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Lance Bolton
00:00:09
For us hey good morning everyone.
00:00:13
glad that you're able to join us and glad you're on this morning looks like we have about 150 folks and.
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really glad to have chance to catch up with you all this morning, just a couple of quick logistics reminders the chat is open, so you can leave questions there.
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will try to monitor those and depending on how time goes i'll try to answer as many of those as I can, at the end of the presentation.
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And also just want to make sure you know that this is being recorded so folks who are not able to attend this morning can watch the video later so we'll be putting a link to that out later on today, as we often do with these.
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As you know, I normally do these on Monday morning a pw week, and here we are Friday morning I have certainly benefited from the this week of.
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just getting my voice back a little bit in my strength back and most of you probably know, had a pretty good bout of coven last week and.
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Although they are saying out there, that no more crime is a much less severe illness than some of the previous variants of.
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coronavirus I would say that the wise person would continue to avoid this at all possible, that you just really know how you don't know how your body is going to react and.
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Certainly being vaccinated and being very fit and healthy, I thought that this would be no big deal for me and and it's probably about as sick is up in and.
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decades and it's not been but so so we don't know how will react and there's really no predicting and so.
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Even though it seems like oh macaron is everywhere, I think, by continuing to take precautions, you can keep yourself, safe and to the best of your ability, I encourage everyone to do that because split our our team and our folks here to be well.
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You might notice that our our title this morning is living with pandemic and certainly does appear that coronavirus is here for the long term for us and who would have imagined.
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Two years ago, when this first began the surface, that it would have dominated our lives and our workplace and.
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And so much of the world over these last two years is a has, but it has, and I think more and more, we are really moving ourselves as a society.
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To knowing how to live with this and continue our operations and continue our lives, I think, in general, that's a good thing, and you know oma cron is creating an enormous spike in.
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cases, if you look at the El paso county health website you'll see the current Nova cron spike dwarfs anything that has come before it and.
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The speed with which it's come up has been just absolutely astounding, and you see that, certainly in the shape of the curves on the El paso county health website.
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But encouragingly, we are not see correspondingly huge hospitalizations our hospitals are getting full and are under a lot of strain but we're not seeing the level of hospitalization and severe illness that we did see with previous variants so that's good news.
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To still some quick updates from the College and i've put out a number of emails and quite a few communications have come.
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From our Chancellor about this, as well as my office and others, but our new testing protocol is going into effect for spring semester so.
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In essence, it means we click testing is required, unless you're vaccinated understand that a lot of people.
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Have it's a lot of people, but a few people have some very strong opposition and thoughts to this, but this is what we're doing this is the path that we're on understand that we have a lot of breakthrough cases with COPA de i'm actually one of those very much understand that.
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i'll say that some very good questions have come up brown testing everyone in the the quick and simple answer to that is, we simply are logistically unable to do that, we don't have.
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We really don't have the people in the staff teams that we need to do the testing that is currently plan for unvaccinated folks although.
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we're figuring out how to make it work and we're still trying to hire some help in that area and we neither do we actually have the physical tests that do that, so we were able to acquire about 3400 tests from the state of Colorado and we'll be going through those those.
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Carl Ellis
00:05:05
So if you don't have.
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A view controls.
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you're probably not using the zoom client or you're not signed in correctly that everything is right on our and.
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Warren Epstein
00:05:21
carl's trying to work out some accessibility problems we've been having.
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Lance Bolton
00:05:25
Sorry folks.
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Carl Ellis
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i'm sorry I didn't realize, I was unmuted my home.
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Lance Bolton
00:05:30
Anyway, well quite Carl wouldn't say Pal would think about the President was already thing, while he was doing that.
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let's imagine myself saying something terrible when i'm accidentally unmuted although that's never happened generally say anything terrible anyway, but a bit of a nightmare.
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Anyway, that back to this we acquired 3400 tales from the state of Colorado and we're we're using those tests for the.
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The unvaccinated faculty staff and students that are part of our protocol.
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At this point, we're not able to get additional tests, we have talked to entering conversations.
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With El paso county health about potentially opening up a testing site on campus if we did that that testing site would be open to the public, not just to our staff.
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So we might still take some considerable time to do that testing the good news right now is for those who are required to do, testing, we have the testing available on campus we can do that quickly it's.
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Non invasive it's not difficult people are actually doing their own testing.
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we'd like to be able to send people home with these details, but we can't because of the way that the.
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The reagents were packaged when they sent to it, they were sent to us they're packaged in bulk, and so the testing does have to be done on campus it's really pretty monitor event and people can get through that quickly record their results with us and move on about their day.
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Just a reminder that there are three covert testing sites available in El paso county as well, in particular, El paso county public health in fountain Chapel hills mall incidental mall.
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I will say, with the the onset of oma Kron they be wait time to get tested is going up quite a bit.
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And my personal experiences between one and two hours to get tested at those sites.
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In addition, it's now taking three four days to be able to get results, and I know El paso county is really working with the state to try to get those numbers back down.
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I think we're going to see a spike in Omagh cron here pretty soon and we're going to start heading back down the other side of this, I would say, for the next few weeks, this is going to be a bit of a challenge for us.
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Just in general around our protocols that we are following the chancellor's protocol and guidance in terms of what the College is doing and so he made.
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The decision about how we're moving forward on this, I think back in October we've been communicating that out, since then, clearly, the world has continued to change we didn't necessarily know exactly what oma crime was or what it was going to look like.
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From the time that the testing protocol was being put in place, but I would just remind you that we continue down the same path that we started on two years ago with this, which is.
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That we're doing everything we can to keep faculty staff and students safe within the the logistical possibilities of what we can do.
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And and we're really working to kick the College open to keep in person instruction happening to accomplish this mission as an institution and so.
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For from from two years ago to now it continues to be a practice of trying to balance what's best around public health on campus as well as what's best in terms of trying to meet the needs of our students and make the mission of our college and so we're continuing on that practice.
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Just a reminder that if you test positive, you should not be on campus if you have symptoms in you think I need to be tested the place to come for that.
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Is not the campus the place to go is the Chapel hills or citadel mall one of the the public health facilities, we do not want people with.
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symptoms to come on the campus and seek testing, because the folks administering the testing or are not health professionals, as I said, we're trying to hire some folks right now we don't have those folks in place.
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And we don't want people to come to campus at all.
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If they have symptoms, so the the testing sites, the public testing sites, etc, will mall in Chapel hills and.
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And fountain public health facility, those are really set up with health professionals, doing the testing, who have all the PP in place and everything that they need to be able to tell symptomatic people who are very likely positive.
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So we are continuing to track and will continue to report.
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Positive cases to those who may have had can.
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Close contact with the confirm positive person.
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I want to let the College know that in response and really in anticipation of changes with masks and ELENA give a kudos here to rowan scobey and the facilities team, they have already ordered masks ahead of the CDC latest guidance on the US, so we have.
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maths that we expect to be arriving it really any tough so.
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Ideally, today, if not today, then early next week and will be distributing those on campus for all faculty and staff.
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As well as making them available to students in our student life areas students can come in and pick those up, so there was a recent guidance that came out just day or two ago from the CDC suggesting that folks really need to upgrade to from cloth masks to the km 95 or 95.
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Really again great job by our team anticipating that well before it happened, putting in the orders before the order fulfill orders were flooded with new orders, and so we will be able to get these.
