Just like your mortgage, those things, there is plenty of money coming in for that but there's just not enough money to cover this one-time spending that occurred to the tune of $1.7 billion. So with that in mind, one of the first priorities that I have is to protect the state funding that we get, which is STEM funding, and we are working hard to make sure that we don't see a reduction in that. Secondly, we are trying to protect the third year of the three-year adult basic ed funding. Those two things are probably our top priorities in this budget environment, because obviously it's basically impossible to get more money because they're in a deficit environment. You will hear about a lot of bad bills that are happening at the state legislature. I tell this every year, that there is, I kind of liken it to, in the Bible, they talk about wars and rumors of wars. There is always, obviously the budget is going to be a real war, but the rumors of wars are a lot of these bills you might have heard about. One of those is SB 1044. That's the elimination of the commerce authority, the repeal of the commerce authority. There are a lot of people concerned about that, especially in a business community. I'm guessing that the governor is not going to sign that bill. I think that there is going to be a big effort to protect the commerce authority. There is also SB 1005. That's ideology training prohibition. I seriously doubt the governor is going to be signing that bill, as well. But they will probably go through the session. You will probably read newspaper articles about some of these things, but I don't think they are actually going to come to fruition. There is also another bill that may come up. I have heard other people talk about it. HB 2519. It would be appropriations to Arizona Western College. I think it may be well-intentioned. We actually spoke with the sponsor of that bill, Representative Pena, and I think that it's pretty much dead on arrival, because like I said, the state budget, there is no money to put out for any new projects because they are trying to find money to pay for all the one-time projects that they have already spent money on. So that's probably not going to happen. And as Marcy mentioned, we were able to get senate bill 1190, that's the community college license plate bill, we got that through the senate transportation committee. It went through unanimously. It has passed through both caucuses and through the rules committee. We have to wait for it to go through a final third read vote in the senate and it goes on to the house. So we are working on that as well. That's basically what's happening at the state capitol. I think things will probably change dramatically as time goes on. It's a very busy week right now because this is the last week to hear bills in the chamber of origin. So all senate bills, for example, have to be heard this week in the senate or they're dead. The same thing with house bills being heard in the house. If they don't go past today and get a hearing, they are also dead. There is a lot of committee hearings going late into the night, and that should continue through to tomorrow, and things will taper off for a little while in the next week. So I'd be happy to answer any of your questions. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I have a question. This is Greg Taylor. I understand we have to pay for our Hawaiian vacation, so this isn't in the context of this year, but maybe just, I'm curious, the history of the last ten years or maybe to the extent to which you have a crystal ball over the next ten years, what has been the opposition to restoring Pima's regular state funding, as all other community colleges across the state except Maricopa have had restored, where it hadn't been able to get done in the last ten years and I know why this year it isn't likely to happen, given the financial situation, but then what do you think the prospects are in the somewhat near future of being able to successfully have that conversation? >> JONATHAN PATON: So I would say that it's a combination of things. First of all, I think the hardest thing in state government is to get a restoration of ongoing spending. It was relatively easy to do one-time spending. The senate and house majority were willing to allow members to spend things on one-time spending because they didn't know whether this money would last, and obviously it didn't last. So they are very reluctant to commit to putting in money for an ongoing program. I think that Pima is in an unfortunate position, because the amount of money for Pima is relatively modest compared to that for Maricopa College. I think that the sheer amount of money that, to give them the amount that they have for their FTSE count, for example, just dwarfs anybody else's, and it's just a large chunk. They would never give money to Pima College if they didn't give it to Maricopa College as well. So I think that's one reason. The other reason is that it's always the focus of the legislature on education, there is a natural lobby put in place for K-12. You have not only the teachers but you have parents on that end, and then I think that the universities, obviously they have a platoon of lobbyists and consultants that work for them, and they have the business community that lobbies on their behalf. I think that the community colleges are just in a tougher spot advocating for that. So I don't know if that answered your question, but that's basically what's happened over the last ten years. We have requested that money in the past. They are willing to do individual projects, and I think that, as an example of that, with the aviation project that we were able to get passed a few years ago, they are willing to do those one-off projects, but I think they are simply not willing, because of the state that the state has been in for most of this time, and that's probably, I guess, the best reason to say is that the state has also been in financial straits for much of those ten years in the kind of money that we are talking about. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's been my assessment. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Jonathan, this is Theresa Riel. I met up at the capitol a couple weeks ago. Thanks for being here today. >> JONATHAN PATON: Yes. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Hey, I wanted to ask about the ESA vouchers. To me it's very interesting that our state government is okay saying they're not going to fund Pima Community College and Maricopa County, but this year they are spending $489 million on ESA vouchers for students that are not necessarily going to public schools. What's your take -- I mean, how do you deal with the disparity of those two comments? They can't fund community colleges that help out the economy and students and programs and all of that, but they're giving, you know, $489 million this year to parents to pay for their private schools for their students. >> JONATHAN PATON: So that's the partisan battle that happens at the capitol, and it's kind of become, I would say the ESA is like another one of the hot-button issues that you see, that you have intractable positions on both sides. I don't see that the current majority ever changing that, because every one of them has basically voiced support for ESAs that's in the majority right now. I just don't see that going away. As to what their motivation is, I don't know if I'm in the right place to be able to explain that in a short amount of time in this hearing, but they are very passionate about that, just as people on the other side are passionately against it. I think the fact that the governor signed a budget with those ESAs in them, I think it shows the intractable nature of getting rid of them in this current legislature. Does that make sense? I think if she could have, I think she would have absolutely tried to get rid of them, but she never would have been able to pass the budget with the current majority. And that majority is very thin. There is only one vote. There is 31 Republicans, 29 Democrats in the state house, and 16 Republicans and 14 Democrats in the state senate. So it obviously hinges on just a handful of votes on both sides. I think this is probably one of the biggest hot-button issues that's going to drive the budget on both sides this year. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. I just think if we use that same analogy of how we deal with our own personal budgets, if we did that in our own personal budgets, we spent $489 million when there are other expenses that we should be paying in the state, it just seems a little irresponsible. But thank you. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I have a question. I'd like to know, okay, as far as the ESA vouchers, why is it that the education department is allowing Tom Horne to come out every single day on TV in the Mexican station, Spanish station, and the English station? How much is that costing us and why isn't that money being diverted or why don't they cut him off? >> JONATHAN PATON: Madam Chair, I don't know how to answer that question, because I don't really know how that works with the Department of Education. I don't have knowledge about how that would work one way or the other. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Jonathan. >> JONATHAN PATON: So I apologize for that. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: We realize you're our lobbyist, not necessarily the guru of making everybody behave up there on Capitol Hill. Thank you for being here today and for everything you do for the college. We really support your support up there on the Hill. >> JONATHAN PATON: Thank you very much. And Happy Statehood Day. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Our next one is Dr. Dave Bea on the chancellor's goal update, improving effectiveness. You have the floor, Dr. Bea. