Closing the deal for higher education

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good afternoon everybody thank you um welcome to our panelist and thank you everyone who's on on watching the summit today it's uh it's been a great day of programming uh so with that being said we are going to get started uh my name is jose malendras i am with the unb school of public health and i am your discussion for this afternoon uh thank you again i will quickly introduce our our theme and panelist and then we will dive right in uh so joining us on this panel today uh closing the diversity opportunity gap in higher education we have dr mercedes butler who serves as the unobvious college opportunity learning concierge in this role she works closely with teams from enrollment academic advising and the nevada system of higher education to ensure that students such as those in the mgm college opportunity program experience a smooth transition into college also joining us is mr jaime cruz who serves as the executive director for workforce connections southern nevada's local workforce development board uh he was appointed to this position as executive director in october of 2017 and has served as the chief strategy officer for eight years and was instrumental in partnering with local libraries to expand the public workforce development system thank you heimet for being here mr brian mitchell leads the nevada stem education and workforce development programs as the director in the governor's office of science innovation and technology in his role brian manages a 14 million dollar workforce development grant program and has funded the creation of 52 new stem post-secondary training programs in high demand career fields over the last four years and it's my pleasure to introduce dr melody rose who started her tenure as the chancellor of the nevada system of higher education on september 1st of 2020 so welcome dr rose um her previous leadership roles have included serving as the chancellor of the oregon's university system portland state university's vice provost for academic programs and introduction and dean of undergraduate studies and chair of the portland state university division of portland science so today's today's session the panel discussion will identify national trends and closing opportunity gaps in higher education for diverse populations and explore the innovative innovative ways in which nevada is addressing the skills gap shortage while preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow so with that being said i would like to invite dr rose our chancellor to welcome and make opening comments and and get us started dr rose well thank you very much and good afternoon everyone i would like to begin by thanking unlv and the college of education for hosting this sixth annual summit on nevada education and thanks especially for including me in today's activities i'm honored to be with all of you panelists and viewers as the chancellor for the nevada system of higher education i want to share how excited and proud i am of the work being done today to allow educators policy makers and community leaders the opportunity to share ideas to confront head-on the challenges that we face and to craft ways to improve nevada's education systems this session of the summit closing the diversity opportunity gap in higher education is a topic i am particularly passionate about i believe nevada has an enormous and vital opportunity to close the achievement gap in higher education among underserved and first generation populations one of the things that attracted me to the opportunity to lead anshi is that nevada's population today looks like the future of our nation this state has been making inroads in matriculating increasingly diverse classes of students into our institutions who reflect the communities that they represent however we all know we still have work to do in turning opportunities into successful completions i believe if we are laser focused with clear goals and measurable outcomes nevada could be among the top states in the nation closing the achievement gap and that would allow us to be a model for other states and it would be for many of us in this field the achievement of a lifetime thank you all and i look forward to participating in this conversation thank you dr rose um so with that being said uh we'll go ahead and kick it off with our our questions for the panelists and uh and um there's no set order or or set who um i'll leave it open to the panelists if you feel you want to respond to it raise your hand or speak up so our first question before the pandemic communities of color diverse inequity faced multiple challenges and inequities including just to name a few poverty housing food insecurity um the covert 19 has brought this to the forefront now when we think about the perspective of higher education access navigating the system what policies or procedures um have you looked at or uh would aid in in supporting those students as they try to access and work through higher education in nevada um and i would like to maybe target this to uh present this to uh dr butler or to dr rose i appreciate the question because of course we've all been observing sort of the confluence of a couple of really major challenges for our vulnerable populations and not least of which of course is that covet 19 is disproportionately affecting communities of color uh and lower income uh americans nationwide and when you see that compounded with some of the other challenges that these communities have historically faced we really are confronted with a situation where we must act and we must ask act decisively and with compassion and so at the higher education level at inchi of course you may have seen we've had a very robust conversation among our student population who came to us asking for some more flexibility in our grading system and this is a conversation going on nationwide of course it's not unique to nevada and ultimately our presidents came together and decided to make a decision that you know we needed to listen to our students uh that they are hurting in a number of ways and again some institutionalized and historic racism is interacting with uh the covid19 virus with economic inequalities and some