Week of September 25, 2023

Hi Clovis Fam,

Good morning! I want to say thank you for letting me know that you are reading my weekly reflections. Today, I had someone come to me and ask me to include some of their work in my reflection. You don’t know how touched I was to see that you want to be included. I have had more people speaking to me across campus and out and about in the community. Thank you for that. I have people moving my parking cone when they see me. Thanks for caring and for making me smile. I want you to know that I see you, I hear you, I respect you, and I value you.

As you read last week, I was out of town in San Diego at the Diversity , Equity , Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) in Action Institute. I took Monica and Marco with me so that we can have a unified institutional lens on the DEIA work here at Clovis and in the District. Dr. Goldsmith, Julianna Mosier, and a team from HR went; there were also teams represented from all four of the SCCCD colleges. I had the agenda attached last week, but I wanted to highlight some of the things that resonated with me. First was the start of the Institute with us giving Land Acknowledgement as all 116 campuses throughout the state are located in the unceded territories of the 109 federally recognized tribes and the dozens of tribes throughout the state. I asked when I started if Clovis Community College birthed out of tribal land. They are still researching that for me. While they are researching that, we have strong indications that all of our campuses have tribal artifacts and remains. The Chancellor informed us (during President’s Council on Monday) that FCC had located remains several years ago and one of their professors was the caretaker of the items. This week there was a workshop for district faculty to discuss how to respectfully care and preserve these items that we may all already have on our campuses.

The most impactful lessons learned form the Institute was the importance of “ humanizing the data”. First and foremost, we must be able to provide quantitative data. The goal is to transform the qualitative elements to make the quantitative case. This is the required step to fostering unconditional belonging. Some of you have engaged in the review of the qualitative data presented by our consultants in the Integrated 2035 process. I have provided you with the data that is being used to have conversations around strategic planning specifically for Clovis. The question of how they define “belonging” came up in almost every group that reviewed the data. This session helped to address our concerns. This session was provided by Dr. Jonathan Locust and, yes, I asked him to come to Clovis. 😊 We had a session on how to Improve Equitable Student Outcomes and the California Community Colleges Vision 2030. As the DEIA work is a priority for the state, we were reminded that this work is unique across the country and California is leading the efforts. We will be seeing more opportunities for funding and development. At the same time, we will see accountability measures for reaching outcomes and deliverables for both the instructional and student affairs sides of the house.

One of my favorite breakout sessions was “The Coalition; Building Critical Leadership Through Radical Transformation.” There is a leadership training opportunity to help colleges to strategically and institutionally do the DEIA work. I have asked for applications to provide the training opportunities for some of you tasked with doing the work. This program is a two-year commitment that allows people to review the various frameworks that exist, work with the specific institution, and select the framework (focusing on student centeredness). They then develop a capstone project for the institution and build a data informed, theoretically based, institutional approach to the work. The beauty of this process is that it is grounded in what we do best as the academy is rooted in research. It then puts credence to “the doing”. This work is tiring, and even more so if we invest time in “the doing” and don’t also invest the time in the why the doing is relevant, based on a theoretical plane. You can tell I am excited! We are the Academy and all the intellectual capital that I have had the opportunity to see since I’ve been here. I am looking forward to seeing how Clovis structures our theoretical approach to the DEIA work. I have already asked you to provide me with operational definitions to the following words: diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. We are well on our way. They also reinforced the necessity of not limiting our DEIA work with students. It is important that we also focus on our faculty and classified professionals. How do we treat each other? I’ve asked the VPs to provide me with a list of things that they saw that they would like to bring to Clovis.

I arrived back in town Friday and as you probably know, caught up on paperwork, making sure that all authorizations and signature requests were taken care of as to not hold up processes.

Sunday, I had the pleasure of joining Sasha Fisher and seven of our Clovis African American students selected to go on the 22 Way tour of HBCUs. We were there with students from Madera, FCC, and Reedley. They also had their parents in attendance. We met at FCC; they had great food provided by a local African American caterer. We talked about not only logistics of the trip but they engaged the students in team building exercises, financial literacy, and the importance of supporting black owned businesses as a means of economic empowerment. I am excited to be a part of this initiative as we give our students access to other higher educational opportunities and financial opportunities to attend an HBCU from financial add provided by the state for students transferring from a California community college to the HBCU.