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Good evening, Chairperson Riel, members of the board, Chancellor Duran-Cerda, colleagues and guests. It's my pleasure tonight to give a quick update of the progress we are making in the chancellor's goal No. 4, which is improving the effectiveness of the institution. We put a bunch of narrative in this slide show. I'm not going to go through it all tonight. I'd rather highlight a couple of key areas in the outcomes and how it's going to impact us going forward. The first one is looking at the assessment and conducting a broad assessment, really identifying inefficiencies. I think it probably says identifying efficiencies. But really identifying areas where we can tangibly reduce costs over time. The key outcome of that is you're going to see very soon when we talk on Monday, which is some of the ideas coming out of that for cost-savings ideas that we can implement in the short run. I'm expecting that we can implement some cost-saving strategies that are going to be sufficient to at least in this upcoming budget offset the operating increases that we normally expect through contractual obligation increases and that sort of thing. We'll talk a little bit more on Monday about that. Similarly, the second one is, as you know, we have made a fair amount of progress on the budget, having good conversations both with the board in study sessions and then the big study session on Monday, also talking with folks around the college and talking with members of AERC related to compensation-related priorities. We have been making sure that they, as well as Staff Council, have a good understanding of the budget dynamics and the challenges we're facing, and then I'm meeting with Faculty Senate to talk about that at their upcoming meeting early in March. The key one, as I mentioned, on Monday we're going to have a good conversation with you all regarding the upcoming budget, how to balance the revenues and expenditures, what the challenges are, and then again, how to implement some of the cost efficiencies we are talking about both in the short term and then as we look forward to more of a two- and three-year plan, what we are going to do to reduce costs over time. With that, I will say those are the big highlights of the update. Again, a lot of it will be discussed in much more detail on Monday. Also, for the board's information, I will have some models available so that we can actually have an interactive discussion. I will do my usual dog-and-pony where I talk a little bit about things, but it's not going to be just a one-way conversation. We're going to actually talk through and I'll have some real simple models we can play around so you can sort of say, well, if we do this and do that, what's the outcome and impact on the budget, have a really inclusive and interactive discussion on Monday. Looking forward to that. With that, I will ask if the board has any questions related to this item. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Dr. Bea. We'll see you on Monday. I hope your kids feel better real quick. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Thank you. Yeah, they're doing better. Sorry, for those who don't know, sorry I'm not able to be there in person tonight. I'm solo parenting tonight. My wife is on a business trip and my kids are sick. Yeah (smiling). Just hoping I don't get sick too, but we'll know more on Monday, I suppose. Anyway, have a good night and happy three days for Ash Wednesday, Statehood Day, and Valentine's Day. Lots going on today. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Our next report is the climate action plan, Climate Action and Sustainability Plan, by Dr. Nic Richmond. >> DR. RICHMOND: Good evening, Chair Riel, members of the board, Chancellor Duran-Cerda, colleagues and guests. It's my pleasure to be here this evening to provide a brief update on the status of the college's Climate Action and Sustainability Plan. I should note that this update is accompanied by an executive summary that provides comprehensive information. I'm just going to touch on a few highlights. Now, pretty much any day when you open the news there are articles and information about extreme weather and the impacts particularly on vulnerable populations. This is just one example. But from an education point of view, there have been a number of surveys conducted highlighting the importance of climate action and sustainability to the students and learners that we serve. The slide here highlights some national data gathered from a survey that was conducted of 114 colleges and universities a little over a year ago. We also have a survey that we conducted in-house where we found that from the students who responded, there was just under 400 students, that 91% say they were somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about climate change. This is an area we have been focusing on institutionally primarily driven by the strategic plan and the goal to ultimately reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by the year 2030. We have five priorities within the plan, and as noted, the executive summary provides full information of the work that's been done. I'm just going to provide an example for each of these different areas. For priority 1, energy reduction, we have completed a full inventory and baseline of our current energy use led by Phil Berry in the office of sustainability in collaboration with the facility's team. Based on the energy use, we have determined the associated greenhouse gas or GHG emissions associated with it. For priority 2 related to the curriculum, we have had, for a number of years included in the plan development a very active group of faculty in this space, including, for example, Dr. Noah Fay, Dr. Maria P., and Charlie McCabe. We have added to that group in the last year with the hiring of Dr. Crystal McKenna, who has been brought onboard to develop a suite of climate action sustainability classes for the institution. The faculty are proposing six new courses in this area and they are designed to meet multiple AGEC requirements, so they are going to be accessible to all students regardless of the program or major they are pursuing. For priority 3, engagement and education, we have been active in a number of different areas. Supported by the office of sustainability, a group of students have started a student club, PCASA, the Pima Climate Action Sustainability Ambassadors. This is a small group of students, but it's growing all the time, so that's very exciting to see that engagement on the student side. In addition, we have developed a partnership with the Tucson chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby, and there are monthly Saturday morning meetings hosted at a Pima campus which focus on climate action sustainability, and typically there is around about 50 attendees at each of those. For priority 4, we have completed the initial greenhouse gas baseline for scope 1 and scope 2 sources. Scope 1 are emissions associated with direct college actions. So, for example, fuel in company or college vehicles. Scope 2 are indirect, so greenhouse gas emissions associated with purchased electricity, just for example. So we are making good progress, establishing our baseline, which is a critical piece to then mapping out our route to reducing emissions by 50% by 2030. Then lastly, for priority 5, a lot of work has been done here through the office of sustainability housed within STAR to position the college to apply for certification from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. We are on track to become one of only a handful of community colleges that hold gold certification through that system, and we are looking to submit the application for that in the summer, which is about a year ahead of schedule from what we initially planned in the CASP. So our short-term priorities are pursuing the application through AASHE, so that's convenient shorthand for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, which is a very long time. The new climate action and sustainability courses will be offered in the fall semester, so that's coming up very soon. And also to align the climate planning work with the college's comprehensive and integrated planning process, we are adjusting the timeline on the existing plan by one year, so it will conclude in June of 2026 instead of June of 2025, which means that the planning for the next priorities in this space can be integrated with the strategic plan development, the education master plan, the facilities master plan, et cetera, which is another shift towards our effort to get a good handle on the priorities of the institution and ensure we are not overcommitting and stretching people too thin with too many priorities. With that, that's the full update, and I would be happy to answer any questions. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any questions? Thank you, Dr. Richmond. Our next report is with Dr. Wendy Weeks and David Parker. Thank you. >> Good evening, Madam Chair, Governing Board members, Chancellor, PCC family, friends, and guests. First of all, I would like to thank our team members, some of which kind of switched their roles. They were going to be a writer, and then they started helping us look for evidence and developed the argument. I'm going to work a little more from notes tonight, because I'm condensing 30 minutes to 5, and I want to make sure we don't go further behind. HLC Criterion 2 focuses upon integrity and ethical and responsible conduct. There are five subcriterion examples of how we can demonstrate how we are consistent with accreditation standards. Along with this criteria, we also look at the basic eligibility requirements, make sure we address them, and the assumed practices, some of which we hear they are all black and white, and some are not quite as black and white as we think, especially in this area. There are a few outstanding HLC items that we are addressing that fall under Criterion 2. An embedded report will address complaint processes. Process information has been clarified. We have drafted a generic flow chart. The processes may be different, but they tend to have similarities, so it's more of a typical flow chart instead of specific to each one. We are updating web pages to include cross-links and a centralized information page. And as complaint processes involve different information systems, we are bringing together a team quarterly to start to evaluate trends, effectiveness of our processes, and how to continually improve based upon that information. Our peer reviewers will directly address some governance and communication items remaining from the last focus visits and interim report, and you see my paraphrase of the four different topics that's stated a little bit differently, but I needed to make it fit on the slide. I'm working on the best way to incorporate evidence of resolution of their specific items. We talked around it. They want to see specific answers in the reaffirmation argument as we draft it. This is an area where they will expect to find evidence consistent with our representation and hopefully find evidence of continuous improvement when they arrive in December. We have strong policy, procedure, guidance, and resources available and the evidence of those, and it tells a good story. It can be a little more difficult to document that we follow it consistently and that it is effective in practice. That's one of the things we need to work on over this next year, make sure our policies are all up to date, that they are consistent with our practices, and they work. I will run through some evidence quickly that we have identified and keep us on track. Some of this evidence is types instead of specific, and some evidence is applicable to multiple areas and will be mentioned more than once. Criterion 2.A or Subcriterion 2.A, examples include board bylaws, board policies and administrative procedures, codes of conduct, satisfaction surveys, our integrated planning efforts, financial policies and reports, internal controls, and the three lines of defense model, external audits, complaint processes, and a universal duty of all employees to report fraud or abuse along with whistle-blowing procedures and companion protections for those who report. Subcriterion 2.B examples include our regulatory surveillance efforts. Seems like they are always changing, and we have to use ways to make sure we are aware of them as they are changing. And our updates to policies and practices, review, and updates to consumer information and notifications, tuition and cost information and calculators, program requirement information, OutReach Program, consistency and controls, updates to website information, which can still be a challenge, there is a lot of them and we need to make sure they stay current, and our developing ethics and compliance efforts. 