educational barriers and and we simply made the decision that we needed to listen to our students on that front and provide more service and more flexibility in our grading system i'll just finish and then turn things to my colleague i'll just finish by saying that in addition to that and in hearing the real cries for help from many of our students who are suffering through this pandemic and by the way doing a valiant job i would argue in resiliency and compliance with covid requirements and and so forth and in taking care of themselves and their families um what was very very clear to me is that students were telling me that they were suffering uh in terms of mental health disparities and challenges so in the next few weeks i will be announcing the composition of a system-wide mental health task force and we'll be doing a listening tour virtual of course across our state to hear from students directly in terms of what they need from us in really addressing some of the critical mental health challenges that have arisen out of all of the challenges that i just described so thank you thank you dr dr butler thank you i wanted to thank the college of education for the opportunity to speak closing opportunity gap and helping students graduate is a topic near and dear to my heart and obviously those that are participating in the conference i would just add um in regards to some of the things that we're doing here at unlv um it's been really intentional with the plan of actions that we've really been working on and having in place with that top with the top tier initiatives and so one of the successes is the cop the college opportunity program and my goal in working with the students is really to remove barriers and overly burden some policies and procedures that might delay the graduation process and although we're seeing a success with the program i think that it is um a window or view to what other students of color are experienced especially giving coping 19 furloughs and layoffs that have plagued the state of nevada thank you dr butler uh brian did you want to chime in on this one thank you um and it's it's an honor to to be here today thanks to unlv for putting this on and it's uh um i'm uh really excited to share some of uh the things that we've been doing at the state level um and and certainly uh topics like food and housing and security are are top of mind during covet 19 but um you know it's it's heartbreaking that that that these same topics have been with us for quite some time and um so a few years ago uh we at osed funded a um a grant to the college of southern nevada um to um look at strategies to increase recruitment retention and completion rates of underrepresented students in stem programs and we wanted to take a look at both academic and non-academic barriers to completion and and so the non-academic ones were particularly intriguing to me and just a couple of examples of some of the things that we funded that i think you know might be useful to other institutions in the state we funded a grant for a student emergency fund campus-wide food pantries a clothing store so that students could have professional clothing when they interview or if they needed things like work boots or scrubs you know they could find that there and so these are some of the i guess some of the [Music] pilot programs that we've been engaging in and we're working with the office of institutional research to determine the efficacy of these programs and whether or not they um have an impact on completion rates of of students and stem programs and and our hope is is that for the ones that that show real promise that we'll be able to take that information that data up to uh state policy makers um college leaders and and so on and and say you know if we really want to make a dent in completion rates we should take a look at some of the strategies that have been proven successful right here in our own backyard um so um you know that you know hopefully i think you know um you know we can i guess not let this crisis go to waste and and see if we can understand what good ideas work and and how we can replicate them throughout the state thank you brian hi from your from your perspective and workforce development what are what what new policies or procedures have we all had to look at that would create or provide the population that you work with in preparing them for higher education yeah thank you for the opportunity to join my esteemed colleagues on this panel i think just to add to what's been said before us specifically as the local workforce development board we formed a partnership with our local libraries to make sure that we could bring the services that we provide students to help prepare again for their careers post high school uh this uh this partnership has allowed us to be closer to where these students uh live and sometimes work and so uh for example a couple of uh the east las vegas library right in the heart of the hispanic community and then the west las vegas library again right in the heart of the african-american community here and so i think for us being able to be closer to the neighborhoods has allowed better access of course this pandemic changes everything but uh that that partnership partnership has allowed us better access to those communities and be able to help them in their career post-secondary thank you honey man so my next question for the folk for the panel um unlv as well as i believe for the other uh institutions in nevada of the seven who uh who provide research and instruction are now minority serving institutions uh and and also designated as hispanic serving institutions so from your perspective uh what opportunities or challenges do you believe this this this provides for for nevada in regards to serving our diverse inequity populations as far as msis and hsis go i think the unlv is right on track um and it is a testament to our hard work that we do have those designations i think what it does is it puts um us in track and in line with accountability to make sure that we're serving the 65 of students of color that are attending unlv or institutions here in the state of nevada um i think with the top tier initiatives that you've heard the president um and many leaders talk about