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right away, and we will begin distributing them on campus as soon as they arrive.
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Just a few more words about ongoing protocols, as long as the older cron very end is kind of raging, as it is right now we're going to really try to limit unnecessary public gatherings.
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will certainly be limiting anything where people might be getting together to eat or drink together on campus and as we get through this I am.
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Warren Epstein
00:12:07
certainly do hope that.
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Lance Bolton
00:12:12
certainly do hope that we can can loosen up those requirements so apologies, I think we had some nice phone ringing but.
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I will be so glad you all, when we're back in the theater together and can do this, the way that that we did for so many years, and then I can see you all who i'm talking to a genuinely.
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Unknown Speaker
00:12:33
Miss that in these presentations.
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Lance Bolton
00:12:37
Only talk a little bit about our flexible workplace and compensation and i'm going to spend a considerable amount of time on the.
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Warren Epstein
00:12:44
Compensation piece because.
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Lance Bolton
00:12:46
I think there's a lot of interest in there's a lot of issues around this but let's start with flexible workplace that just a reminder, at the beginning of fall semester we put into place.
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FLEX place which allows people to work remotely as well as on campus in general we've been limiting to two days off campus and.
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per week but that's also being combined with FLEX time that allows people to work, for example, for 10 hour days, instead of five eight hour days.
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And so we have quite a number of people who are working for example, two to 10 hour days remotely in to 10 hour days in person, so they're working half on campus and off campus.
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i've suggested to our supervisors directors Vice Presidents that during this Omar Kron search in I would say, roughly right now that that be talking about from now to the end of January I think we're likely to be on the downside of this this.
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Huge surge in cases for moma cron by the end of January, but from now to the end of January.
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For positions where we can do this to allow additional flexibility around remote work to allow people to work remotely.
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As much as possible, as long as our our work is getting done and we're able to meet the requirements of the College.
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and meet the needs of our students what what we've seen with flexible workplace over the fall semester is really no drop off and productivity.
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I think that FLEX time and FLEX place is here to stay forever with how pikes peak me Community college works, because in not only have we not seen a reduction in productivity from the College that we've all actually seen increases in our ability to better serve students with our example.
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Remote advising appointments that are done over zoom so that people don't have to come in and wait on our campus often with young children in tow and.
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Other challenges with being away from home or being away from work that they are able to connect in and appointed time on a zoom call with a visor from pikes peak, and that is working just exceptionally well so so for staff, especially those folks in.
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positions with the flexibility, I think, having more people working remotely right now, while the soma cron surges at its peak is really a good idea.
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Like for for faculty just a reminder that students who signed up for in person classes are expecting that and I think it's really important that we honor that we've been incredibly flexible I think in terms of building.
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Different expectations around on campus Tom for faculty we've dramatically reduce the amount of on campus time it's required from faculty and.
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And so, as much as we're able and we certainly may have faculty members that become coated positives of themselves and are not able to meet classes in person.
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And we do have high FLEX classrooms at many, many of our classrooms are now.
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equipped with that, but to the best of our ability, I think it's really important that we go forward with in person instruction because that's the agreement in that we made with students who have registered with us, and I think it's important that we honor that.
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A lot happening around budgeting compensation, the dial want to talk to the College bound as well, so so first just some thoughts about what's going on in know the kind of in our country in general.
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And what's really happening and I celebrate this, I think this is great news is that the bottom of our Labor force has seen dramatic increases in compensation.
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While sort of the middle and Upper parts of our workforces really haven't seen much change during that same calm, but.
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What what I celebrated what i'm excited about is that people who are working full time.
00:16:48
are now able to earn a living wage in Colorado springs and across the United States, and I think that's really great news, so people in fast food worker Amazon warehouses and Amazon has been a huge driver of wages, here in the Colorado springs reaching.
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People earning anywhere from 18 to $22 an hour in starting positions like that in the great thing about that is that they're able to earn a living wage i'll tell you this is impacting our graduates it.
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pikes peak Community College as well, so students, for example, coming out of our culinary arts department have never had.
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More job offers than they have right now so they're getting multiple job offers to choose from.
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they're getting higher wages than they've ever seen you're having opportunities to things like signing bonuses that would have been just unheard of.
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A few years ago, and this is all really great news for workers in our economy and how people are able to live and take care of themselves and their families, I think the challenge for us is that.
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As a state government entity our state government is not built for the flexibility to rapidly change and address wage pressure that's happening right now, so we typically get one crack at this year, the governor makes a recommendation in November, for his budget.
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And, and that recommendation typically not typically always includes a recommendation for Class spot pay increases.
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This year the governor made that recommendation based on his negotiation with Colorado wins, which is the basically the unionization of class spot employees.
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In Colorado and in Colorado wins and the governor agreed to a 3% increase on that I guess the better news is they agreed to 3% for three consecutive years, and so so that's it.
00:19:00
looks pretty good and then normal times, would be a great outcome, however, we just saw that the final numbers from.
00:19:08
The consumer price index in 2021 went up over 7%, and so we have the governor's recommendation of 3%.
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Historically, our state board is taken, whatever the governor recommended for Class thoughts down and applied it to faculty in a PT decisions.
00:19:28
There was a brief break from that a number of years ago, when we made a march as a system together.
00:19:36
To move our faculty from where they were to the national average in compensation for Community college faculty.
00:19:44
Since then we've lost a lot of ground in i've really been sort of at the forefront of trying to impress upon our system leadership in our our Community college state board.
00:19:56
That we've lost tremendous ground, since then, by following this practice of simply matching faculty salaries to whatever the governor's put out for Class spot staff in fact today.
00:20:09
you've probably heard this because i've been talking about a lot, but our faculty in the Community college system in Colorado are $13,000 behind the national average for.
00:20:20
Community college faculty salaries, and this is creating tremendous challenges for us, and I will say that we're seeing similar gaps on the PC side and i've seen some analysis done by our system HR folks.
00:20:36
That the gaps are similar on a PC side, and so we are in a situation where we're underpaid.
00:20:44
relative to the national average our faculty you may PT style and we are simultaneously in a state where the cost of living.
00:20:54
is well above national average effect, depending on what you look at if it's housing alone I think we're 121% I think in all areas, the total cost of living is about 110% of the national average.
00:21:13
So it's a bit of a perfect storm of a high cost of living state wages there well below the national average and layered on with that is the loss of significant enrollment over the last two years.
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we've lost a little bit less than the national average for Community college enrollment.
00:21:38
statewide and nationally, though Community colleges have lost significant enrollment I think the the average nationally is almost 22% over the last two years we're below that it more like 17 18% loss and enrollment but what's challenging for Colorado is that.
00:22:01
In some States loss of enrollment doesn't have the impact it doesn't call rock, for example in California, the vast majority of funding for Community colleges comes from the state intuition plays a very small role in their overall budgets.
00:22:17
it's just the opposite here in Colorado so more than two thirds of our budget comes in Colorado from tuition and the remainder comes from the State.
00:22:27
So when we see a drop off and enrollment we see a tremendous drop off and revenues for the College.
00:22:34
So this is this is adding up to a really significant challenge i've put together at the end of fall semester, a.
00:22:42
Budgeting compensation ad hoc committee that involves faculty dean's and senior leadership from the College.
