Courageous Conversations: District Office Managers

CHANCELLOR’S C-DIRECT August 9, 2017

Dear Colleagues:

Summer is about over for all administrators. We asked everyone to take vacation as early as possible so that we may have all hands on deck come August. So, we are here and rolling up our sleeves to meet the throngs of hopeful students. Some students remained quite active, taking courses during the summer. The Academic Senate Presidents were on board often throughout the summer to deal with some issues and to lend a hand where necessary. Budget

A big thank you to the Finance team and, especially, Luther Aaberge, for their efforts to get the budget ready and for expending an extra effort to open up the process for everyone to better understand We are getting close to having our finances in better order and anticipate getting to a comfortable and sustainable place in a year or two. Courageous Conversations: District Office Managers

Drs. Crawford, Jackson and I held a training session for the District managers on August 3rd to accomplish a few things:

 Promote the need for departmental meetings to enhance departmental effectiveness and find ways to better support the Colleges. Recapping Patrick Lencioni’s insightful book, Death by Meetings, Dr. Crawford provided the managers with a strong foundation to make their meetings more meaningful and productive.

 Reinforcing a forty-eight-hour response time to email and telephone calls and requests by employees and the public: I spent much time urging the District managers that in the New Peralta Way, we MUST be timely in our responses to the people we serve. As managers, we must see ourselves as serving the Colleges and the public and not the other way around.

 When someone in the DISTRICT has been contacted and has not responded within 48 hours, the sender or caller may contact Mary Denise Jackson ([email protected]). This ensures that if someone is on leave, has left the institution or is not going to be available, issues are not dropped and the sender will not feel put off.

1  Finally, we talked about the need to reduce the number of UNNECESSARY emails we all receive (or send!) in order for us to be better able to respond to what is essential. Before you send an email to a group of people, think twice about who should respond to the email or attend to the task, who should care about the subject and be able to do something about it? There will be more about emails and some pending negotiations with PFT on the subject as well. Love from China

We could have not asked for more from our group of students chaperoned by BCC VPSS Cifra and COA Outreach Manager Nicole Kelly. The host from China wrote: “I am very happy to meet all of our friends from Peralta Community College District in this summer. I will remember the wonderful memories about happy days in Hangzhou with you. I hope we can see each other again in the future, wish you a happy life, healthy everyday. [Heart]”

The students landed this Saturday, August 5. No major problems! Based on the regular “WECHAT” feeds from China, this was as smooth an experience as we could have hoped for. This experience encourages us to send more of our students to China and abroad, and to continue to expand the experience for our students. As I told them before they departed, they are Peralta, California and U.S. ambassadors to China and they bore their responsibilities admirably. These visits were valuable experiences for our students.

VCAA Siri Brown on Board

Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Siri Brown has begun her duties and is spending time developing her knowledge of the managers and processes, and attending to a variety of issues. One of the tasks she promised to undertake is ongoing support of the Deans. As she put it, even within a College there are practices that go unnoticed within the institution, let alone the District. Furthermore, there are individuals who go to conferences and hear important things, but sometimes fail to share these new insights with others. Unfortunately, we miss out on a lot of great ideas that could help us improve and innovate. Dr. Brown is working with Deans and VPs to ensure that, as we attend conferences, we are conscious of our responsibility to share what we learn with our Colleges and the District as a whole.

Please Welcome the Following Colleagues Joining the District

2 Dr. Mary Denise Jackson, adjunct faculty member from Merritt College, is our faculty member on special assignment. She will be providing support with serving as the District Ombudsman in handling inquiries, and continuing the great work of the Achieving Communication Excellence (A.C.E.) Campaign. Welcome Dr. Jackson!

Brandi Howard, currently Staff Assistant in the Presidents Office at Laney College, will assume the role of Coordinator of Contracts and Legal Affairs. She will be responsible for working with our external legal counsel to provide support with processing of contracts and MOUs, as well as provide training on our templates and tools that are currently being developed. Welcome Brandi! Charise Fong and EBALDC

Ms. Fong, Executive Director at EBALDC had a follow-up meeting with Dr. Ikharo and me to discuss some greater interaction with Peralta and EBALDC. One of the areas we focused on was employee recruitment on both sides. As we have needs for immediate replacement of employees for some quick jobs, we ought to reach out to EBALDC for help. We also discussed support in purchasing food as the organization is supporting local grocers who may be more profitable if they can wholesale to large organizations.

Project Success

Funded by the US Department of Education and to be announced by Secretary DeVos in the next few weeks, Project Success is an innovative way to enhance the effectiveness of professionals in Financial Aid. This pilot program provides financial incentives for financial aid offices to work closely with their students to be more successful as grantees and lenders. Once the program is announced, we will share more with you. Of particular importance to us is the potential for some funds to be given to students who are in dire need. We are watching for the announcement so that we may capitalize on this particular idea. I established in the Peralta Foundation a “Bottom Dollar” fund to help hungry students. We would like to augment this fund and supplement what the DOE will give us.