throughout inchi is the intentionality of really targeting um these students of color and not this one you know stop approach or one approach to all uh communities or students that make up that population but really just being intentional and targeting and giving the funds directly to programs like um the office of student diversity and social justice that sends out regular communication on how students of color can get involved on campus and so i think what will one of the unintended consequences of of covet 19 is um utilizing our programs and services and transferring them online right so that they're readily available for intersectionality between um workforce readiness and also career readiness as it pertains to students attending unlv and for the state of nevada if i may just add on to what dr butler has offered and give a bit of a system perspective um you're absolutely right we're so proud of the hsi designation and we rightly should be proud of this designation but i would i would amplify that and just remind viewers that among our seven degree granting institutions we are a majority minority system and that is something that we should be very proud of it's one of the reasons i was attracted to this opportunity and one of the things that i'm very focused on is thinking about how we can really increase our collective impact by working together and in my short time here i've already seen some of the hsi institutions win some federal grants because of their hsi component and those are so critical because they help us with funding vital services that are culturally specific and that you know we know have a return on investment in moving the dial for completion for um in particular our black and brown students and one of the things i'm very much focused on in this upcoming year is how do we really scale some of those initiatives you know our campuses have programs that are working in closing the achievement gaps for latino students in particular there has been progress we have a long way to go with african-american students and males in particular but we know some of the things that work and so i'm really keen to bring people together to understand how do we take those programs at work and scale them system-wide and one of the opportunities i think that we are going to have in the in the next biennium as challenging as things are going to be on the state level is i think we will be very well positioned for federal funding and i'm very much looking forward to working with the biden administration to identify places where all of our institutions can come together for grant writing opportunities to serve our communities of color so i'm really trying to look at what works what do we know is working and let's find the money to scale it up thank you dr rose that actually is a great set up for my next for my follow-up question on this um so uh dr lis bondwan who's a national scholar um actually has visited the nevada system of higher education and presented his research and an area that he focuses on is on the issue of male success in higher education especially male students of color and so understanding the challenges that dr rose just pointed out and to any of our any of our our participant panelists what from the prospect of faculty administrators what what do we need to be thinking about in serving those diversity and equity populations what uh what needs to be put in place from you always participate both in higher education and then of course in the workforce uh anybody please chime in that would like to start responding to that so um you know we uh had the pleasure of of uh speaking with both uh the chancellor as she uh started uh her new endeavor and we're grateful to have her here in nevada and we also met with president whitfield when he's just started and one of the things that we're committed to is again again closing that gap uh that we have currently with some of the higher ed institutions we've already opened up uh better points of access for these uh brown and black students at the csn campuses and uh we were talking to president whitfield again about how can we strengthen that that support from our system from the public workforce development system and the one-stop resources the millions of dollars that come to to to our state to again help students uh to post secondary success uh there's ways to strengthen that and so there are some things on the way already happening again at csn uh and we have we hope that those things can duplicate be duplicated as well at unlv and other schools thank you so i'll jump in um and um you know it strikes me that they're that we lose a lot of kids who have all the aptitude for post-secondary programs and and and uh great careers uh but we lose a lot of them in that summer that period of time that summer after their senior year where they have every intention of going to college but they don't have the family supports or the that college-going culture to really understand how do you get from high school to college and so one of the one of the ideas that we're piloting right now we've got five pilot programs across the state we're calling them our stem workforce pipeline grant projects and we want to try to create a more seamless transition from high school through post-secondary and into the workforce and uh and and you know and really focusing in on that under-represented student population that doesn't have um you know all the uh you know the family supports that i enjoyed when i made that transition from high school to college so we've got five pilot projects throughout the state and we're working on creating different ideas about how do you start a program in high school and have a consortium that makes up a a high school a post-secondary institution and then an employer and create a program where students can start learning in high school and they continue learning a little bit after high school and then they uh at the end of the program they receive an industry recognized credential that gets them on kind of that first rung of the ladder and the important part of our program that i think you know that we hope will help it to be successful is we've asked every employer partner um or we require them to provide an interview to every student that graduates