00:22:50
Especially folks our finance team of course and we're looking at this and trying to find solutions, and I think there are solutions to be had.
00:22:59
And i'll say there's no free lunches what I mean by that I mean that, in order to make larger increases in faculty and staff compensation in the coming year.
00:23:10
we're going to have to make some changes in terms of how we operate what we do to become more efficient to free up dollars to allow that to happen.
00:23:19
What has happened in the last few months, that is really encouraging to me, and then I want to share with you all.
00:23:27
Is that, for I believe, for the last 12 years I was looking back at my records that the our state board is sort of taken the authority away from our colleges and said.
00:23:37
Whatever the governor recommends for Class spot style that's what we're doing for all groups if it's 30% we're doing 3% for all groups.
00:23:46
I went to Chancellor Garcia in late November and asked him to address this with me and said, we need the flexibility to do more, because we have a lot of positions right now that we simply cannot hire.
00:24:02
And the chance or went back and work with state board worked with our system legal folks and came back to me and said, they said this to all the Presidents that.
00:24:12
The recommendation from the state Board should be taken as a minimum, that if if they say 3% for Class stopped and therefore 3% for faculty in a PT you have to do at least 3%, but you have the flexibility to go beyond that.
00:24:30
i'll tell you what my goal is my goal is 8% and that's not a promise that we're going to do 8% 8% is going to be very tough to get to and I don't know if we can.
00:24:40
But we're going to try to get 8% and I would like to see us get 8% for a number of years until we close the gap between our current compensation and the national averages.
00:24:52
If you think about 8% that's a huge number and the biggest raise that we would have done certainly since i've been a president of pikes peak or President within the system.
00:25:02
And yet 8% would be less than 1% increase over the the consumer price index increase for the past year, so.
00:25:12
So 8% I think would help us close the gap on the national average and it would keep people hold at the College, I do want to address classified staff, maybe on this meeting to say.
00:25:24
i'm really frustrated with 3% I don't I don't think Colorado wins got this right in terms of their negotiation with the governor.
00:25:33
But this is set at a state level with the state personnel system and so whatever is set there, we do not have any local authority to go beyond so as I explored our local authority.
00:25:46
To offer larger increases the answer was very clear that we have local authority for eight PT and faculty roles we do not have local authority to make changes.
00:26:00
To what is recommended and put in place by the State legislature and the governor for Class spot and.
00:26:06
i'm sorry for that I think the 3% is inadequate given the the cost of living increases that people in Colorado are facing.
00:26:15
I thought the governor might address this yesterday, but the best of my knowledge, though we've talked a lot about affordability in Colorado in the.
00:26:24
Making in Colorado and affordable state to live in I don't think he addressed this in any way so.
00:26:29
That that's the situation that we're in and that's what's happening with compensation, the budgeting compensation team will continue their work.
00:26:38
This spring, hopefully, as soon as possible, we will put out recommendations to the College and get feedback on those recommendations around how we think we can get to a an increase of 8%.
00:26:52
Just a little bit more background on this, what what I would want you to know is that 80% approximately of our costs at the college or salary and benefits we have very little flexibility in the other 20%.
00:27:06
The other 20% of our dollars go to things like paying bonds for the paving of our parking lots decades go and building of our buildings.
00:27:15
goes to things like paying our utilities there's very little flexibility in that.
00:27:20
Right now we've had a hiring freeze going on for about two months as we try to look at how we can adjust our budget a hiring freeze works very quickly in this environment to reduce our operating costs but it's not strategic.
00:27:38
Right, so if we have a hiring freeze what happens is we just get random openings that occur around the College wherever they occur and.
00:27:47
Those are probably not where we would choose to have those openings curve.
00:27:51
So, so, while we're doing that, right now, just to reduce operating costs and put ourselves in a good position to be able to do larger increases in pay for college.
00:28:03
that's not a sustainable ongoing strategy in terms of how the College operates, but if you're wondering about decisions in your area Yes indeed, we are holding.
00:28:13
Quite a few positions right now is trying to figure out how to make our budget work and how we might be able to shift people internally to meet some of the needs, without doing additional hires.
00:28:25
So that's what's happening with compensation that was a lot, I thought was really important to bring college up to speed on this work.
00:28:34
As always, there are some numbers and data that like an album the college for transparency and consistency, we try to do this reporting in the same way, every single semester.
00:28:46
here's what's happening, as of today, I think we are down for spring semester by 8.3% wasn't long ago that we were down 22 or 25% so by contrast that looks pretty good.
00:29:03
I am cautiously optimistic or hopeful that by the time we get through census date that we might be at a place where we're down about 7%.
00:29:13
It will be hard for me to imagine years ago celebrating being down 7% but, honestly with with the introduction of the the vaccination and testing protocol that.
00:29:27
That we did in conjunction with the Community college system with all of the covert challenges we have out there.
00:29:34
i'd be pretty happy if we can get ourselves to being down only 7% and in this challenges that we face around compensation and budget, I will tell you that they would be erased if we could simply get back to 2019.
00:29:51
Sorry, if we could get back to 2019 levels of enrollment.
00:29:56
Law all those short term we can do some things to tighten up our budgets and get more efficient and do better with our our existing resources long term, the answer is going to come from rebuilding our enrollment to where we were prior to the pandemic.
00:30:17
wanted to share retention data with you, this is a new look at some data to think about our retention data desegregated by race and.
00:30:29
I think what you can see, is the number one there's there's a lot of bouncing around of our data, some of our ends are pretty small, and this, especially for black students, we have.
00:30:41
A huge number of students that were actually counting in this, and so like that that causes our numbers to bounce around a little bit more.
00:30:52
But if you look at the last year, in particular with our Hispanic and black students in spite of coven we've made some progress here and so feeling good about about where we are with that.
00:31:05
If we look at our our three year graduation rates very similarly numbers of bouncing around the lot because the ends are relatively small.
00:31:16
And of course we face some some significant challenges over the last couple of years with Kovac that is pushed down our results some.
00:31:26
When you see the number of our black students going from seven to 17 this is reason for celebration and optimism, but again I want to remind you that the numbers involved they're relatively small.
00:31:39
which can cause some relatively small number of students outcomes to have a big shift in the data.
00:31:48
We look at overall growth in Hispanic enrollment us want to remind you that.
00:31:53
In our current strategic plan which we're now working on updating, but we call it a vision 2022 we put it together in 2016 it was.
00:32:03
Formally, published in 2017 but in 2016 we were at 16% of our students were Hispanic by by the time we published the the final documents we were at 18% and today we're at 23%.
00:32:20
If we look at our school systems across Colorado springs, and if we were to consolidate all of our 16 different school districts into one we're at about 30% of our students and our high schools are Hispanic.
00:32:35
And so I think we continue to have a lot of room to grow and to better serve our Community, but we've got a goal out there that we made in 2017.
00:32:44
Of hitting 25% of our students identifying as Hispanic and we're very close to that goal we're at 23% with we hit 25%.
00:32:55
We will attain the hs side designation so Hispanic serving institution designation that will open up a lot of new grants and new funding opportunities for the College.
00:33:06
And so we're very close to that and so for for both three reasons number one that we want to better serve our Community and have our our.
00:33:15
Student body reflect the the racial diversity of our Community.