Monday was a busy day with my standard meetings. I had President’s Council then I went to the District Office for Chancellor’s Cabinet. In Cabinet we did a practice run on our KPI presentation for our October special board meeting. We also talked about the new communication opportunities where the host college is allowed to give an oral presentation in addition to the written report for the President’s Highlight, Academic Senate report, Classified Senate report; they will work with ASG to see if they want to give an oral report in addition to the written report. We also spent considerable time on BPs.

After Chancellor’s Cabinet we held a special meeting with the Presidents, VC of Finance, VC of HR, and the VPASs. The reason for the special meeting was to discuss the use of and need for college credit cards. This is an issue that I brought up in response to our student services professionals being able to provide emergency services after hours and on weekends. Also, addressing the issue of the rate of speed in which people are reimbursed for addressing the needs of our students in a more efficient way. Several options were brought forward and we will continue the conversations at subsequent meetings. The goal is to provide a unified way for all colleges to access emergency funds and to provide some accountability measures on the use of college credit cards.

Tuesday morning, I started my morning at Communications Council at the District Office. We discussed ARs and BPs; the discussion was mostly the process of communicating the changes and timelines for approving ARs and BPS. We had a lot of discussion about making sure that everyone was provided ample time to review and provide feedback. We discussed the limitations of the tool used to input changes. We discovered that at times, the information submitted is not properly recorded by the tool. Clovis’ Academic Senate and Classified Senate are reviewing the ARs and BPs; however, the tools is not always recording that we submitted comments or the actual changes are not saved. Both Caryss and Teresa did a fabulous job making sure that the concerns and voices of Clovis faculty and Classified Professionals were heard and documented for the record.

I left the Communication Council and went directly to my first Central California Women’s Conference. There were over 3500 people in attendance. The guest speaker was Brooke Sheilds. I had the pleasure of networking with several women and sharing a table with amazing SCCCD women, including Leslie and Dr. Jackie from Clovis.

I left the Women’s Conference and had the pleasure of having a meeting with Lorrie, Caryss, and Vicki from Classified Senate. We recapped about the Communications Council and concerns about making sure that Classified Professionals are included in the communications loop and that they are respected. They have a voice and have important things to bring to the table. We talked about professional development funds and opportunities specifically at Clovis, and the development of processes to develop an equitable process. We talked about morale at the college and the importance of the Classified Professionals being valued, the importance of VPs and upper administration to be visible at events, and that we are seen across campus. I told them that equity is not only with how we engage our students, but it is also equally as important with how we demonstrate respect for each other. I am looking forward to continuing these conversations. They have some process improvement suggestion to get back to me in response to some of the things we have been talking about. I told them that if they wish to meet and discuss their solutions and ideas that they were not limited to our prescribed meetings.

Wednesday I was scheduled to leave for the “Guided Pathways Institute #5, Engaging the Entire Institute in Guided Pathways Implementation” in Oakland. So, I picked up my rental car (They gave me a hybrid mini van… Do I look like I drive a mini van?) I even said that out loud and everyone at Enterprise laughed 😊.

I drove my mini van over to Herndon to visit my Herndon peeps; they were all doing well and I apologized for not making it over there last week due to being out of town. Tasha told me to make sure that I told you all to support the upcoming Transfer Fair and to encourage students to take advantage of the fair. We will have representatives from several departments at Fresno State, CSUs, UCs, and private institutions on campus. The event will take place on Tuesday, October 3rd from 10:00 am – 12:30 pm outside by the Café/Bookstore. There will be food trucks, a live band, club booths, and pumpkin carving. We are encouraging faculty and staff to support our Transfer Day Festival by wearing a shirt from their alma mater and encouraging students to attend the event. As we are the #1 transfer college in the state of California, I proudly support all efforts to help maintain that reputation. Please help inform students about the Transfer Fair. I have been told that “we are a transfer college”. Thank you to Michelle and everyone who told me to be safe and expressed their concern for me.