so they're not necessarily going to get hired but they'll at least get an interview and that's really strengthened that employer post-secondary high school partnership and so the you know if we're able to um you know get kids you know that first kind of entry-level credential um you know there's there's research out there that suggests that as they want to move up the ladder and their job they'll come back to school and and they will be more motivated or they'll have the understanding the know-how to get higher credentials to help them kind of continue to progress in their careers ryan thank you brian uh to dr to dr rosa dr butler uh one of the points that uh dr bonhwan presented in his research was institutions need to stop using one size fits all approach uh would you care to comment on on that in terms of how we can work with faculty and staff to be prepared for and obviously continues to be the diversity of our student populations in nevada well in terms of that consideration of culturally specific programming i'm completely in agreement and i think it's been shown to work nationwide that when we really listen to students and their families about what they need um imagine that we we hear what they need and so i think that one of the keys is really talking with families and students perspectively uh and when they are matriculated and the other thing that i'm very passionate about again that i again i think i'm on my 95th day on the job so still very new to to the post but one of the things that i'm very passionate about and i've been successful with in other jobs is thinking about equity in hiring and retention because i think it's just a fact that you can't be what you can't see and so i think one of the things we are going to be very focused on the presidents and i is our hiring and retention practices and initiatives and i will get a give a shout out um to the eight institutional presidents in the enchi institutions i think we have one of the most diverse sets of presidents of any system in the nation and i think that's again a point of pride and and will advance this conversation but we really need that representation to flow through every aspect of our institutions so that students know that when they see themselves in an instructor an advisor not only do they have an affinity a natural affinity but they know that these are folks who have walked a similar path and and are interested in their success and uh i'm very excited to get to work on this this question of how do we um apply an equity lens to our hiring and retention practices so that we have really representation of our students in the classroom thank you dr rose dr butler yes and just to follow up with dr rose said i think one of the things that we do correctly here at unlv and i think at the nc institution is during orientation we provide graduation course for the incoming class and so the messaging from day one is degree completion what's unique at unlv is we're pretty steady with our retention numbers we retain students the first three years where nationally across the board we see research of that sophomore slump there is something um in particular happening with that fourth year when students are thinking or assuming that they are up for graduation and so i think there's room and opportunity um in these upcoming years to continue to partner across the state across campus um non-profit ccsd to focus in on areas that hold that achievement gap um i know we're going to touch on the remediation of math and english and how that is connected to open up opportunities into stem fields um here locally in the community and so i think we have um an awesome team and really the message that i've heard throughout the conference is that collaborative efficacy how we each want to partner together to not just close that opportunity gap but really see students graduate achieve that degree and then place in a job or career that they see opportunity for a lifetime thank you dr butler for setting us up for the final question of this one we have about we have about uh six minutes left in this session before we go to question and answer um so talking about career pathways we know that stem obviously science technology engineering and math are huge uh and and uh there are multiple opportunities here for for nevada so so brian could you maybe i know you mentioned a little bit of what you all are doing could you give us a quick uh a quick insight into the stem area for nevada and then i would ask our other panelists to kind of chime in where you see opportunities uh understanding that traditionally uh minorities communities of color have been underrepresented in the stem fields uh brian can you kick us off on that area and share with us a little bit about what's going on here sure i'd be happy to um so certainly stem jobs are um you know prior to the pandemic we're growing 50 faster than non-stem jobs and they pay fifty percent better uh when you control for the um the amount of education the job requires um fifty percent of stem jobs require a four-year degree and fifty percent require a two-year degree or less and so there's plenty of opportunity in the state across the the spectrum of jobs um i'll let the rest of my colleagues weigh in on the kind of the you know what what's going on at the higher education level but one thing that i really wanted to mention here and i know this is uh you know this is a higher ed focus con conference but i'd like to just put in a plug for early stem education that happens in elementary school and i think there's there's a you know you know we you know there's a there's a huge gap where there's a shortage in students of color and stem programs in higher ed and i think the root cause of that is is that many uh students of color and female students don't see themselves as um or don't feel welcome in stem starting in elementary school and so they decide you know in fourth and fifth grade that math and science and engineering isn't for them you know and maybe it's because you know to what dr rose was saying earlier you know they only see you know white males as being you know uh in stem fields you know we're in stem careers and so i think you know we'll never get the kind of numbers we need to and unlv's computer science