00:33:20
And number two because we opened up a lot of new funding opportunities for the College we're really pushing and driving on this and i'll mention later, but we have a task force it's being led by Dr T co party that's really working on closing this last gap from 23 to 25%.
00:33:42
lot of efforts going on at the College to improve enrollment I did just mentioned that that sort of the way out of our budget difficulties and the challenges that we're facing as an institution.
00:33:53
is really about building enrollment back as want to talk about some of the things that we've done.
00:33:58
fall semester, and again in spring we're doing free textbooks for our students and fall semester was a bit bumpy for some areas that the College Dallas so want to mention that.
00:34:09
The first time all of our students thousands more students than in the past had all their textbooks and access to their materials we've had a great effort going on to improve the free textbook.
00:34:25
methodology and and how that's being handled for spring semester so want to just say, thanks to our own PR folks in our.
00:34:33
E learning team, as well as to Vice President Jackie gators Jordan is really taking a leadership role with this.
00:34:40
I think the pre textbook rollout for spring will be much smoother, this is not going to continue this as one time per funny that we're using for the US, I think it is a big benefit to our students.
00:34:52
Also, using carve mine we've done millions of dollars of more financial aid than we've ever been able to do in the past we've used her dollars to hire more advisors enrollment specialists and coaches to both help on board students, as well as to improve retention once they're here.
00:35:10
we've done a tremendous now marketing in fact we just got a half million dollars from the city of Colorado springs to help us increase the amount of marketing that we're doing is college.
00:35:21
So you've probably seen this on TV or to some radio digital mail we're on social media and all sorts of different ways buses benches billboards we are everywhere we can be trying to get the word out.
00:35:34
About opportunities that are at pikes peak Community college right now.
00:35:38
we're using a tech texting platform very effectively and I just want to acknowledge Kevin huggins and his team, they really pioneered this texting platform and they've helped teach the other colleges.
00:35:50
In Colorado how to do this and use this platform, effectively and finally we're using more course options so real time remote high FLEX online in person hybrid.
00:36:00
All of these different options to try to help students, wherever they are match up with their their academic needs and in their goals and live to be able to attend pikes peak.
00:36:14
retention is huge part of the enrollment equation as well, and I just really want to acknowledge the incredible job that pikes peak is done with retention over the.
00:36:25
last couple of years with the pandemic so i'm not sure why the is smaller and 2021 than the 55 years in 2020 but.
00:36:37
If you kind of ignore that and just look at the numbers that here's here's the story, you know years ago back here in 2011.
00:36:45
We we set 55% retention rates out as a goal for the College and it seemed like an incredibly ambitious goal and difficult to achieve.
00:36:57
And over a number of years, improving every year, we did indeed hit that 55% In fact we got as high as just as the pandemic is 55.9% which was.
00:37:09
incredible achievement for our college, but it may be even more incredible is that we've lost less than 1% of our retention.
00:37:18
So we've lost a lot of enrollment of students simply choosing not to enroll in college and a lot of as the high wages and low end jobs talked about a lot of it, I think, is students with.
00:37:31
Who are challenged around technology and not be confident that they can be effective in online and and remote learning situations choosing the weight and make sure that that they do okay.
00:37:44
So we've lost that enrollment but we've not stopped taking care of the students who come to Pike speaking back we've taken care of them extraordinarily well.
00:37:55
So I think our faculty our coaches at the College our Tutoring centers our staff all across the College.
00:38:03
we've continued to take great care of the people who are here in students who have invested in college and you know we've maintained that 55% retention rate, which I think is absolutely remarkable achievement bar college and kudos to you all for that.
00:38:22
degrees and certificates, obviously, as we dropped enrollment we've dropped the number of degrees and certificates awarded we hit a high mark.
00:38:32
Just before the pandemic again of 4060 degrees and certificates awarded from pikes peak Community college.
00:38:40
This past year, our number was 3562 so we're still having a tremendous impact on our Community.
00:38:48
Offering over 3500 graduates going into our Community, with new degrees and certificates to meet the workforce needs our Community we're doing a great job there, and again kudos to the entire Community college team here, I thank you for what you're doing.
00:39:07
boy folks when I wouldn't give for this crystal ball and a clear look at what's actually going to come in our future.
00:39:19
Of course we're doing our best to prognosticate what's coming and to anticipate what's coming in the future, but.
00:39:26
You know, we keep getting a lot of curveballs and a lot of surprises from the world around this, but one thing that that may be coming.
00:39:35
Is a change in name for us to pikes peak state college, and this is not decided, it is not determined, we have asked the legislature for bill on this.
00:39:48
In order to get that bill, we have to get what is called quote light bill status, because in working with Chancellor Garcia and conversations between himself and all of the president's.
00:40:00
It turned out that the pikes peak Community college was the only college really felt ready to go forward with this.
00:40:07
I think this mostly because we have a lot of new Presidents that are still sort of sorting things I want to make sure they understand the implications, I will remind you that last year we ran.
00:40:19
Sorry, the Community college system ran a bill that changed the name of Trinidad state junior college to be trained to that State college and otero junior college change to otero college.
00:40:31
So the two of them dropped junior from their name pikes peak is interested in this change to pikes peak state college, if it were to happen again.
00:40:41
A whole lot of things have to line up before this would happen.
00:40:45
But we're interested in it, because we're offering quite a few bachelor's degrees, now we have a little bit less than 200 students in bachelor degree programs right now.
00:40:55
Many of those students are military students or military spouses who may end up working in other states and other regions of the country in the future.
00:41:04
They might face some challenges with having a bachelor's degree on their transcript from a Community college and my my face difficulties in sort of explaining that.
00:41:14
When we look around the nation more than 30 states have eliminated community in junior college from names.
00:41:21
Their institutions we think of change, like this could help our enrollment we think it could probably help us with fundraising as well.
00:41:28
And it is not, though, a change enroll or mission, we will continue our two year mission will continue our CTE programs and our transfer programs, as they are.
00:41:40
I anticipate that we're going to continue to grow bachelor's degrees as well, we have a number of them out there sort of.
00:41:46
waiting in the wings getting ready to go interior design emt bachelor's degree we're looking at some bachelor degree programs that would connect with.
00:41:57
htc welding manufacturing that would allow people to develop the business and entrepreneurial skills.
00:42:04
To go out and start their own companies after pikes peak Community college, so I think that's an area that's going to grow and we're going to remain committed as well to our two year mission.
00:42:15
i'd like to invite if you're interested in this topic and you think you'd like to have a broader conversation around this i'd be very happy to host the town hall to talk about it.
00:42:25
As I said, right now, I don't even know if we're going to get the bill and, by the way our name is in state statute.
00:42:32
So to change our name requires a change in Colorado State law and there would have to be a bill run through this chance are Garcia is enthusiastic about supporting this bill for pikes peak.
00:42:46
Community College and the possibility, bus changing the pikes peak state college.
00:42:51
But there are a lot of hurdles to jump over from where we stand right now it's unclear whether or not we'll even have a bill to be able to work on this fall or the spring, but i'll certainly keep you all informed and we'd be happy to host a broader discussion if there's interest.
00:43:14
I mentioned a few minutes ago that we are wrapping up vision 2022 which was our last strategic plan and we are in the process of developing a new plan.
00:43:27
we're very fortunate to have the leadership of Jim man call, who has done a lot of strategic planning work in his career before coming to pikes peak Community college he's leading this effort for us and.