2.C examples include Arizona community college model, which tends to be a little different than a lot of other states. Open Meetings and Public Records Law, bylaws, policies, admin procedures, handbooks, codes of ethics, the board's fiduciary and oversight role and delegation and accountability framework and governance bodies, standing committees, and task forces. By the way, if anybody watches tomorrow, I will take 30 minutes and give more specific examples of these. 2.D examples include intellectual freedom, freedom expression policies, annual reports, employee handbook and administrative procedures, faculty pedagogical and innovative teaching methods. This is my paraphrase, it's what I think of as some artistic license for our faculty consistent with curriculum and learning outcomes, and our deans, discipline committees, and representative groups. 2.E examples include the academic integrity code and student codes, controls on human subjects research, general learning outcomes, library tutorials to help students with several of the areas, copyright compliance, accessible use standards, AI task force is spinning up right now, use of course syllabus template, and oversight by deans and student affairs. Then I did include a very short topic paraphrase of what the different assumed practices are, and as I mention some of these, it's easy to say the board approves the budget and employs the CEO. That's black and white. Formal agreements for outsourcing, black and white, but requires ethical behavior partners. Still trying to figure out exactly what that means, how we implement it, and those pieces. It's a brand new one. As a final thought, Criterion 2 is usually the one that requires the shortest argument. However, because of recent HLC complaints in the area and especially Criterion 2.C, which is where they seem to focus, it will remain a potential area for scrutiny and will require a consistent continuing effort over the next year through the peer review and beyond after that. I appreciate your time, and would be happy to try and answer any questions you may have. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Will you have, tomorrow, when you make your presentation, will you be answering questions tomorrow? >> We do the presentation, and then we take questions. The time's a little bit shorter. We are doing 30 minutes instead of 45, but I think I will be done in about 20 or 25. There will be time for questions, and then there is a gap between that one and the next one, so we should be able to. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So I'm going to ask one question. On 2.A, how are you measuring that, or has it been measured? >> The examples that they give, because they list A through F or something like the examples that they show, the HLC says that that's just examples, you don't have to answer those things specifically. But we tailor our answers to it, because when you look at when they have a finding that somebody isn't really meeting that or they're not documenting it well, they always go back to those things. So we are focusing on those, we are adding to the story. There are some places where we are still trying to gather better evidence. We have identified one or two gaps that we are still trying to improve so we can talk about it and tell them about it and provide that evidence. Some of it's subjective. It's very easy to show the policies. It's a little harder to show that we are consistently following them and that they are consistently effective. And then the important thing is how do we measure that, how do we review it, and then how do we improve from it. Even things that are working well, we can always improve. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: David, are you and the others that are working on the different criterion, are you still accepting suggestions for evidence for these different criterion or are we already past that point? >> If you get ahold of me and let me know what is, we are still doing edits through the 29th of this month, and then they are going to take the five different separate drafts -- we don't have enough words to, or they don't give us enough words to answer all of these separately. We actually have to take that and condense it into a single narrative, and that's where it gets a little more difficult to start making changes. But all the way until we submit it, we can make adjustments, especially if we find better evidence or we need to correct something. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I think I'm just going to make one more plug for administrators and faculty and staff. When you go to these Town Hall meetings, you might hear something. The first one I went to in August, I took seven pages of notes of just things that were new to me. Not necessarily that they were problems or anything like that. But I took seven pages of notes. I'm sure that all of us have ideas of ways we can show how we are doing exactly what the HLC wants, but if you don't know that they're looking for your bit of information because you haven't attended one of those workshops, you know, you should be there. Thank you. >> If I can add one more plug to that. It is important that a lot of people in the college read through it, not only give us our input, become familiar with it. When they come, they don't want to talk to me as the drafter. They want to talk to other people. They want to check it independently. It's important that there is a consistent message. If we get it wrong, fine, but we don't want them to walk away going, wait, nobody knows about this, they must not be doing it right, when we are. So we need a lot of people to read it and be familiar and be available. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Okay. Now, moving on to our reports by representatives to the board, our first will be Rebecca Ursule. Sorry about that. One of these days I won't make mistakes, but it's not happening today. (Laughter.) >> KELLY O'KEEFE: Well, hello and good evening, Governing Board, Chairperson Riel, Chancellor Duran-Cerda, administrative representatives, and colleagues and guests. Thank you so much for allowing us just a few moments to share with you all the work that Criterion 3 has done in support of the reassurance argument. Our group consists of Darla Aguilera, Jim Craig, Suzanne Desjardin, Emily Halvorson-Otts, Makyla Hays, Jeff Thies, and myself, Kelly O'Keefe. We have focused on Criterion 3 for a long time now, gathered a lot of evidence, and everything about Criterion 3 is all in support of quality learning and teaching. Many of us leads on this group are faculty and many of us are administrators working directly with the faculty. This criterion is broken up into four subcriterion, and Jim Craig will be giving us a preview of 3.A and 3.B and Makyla Hays will be giving us a preview of 3.C and 3.D. >> JIM CRAIG: So core Criterion 3.A really talks about the rigor of our academic offerings and that it's appropriate for what we are supposed to be doing in higher education. We have a great story to tell about this. We've got a lot of really significant, positive evidence. BP 3.25, which we need to thank all of you for, because you do such a great job of reviewing and approving all of our programs, new programs, programs that we're inactivating, everything that goes into managing and maintaining quality programs at Pima Community College. Another great example we have are all of the certificates and microcertificates and FastTracks and applied sciences degrees for transfer, all of our transfer programs, to go to the universities and that we have wonderful transfer agreements for all of those. That's a lot of the evidence that ties into this criteria as well. We also have, for our career and technical education programs, we have very robust and very well-documented advisory committees. Those advisory committees are made up of industry experts, hiring managers, and fellow university and college colleagues as well. What they do for us is they really help us inform us about what to build, what kind of programs to build, how to improve them, what they really need and what the discipline and the industry really needs out of Pima Community College. So we have some great evidence there. Then of course we have all of the articulation task forces that focus on transfer students and transfer standards across the state and elsewhere. Then finally, student program of studies, which we have well-documented also. 3.B talks more about engaging students, collecting, analyzing, communicating information, and really how do we help them master different modes of intellectual inquiry, creative thinking, all of those general education and other skill sets like that. So evidence of this is all of our general education curriculum that we communicate in our catalog and our websites and other places. It's also documented through all of our efforts to the general education redesign work that we do throughout the state. We are very active in that and part of the leaders for that. Then of course we have all of our strategic plans. The main strategic plan, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan, and all of our future plans that are tying in, concepts like DEI and other intellectual pieces for our students. Thank you. >> MAKYLA HAYS: 3.A and 3.B really kind of set the tone of how do we communicate to our students and what's the rigor, what is the content that we're offering. And 3.C and 3.D are more about what are