program or in their engineering program you know if we can't convince you know students that that this is for them and so i think we need to start early and and build and can you know build programs in elementary middle and high school that build into the the higher ed programs and if we're successful in doing that then i think we'll be successful as a region in and um in having our stem programs reflect uh what our population looks like thank you brian any of our other panelists comment this is jaime aldo next jose yes so i am i live in the flesh what it's like to if you will uh to be a latino and raise a latina doctor here in las vegas mine just graduated last may from unlv and i think what what's important uh what i've learned is stem needs to start at home yes there needs to be mechanisms out there because not every family has the same resources but that's why i was mentioning earlier it's important to bring the resources closer to where people live and so we are again focused not just on making sure that the libraries are places where children of color can access stem activities stem exposure and again opportunities to see people that look like them and those kinds of careers but we're also partnering with ccsd to make sure that this labor market information gets there early enough too because sometimes as brian said when they graduate it's too late that you really have to if you will show them uh why that career and the kids use this term now that's not sexy and so we gotta show why those careers are sexy early on they have uh you know great rewarding careers in stem and they just don't know about them so um the last thing i'll say is with clark county school district also to brian's earlier point we're pushing hard to make sure that every student graduates at least with the um with some sort of credential that's already meaningful in the workplace and one that we've uh that we're proud of is that we made clark county the largest county in the nation to be certified as a work ready community and that's the goal is that every every high school student who's uh not already decided to go on to the four-year traditional higher education route graduates with a national career readiness certificate and as brian said can hopefully be a a foundation by which they can build onto additional post-secondary success before we wrap up and add it on to post-secondary success is i would like to just congratulate our first mgm cop graduate cohort out of urban leadership they persisted from fall 2019 to spring excuse me fall 2020 so in two weeks it'll be graduates and it's just a testament of when all hands are on deck and we are moving those barriers out of the way for all students from the particular students of color the success that we can see in the midst of colgate 19 furloughs lay off these students still have the perseverance within that you see from communities of color to continue and persist through whatever is put in front of them and so as we wrap up the session i just want to give a big congratulations and um round of applause to our up and coming cop graduating class congratulations everybody dr rose any final comments in this area well i guess i i would just say in in addition to the wonderful comments that the other panelists have offered here that um i i've been reflecting some on the challenges in stem for students of color as well as white women and what the barriers are and i think you know i'm looking for a little bit of a mindset change in my industry higher ed in general because oftentimes when when we see particular pockets of students struggle we wonder you know why are they failing and the question really should be how are we failing them and so it's a shift of mindset i think and accountability that's really important to me and one one of the reasons i'm thinking about this a lot recently is that it's it's you know it's always been the case that uh degrees in some of the stem fields particularly in engineering schools are frequently more expensive up front than degrees in say the humanities or the social sciences and i've become increasingly concerned that those sticker prices are are perhaps intimidating up front to those underrepresented populations of students even though as mr mitchell stated we know that over the life of your career they more than pay for themselves so i've been really thinking a lot about this issue of sticker shock and the inequities that perhaps follow and i think it's incumbent upon leadership in my industry again nationwide this is not a nevada problem specifically but we need to be thinking about what message are we sending are we doing sufficient financial literacy education for all underrepresented students so they can see the lifetime roi of those degrees even if they are initially more expensive so more to come there um but but i'm certainly researching this question because it concerns me thank you dr rose so we have about we have about six minutes left and there are some great questions in the question and answer section so the first question um uh addressed because we are msi both hispanic servant institution and uh asian american native american pacific islander institutions i think several of the ordinary several of our institutions are moving or hold all those designations uh from insi's perspective and what can we do or what can be done to address the issue of data collection um that is timely and up to you know matching what's going on uh more current so the question again the question about data collection culturally sensitive data that could be that needs to be collected in order to support faculty and programming and all those types of things dr rose you'd like that yeah yeah i'm a big i'm a big data nerd and i think that we have the beginnings of some good data here in the state um in fact superior to the data that i had about student performance in oregon and my former role there much of that data is longitudinal in nature and so one of the conversations that uh the superintendent of public instruction statewide superintendent and i have begun to look at is this question of longitudinal data and how do we make it more robust how do we make it more accessible so that we can see the stop-out points uh and then use that data to act in a