00:43:42
Thus far, we have formed a core strategy team, and then the members of that core strategy team, you can go to our website and look at our strategic planning site you just type in search for strategic planning you'll find that.
00:43:56
you'll see who's on the core strategy team i'm not part of that team, but I will say that I think my my role with the strategic planning is to continue to push to narrow this and what i'm trying to avoid with our strategic plan is ultimately coming out with something that is.
00:44:15
all things to all people and and an enormous play on that is overwhelmingly large and so, but I hope we are able to do is is narrow down our focus on the things that will have the greatest impact on our success as an institution, so.
00:44:34
Thus far, we've had listening sessions, excuse me.
00:44:48
Sorry, thank you, this far we've had listening sessions with admissions enrollment really recruitment staff with mvp staff with student ambassadors and academic coaches.
00:45:06
We have upcoming listening sessions with faculty senate our dean's leadership team, as well as faculty staff, students and Community members all events planned across spring semester.
00:45:18
And the core strategy team is broken into smaller working groups that are focusing on academics assessment data administrative processes employee environment enrollment equity and inclusion and student issues.
00:45:36
We are also working on a final wrap up of destination.
00:45:41
i'll say is been incredibly difficult to find the time and energy and and capacity to work on a close out of destination 22 but we remain committed this.
00:45:56
Because we think it's really important to say this was our plan, and this is what we accomplished and to have a written document.
00:46:03
That fits together in one place here's what we did versus this plan, I think we were doing a great job with destination 2022 until the pandemic kip and as many of you know, we use this focus goal process to sort of bite off chumps of it every year.
00:46:22
The pandemic really kind of wrecked the folks go process it did advance the College and a lot of different ways the pandemic did in unexpected ways.
00:46:31
But it did take us off track, I would say, with the final two years of our strategic plan so we're being mindful of that as we build our new planet as well.
00:46:41
We expect to have a draft together by summer and hopefully a final publication of the new strategic plan.
00:46:50
In the fall of 23 i'm sorry fall 2001 of the things that you'll you might notice about our destination 2022 if you look back at it, is that we had.
00:47:03
sort of one big goal and section around diversity equity and inclusion and one of our thoughts going forward with this is that we hope our strategic plan will embed.
00:47:15
The importance of equity work throughout the strategic plan, instead of having sort of a special separate section for that, I think that that separate section that net separate this has really been a challenge for us around.
00:47:30
Is equity and inclusion work, something that is integral and practiced every day and part of.
00:47:37
Everything that we do, or is it some separate thing that we visit every now and then, as college and and obviously what we want it to be, as the former that it's really integrated into all we do.
00:47:50
Also happening around equity is, as I mentioned earlier, Dr hardy's hsi Task Force working to help us identify ways to better recruiting serve more Hispanic students at pikes peak and to.
00:48:04
To really have again our student body reflective of the Community in which we work, the adoption as well, of the National Association of diversity officers and higher education anti racism framework.
00:48:18
Dr hardy is shared this with me and she has documentation certainly that she can point you towards if you're interested in knowing more about this.
00:48:25
I would say it's a very thoughtful and pragmatic approach to inclusion and equity work at the College i've been very impressed with it, Dr hardy and I will be talking about it in the ongoing town halls we did quite a number of those during fall Semester will continue those during spring.
00:48:45
One of the things that we recently did with some of our half dollars is we took a relatively small amount of the.
00:48:52
dollars from her and we dedicated it to esl scholarships, but so for students who are from other countries and other.
00:49:01
Speak other languages as their primary language in our in our English as second language programs, we have now have some scholars.
00:49:11
Excuse me, you know scholarship dollars available to those students, be able to continue from esl into the College to to pursue other programs of study.
00:49:21
And so i've been very pleased and proud of that work and thanks to the esl leadership for that suggestion.
00:49:27
And finally, just the continued commitment from the College to use data driven town halls that we really want to tell the story of our college and how we're doing around equity with our numbers and with our data, the institution.
00:49:46
A couple of foundation updates that i've sent out emails about this, I just want to remind you that we brought in during fall semester $5.7 million in funding.
00:49:58
For the back to work and finish what you started scholarships, those are both COSI funded Colorado opportunity scholarship initiative programs.
00:50:08
The back to work program is 1.75 million and it's a three year Program.
00:50:15
That is specifically designed to support students whose house holding code lost household income as a result of the pandemic it's for students, aged 25 and older.
00:50:25
Who are enrolled in degree and certificate programs that are sort of included is our top jobs or hot jobs in Colorado springs region and in Colorado.
00:50:36
And our goal is to have more than 225 degrees and certificates awarded as a result of the back to work Program.
00:50:46
finish what you started as an even bigger program $3.7 million, and it is for students who have completed 30 or more credit hours post secondary work but have not completed a degree.
00:50:59
I think this a very shrewd investment from the state of Colorado.
00:51:04
We have a lot of people literally millions of people out there who have started college, but not completed so we have an investment in those people all around the state is invested money in them.
00:51:15
they've invested in their own money in their own effort as well.
00:51:19
And we're hoping have 840 or more students complete degrees through finish what you started by offering financial support and incentives for those who have started college, but not completed to return.
00:51:34
and complete their degree or certificate and really have them the earning power that comes with that degree or certificate so.
00:51:43
Huge kudos to Lisa James and our foundation they've really taken the lead with this these cozy grants and funding as well, I think we had.
00:51:54
Jackie gators Jordan and jemaine call working on the the COSI grants and support roles to that as well, but this has been quite a big lift for the College normally we don't have.
00:52:06
The foundation pursuing and running grants like this, but they stepped up, because we needed somebody to step up and they were the ones who could do it and they're just doing a great job with it.
00:52:19
very happily we have new website that will be launching this fall our i'm sorry this winter.
00:52:25
spring Semester and think it's going to be a dramatic improvement in both appearance and functionality for the website.
00:52:33
We have a lot of choice about this, the technical support of the foundational software for our old website was ended.
00:52:41
And if the website crashed, we really have any way of restoring that so we had to make this change that's going to be a good change with significantly improved functionality, one of the things I really want to call out on on the change to the new website is going to be.
00:52:59
The academic pathways, and this is what the academic pathways look like a lot of you have been in conversations around the College out this.
00:53:08
Have matt radcliffe, in particular as lead, a huge effort of bringing people together to talk about the academic pathways you know.
00:53:17
This isn't necessarily a new idea guided pathways has has been promoting this sort of thing for many years, but pikes peak has been a little bit slow to come to the party on this.
00:53:29
But you know the story historical way that we help students choose what they wanted to do, which is that we would head to a catalog that started with accounting and in this with zookeeper and say.
00:53:41
to choose what you want to do, and that was not a terribly helpful way of doing things, even though that's the way that a lot of us came along in college and it was presented to us.
00:53:55
What we'd like to do is really marry training vocational testing so testing that helps people understand what their strengths are what their interests are what they're good at what they want to do in life.
00:54:09
And then connect that to these these academic pathways and they're not perfect, I will acknowledge so with the number of degrees and programs of study we have.
00:54:20
There were a few places where we just had to make some choices and make some imperfect bets but in general students are able to look at the six categories and say.
00:54:29
My interest in strengths connect here, for example, to apply technology i'm going to look at these degrees and one of the strengths of this is that it opens up different options and ideas and thoughts students.