we doing to ensure that that support is there, kind of more of the people side of things. Criterion 3.C is showing the institution has faculty and staff needed for effective, high-quality programs, and student services. You'll notice on each of these slides up to this point for 3, we've put a board policy that relates that we've used as evidence, because you are the board, and so if they ask you about these things for Criterion 3, we want you to know what board policies we used, since that's your policies and we used them as evidence. BP 2.01 and 2.02 talk about the hiring processes and how we use diversity and equity, how we look at those things. We have our DEI dashboard on pima.edu. We have minimum qualifications for faculty and staff and all of our federal compliance training. So we have listed a lot of those things. We also have a faculty minimum qualification rubric that the faculty update through the provost's office, and a big one that you may want to know and other people, to keep our faculty and staff up to date on their requirements and everything, we do provide professional development funding through a regular process to faculty and to staff. And it's not just a nice perk of the job, but it is actually to continue our education and make sure that we are maintaining our accreditation and keeping people qualified for what they do. You know, it is a nice perk, but it's for a very important purpose, as well, and so that's really awesome. Our faculty also have to maintain oversight through the DFCs in Faculty Senate. You have heard a lot about that through BP 1.25, which was not mentioned in this, but faculty oversight of curriculum is a very crucial thing for HLC, and we do that through our Faculty Senate. 3.D is more about the actual support spaces that we have and the services that we provide outside of the classroom. We have all of these amazing services on the left. I have just kind of listed them all, and there is actually more, but we go through and detail each of those things as well as the comprehensive advising that happens. There is an actual syllabus that they use in advising to try to make sure they are advising in that way. And then our learning areas, we have a lot of really great physical spaces like our libraries, computer commons, makerspaces, ASL labs, centers of excellence all throughout the place. So we have gone through each of those as well. We also highlighted the fact that the pandemic shifted all of our services, not just our courses but our services, to online and virtual services, as well, and we have maintained those modalities for our students to make sure that any of our fully online students or students that just can't make it to campus can still get the services they need. One of those great supports is checking out computers and hotspots to our students from our libraries. So that is a highly used service, and I hear about us running out all the time because students are using it that often. It's a wonderful service for them. Overall, our criterion has received a really strong response from all of our reviewers. Our consultant looked at it and gave us some pointers, we fixed it, and then we also got all of the comments from being posted online. We had a mock visit, and we were told that Criterion 3 performed wonderfully. We had a really good turnout, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out for next time. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, all. Okay. Now moving on to reports by representatives. Rebecca. >> REBECCA URSULE: Good evening, chancellor, board members, PCC faculty, and guests. I'm pleased to present this report outlining the outcomes and initiatives discussed during our recent retreat and regular meeting for Student Senate. We had a successful Student Senate retreat on January 16, 2024. This retreat provided a platform for planning and organizing our activities for the upcoming spring semester. Additionally, we engaged with mentors, vice presidents, Student Life coordinators, and other key leaders at Pima Community College fostering collaboration and laying the groundwork for our initiatives. Our meetings will be held virtually and all of our recordings will be accessible on PimaEngage. Everyone is welcome to attend the meetings on the following dates and times. Our working meetings will always be on Friday, and our first working meeting was on the 19th, January 19th, 2024, and was from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00. Our second working meeting was on 9th February from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Our next meeting will be March 15th, 2024, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Our last working meeting will be April 19th, 2024, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. We also have regular meetings. Our first regular meeting was on February 2nd, 2024, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Our next regular meeting will be on March 1st, 2024, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., followed by the one April 5th, 2024, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. And our last regular meeting will be May 10th, 2024, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. During our regular meeting on January 19th, 2024, the Student Senate of the Desert Vista Campus brought up a crucial issue regarding the lack of a cashier on campus creating difficulties for students in making swift payments. This problem has persisted for about a year, forcing students to travel to the West and Downtown Campuses for financial transactions. Cesar Pena and Atheena Martinez from the Northwest Campus and the online Student Senate have proactively collaborated to address the issue. Discussion took place with the Desert Vista Campus cashier's office, and the responses indicated that there are currently multiple payment options available. Around 90% of payments are currently made electronically. Opening a cashier's office would incur additional costs for the college, especially for the remaining portion of payments, making it electronically unsound to pass through changes to the cashier's department. The Market on the Move Program is led by Kristy Snowden, Student Senate of the Downtown Campus. The program continues to be an effective method to support and provide students with resources. During this meaningful community engagement, the program have utilized this platform to spread the news of the GED scholarship aiming to strengthen the community's economic stability through education. Furthermore, the proceeds from these events have contributed to establishing the Downtown Campus hygiene pantry, a resource that will assist students in meeting their essential needs. Discussions are underway to potentially extend the pantry service to online students, aiming to minimize barriers for all students. It is important to know that funding will be needed to accomplish this next goal, and they are actively exploring avenues to secure the necessary resources. Our upcoming events. We had a Welcome Week tabling events and all the Student Senates participated in tabling events during the Welcome Week at various campuses. This engagement aimed to connect students and create an inclusive welcoming atmosphere. We also have the Town Hall event for the spring semester 2024. The Town Hall events of the spring 2024 will be held at the Northwest Campus on Wednesday, March 27th, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. This event will provide a platform for open dialogue and community engagement. We also have a Student Senate conference in Atlanta. We are excited to announce that the PCC Student Senate plans to attend the upcoming student governing training conference in Atlanta, Georgia, with the American Student Government Association in March 16th. This training will offer valuable insight and its working opportunities for our Student Senate. We, the Student Senate of Pima Community College, express our sincere appreciation to the board and entire Pima community leadership for their responsiveness to student concerns. Their approval of making and creating a distinctive entrance at the West Campus along with the future plan for dedicated bike path lane from Pima West to St. Mary's Hospital in collaboration with the City of Tucson demonstrates a commitment to improving campus accessibility and enhancing the overall well-being of students. As we embark on the spring semester, the Student Senate remains dedicated to advocating for the student needs and contributing to positive changes within the Pima Community College, and we appreciate your continued support. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Rebecca. Moving on... >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Chair Riel? I imagine, Rebecca or Interim Chancellor, you may not have this information now, which is okay, but I would love to know more about the hygiene pantry that was mentioned. What are they providing now, where are the resources coming from that are being used, and what those future needs are in terms of funding, and if there is anything like that on the other campuses as well or is it all Downtown? I'd love to know more about that. It can come right to me if I'm the only one that's interested, or it can come to all of us at a meeting, if that is appropriate. I'm fine either way. Unless you know off the top of your head, but I certainly don't expect you to. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: I will come back with some information, but there are ways -- actually, a lot of our employees donate to the food pantry through the Pima Foundation, and we do have a staff member, but mostly it's students getting very minimal compensation for it, so we want to make sure that we do have a process that is a little more robust. So we are in the conversations about it, but I can get you more details about it. It is something that's very needed, and it's not just food insecurities but it's also clothing, we want to expand to that eventually too. Thank you. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Adjunct faculty report by Sean Mendoza. >> SEAN MENDOZA: Thank you, Chairman Riel, Interim Chancellor Duran-Cerda, members of the board, and honored guests. Happy New Year in this Year of the Dragon and a Good Ash Wednesday. I'm happy to report the administration continues to engage and invite feedback from adjunct faculty on a variety of topics. This month we met with Acting Chancellor Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda where she shared her thoughts on three main topics brought forward by our employee group. They were, one, the top three challenges facing our institution. Two, whether or not she plans to apply for acting role. And three, the safety of all faculty on and off campus. I don't want to give away the ending of the movie, but the adjunct faculty appreciated her thoughts and her thoughtful responses. If you want to watch her responses for yourself, they can be found on the recorded link to our adjunct faculty agenda. Thank you, Chancellor, for visiting our adjunct faculty and we hope you'll visit us soon in the future. As we all know, the All Employee Representative Council, or AERC, plays a large role in the development of policy impacting compensation and compensation at our institution. This spring semester, Lynn Maners stepped down from his role at the AERC and was replaced by Zoe Schopick. I'd like to thank Lynn for his service and his role on the initiatives adjunct faculty enjoy today, and an early thank you to Zoe for hearing and answering my call to service as our new AERC representative. The second representative is Patrick Moore who continues to play a key role on the initiatives shaping the workplace environment of adjunct faculty. This year the AERC representatives have been working on a variety of initiatives ranging from compensation for canceled classes to strategies that meet the diverse needs of our employee group. I'd like to thank Dr. David Bea and members of the provost's office, specifically Kate Schmidt, for meeting with us and sharing your insights as we collaboratively work to support adjunct faculty. Thank you, board members, for your continued support, and this ends my report. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Sean. And the faculty report by Rita Lennon. >> RITA LENNON: Good evening, Chairperson Riel, members of the board, Chancellor Duran-Cerda, PCC family and guests. Faculty Senate met for the first time on February 2nd. It was a little later than we usually meet in our spring semester, and that was because we were back on contract to just two days before classes began, and rather than fill that up with a bunch of meetings, the provost's office and Faculty Senate leaders decided to go ahead and give that back to the faculty so we could prep for our classes. It's not a lot of time. So what we talked about in our first meeting was we heard from the registrar's office about the not-attending process. It was a manual process where all faculty would report if students were either attending or not attending in the first couple weeks of the classes. We're now moving that to an automated process. Hopefully with a couple of hiccups that we have identified and we can work through, it will get better and better for us. Also, we talked about faculty qualifications. This is something that because HLC made some changes to their process, or not their process but their policy, we are also going to be updating that and looking at what we can do to improve the qualifications. We also talked about APs and BPs. As we know, we have quite a few -- Jeff, I'm not really looking at you, I'm just looking out. (Laughter.) I just caught his eye. So we have quite a few that are going through 21-day process where we are also looking at minor updates, and so we asked senators to work with their constituents about looking at all of those policies, making sure they're on the right track either to make comments or to alert us if there were any that we need to move out of the updates, minor updates, into 21-day. We also talked very little bit about our faculty leadership model. We know that that needs to be updated and improved. That was put on hold because of PimaOnline, the decision to be made about PimaOnline and its future. So now that that decision has been made, we are now working very diligently with a very, very tight schedule. So we have about a month to get that decision made. So I did want to mention also to the board, I don't have anything really formal to mention about this, but after our meeting we have heard about PimaOnline's decision. I know that Kimlisa came and spoke very passionately to you about what's going on. There has been quite a few comments and concerns, questions about the decision, the timeline, the rollout. As I mentioned, I don't have anything formal to mention to you because we haven't met with senate yet about that. But I'm sure that either Denise Reilly or I through this venue will be talking to you about that in the future. Denise Reilly, our new president, mentioned her philosophy for service leadership, and so I'm sure that if anything, you know, even if it may not impact us personally, that she will be bringing something forward to you. And that concludes my first, actually my second report to you. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Rita. And the administrative report by Jim Craig. >> JIM CRAIG: Chairperson Riel, Chancellor Duran-Cerda, distinguished board, PCC family and friends. Two chefs from Parma, Italy, Mario Marini, chef and owner, and Nicole Zerbini, chef owner of her family's 25-year-old restaurant, spent five days in Tucson from January 18th to the 22nd learning about our culinary cultural heritage and sharing theirs. A highlight of the trip was an event co-sponsored by PCC and the Tucson City of Gastronomy at the Desert Vista Campus Center of Excellence for Hospitality Leadership. PCC students helped out and prepared a number of appetizers for the 50-plus guests that showed up, and as you heard, including our own Governing Board Chair Theresa Riel and Governing Board Member Luis Gonzales. Guests watched a cooking demonstration and got to sample some amazing original tortellini made the traditional, old-fashioned way from Southern Italy. Y'all missed it. It was great. The administration would like to thank the chancellor and the Governing Board for the recent Governing Board retreat on shared governance. It was a very strong, long day, but it was full of great conversation, some learning, and I think a new perspective about how we can move forward as a college with a stronger sense of shared governance. Thank you for that. Over the past year and a half, the mathematics faculty have been engaged in increasing our students' ability to complete their math degree requirement, which includes redesigning courses, engaging professional development, and increased placement into co-requisite courses in which students are placed directly into a college-level math course with one hour of support provided before each class. In fall of 2023 the success rates of math courses increased to 62%, which is the first time success rates have been above 60% for a fall semester for several years. In particular, students who were accelerated into a college-level math co-requisite course experienced success rates of 61.1% for math 142 and 65.7% for math 151, which is college algebra. PimaOnline was recognized in several 2023 Instructional Technology Council categories this year. Outstanding reward recipients are commended for their hard work, dedication to online quality learning for students, and excellence in distance education. I won't read everybody, because there are about 12 people here, but they will all be recognized next week at the ITC conference. Edgar Soto, campus vice president for Desert Vista Campus, has been selected as the First Things First Pima South Region Champion for Young Children. The award is given to local champions who are going above and beyond in their efforts for young children from birth to age five. Edgar is a lifelong Tucsonan and has been employed with the college for over 20 years where he has served as the key player in the recent relaunching of the Desert Vista early learning center for student parents. Edgar is a vocal supporter of early childhood education and the importance of the first five years. In 2021, the Arizona Supreme Court approved the licensure of a middle-tier legal professional called the legal paraprofessional, or LP, making Arizona the first state in the nation to license this new legal profession to address growing inaccessibility to affordable legal representation. An LP can provide legal services, including representation of clients in court and in limited practice areas without the supervision of a licensed attorney. PCC has been helping lead this effort for one building a trial advocacy course that goes towards the licensure. This course was developed by Gwen Gorbette, paralegal program manager. Recently there was an entire day spent on trial advocacy with students, professional lawyers from the community, and even Honorable Judge John J. Assini, who gathered and participated in full trial process for petition for relocation of minor children. This was accumulation for the class, and they had an amazing experience with feedback given by Judge Assini as he ruled at the end of the experience and gave the LP students some constructive criticism. The dean of dual enrollment and high school programs is proud to announce the accomplishments up to date for 2024. We have once again shown an increase of head count and enrollment in our dual enrollment schools. Data as of February 6, 2024, all numbers are historic numbers for the college. So head count at 5,811, which surpassed the 2023 head count of 5,304, and enrollment of 9,916, which is up from 9,546 last spring. The All College Council met on February 8. The handouts from the Governing Board retreat on shared governance were distributed to the ACC members, and we discussed it at the meeting. The ACC members will take those comments back to their respective groups, to Staff Senate and Student Senate and the other groups, and have some conversations about shared governance, and bring that back to the All College Council so that we can help advise and inform the chancellor on some of their perspectives. The group is also taking back to their respective groups concepts and questions about retention and enrollment and trying to address some of the key chancellor goals there and to really try to get some great insights from students and staff and faculty along those lines, as well. This concludes my report. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Next up, our own chancellor, Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda. Thank you for your report. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you, Chairperson Riel. Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Birthday to the State of Arizona, and also we are celebrating this month Black History Month. As I start, I'd like to welcome a new member of the Pima family in the administrative capacity, and that's Tina Neil, who is our acting assistant vice chancellor for human resources. I asked her to come up to the podium to share a little bit about herself to the board members and our guests here and colleagues. >> TINA NEIL: Thank you, Dolores. Good evening, board members, good evening, colleagues. I've see many of you in trainings before, so I figured I'd just give a little history. I moved to Tucson in 2008, and from the very start I had a history with Pima Community College. I became an adjunct faculty member, using my master's in human development and family studies to help students with the student success classes while I was working full time at the U of A. In 2019 I joined the staff full-time, and many people in this room have experienced hopefully my fun trainings in compliance as well as leadership and other supervision topics. Then recently, I was asked to step into this acting role, which I'm really happy to do, to help out the college. That's the most important thing to me. I think this college is great, and I want to make sure that we can continue to move forward in a positive direction. In my free time, I have an eight-year-old. We are currently building a castle for a school project. And I hike to destress. Any questions? (Laughter.) Well, I will be seeing all of you tomorrow. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I just want to say welcome, and we really are happy that you stepped up to help us out at this very important time of hiring our chancellor. The board's No. 1 responsibility is to make sure we make that good choice, and we really appreciate what you've done so far in that capacity. So thank you. >> TINA NEIL: Well, the other secret hidden talent I have is I have a degree in accounting, so I know how to be organized. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you, Tina. We really appreciate it. I'd also like to congratulate some folks in the Pima family as well as some units. So Assistant Vice Chancellor Laurie Kierstead-Joseph, there she is, she's been selected as the winner of Coalition for Adult Basic Education Prestigious Administrator of the Year award. Let's give her a warm round of applause. (Applause.) >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: This award is given to an adult education administrator who has made an outstanding contribution toward fostering the concept of education as a continuing life process. She will be honored at the 2024 COABE National Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. We're very proud of her. I'd also like to congratulate PimaOnline for their work with OER, Open Educational Resources. PimaOnline has saved students $987,300 the fall semester of 2023 with a total of just over $11 million saved since 2017. So thank you to PimaOnline for that. (Applause.) >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: I think it was this week or last week, Michael? Last week you were on TV? Yes, because PimaOnline was ranked one of the top 50 online programs. We are very proud of that. Brian Stewart, where are you? There you are. Brian Stewart, who is our Northwest Campus vice president, has received the Phi Theta Kappa Shirley B. Gordon Award of Distinction for Community College Presidents. This award recognizes Brian for his ongoing commitment to student success and hard work to provide opportunities for student completion, transfer, and employment. So we are very grateful to you, Brian. (Applause.) >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Dean Jim Craig has already talked about Edgar Soto, Desert Vista Campus VP, for his award, so congratulations again, Edgar. Very proud of you. (Applause.) >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: And the assistant director of Title IV compliance, Aurie Clifford, presented at the Oregon Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators conference in Oregon. Her presentation was on values-based leadership. She also taught, I think it's NASFAA, credentialed course on professional judgment. I don't know if Aurie's here, but we'd like to congratulate her. Congratulations to Aurie. (Applause.) >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: And the board members have already discussed this about the Community College Day in Phoenix, Capitol Day, and also the fact that we went to the ACCT legislative summit. Almost board members were there at both events. I just wanted to mention that their dedication and commitment to this college is genuine and it's heartfelt, and they are there to advocate for students and for this community and for all of us. So I wanted to express my gratitude to all of you for your participation in these events. The one that I was just super touched by was the one in Washington, D.C., the ACCT legislative summit, where we took three students. Their stories were amazing, and in fact one of them I think came out in Congressman Juan Ciscomani's newsletter, and that student is Minerva. I think her last name is Torres. She was from Honduras, and she came to the United States five years ago with her family, her three kids and her husband, didn't speak a word of English. Took her adult education classes, learned English, and when she completed her program, at the ceremony there was a raffle, and she won, like, $250 and used that to enroll in our translation studies program. Now she's going through that program. So we're very proud of her, and I think her kids are all going to Pima. Pima, she says, is in the family. That was a wonderful experience, to hear all of their experiences. Another student was in aviation, and another one is I think in STEM and going to transfer to the U of A for the college of pharmacy. So incredible students and inspiring. Also, I'd like to thank campus VP of East Campus, Jade Borne, and also vice chancellor for student experience, Irene Robles-Lopez, and our PCC police department and others for some things that have happened at East Campus, some incidents. Thank you for your leadership and for reassuring everyone at the campus and the surrounding area that everything is all right. Thank you. I know you're new to the college, Jade, so this was an experience for you. (Laughter.) Thank you. (Applause.) >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: I will share just a few activities that I've participated in. The first week of classes I had the joy of going to the various campuses and greeting students and faculty as they came in. Having been in the classroom for 27 years, I've really missed being in the classroom and greeting students and handing out swag. It was a wonderful experience. Also, I started my Chats with the Interim Chancellor at the Downtown Campus, and will be continuing till April at the various campuses where all faculty and staff are invited to chat with me and share their questions and suggestions and concerns. I was honored, and also Brian Stewart, we went to the Pascua Yaqui Tribe groundbreaking for the early childhood learning center, which was amazing and very well-attended by the community, government employees, the tribal nation, everybody was there. It was a great experience. Let's see. Couple weeks ago I went to the Helios Institution where we had a retreat with NAU, and also there was a panel that I participated, it's called the A++ Retreat. It's a partnership and ecosystem that some colleges, including Pima Community College, have with Northern Arizona University. I was on a panel with the president of NAU, Cruz Rivera, Arizona Western president, Daniel Corr, and the president of Coconino Community College, Eric Heiser. We talked about the importance of universal admissions. So students who didn't quite make it to being accepted at NAU but are promised to be accepted, they can continue, take their classes at Pima, for example, and then when they are finished, they are automatically admitted to NAU. We are hoping that we can continue that effort at the other universities, as well. Then I think it was last week there was a press conference and Education Forward, and our board chair and vice chair were present as well. It was talking about celebrating the data of 73% of Arizona residents are in favor of our residents getting a higher education. It's really interesting how I have been seeing a common thread, common theme in the various events I have been going to, the importance of alignment, of education, business and industry, and government agencies. Because we're all working for the same common good, economic development in our community, in the State of Arizona, and so that is what I keep hearing and seeing. This was an excellent way to put this information forward. Then today, this morning, with Board Member Greg Taylor, Pima Foundation, Marcy Euler, students, and we had the dean of health professions, Don Martin, and Associate Dean Karen Tam, and others, and also the director of nursing, Yolanda McCoy Stokes, celebrating this wonderful generous gift from Arizona Complete Health to the Pima Foundation as an endowment for our students in the future. We are incredibly grateful. As we know, there is a huge shortage of healthcare workers, and in particular, nurses, so we're very grateful for that. A reminder, Futures Conference coming up March 8. We really would like your participation in that. And then this past Friday, there was an event held at the West Campus, and it was Data Day. Some of you were there. This was led by Acting Vice Provost Michael Parker. This was held on Friday where faculty gathered and had the opportunity to work with disciplined colleagues to develop and refine or assess progress and plans to improve productive grade rates, otherwise known as DFWs, in their courses and to identify ways to improve Pima Community College's first-term no-success rates. So at this time they analyzed data, they talked about their division planning and also budgeting processes. Analysis of data, development of plans, and alignment to their budgeting process is really going to help the college with data strategically to improve student success. So one last final thing is I just want to say that we are an incredible team, family at Pima Community College. We believe in the community, in our learners, and our students. I remember when we went through the process of pivoting from in-class, in-person classes to virtual and online during the pandemic, it was during spring break in one week. The collaboration that everybody worked on to make sure -- it was rolling up their sleeves and just working collaboratively with one mission, and that mission is to get our students through this pandemic and continue their studies. It was incredible. So I feel that if we can get through that, we can get through anything. I just want to thank you for your passion for the college, for your presence and guidance of how we run things at the college, and for the benefit of our learners and students. So with that, I end my report. Thank you very much. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Chancellor, can we have the three students, Roxanna, Minerva, and Brandon come and be introduced at a future board meeting? >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Yes. I think we're planning for them to do the Mission Moment next month. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Excellent. Thank you. Item 3 is information items, so the board members have all looked through them, and of course they are all online for to you look at them too if you're interested. Moving on to item 4, the consent agenda. I'd like to pull 4.11, the contract for Kelly Services. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I second it. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I don't think -- we just pull them? Yeah. Thank you, though. Any others that need to be pulled, or can we move for a motion to pass the consent agenda as it currently stands with that extraction? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, I move we approve the consent agenda with the modification that you made. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any discussion? All in favor say aye. (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Motion passes unanimously. Moving on to the action items. Let's just discuss 4.11 right now, if you don't mind. I did receive some information, but I think it's something that we need to have a discussion. We were told last year that it was going to cost us three-quarters of a million dollars, and now it's another $400,000 to tack on to it. I understand that we have more faculty that, you know, live outside of the state. But the fact that we're going to be paying Kelly Services more and more and more money to do the job, there may be somebody in Tucson -- I mean, I don't know. Dave Bea and people who are in finance would know. But there may be somebody who has the qualities and the skills to do that job here in town. So I would just like some more information before we vote on that one. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I would like to state though that I would also like to know how many people are out-of-state and what classes they're teaching and why we haven't been able to fill those, you know, in Tucson. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Dr. Bea, are you still with us? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Yeah, I am totally waiting. I'm just waiting for someone to call on me. So let me address a couple of the points. The recommendation is coming from staff. It is based on compliance and making sure that we are compliant with following all of the different state laws, regulations, et cetera. It is, again, to reinforce some information that we provided, the contractor is only getting a small share of the total contract amount. The rest of it is going, it's a funnel, a pass-through to the employees who are paid by Kelly Services. So the large majority are adjunct faculty wages and some benefits-related costs, mostly tax-based costs associated with those employees. When we initially put the contract estimate together, we used the information that we had on hand. We have now rolled out a more comprehensive and better procedures to identify faculty, these adjunct faculty who may be living out-of-state, and that is why there is an increased cost in this contract. I can assure you the staff in no way do they feel like they could properly manage payroll in what amounts to 24 different states at this point, all with different systems, all with different rules, and maintain proper compliance. It's a small -- it's a price to pay. It isn't certainly to say that $100,000-plus to manage this kind of contract is not, it is not an insignificant amount of money. However, I can assure you that there is no way that the college could properly maintain that kind of talent in-house and for that kind of money. I can give you my assurance and know that what we are doing here is ensuring that we are maintaining compliance with all of the states that we have on hand. We did also provide the board with the list of the classes that were taught by these faculty members, and my colleague Jeff Thies I think is also able to speak a bit to that if the board so desires to hear a bit more. What we tried to do is make sure that those classes that are taught by out-of-state folks, that there is a very strong justification for doing that, and the idea from my standpoint and from this program standpoint is to minimize the amount of out-of-state costs as much as we can. So with that, Jeff, if you wanted to add in anything. >> JEFF THIES: Yeah. Thank you, Dave. Yeah, so we do have an out-of-state adjunct faculty hiring-expectations document that we have been working through. The considerations that are part of that work are have we done a diligent job of recruiting, so we have made multiple recruiting efforts to get people that can teach online in specific disciplines. Does the candidate provide a very unique set of skills and information specific to a course, I can give you an example of that one. The autonomous vehicle discipline is a fairly new discipline, and so that's not a program where we have a lot of folks that have the background knowledge and the subject-matter expertise. Our primary person locally left, moved out-of-state for whatever reason, and is really our sole provider of that content as an adjunct faculty in a particular class. We have other specialty courses, as well, where we have, you know, similar situations. There is also the challenge of having faculty that have taught for us for a long time and do a great job for us, that they move. So we do have a category that references putting time constraints on that. You know, we have some challenges with not being able to fill some courses because of various full-time and part-time faculty changes between fall and spring, so we can rely on somebody that has taught the course before, but if they have been out-of-state, then all of a sudden they are added to this list as well. Really, those last-minute decisions and temporary options for us and those specialty courses are oftentimes the challenges that we are looking at. You will probably notice from that list that there is a significant number of HIT. Our health information technology relies on a lot of these out-of-state adjunct faculty for different courses over the fall, spring, and summer. Again, that's the challenge we face with recruiting those that have that specific subject matter expertise that can teach online, can teach online well, with respect to those particular topics. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: So, Jeff, thank you. I just have a couple of questions. I looked through that list, and I noticed that there was one person that's teaching a math 092 LB, something like that. My question is, you know, I talk to adjunct faculty all the time, and I know we have adjunct faculty in Tucson that could teach that class. So I guess my question is what kind of assurances can the board have that, A, the right protocol, if I remember right, adjunct faculty are allowed to teach three courses, nine units per semester, are we still doing that? Or do we have different policies that we use for our online teachers compared to the ones that are here in Tucson? Because when I was looking through that list, there were quite a few people's names that looked like -- mind you, I didn't go to check how many units they were, so it could have been nine one-unit classes, right, but there were quite a few instructors that were teaching a lot. So I have concerns that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, right? If we think it's important to have our adjunct faculty teach under the maximum number of classes, are we changing that for these out-of-state people who are teaching online? That's the first question. And then for Dave Bea, you know, I think it's unreasonable for the board to be asked to approve, what is it now, $1.19 million contract when we have never been given the amount that we are actually paying Kelly Services to do this job. Last year when we did this first, I was against it because I talked to Char Fugett, our former HR representative that was AVC of HR for 17 years at the college, and when I asked her about it, she seemed to say that that was unreasonable. Now, admittedly that was 17 or more years ago, so maybe things have changed drastically since then. But also last year, at the bottom of Andrew Plucker's letter, it said that if the college was willing to spend $130,000, we could do it in-house, and so, you know, if that is still true that we could do it in-house for 130,000 and we could find the person, I think it's really important for this board to know how much we're paying Kelly Services to do this. Because if we're paying Kelly Services $20,000, of course this would be a better deal. But if we're paying Kelly Services $300,000 and we could hire two people for $110,000 to do it in-house, mathematically it just doesn't make sense. So those are my two questions. Thank you. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So should we have another discussion? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Let him answer the question. >> DR. DAVID BEA: We did provide additional information that's in your board packet that represents the amount of money that Kelly Services actually would be making at the company for providing that service. If you look, it's the additional item, the last item that's attached to the board packet indicates that the amount that Kelly Services would get that's above and beyond the amount that goes through to the employee is around $130,000. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Dr. Bea, it's a little hard to hear you. Maybe you could either raise the volume or speak a little louder. I don't know if you all caught what Dr. Bea's response was. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Attached to the board packet, we attached an amendment or another piece of information that spells out the amount of money that goes to the adjunct faculty or the temporary employee and the benefits associated with that, and then separates out essentially the amount that Kelly Services would make in this agreement, which is in the neighborhood of $130 ,000. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: So, Dave, if I'm looking at those tables right in this agreement, we're actually paying Kelly Services $132,000 for their work, and all of the rest of that is actually the wages and benefits of the people that we're hiring through them? So Kelly Services isn't taking any of that, they are just passing it through to pay those employees? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Correct. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Well, so to the idea of hiring somebody, and I'm relying on Google here, but Google tells me that Kelly Services has 7,100 employees, so for $132,000 we just hired 7,000 people to do this job versus one or two that we could hire here, and the expectation that one or two people could know all of those payroll rolls or could keep track of all that stuff, personally I think is unreasonable. That's why they have 7,000 employees to be able to do that. Not only that, but if we were to hire an FTE or more than one FTE and they did a bad job because we were setting them up for failure, the process by which to perform it somewhat out of the organization is much harder than changing this contract or amending this contract or deleting this contract, and so I think, at least in my opinion, this is money -- I mean, separating out the issue of whether we should hire local people or not, I would hope that we would start first, but if they're saying that we need these people, I don't have any question about whether Kelly Services is a good investment. It seems like for $132,000, if we're getting a 7,000-plus-person crew that can keep on top of all of these payroll laws, that that's a great investment that we couldn't possibly replicate internally. >> DR. DAVID BEA: I might add, in addition to that, they're able to use their own systems that are set up with all of the different states. We do not have a system that would manage that kind of, the complexity of payroll for all those different states. So we would have to do it very manually. For example, I know the staff were talking about trying to turn off or deactivate one state, and just the process of trying to turn off one state was taking hours of time. So doing that, multiplying all of those different actions times 24 times times every pay period is, again, something that Kelly Services is much more capable of managing than we are. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: If I could add one piece of information. So as you can see, there are many instructors in writing, and if students can't get into a writing class, they won't enroll or they'll just give up, because that's a crucial class to take when they first get started. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: So what about the qualifications of adjunct faculty? Are we holding online, the people that Kelly Services is paying, are we holding them to the same standards that we hold adjunct faculty in town? Yes? >> JEFF THIES: Yes. And to your first question, 10.5 is that credit number that we're really looking not to have to go over the top of. That has to do with the 20 hours and 20 weeks rule that we look to follow. And the challenge specifically, I notice you called out the one that was the 92 and 92 LB, oftentimes with scheduling a course, opening a new section for a 14-week, the department heads will look for those that, A, haven't reached that point, and B, have the teach and previous success in the online environment, and so occasionally you'll end up with somebody teaching a dev ed course that is somebody that was with us in-state, has moved out-of-state, still has all the PimaOnline credentials as far as teaching online, and is a subject matter expert obviously in that specific discipline, so they do meet those qualifications, as well. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. I guess my last question on this would be before we passed this motion last year, somebody at our college was doing this, correct? Somebody was paying these out-of-state people? Because these people didn't start the minute we approved that contract. So I'm wondering, I mean, I don't have any HR experience. I'm sure most of us here don't. But I hope that we are using college monies wisely, you know. In that letter last year, I don't need to repeat it, Andrew said we could also do it in-house -- and by the way, I'm assuming that was Andrew who wrote the letter, I don't really know, it was in the documents last year -- in-house for $110,000. But I'm hoping we're doing the right thing. My gut feeling, I don't feel good about this vote. But anyway, so any other comments? Shall we make a motion? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I move to approve 4.11. >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any more discussion? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I make a motion that we -- >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Wait, wait, wait. There is already a motion on the floor. Should I call for a vote? All in favor say aye? (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: All opposed? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Nay. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: So it passes 2 to 1 with one abstention. Didn't you abstain? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: You abstained? >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Jeff? No, because I didn't think I could vote to do, to make it a tie. I thought that was Robert's Rules of Order that the chair... Then it's going to be tied. (Discussion off microphone.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Well, we don't have that. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So I make a motion that we request additional information from our HR representative on the questions that we have and have a meeting. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Can we hear from the HR people and the people who do this kind of, whoever used to do the payment of out-of-state, and just hear what they think, if it's reasonable, if they were going to get paid 130,000, would they want the job? Can we table this until next month? >> DR. DAVID BEA: May I chime in a little bit? There is actually a pressing issue where we are going to be running out of capacity. So if the board is interested in having a longer-term discussion about this, I have no problem with that. I'd be happy to bring Andrew and his staff to have that conversation with you in the lead-in to the next time we have to do this. But we are in a situation where we do have to make sure that we are maintaining compliance, and tabling it is going to be a challenge in terms of making sure that we have the capacity to get through the rest of the year. Again, we can certainly review the contract for the upcoming year and the need for it. We have some direct experience from the people who do this payroll on a regular basis. Also, adding in a couple of comments related to someone used to do it? I think that we had a compliance concern. The college is trying to make sure that we maintain proper compliance and remember that the number of states has dramatically increased since we have scrutinized and identified all the different out-of-state folks who are working for us. So it's a change that happened, we identified a problem, we are addressing the problem, and we need to continue to address the problem properly. Then I think what we can do is maybe once a month or so is have, whether we join a study session or in one of the board meetings, actually have people explain some of the complexities in terms of how they would have to manage this in-house and the problems (indiscernible). >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, I didn't quite understand all that, David, but my question is if we don't pass this tonight, are these people still going to be paid and paid on time? >> DR. DAVID BEA: We run the risk that we will run out of contract capacity, so that becomes a challenge. That will be a problem, because it may force us to have to manage some of these folks in-house and then we'd have a mixed payroll and it would not be ideal. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. I'm going to table this motion until our study session on Monday. Is there a second? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. (Discussion off microphone.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Let's call for a vote. All in favor of tabling this until our study session on Monday where we will have more information. (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any nays? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: No. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Nay. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. Passes 3 to 2. One other thing, I'm looking right here and I didn't count the number of people on this new list, but we were told last time it was 25 people getting paid, and that was the, you know, $734,000 mark, and, you know, it's three pages. But many people's names, because they're listed for each course they are teaching, so if you could have -- I just want you to have the numbers make sense to me because they just don't right now. >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, I think it would be helpful, if we're trying to make a decision Monday, if the people that want to defer this decision would specifically send Dr. Bea a list of information that they need to make another decision on Monday. So send him the questions tomorrow, because he's going to have to do it Friday, and we will have the information Monday morning. So he knows what we want, want answered, so he can get to work on it. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. We will do that within the next, let's say by noon tomorrow if you can get those out. >> DR. WADE McLEAN: So everybody that voted needs to give him the questions. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. I'm going to table action item No. 1 to a future date. I'm just going to remove it from our list. Then we're moving on to 5.3, the discussion. So last month or whenever it was, I did not follow Robert's Rules of Order the right way. There were a couple of friendly amendments, and that wasn't done properly. So we're going to revisit the motion that Maria originally made to have myself and Dr. McLean be on the committee of selecting the chancellor. So, Maria, if you still have that same motion -- >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes, I do. I make a motion that we vote on having Dr. Wade and Theresa Riel as a representative of the committee for the chancellor search. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Is there a second? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: We have sort of discussed this ad nauseam, so let's just move straight to vote since we are redoing my mistake. All in favor say aye? (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Opposed? (Nays.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: So it passes 3 to 2, like it did last time. Thank you. Any future -- >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: That motion didn't include any of the ex officio stuff that was added at the end. Do we need -- >> MS. THERESA RIEL: We're not going to do that. Any requests for future agenda items? Okay. I adjourn this meeting. Thank you all for being here. 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