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Dear California Regional Collaborative Community,
I hope that you are all well. The past few weeks have been challenging for many of us. What I have witnessed during this time, however, is nothing short of amazing. The resilience and strength that has come from faculty, staff, and students is inspiring and I am awed at how quickly people were able to adapt.
I would like to commend and acknowledge all of the hard work that went into quickly adapting courses to the online environment and hope that you celebrate and take pride in your accomplishments. Even if things did not go according to plan, you have still done something extraordinary and something beyond what has been asked of anyone before. Right now is not the time for perfection- what you are already doing is plenty!
This month I have included several resources, workshops, and articles on how you can help support not only your students but also yourself. Your health and well-being is essential, so don't forget about self-care. Take the time and space you need and reach out to your communities to help support you. In my experience, relying on the communities I am a part of, including community found among my colleagues, my neighbors, and even my students, has made an incredible impact in helping me through the challenges I have faced. I hope that you all have similar supportive communities that you can rely on. At the least, just know that the California Regional Collaborative community is here to help support you however we can.
Again, I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy, and know that you will persevere in these trying times. If you are looking for particular resources, please contact me at
aspire.calrc@gmail.com
and I can try to help you find what you need.
Warmly,
Katie Dixie, Program Coordinator for the California Regional Collaborative
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3CSN Wayfinding Online Zoom Series
Join the California Community College Success Network (3CSN)
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- Zoom 101
- Canvas 101 and 102
- Virtual Community Hours
- Metacognition Online for Tutors and SI
- Counselling online
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- Virtual Community Hours for Students
- Mindfulness for Educators
- Student Support Hours
- Reading Apprenticeship Online
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For more information visit their
website
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View recordings of past webinars
here
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April is National Community College Month!
Below is a list of articles to help you celebrate and spread the word about the benefits of Community College:
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Summer Institutes of Scientific Teaching: Friday Happy Hours
Join colleagues across the country for stimulating conversation and camaraderie each week on topics such as:
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Featured Workshop:
Supporting Contingent Faculty During the Outbreak
The coronavirus outbreak presents a unique set of challenges for adjunct faculty members and other contingent faculty. It has made an already-precarious work force even more vulnerable to decreased wages or job loss.
Join an interactive discussion about what support adjunct faculty and other non-tenure-track instructors need at this time and what colleges and tenured professors can do to assist them.
April 24th, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
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Featured Webinar:
PODLive! Promoting Teaching Practices Rooted in Equity and Justice
This session will assist educational developers in securing an understanding of equity and adopting equity as a lens through which to examine our efforts. Two educational developers with expertise in diversity will introduce participants to equity-based teaching practices and facilitate opportunities for participants to share their own equity practices, expanding our collective toolkit.
May 8th, 10:00 - 11:00 am
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Our Aspire Alliance partner for National Change has compiled several resources that are specifically tailored to inclusive and equitable responses to COVID-19, including mental health and well-being, teaching inclusively, and more.
Students aren't the only ones who need support- faculty and staff need support and equity too.
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Free Webinar Series:
Quality, Equity, and Inclusion during the COVID Crisis:
As the higher education community responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is offering a series of webinars to support those at the forefront of efforts to maintain the commitment to quality, equity, and inclusion. The webinars in this series are presented in two formats:
Transformational Tuesdays
Topics include Thinking Boldly about Scarce Resources, Community in Times of Crisis, Supporting Non-Tenure Track Faculty, and more.
Faculty Fridays
A virtual community for a weekly “happy hour” conversation.Topics include Teaching, Learning, and Assessing in Remote Learning Environments, Shaping Teaching and Learning to Address a Global Health Crisis, Safeguarding Quality, Equity, and Inclusion as Learning Moves Online, and more.
Hosted every Tuesday and Friday. For more information, visit the
website
.
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Summer Institutes on Scientific Teaching
Free Webinars on Assessment:
Using Assessment Systems to Increase Student Success: Proven Strategies for Educators
April 28th, 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Applying Principles of Student Engagement to Address the Online Assessment Dilemma
May 22nd, 12:00 - 1:00 pm
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Town Hall Recording:
Virtual Town Hall to Bring Community College Community Together
On Monday, April 20, Achieving the Dream gave leaders, funders, and other community college professionals the opportunity to gather as a community to discuss how best to support students during the COVID-19 crisis. The ATD Virtual Town Hall brought together nearly 500 people from around the world to ask questions and share solutions for supporting students during this unprecedented time.