00:54:46
Many students, for example, if they think they want to work in healthcare they may think well, that means I either have to be a doctor or a nurse.
00:54:53
And we know at pikes peak that we have dozens of great medical science programs that go well beyond that the options doctor a nurse.
00:55:03
That means students don't know about those so they're directed to the medical sciences cluster of programs and look at those collectively as opposed to.
00:55:12
A catalog where they might just go directly to nursing, I think it really helps our students see the breadth of opportunities and careers that are out there to make better choices.
00:55:24
We are currently planning in person graduation at the world arena in May may the 14th, I believe, is our date, and it will be more of our traditional.
00:55:37
pikes peak Community college graduation at the world arena with a few things that we've tried to learn from our very successful last year drive through graduation.
00:55:47
We recognize that we're going to have to remain flexible about this and there could be challenges, depending on what happens in the world, but.
00:55:58
In my perfect crystal ball here we're going to be through this soma cron variant and the huge surge that's causing.
00:56:06
By mid February or so and, by the time we get to graduation we're going to be able to host this event and return to this this beautiful ceremony that we've all love so much and i'm really looking forward to it, and we do have this date held at the world or a.
00:56:25
Few other odds and ends and odds and ends, but important news is new programs, I want to be aware of I mentioned earlier, the bachelor's degree in interior design.
00:56:35
Physical therapy assistant, we have a number of degrees and certificates that are all lining up under this industrial Mecca tropics maintenance technology heading.
00:56:47
And there are both associate degrees and certificates, this is really a combination of manufacturing skills electronics robotics controls.
00:56:58
That makes our will make our students very highly employable in manufacturing and industrial applications in the coverage springs region something our employers have really been asking for.
00:57:11
New environmental science so she had degree multiple new programs at health wellness and fitness and advanced pharmacy practice degree.
00:57:20
mechanical engineering and collaboration with the CCS to new dietary management certificates and a new outdoor leadership and recreation certificate in open water rescue so.
00:57:33
One of the things I really love about these new programs, and what i'm seeing from our colleges that we're using are available.
00:57:40
resources are available people that the the assets that the College has to build more options in for students and again to better meet the workforce needs are reaching.
00:57:55
out always try to give an update on our capital reserves and that's here in front of you now.
00:58:01
As you can see, we added almost not almost a little over $10 million to our reserves last year, and the reason that that happened is that we got our her dollars from the Federal.
00:58:16
Sorry, from the Federal Government in two different sort of batches one was a student batch that the dollars in that group had to go directly to students support and so that's things like.
00:58:30
Direct scholarship support for students, the other is money that came to our institution we received in total.
00:58:39
A little over $15 million of her funding which is credible amount of money and fortunately it came with a whole lot of restrictions on how we could use it.
00:58:48
We were able to use some of that money pull back lost revenue, so that was one of the allowable uses for the dollar, so we tried to do some things like we wanted to fund the renovation of downtown studio campus.
00:59:03
In the building of the learning commons with her dollars, but we were told we couldn't do that, that that that violates the rules.
00:59:10
So what we could do is pull the money back into the College as lost revenues and then be able to devote that to the project downtown and that, in fact, is exactly what's happening so.
00:59:22
We have we continue to have funding for two one calm priorities, the challenge for us is really lining up our budget for.
00:59:32
Ongoing costs with ongoing incoming revenues, because these are very much one time dollars and I don't expect will ever see anything like this.
00:59:41
Her funding that we received again in our lifetimes, and so we are trying to be very, very smart about the use of it.
00:59:49
A lot of those one time expenditures are on things like building out the high FLEX classrooms that allow us to flex between in person and remote learning.
01:00:00
we've spent a lot of money on equipment and supplies, for example, buying the 10,000 in 95 masks as well as with things like hiring advisors and enrollment specialist and coaches to.
01:00:13
really try to address the enrollment challenges that we're seeing so we'll continue to spend this down because we are using.
01:00:22
Some of these reserved dollars, the 41 million on our capital projects, but I expect that we will end up with some increase it's going to considerable increase over the next few years in our reserves because of this will be able to hold on to some other.
01:00:39
capital projects and that are nearly completed why, when we opened up the Aspen building bathrooms they are off of the rotunda we.
01:00:48
got together in the leadership and pop the Cork on the champagne boy was a.
01:00:53
long time coming, and we're not missing the long hikes to the restrooms we will soon have the the West restrooms open within the next month or so here at centennial campus i've kind of given up on on trying to make specific they.
01:01:09
forecast because they're just a lot of things, impacting construction right now, including availability of people and parts and supplies and.
01:01:18
Getting inspections done is all just far more challenging than it's ever been.
01:01:23
The centennial walkways and stairs outside that projects pretty much completed and glad of that we have some roof replacements that are still going on from roof damage from past storms.
01:01:35
And you might see that the child development Center and some centennial campus also having some roof replacements as well.
01:01:43
So some faulty installed parts that the the builders are having to come back and work on again.
01:01:50
We have a number of projects that are ongoing or upcoming and the mentioned earlier the learning commons at downtown studio campus is getting ready to go to construction.
01:02:02
Probably in August, and we are really just finishing the design work there, but a lot of folks have been involved.
01:02:11
and offering input about what that design like look like the best serve downtown campus she has phase two is in construction now with the targeted completion time in August of 2022.
01:02:23
We have a restroom upgrades that will also occur over in the breckenridge building as soon as we finish up here in the Aspen building.
01:02:31
we're going to be doing new way finding and signage but we're also keeping an eye on the possibility of a name change for our college before we do that.
01:02:40
And we have requested, and we really got some traction with this, the first responder emergency education complexes that are $30 million improvement to the College.
01:02:52
That will build new station house and academic buildings burn house driving track for first responder training.
01:03:00
Unfortunately I have to say I got my leash yanked on this a little bit, and we were asked to step back.
01:03:07
You know i'm hearing the continually from legislators all up and down the front range about the shortage of first responders and need for this to be a priority for the state.
01:03:17
i'm very optimistic that we're going to get this project funded I don't think it's going to be this year, because I was told this is not the.
01:03:26
One of the Community college systems top three priorities, but I think it's very likely that we're going to get this project funded.
01:03:32
In the following year and that's a $30 million project is a tremendous addition to our college and will serve not only our first responder programs.
01:03:43
But also first responder organizations throughout southeast Colorado springs so police departments and fire departments that need training facilities will be able to help with that.
01:03:56
I just want to say I am aware of the challenges coming with the construction that shells and the parking challenges there we're looking at a number of different options.
01:04:07
I think the easiest and most accessible option is for us just to run a shuttle back and forth between rampart each as I think dedicated car dedicated parking spaces for carpooling make a lot of sense we're looking at some potential partnerships.
01:04:25
longer term I don't think it's going to happen fast enough but very enthusiastic about this idea of autonomous electric vehicles.
01:04:34
That could just make a continuous route between chairs and rampart range campus that might sound a little science fiction to you, but I will tell you.
01:04:43
they're already operating today at Colorado school of mines in golden Colorado.
01:04:48
And some of the companies that are doing this are looking for other tests places for this i've managed to get pikes peak in a conversation between the city.
01:04:57
And some of the companies that are looking looking to do this kind of thing, and I could imagine in the next year or two that we might be able to put that in as a really permanent long term solution.