MLK Freedom Center Students Return

Anyone who has not had a chance to hear from the Freedom Center students is missing out. The Center was started by Congresswoman Barbara Lee and former Chancellor Harris. The students are trained for civic engagement at a very high level. These students are inspired, courteous, thoughtful, knowledgeable and articulate. The Executive Director, Roy Wilson, and his staff do a tremendous amount of work with them to have them ready for civic involvement. These are young people in our middle schools, high schools and a few from our Colleges. Over the past two summers, they took on a voter education mission. They spent the summer of 2016 in the Central Valley registering voters and educating them on the need to vote. This summer they went from

3 Oakland to Bakersfield, and the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho working on educating voters.

They had a return rally at the Labor Council attended by over 200 people. Trustee Meredith Brown and her son Adam were there as well as Royl Roberts (Risk Manager) and others familiar with the Center. The community came out in support of the young people, including OUSD’s new superintendent. Again, the young people spoke and dazzled us. I am proud of our association with the Center. We need to find more ways to better integrate Center students in the District’s overall mission, and our efforts to promote social justice, civic engagement and community service learning.

East Bay College Fund Retreat

Wow! Over 2,000 people, including parents, students, mentors and civic leaders, came to Skyline High School on Saturday for a rally- training-type send off for the East Bay College Fund and Oakland Promise scholars. A great number of the students will attend one of the four Peralta Colleges. Dr. Burns, Mia Williams and Dr. Mallory (Laney Engineering faculty) were present. Dr. Mallory is serving as a mentor to a student attending UC Merced. I attended training for mentors for Laney and COA. The professionals were very interested in the success of our students. I feel that they can use an open heart from Peralta to ensure the students are connected to our services. We will endeavor to collaborate more with the EBCF to ensure the success of our scholars.

Diane Dodge, the EBCF Executive Director, told me that she worked very closely with Tamika Brown to recruit additional scholars who had chosen Peralta, but regrettably, did not take the appropriate steps to enroll. EBCF provides the students not only with the funds to pay for their college expenses, but with mentoring and in-college support to help the students persist in college.

Adult Summer Bridge: A Crossing to College for Those in Need

An inaugural Adult Summer Bridge Program at Merritt College, partnering with Oakland Adult School, has enabled adults--both those with General Educational Development diplomas (GED’s) and those who have not yet completed their GED--to build the skills necessary to transition to College. The Adult Summer Bridge Program also represents a valuable institutional connection between the College and other entities concerned with revitalizing the community. Victor Littles,

4 Merritt College’s Transition Liaison Specialist, credits Sue Pon, Director of the Oakland School District’s Adult and Career Education, and her colleagues Frank Starks and Angela Taylor, who are involved in delivering the GED part of the program. Merritt College’s own Roniqua Cook-Greene is leading workshops in Psychology and College Success.

Begun on June 19th of this year and concluding on July 27th, the six-week Bridge program provided participants with GED classes in English and Math, and workshops in Psychology and College Success. Beyond this summer, Dr. Littles envisions sustaining ongoing Bridge programs along the same format, starting in the fall.

Adult Summer Bridge was created by Dr. Littles based on his outreach to the neighborhoods around the College, and the needs and requests of Merritt College’s Community Based Organizations (CBO’s), in particular Urban Strategies. “We needed a program for adults who have been out of school for a while, or who had issues in high school and never received a diploma,” Dr. Littles says.

“The Bay Area and Oakland have been said to be experiencing an economic upturn, but there are communities in Oakland which have not benefitted from this boom. You have a lot of homeless, a lot of single mothers and single fathers, and individuals just released from the judicial system. These are the individuals we’re targeting, those who have been displaced out of the mainstream.”

Those who entered the Adult Summer Bridge Program may be working, but are seeking to increase their skills to prepare for better employment. They need not have an immediate career goal but must commit to the college experience.

“On the first day of the program, they went through a series of training which clarify campus policies regarding sobriety, accountability and respect for other students and staff,” Dr. Littles pointed out. “Those who didn’t take and pass their GED examinations will then continue with Oakland Adult School in the Fall until they complete their GED and test out. Those already holding a GED will enroll in Merritt College as full-time students this fall. I want this to turn into a continuous year-round open non-credit program, along the lines of I-BEST (Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training developed in Washington State).

“I’m stressing the importance of being resilient to obstacles, and not quitting,” states Dr. Littles. “We will hold our participants to high expectations, with the goal of becoming full-time students at Merritt College.”

Questions about the program and offers of support should be directed to Dr. Littles at [email protected] , and (510) 434-3994. Oakland A’s and Peralta in the News

The San Francisco Chronicle published an article on August 8th reporting on the interest of the Baseball Athletics team in building a stadium on Peralta land. You may recall I sent you an update

5 a few weeks ago detailing where we are. The article, however, would make you believe that more had been done since my communication, but nothing has changed. It is a story that has been of interest to the media for many reasons, including keeping the team in town and exploring the effect of a stadium on Peralta and the Laney College neighborhood.

Nothing has changed from the last update I provided you. However, the reporter picked up the vital part of the story for Peralta: Focus on what Peralta is: Education, educational support and workforce development. As your Chancellor, I have not changed my views. I am neither opposed nor a proponent of the project. I will likely share my views with you on August 17th when I address the District Community.

Here is a link to the article: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Why-Laney-College- might-want-new-A-s-ballpark-11740617.php

Watch for opportunities to dialog with the Athletics Baseball team about its process to be more rooted in Oakland.

Fall 2017 Flex

Reminder: District Flex Day is next Thursday, August 17, at Laney College. I look forward to welcoming all of you back for the 2017-18 Academic Year. If you cannot attend in person, you can watch the live stream on Peralta TV’s YouTube channel by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/peraltatv. Jowel Jowel C. Laguerre, Ph.D. Chancellor

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. - Michael Jordan