Watch the recording
here!
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Webcast Recording:
Strategies to Effectively Engage Students in Online Learning: A Discussion of Best Practices
Watch this webcast recording of a facilitated discussion around how best to foster student engagement in an online setting with Amber Dailey-Hebert, Director of the Faculty Center for Innovation at Park University. Shared ideas and current practices include things like:
- Motivating reluctant students who are new to remote learning
- Setting the appropriate tone as an online instructor
- Course communication and announcements
- Designing engaging activities online
- Facilitating Group Discussions
Watch the free webcast recording
here!
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Free Webinar:
Transforming the Conversation about Teaching Evaluation in Higher Education:
Thoughts from the National Academies' Round Table on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education
May 19, 2020
| 11:00 am PT
This webinar will highlight some of the examples presented at the national meeting, themes noted by participants, and opportunities for further work that will bring these ideas to a wider audience that includes campus leaders. The webinar will provide an opportunity for participants to share ideas on what kinds of resources and events would be helpful to elevating and advancing the discussion of teaching evaluation, in particular how it relates to evidence-based instruction and faculty incentives and rewards.
Register
here
by Sunday, May 17, 2020.
For more information, visit the
website
.
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Upcoming Events:
NISOD Online Convenings
Since the coronavirus pandemic has drastically changed the way all of us now function, NISOD has announced a restructured 2020 annual conference as a series of online convenings. These events will feature purposefully selected presentations originally planned for the annual onsite conference.
- Full-Day Online Faculty Conference - May 27th, 2020
- Online Classified Staff Symposium - June 17th, 2020
- Online Student Support Symposium - June 24th, 2020
- Online Administrator Series - July 15th, 2020
*There is a registration cost associated with each session.
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WORKING TOWARDS EQUITY IN STEM EDUCATION
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Engage Further With The Aspire Alliance at Both the Regional and National Levels
The Aspire initiative has both regional and national goals and projects underway. Check out the following opportunities to learn how you can engage with us further in our work to promote student success in STEM!
Become a Leader in Institutional Change by Joining the Next Aspire IChange Cohort
The Institutional Change Initiative (IChange) seeks to cultivate institutions where STEM faculty from underrepresented groups (URGs) are widely recruited, hired, and retained, and all STEM faculty employ inclusive teaching, advising, and research mentoring practices.
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Lessons from the APLU INCLUDES Project:
Strengthening Pathways to Faculty Careers in STEM: Recommendations for Systemic Change to Support Underrepresented Groups
As part of a national initiative to recruit, hire, and retain STEM faculty from underrepresented groups, the
Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) INCLUDES project, funded by the National Science
Foundation, examined university efforts supporting access to, retention in, and progress to the professoriate
for URG STEM faculty aspirants. Aspire is one of the initiatives that resulted from this grant.This report details the findings of APLU INCLUDES work thus far.
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Productivity and Happiness Under Sustained Disaster Conditions
By now, many people are slowly coming to terms with the idea that the Covid-19 crisis may continue for months and create a radically changed world. That realization is understandably distressing, given the prospect of prolonged physical distancing, rising death tolls, and serious economic decline. As the denial fades, fear and anger take its place, which can result in emotional and intellectual paralysis.
The prospect of an enduring crisis is frightening. But as someone who has lived and worked in disaster conditions in other contexts, I can assure those of you new to crises that this initial wave of acute distress is temporary. How you feel today is not how you will feel in a month, or a year — even if the crisis continues. At this early stage, all we can see are the walls, the restrictions, the losses. But there is light between those walls.
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'The Six' Ask Colleges for Clarity, Flexibility on Grades and Credit Transfer
As colleges and universities set policies on how they will handle grades and college credits resulting from program changes prompted by the current health crisis, the nation’s six major higher education organizations — including the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) — have drafted “common principles” that institutions should keep in mind when developing those policies.
“The Six” have outlined eight principles to guide colleges on addressing grades and credits, noting that higher education institutions should address these issues as soon as possible.