01:05:10
i'm going to highlight a couple of new partnerships on and say, I know there are a lot of new partnerships forming out there we've got a group working for example.
01:05:19
On a grant for the hospitality industry in the hotel industry right now that's working between pikes peak Community college, a lot of our local.
01:05:28
hotels and businesses is one example, but the things i'm going to highlight here our partnership with Colorado public radio.
01:05:36
We have affected a trade is not a permanent trade it's a temporary swap between pikes peak Community college and cpr or public radio they're broadcasting on our 89.7 signal with.
01:05:52
A sort of a new music channel that they are hoping and we're hoping it's alive listenership and we're we've been traded a different signal that we're broadcasting on we're having some challenges with that signal.
01:06:06
But i'm sure we'll work it out, but what i'd like, for you know about this is that we're getting a lot of advertising on this new kr CC cpr station it's broadcasting are a 9.7.
01:06:21
wavelength and we're getting internships paid internships are students that are in radio and TV and that's an really top notch professional studios so a great experience for students.
01:06:40
A couple of kudos ELENA put out there and I know in my mind kudos list here is woefully short relative to all the great things that have been going on in college and will continue to report out on those, but I do want to just know dark cybersecurity.
01:06:58
Sorry, this this not quite the kudos yet, but cybersecurity plant a program is a partnership with CSU Pueblo looking to get more women in Latin next students into cyber security.
01:07:09
Early childhood education, we are working with joint initiatives for youth and families early connections CPC the and the pikes peak workforce Center trying to recruit more people into this critical field.
01:07:23
Really early childhood education right now in Colorado is an industry in crisis because.
01:07:28
Of the changes and pay scales mentioned earlier it's been incredibly difficult to get people into this field and we've lost so many people from the field it's really impacting many people's ability to work and successfully, as to whether or not they're able to access childcare.
01:07:47
Sorry i'm the kudos now and I was getting ahead of myself, but it was really looking forward to talking about our cybersecurity program with like speed.
01:07:57
Right, first in the state of Colorado 39th in the United States, with only two other Community colleges.
01:08:03
ranking higher and if you didn't see this news I shared it out during the fall, we had the mountain West.
01:08:11
cybersecurity challenge that went all in it's a cybersecurity competition between colleges and universities so.
01:08:18
I think five states participating flagship universities, the United States air force academy many, many colleges involved in it.
01:08:28
We took first place in that competition i'm this incredibly proud of the great work that our cyber faculty do.
01:08:35
I think pikes peak Community colleges is undoubtedly one of the best cybersecurity and technology organizations and teaching institutions in the nation and just incredibly proud of what we've been able to accomplish together.
01:08:51
also want to mention the child development Center here at centennial campus we're.
01:09:10
See somebody learning opportunities for student early childhood education program and meeting the needs of pikes peak Community college students with childcare needs.
01:09:20
The one of call out David provost and the team and search tech.
01:09:25
or in new program at pikes peak we just kicked it off a couple of years ago, the first two cohorts our search tech students achieved 100% pass rate.
01:09:35
On their national certification exams 100% employment, I understand, as well, very good and hot paying jobs for those students what an incredible start for this program David you're doing a great job, thank you, sir.
01:09:48
And last but certainly not least, critical accreditation for our nursing bsn program or a bachelor's degree, is a fully fully certified and accredited now law CC and the that the.
01:10:03
college nursing accreditation organization, and this was a huge left bar nursing program and just cannot be prouder of them they've done a phenomenal job meeting the needs of our college and winning this credit ation.
01:10:19
And our, as you all know, we did not get to do our Jingle Bingo in December we're going to be doing a sprinkle mingle.
01:10:28
Something like that coming up this spring to recognize our apta of the year Mike Madsen who's associated being a natural physical sciences, I know, everybody that those Mike it's.
01:10:41
Out there cheering for that what a wonderful person Mike is always to work with classified employee of the year Jesse Martinez and counting technician to.
01:10:50
In financial services and does a phenomenal job there for our college faculty of the year Christie callahan.
01:10:57
Who just seemed like she does everything here at pikes peak communications faculty Thank you christy.
01:11:03
And instructor of the year lori Salgado fantastic instructor on know lori and what a phenomenal job she does as well, so we're really proud of all these people will be celebrating them.
01:11:15
Hopefully of coven allows in a in person celebration in spring that will sort of take the place, so our genome NICO.
01:11:24
And with that we are wrapping up and looks like we have a few minutes, maybe about 20 minutes of time available on the we have a lot of things that came through in the chat i'll see.
01:11:37
Or the not can think about i'm going to ask lauren for your help to bring some things forward from the questions that might help us support the most number of those possible.
user avatar
Warren Epstein
01:11:51
sure you know lots of applause for those kudos and and everybody supporting one another, which is nice to see.
01:12:01
The the pay issue got a lot of positive comments of people excited about where you want to go with that a few questions one was about instructors are adjuncts and part time instructors would that be included in what you're talking about.
user avatar
Lance Bolton
01:12:19
Let me address that super easy the.
01:12:23
that the Community college system made an agreement with adjunct.
01:12:27
instructors number of years ago.
01:12:29
That said.
01:12:30
That they would receive a minimum of the average.
01:12:34
Of faculty a PT and class five increases, and so we certainly recognize that, as we move.
01:12:44
Up faculty they that we need to move up instructor pay as well, that will certainly be happening because, as I said, we have an agreement already that says.
01:12:53
That they would receive at a minimum that average but I don't know that we need to be at the minimum we want to make sure we're taking care of our instructors as well, because they play a.
01:13:02
critical role at the College and they're part of this calculus and and effort very as much as any other other group is.
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Warren Epstein
01:13:12
Not a lot of pushback about the the state college idea that would generate more controversy, but there was a blend was asking, does this mean we're going to get more for your degrees, which I think you kind of alluded to Denise.
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Lance Bolton
01:13:29
Well, when I said is we know change the role of mission, we will continue to support all of our existing role and mission, but we already had the plan of continuing to add bachelor's degrees and so last.
01:13:43
year we got a very important piece of legislation through in Colorado that says.
01:13:49
That the add new bachelor's degrees, rather than going through this incredibly difficult process that used to involve.
01:13:56
CDA he.
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Unknown Speaker
01:13:57
and
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Lance Bolton
01:13:59
The State legislature and as well as our board it only requires our boards approval now, and so our board can approve.
01:14:07
A new bachelor's degree at any one of our 13 colleges anytime they want to and we're going to continue to add bachelor's degrees strategically where there are gaps in our Community.
01:14:18
And that that's needed and I would point to, for example, the likely next target is inferior to sign, there is no program like that in our region.
01:14:29
there's a very clear case made for the need for that in our region UCC us nor any other college offers that and so it's an opportunity for us to step in and meet a need there and I think we will.
01:14:43
yeah I would.
01:14:44
expect that to be real controversy Oh, I think, in general, pikes peak state college is.
01:14:49
going to be a significant win for us, as I said, I think it will increase enrollment I think it can increase giving at some point, and may even help us make cases for better compensation for our teams, if you.
01:15:01
Look at pikes peak versus some of our peer institutions out there in Colorado there's some significant gaps in terms of how we're paid and how they're paid.
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Unknown Speaker
01:15:10
Right.