I went to the CUSD Superintendent’s Office to let her know that I will not be able to attend her State of CUSD Breakfast Thursday morning due to having to go out of town. Thak you to Marco for attending on my behalf. I got my mini van drove to campus and parked it in my President’s parking space. And then I felt a profound sense of dread, anxiety, and fear!!!! I had left my SCCCD parking pass in my car at Enterprise. I’m gonna get a $40 ticket! I will probably even get towed. Because I have been relentless about having people park in my spot. You all have seen the orange cone that physically blocks my spot. And some of you know that I have had to ask people to move from my spot. Unfortunately, I have to go in and out often with usually a very tight schedule; it’s important for me to have unobstructed access to parking. Well, I had to call Leslie and tell her what I did. She got me a day pass. So, having had that experience, myself, It reminded me of one of the many conversations that we had about people having multiple cars and leaving the pass in the other car. Well, I want to propose that when you leave your pass in the rental or other car, we provide the day pass to you, too. See Leslie or Roseanne.

I sent a letter to Senator Shannon Grove to congratulate her on the Governor approving SB 14, Human Trafficking Bill. We have enjoyed having the Senator’s support for our commitment to Title IX and to our efforts to educate our students about domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking.

I then went to the monthly Integrated 2035 Clovis Planning meeting. This was a very important meeting as the consultants talked about facilities. We discussed our instructional and non-instructional needs. They asked us “Where is your front door to the college?” We have several entry ways. Do visitors and new students know where the front door is before they arrive at the college and once they park? Is our college inviting and welcoming? We reviewed data presented from several sources and from several formats, including surveys and focus groups as well as observations from the consultants themselves. We discussed the state’s formula to determine the health of our buildings and all of our buildings at Willow (this is all that the data reflected) were in good condition. We will spend another 3 meeting discussing facilities and opportunities for growth,

As I prepared to leave to travel to Oakland, Rich and several others gave me lots of advise. One being wait to leave otherwise I would find myself sitting in rush hour traffic. He gave me an alternate way to go to help avoid the traffic and he gave me his cell just in case I got lost. Y’all, that minivan could get up some speed. I had a lot of fun driving her. I had my music (most of the way) and had a very relaxing drive. I ended up getting to Oakland at 8:45 pm. I only experienced one delay due to an accident on the way. Got the last room at the hotel; I was very thankful for all the prayers and well wishes for safe travels. Sergio called to make sure that I finally made it safely. Since I was scheduled to be there for the 3:00 pm session. I had not checked in so had to navigate where to go for our 8:00 am start to the sessions. Yes, I slept well.

Thursday morning, I started the Guided pathways meetings. The sessions were very good. I had an incredible team made up of Sergio, Teng, Emilee, Kimberly, and Rachel. We first were reminded of how the Guided Pathways work aligned with the State Chancellor’s 2030 Plan. We had demonstrations from Lorain County Community College in Ohio and Tulsa Community College in Oklahoma. They provided us with a road map to how they established and institutionalized the Guided Pathways work, brought it to scale, and the transformational change that this framework had on culture and student success. We did a lot of team time as this was a working session institute with a lot of pre-work. The team discussed several opportunities and strategies. It was nice to get the various and diverse perspectives. We then continued our team over a nice dinner together. It was one of the rare times that this group of colleagues will have the opportunity to engage with one another outside of the college. I enjoyed the off-duty time we shared. I came back to the hotel and was able to sign some documents and get some other work done.

Friday, we continued our Guided Pathways team work. I packed and returned to Fresno/Clovis.

You will get this reflection early this week because Leslie and Kirtley are taking students to the Reel Pride Film Festival at Fresno City College.

I look forward to not traveling for a while so that I can be home with my fam.

I hope all of you have a wonderful, restful and safe weekend, See you Monday.

In service,

Kim E. Armstrong, Ph.D.