more intensive way some of that has too with um really employing the kind of social media tools that are state of the art and very contemporary to push out information to students that we see are hitting vulnerable uh metrics you know like if you haven't been to class in three weeks you know how do we get a data set that that tells all of your faculty hey this student hasn't been in class in three weeks so that they have real-time data that all requires investment um and and i'll be looking forward to pursuing those investments when the conditions allow thank you dr butler any comments on that mm-hmm definitely thank you dr rose i like that the stop-out point like i said we've identified that at unlv thanks to the help of um uh decision support it's something happening in that fourth and fifth year but utilizing data to inform decisions is research being conducted on um really that social and academic integration into the campus and what is showing like similar to other institutions is that students of colors are not involved on campus so they're not working part-time on campus they're not involving themselves in research clubs and associations that we know lend to the persistence of all students um and so i think that that is another area again where we have all the pieces of the puzzle it's just reorganizing it through a picture of student success and figuring out different ways starting which i also agree is pk starting way in the beginning of their educational career so by the time they end up at an entity inch inchi institution they already have a clear pathway again to that their academic and uh career success i think uh another area that ng is doing a great job again just to mention is that remedial support and really giving students that um hands-on correct support to break through that math and english barrier um as a student myself was a trio student overcame remediation classes it is very key which we've heard throughout the course of the summit is having faculty and staff that look like you that you can mirror yourself against and and who you can become in the future and i think that again um the state of nevada we're on the right track to bringing together all the all of our resources to help close the achievement gap thank you brian or atlanta from the workforce world what do you want to add to this for me nothing to add i think my my colleagues did a great job was it just to i think uh agree that there's a lot of work pushing in the right direction and we hope to build on that thank you brian i i wouldn't add anything else i think it's been great thank you so another question that came in was the issue of leadership and how do we um how do we engage diverse leadership in the process of development and training and moving them into those leadership roles uh to ensure that there is representation uh of of diversity at all levels i think that i'll go first but i think the chancellor probably can do a better job of me but i look at the presidents of the institutions here in southern nevada and it's very obvious right president whitfield president sarah gosa i know uh in my organization i'm a leader latino my you know and so uh the the superintendent of the school district so i think there's um again we're making progress in that regard it hasn't always been that way so i'm grateful that um that that is happening but i know the chancellor probably uh can expand on that thanks taimi um you know i think that higher education as an industry doesn't do a great job growing its own leadership it's just for whatever reason not part of our culture and the way that it should be at least not in my experience in the industry and so you know one of the things i was really proud to be part of when i was chancellor in the state of oregon is at the system level we actually had an annual faculty chairs training in the summer and the goal of this training because that's oftentimes the first management position that a faculty member coming up the ranks will experience and sometimes making that transition between a rank and file faculty member and being part of management can be a real challenge uh and previously in higher ed we've just thought oh it's just part of your advancement you know who needs training uh well that leaves people behind and that leaves really talented people without the supports that they need and deserve and so in oregon we initiated this statewide which really helped prepare the academic leadership of the future right those people go on to be deans provosts presidents and chancellors and you know again it's only about my 95th day on the job but i would love to bring something like that program to the state of nevada so that we're being very very intentional about growing our own leadership um and being very intentional about whose leadership we're growing and doing that with a with an equity lens i think is just vital thank you dr rose um well with that being said we're we're at the end of our our window i'll just quickly make some closing comments first thank you to hyman to dr rose to dr butler and to brian for your participation in the session uh there were some critical things that were pointed out in intentionality advocacy uh understanding that cultural relevance cultural competence cultural humility all of those are critical as we think about the the direction for higher education in nevada supporting our diversity and equity students faculty and staff we all have a critical role our community partnerships a critical role some of the things that really stood out were the issue of career pathways you know there has to be real intentionality about finding and meeting students where they are and then moving them in the direction of where those opportunities are and preparing them with that so with that being said thank you everyone um thank you to the folks who submitted some of the questions the last one again i'll close with this uh culture really does culture does really make an impact on attitudes not just hispanics but all all diversity and equity population so let's remember that as we move forward um and and uh continue our work in these areas to address the achievement gap in higher education in nevada thank you everybody and uh think we'll turn out for now bye everybody