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Warren Epstein
01:15:12
Going back to the compensation issue, one of the interesting questions was how do we get there, how do we get the money that to be able to give the compensation and talking about.
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Lance Bolton
01:15:23
yeah I think it's going to be a combination of things so there's there's not going to be one answer to that.
01:15:30
But in general it's going to be around being more efficient, and so I think we're going to need to write saws the College, which means.
01:15:38
Having the number of employees, relative to the number of students, that we have, so we lost close to 20% of our students over the last two years.
01:15:48
or some right sizing is going to be required, I want to be very clear about this, this does not mean we're doing layoffs, we are not doing layoffs.
01:15:57
have committed that i'm never doing layoffs at pikes peak they are incredibly corrosive to the morale of an institution and we don't need to.
01:16:07
You know we're living in the great resignation, if we want to reduce our workforce, all we have to do is is stop hiring replacement positions and.
01:16:15
It reduces fast and that's actually.
01:16:17
happened over the last two months as we not replace positions so it's right sizing getting the right number of employees and people in the right places.
01:16:28
And I think it's getting more efficient, so making sure that we're teaching full loads and fall classes really helps with the efficiency in.
01:16:37
Any given place that might seem like a relatively small thing but across the College so inefficiency in our scheduling is really costing the College millions of dollars and those millions dollars could be going to increasing pay for our employees.
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Warren Epstein
01:16:54
The protocol issues raised a lot of argument and discussion in the the chat, particularly the idea of why are we not testing everyone it doesn't seem fair it's discriminatory, what do you, what do you say to that well.
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Lance Bolton
01:17:10
it's not discriminatory well I guess it is discriminatory a chance, our Garcia wrote a very good piece on the same day need it is discriminatory list legally discriminatory in the same way that the Colorado Rockies have been discriminating against me for decades about.
01:17:28
Stop on the Rockies team because i'm short slow and uncoordinated.
01:17:33
you're discriminating against me and legal way and that's the case here as well, so I understand that a lot of people are frustrated with this understand that their breakthrough paces.
01:17:44
This is the path that we've chosen to go down this is the chancellor's protocol that we are following this is also.
01:17:52
putting our testing resources where they can have the greatest impact because people who are on backstage and are, in fact, continuing to get sicker and be hospitalized.
01:18:02
And much higher rates than people who are are vaccinated.
01:18:06
Those of us who are vaccinated are still getting breakthrough cases at pretty high levels but we're not getting is sick, and so I think it makes sense from that perspective.
01:18:15
A lot of people have asked why don't we test everybody I wouldn't be opposed to that, but as I said already, we do not have.
01:18:23
The people or the testing resources to accomplish that, so we are, we are going to be under enormous strain as an organization.
01:18:33
Just to do the testing that we've agreed to do for unvaccinated people we simply do not have the resources to expand that to all people.
01:18:42
I will say, if you are experiencing symptoms, or you think you've been exposed the you should get tested and you should get tested at our public health testing sites at some of them all Chapel hills mall or in falcon at the public health facility.
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Warren Epstein
01:19:00
Good point.
01:19:02
question about the strategic planning how inclusive, is it in terms of the people who have been invited to sit at the table there and doesn't include faculty.
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Lance Bolton
01:19:12
Yes, so the strategic planning core team does include faculty I think faculty from every division.
01:19:20
Both transfer and CTE faculty it also includes eight PT employees and class on employees we've tried to make sure every campus was.
01:19:30
Part of that we've also tried to balance race and gender on the the team, and so a lot of thought and now for went into the formation of that team to make sure that it was truly representative of the College.
01:19:46
In, as I said, the makeup of that team, the folks that are part of that strategic planning core team.
01:19:52
is on our website, and you can check that out and see who's there, and if you have input, or you want more involvement in that then, then you can certainly make that known there, but we we really tried hard to balance every possible facet of the College to have a representative group.
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Warren Epstein
01:20:09
You know, big applause for the expansion of learning commons but there's a question about what about Ram part is, is there a plan.
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Lance Bolton
01:20:19
Well rampart certainly is not in the critical situation that downtown is which downtown has.
01:20:26
No library or learning Commons, other than a converted classroom so they were our priority they've been our priority, since we took space from downtown to.
01:20:38
build out the studio on the first floor of the building when we when we built that studio out, we made a commitment to doing the learning Commons and it's always been the top priority.
01:20:51
Sorry, the top priority there and, yes, we do have plans for rampart they've been drawn up we've had architects work on them.
01:20:58
it's really just a matter of funding and Tommy, we can only manage so many projects at a time, and we really have pretty limited funding as well.
01:21:06
But I think we'll be looking over the next couple of years and our one Tom dollars that that we've been able to accumulate and whether we can take that project on as well or not.
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Warren Epstein
01:21:19
We have a props to Dr B for living in the future, talking about the autonomous vehicles.
01:21:26
I think this is important week from amy read about you know everybody's I think pretty excited that we've been able to expand hi FLEX and get the necessary equipment.
01:21:38
That that we have now, but we really want to give out a shout out to katie wheeler that without her amazing training on this it wouldn't wouldn't be possible, so I think that's a.
01:21:50
worthwhile kudos I wanted to put out there.
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Lance Bolton
01:21:53
Oh, very much agree, you know, we had katie come and talk to our advisory council to give them a sense of what high FLEX teaching look like and.
01:22:04
What just what what amazing energy and and capability she brings to teaching and so yeah very much agreed with that, and thank you, thanks for pointing that out.
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Warren Epstein
01:22:14
I think that hits most of the themes here, and I think there's been lots of good support for one another that everybody's giving on the chat and I appreciate that.
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Lance Bolton
01:22:25
Well i'm gonna leave you all, with this, I think that.
01:22:30
You know our work is really serious but we don't always have to take ourselves so seriously, something that just came across in a book i'm reading that I just wanted to share if there was Tom here at the end which there is.
01:22:45
In 2012 group of scientists led by a lead professor at the University of Hawaii but with people on the team across the globe.
01:22:54
made a a very educated very effortful estimate of the number of grains of sand, on the face of the earth.
01:23:06
And what was amazing about this this work is that they then turned around and took that and said on.
01:23:14
We believe based our estimates, and what we know the universe that for every grain of sand on the earth, there are 10,000 stars.
01:23:23
And I just felt put in my place by this this knowledge and information that while our work is incredibly important.
01:23:34
We don't always have to take ourselves so seriously and our place in the universe is is this tiny little corner of our Milky Way galaxy and.
01:23:45
I just really appreciated that perspective of sort of our infant visible smallness in the world, and maybe allowed me to step away from.
01:23:55
Taking all of everything about my work and everything about myself so seriously so so we can enjoy one another weekend continue to to.
01:24:07
really enjoy the camaraderie of our college, whether it's in person or through remote events.
01:24:13
And, and I would encourage you to take our work very seriously, but not to take yourself so seriously we're going to get through this.
01:24:21
And, and this pandemic is going to be something that we end up living with as we've lived with influenza and common colds for many generations as people.
01:24:33
And we're going to be okay out there, and if that helps you with he is it did me to just think about my place in the universe than.
01:24:42
been good i'm glad I got to share that with you and and thank you for being part of this amazing team at pikes peak Community college door being part of this team I enjoy you all so much, and I wish you have a very, very successful semester.
01:25:03
Thanks everybody take care.
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