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Students Hit Hard as L.A. Community Colleges Scramble to Respond to Coronavirus
On Wednesday morning, Los Angeles Trade Technical College student Milagro Jones logged onto his laptop from a one-bedroom apartment in south Los Angeles to attend an online class on human evolution. His 5-year-old daughter, Lydia, at home from preschool, played nearby.
This was supposed to be the first day of online courses after the Los Angeles Community College District announced it would suspend most in-person classes due to the novel coronavirus.
To Jones’ surprise, nobody else — not even the teacher — was online.
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How to Recover the Joy of Teaching After an Online Pivot
Author Flower Darby writes: "I clearly remember the immediate frenzy of activity that followed my father-in-law’s death from cancer at age 49. We were devastated by the loss, but we were so busy that we didn’t feel the deep and lasting pain until later, when the funeral was over and the out-of-town guests had gone. I expect something similar to happen with the Great Pivot Online Crisis of 2020.
In the first few weeks of the pandemic, a lot of faculty members were rushing out of their comfort zone, moving their face-to-face courses online, and figuring out how to teach from home with kids and pets. As head of a teaching center on my campus, I am seeing many of my earnest colleagues overcome their nerves and experiment with unfamiliar modes of instruction. They are excitedly posting their first attempts at recording mini-video lectures and drafting syllabus statements of flexibility and support for students."
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Pullias Team Addresses Biases and Discrimination Hiding in Letters of Recommendation
Letters of recommendation are used in admissions and hiring to glean information and qualities which may go unnoticed in the review of an applicant’s file. However, they are also one of the most common places that bias is written into applicant records– sometimes in subtle ways.
The Pullias Center’s Julie Posselt, Steve Desir, and Román Liera are leading an effort to shine a light on this typically unrecognized source of bias that has the power to shape the careers of graduates and other applicants looking to enter or advance in the workforce.
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REGIONAL JOB OPPORTUNITIES
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Looking for jobs at local Community Colleges?
This web site provides a number of services for individuals seeking employment as a faculty, support staff or manager at a California Community College.
The California Community Colleges is the largest higher education system in the nation. It is comprised of 72 districts, 112 colleges and enrolls more than 2.6 million students. Community colleges provide basic skills education, workforce training and courses that prepare students for transfer to four-year universities. The colleges also offer opportunities for personal enrichment and lifelong learning.
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Executive Director for the Center for Education Innovation and Learning (CEILS)
UC Los Angeles
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Full-Time Instructor, Computer Science
LA Valley College
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Academic Coordinator
Biological Sciences Student Programs
UC San Diego
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English as a Second Language Instructor
San Jose/Evergreen College
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Senior Consultant for the Center of Teaching and Learning
UC Berkeley
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Adjunct and Part-Time Positions (many disciplines)
LACCD
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Associate Director for Educational Analytics and Assessment, Center for Educational Effectiveness
UC Davis
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Associate Director of Assessment & Evaluation
Stanford University
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To have your openings posted in our newsletter, please send job announcements to
aspire.calrc@gmail.com
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CONNECT WITH THE CALIFORNIA REGIONAL COLLABORATIVE
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If your organization is a regional partner please send all inquires and announcements to
aspire.calrc@gmail.com.
If you wish to be added to the California Regional Collaborative mailing list for future newsletters and special announcements, please send your request to
aspire.calrc@gmail.com
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LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT WE DO
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The California Regional Collaborative
is a regional network of 2- and 4- year institutions, working together towards improving overall outcomes in STEM higher education, and in particular for students and faculty from underrepresented groups.
We work with graduate students and other potential “future faculty” from groups that are underrepresented in academia to address the need to increase diversity in our regional colleges to better reflect the diversity of our students. These trainees will support teaching efforts, education research initiatives, and curriculum development needs in collaboration with their 2- year internship site. In addition, regional programming such as webinars, symposiums, conferences, panels, and other events supports both current faculty along with future faculty. This will be coupled with an assessment plan to understand regional needs and assess the impact of our work.
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The
California Regional Collaborative
is part of a network of collaboratives, national organizations, and initiatives participating in the NSF INCLUDES Aspire Alliance
Subscribe to the Aspire Alliance newsletter here:
Subscribe
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