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CATHERINE RIPLEY: Good evening, and welcome to the March 9th, 2022 monthly public meeting of the Pima Community College Board of Governors. I'd like to call to order this meeting and begin with some remarks before we begin with our agenda items. Please bear with me. I just have a few remarks here as the chair. Thank you so much. It's my second meeting as chair. And much has happened in the past four weeks since our last meeting, here locally, as you have all witnessed virtually in the world. Once more we are right in the midst of yet another historic, political and cultural world paradigm shift. As educators, it's therefore our responsibility to make sure we continue to provide all of the resources available to us to teach the truth, which includes history as well as current events, but more importantly the responsibility that we have as world citizens to fully understand how and why we are connected and what that means. Why is Ukraine important? Why was Bosnia important? Why was Rwanda important? And more intimately, why are our closest neighbors to the south and to the north are so important, because indeed they are to all of us. We are indeed connected. Even though we are on Zoom and we're not in person, we are connected. And I hope you feel that. Chancellor, I'd like to thank you for sending out the public message that we, as a college, are dedicated to developing globally engaged citizens, and will continue to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion for all, as we condemn in the strongest possible terms the decision by Russian leaders to attack Ukraine. So here at Pima, we plow ahead with our programs, our events, and our strategies, all of which are dedicated solely towards our constant efforts to offer equal and fair access, affordability, and opportunity to every single student who wishes an education at Pima. It's our bottom line and our top priority. Everything we do towards that end will get the board's full attention. We believe in what we do with every fiber of ourselves. I think I speak for everybody on this Zoom. I wish to thank everyone on our staff, faculty, adjunct faculty, administration, students, volunteers, community members, donors, and supporters for your tireless efforts. They are not thankless, by the way. Because a thanks, thanks, comes in the form of that student's face who I just met this weekend who just received their GED at El Pueblo or the young Air Force woman who dreamed of becoming a first responder her whole life, just received her EMT certificate. Or the athletes who gave their fullest this past season in games I witnessed and could viscerally feel proud of. Or the casts and crews of our amazing theatrical and fine arts productions and plays. SpongeBob Square Pants left me smiling to myself for days. What makes me burst for joy mostly is those students, specifically some students that I had who immigrated from war-torn countries like Central African Republic, who not only -- this one student not only transferred after two years at Pima where he not only learned English as a second language but excelled in political science, went on to the U of A, and is now getting a Master's degree in international relations at Georgia Washington University. This is one example and I have many, many more. This all just happened in the last four years. This is what all of you made happen. We are the behind-the-scenes facilitators that take our responsibilities and obligations seriously just so another student can contribute to their families, themselves, and the world, and feel proud of their accomplishments. It's all so very simple. At the risk of overusing the phrase, I say we truly are all in this together. With that, I thank you for indulging me before we proceed with our agenda. As a reminder, our board meetings are conducted in accordance with Arizona state statute and also within both the spirit and policy of shared governance. Please be sure to submit your items for the agenda ahead of time. I'd also like to remind everybody that we, as elected board members, are obligated to conduct ourselves and act as a board and not as individuals. I'd also like to provide a few shoutouts. As our academic programs continue to flourish, I'd like it take this moment to thank the faculty, both the permanent faculty and the extremely valuable adjuncts who continue to adjust and selflessly serve our students. And also to the staff and the administrators who keep it together from every angle and aspect it takes to keep these trains moving through this next phase of COVID, pandemic, virtual, hybrid, online learning. Also, a shoutout to Pima Wellness. There are some fantastic activities. Go online and look at the webinars, health screenings, gym access, all of these things, general tips for our mental and physical well-being. Again, another shoutout to Pima athletic departments. I can't mention them all, but our athletics department is doing an amazing job. Well done to all our student athletes. And once more, the Pima theater and arts, I can't stress enough the value and importance our arts programs are to the community and to the world. I attended the closing, as I said, of Sponge Bob, which although based on a children's show, truly resonated with audiences in terms of the importance of friendship, love, compassion, diversity, acceptance, and teamwork, crazy enough in a crazy children's cartoon. All these traits and practices we need today more than ever. Thank you for an afternoon really of pure joy. This is what our arts programs do for us as human beings. To all of you who come in every day physically and virtually to run the campuses, all five of our campuses, we are in the middle of a serious paradigm and cultural shift that the entire world is feeling. We'd still not even recovered from the economic recession of 2008 when COVID hit, and now we are on the heels of a pandemic and witnessing yet another war in a far-off place that impacts us all, even Pima. So I plead to you all in the Pima Community College family to know that we are all hurting in one way or another, but we are also committed to the same exact thing, and that is ensuring our entire community has a fair shot at an education and resources to improve their lives. We all want the same thing. So I ask you, with all my heart, to also ask the hard questions and make the tough decisions. But don't ever lose your humanity and your kindness along the way. Make no mistake, the crisis in Ukraine is humanitarian. Let's not lose sight of our humanity. It's why we not only give folks a shot at jobs and careers but also celebrate and teach what it means to be human for the arts, athletics, language, history, literature, and social sciences. This is what I most am proud of at Pima. With that, I thank you for indulging me before we proceed with our agenda. As a reminder, our board meetings are conducted in accordance with Arizona state statute and please be sure to submit your items, like I said, ahead of time. We are attempting to hopefully return to in-person meetings perhaps by next month. We are shooting for that. If that's the case, all community members are welcome to show up. Thank you very much. With that, I would like to continue calling the meeting to order, and the first thing I'd like to do is call for a roll call. Mr. Silvyn, would you take the roll? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Demion Clinco? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Present. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Maria Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Present. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Meredith Hay? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Present. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Luis Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Here. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Catherine Ripley? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Present. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: All board members are present. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you very much. Our next item on the agenda is public comment, call to the audience. We are hopeful that this will again be our last virtual meeting, so I thank you all for submitting. I think we only have one public call and that is from Matej from PCCEA. Before you do that, I would like to make this one statement, just as a reminder. The Pima Community College Governing Board welcomes public comment on issues within the jurisdiction of the college. Generally the total time for public comment will be limited to 45 minutes, and comments will be limited to 3 minutes per individual. These time limits may be modified by myself or the board. Individuals sharing comments are expected to communicate with decorum and respect. Individuals who engage in disorderly conduct or use divisive or insulting language may have their time reduced or concluded by board chair. At the conclusion of public comment, individual board members may respond to criticism made by those who addressed the board, may ask staff to review a matter or ask that a matter be put on future agenda. Members of the board, however, may not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during public comment unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action. Finally, be advised that internal college processes are available to students and employees for communication. With that said, do we have -- Matej, are you present? >> MATEJ BOGUSZAK: Yes, I am. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Great. Go ahead. You have the floor. >> MATEJ BOGUSZAK: Thank you. Good evening, Chair Ripley, Chancellor Lambert, board members, colleagues, students, and guests. My name is Matej Boguszak, and I teach math here at Pima. I'm also a rep on the AERC, a faculty senator, and past president of PCCEA. Before getting to business, I'd just like to acknowledge that there is a brutal war being fought in Ukraine right now. Thank you, Ms. Ripley, for your remarks. Some of you know I'm from former Czechoslovakia, so this hits pretty close to home for me. At times like these, it is important for all our leaders to speak out for what is right and wrong in measured but clear terms. I thank Chancellor Lambert for doing just that in condemning the decision of Russian leaders to attack. The level of support for Ukrainian people and refugees has been truly touching. Still, I cannot help but be struck by the contrast to how Haitian refugees were chased on horseback by the U.S. Border Patrol or how Syrian, African, Afghan refugees have been turned away at EU borders. There is deep injustice in how non-White people are treated in this world. That is just one of the reasons why the Refugee Center and Hilda Ladner's work on equity are so relevant and important in our bubble here at Pima. To be successful as a college, we need a budget that funds the most important priorities. This has been a struggle with falling enrollment and revenues. It seems that each year new challenges are thrown at us. PCCEA would like to thank Dr. Bea for the detailed presentation in February and all the board members for your careful deliberation. We support the strategy of developing three possible and malleable budget scenarios and using data like FTSE-to-staff ratios to help determine the overall size of the college. This is something we have called for for a long time, and as have some of you on the board. We look forward to more conversations with finance as the fiscal year '23 budget takes shape. The class and comp study continues but now appears to be significantly behind schedule. PCCEA's focus for the faculty salary schedule is on clear, objective criteria for salary placement and then advancement while striking a healthy balance between market rates and competitiveness and equity. Unfortunately, specific criteria have been elusive so far, and I regret to say PCCEA is growing increasingly concerned that there may not be enough time to gather faculty feedback, revise policy, of which there is a ton, through the AERC, and implement the consultant's recommendations for contracts effective July 1. Likewise, we are yet far from identifying criteria for deciding which disciplines should be prioritized for hiring, aside from plain enrollment. This is another critical project the consultant was contracted to help us with, given the chancellor's repeated calls to shift significant resources from some programs to others yet to be specified. We really need to return to regular faculty hiring cycle in order to reach deeper, richer, and more diverse candidate pools. It should not be prohibitively difficult for an institution our size to plan and make strategic recruitment decisions in a timely manner. The chancellor is right: the times are changing. He speaks of needs to restructure the way we do our internal business and change how we look at contracts for employees. We would love to better understand what he means and encourage the chancellor to involve key stakeholders like Senate, Staff Council, AERC, and PCCEA at the early stages of developing any solutions to his concerns. Please remember our policy already supports 9-month, 12-month, and flexible contracts including evening and weekend classes. We are all always open to look for new ways to better serve our students. So thank you all for your service and leadership, and we will see you in April. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much for your valuable comments. We will take what you said to heart. Hopefully we can work together on getting those results for the class comp as soon as possible. Any comments you would like to make, Chancellor, to that end or shall we get back? >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: I need to follow up with my team before I can really respond to that. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. Thank you, Matej. With that, our next item on our agenda will be reports from our Governing Board members. We each may take five minutes. I will go across the screen I have here. Board Member Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'm not muted, right? Okay. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank Chairman Ripley for her words and to Matej for specifically stating the differences in how people are treated. A lot of people feel that way. Most people will not acknowledge that, so I sincerely thank you. Then I just want to read a small statement. To all my constituents and to all the Pima Community College faculty and staff. Thank you for all the support that you have given me during these very trying times. Individuals have alleged that the focus visit by the HLC is a result of my dialogue with the board. For clarity to the general public, HLC focus visit was instigated by a complaint filed by the vice chancellor of facilities and police, Bill Ward. That's my final statement. The reason I'm stating that is because I know that -- well, we all know that the HLC site visit will be here on March 28 and 29. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Garcia. Board Member Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes, good afternoon. I also just want to acknowledge the comments that were made earlier by Mr. Matej and yourself, Ms. Ripley. Very true of what was said in reference to the staffing and faculty and staff and reference to having a more diverse candidate pool. I think that needs to be more evident in reference to what we have at Pima. I think we can do better. As I have always said before, there is always room for improvement, and that's what we are really looking, would like to look at. The other thing I want to say is as you mentioned earlier, Ms. Ripley, Chair Ripley, reference to the meeting that was at the, the Saturday meeting at Irvington, there was a committee forum, and I think it was good. Unfortunately, one of my comments and concerns that I had then and continue to say when we meet with the community, I think we have to have the community there, as well, too. I was very happy with the staff that were there, the people that work for adult education, but also the Pima staff that were present, as well, too. Mr. Lambert and even our congressional people, Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Virginia Romero from the mayor that we have, as well, too, but also more important, the stakeholders. I think that's one of the issues I have been saying before and will continue to say that we need to meet with the stakeholders, as well, too, out in the community. One of the ideas that I shared very early when I was elected, going on three years, is us as a board of governing members, we need to rotate within our institutions, be it not only at the District Office or whenever we come back to the community. But let's have meetings at Southwest, let's have meetings at the West Campus, board meetings at the Downtown Campus, and Northwest Campus, as well. I'm a firm believer in reference to the stakeholders, and the primary stakeholders that I see is not only our continuing students at Pima right now and the high school students, as well, too, but more important the parents. I think we should not forget our parents, that those are the ones that have our future students in mind, as well, too, but we also have to meet with them. With all the positive that's happening with Pima, what can they expect within 5, 10, 15 years, as well, too. In closing, I just want to say that those are the population that we need to really look at, the population of the parents and grandparents. Because those are the people that are providing the day-to-day basis, support, not only family support but also institutional support in reference to some of the academics, but I think it's very important that we need to continue on that spectrum, continue on with that spectrum in reference to the importance of education, not only the K12 component but also in the postsecondary, as well, too. But that's another thing that, as mentioned before, is involve the stakeholders. I think the stakeholders very strongly should be the community. I really would like to see this year, 2022, for us, for the Governing Board members to rotate and be at the different facilities and different campuses that we have, as well, too. Thank you. And I appreciate the adjunct faculty, appreciate all the teachers and the people, not only the K12 but also in the postsecondary with Pima. Because we need them. Those are the people, those are the young people and the people that are currently enrolled that we need to really look at and find that support. I'm glad we do a lot of stuff here at Pima, but also, we need to share and communicate and involve in this, as well, too. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Gonzales. Next we have Board Member Clinco. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much, Chair Ripley. I just wanted to comment on two different items. First, of course, is Ukraine. Thank you for your very impassioned and thoughtful words. As I have sort of watched myself over the last few weeks, what's been so striking and so moving to me is how hard individuals are willing to fight for democracy. Democracy, as we all know, is a fragile exercise and experiment. It works because we all agree to play by the rules, and it's so important to do that. It is so inspiring to see an entire country rise up to fight for democracy and against authoritarianism. My thoughts and prayers have been with them and will continue to be, and I'm just so grateful to Chancellor Lambert for his kind words to the community. So thank you. The second item is I want to report on the Bellwether College Consortium and the fact that the college was nominated as a finalist in two different categories. Pima College, for the third year in a row, is amongst leaders in innovation and thought leadership in the community college space creating programs that are on the cutting edge of innovation and that are being looked at nationally for replication. To see two of our workforce programs, our EMT program and our workforce development program, being highlighted in this way is not only inspiring, it really is a testament to the extraordinary work we are doing. A team went last weekend to San Antonio to present both of the projects, and as I sat and watched other institutions around the country and saw what they were doing, I'm truly inspired by the tremendous work really in leading community colleges in innovation. Last year we were nominated and finalists for five awards and the year before we took home a Bellwether award. Again, I want to congratulate everyone involved in the development of these particular projects. Chancellor Lambert, for your continual push towards excellence of this institution and becoming a premier community college. But really across the college that this is I believe now part of the culture to really take up the mantle and find ways to create new, innovative, and exciting projects. I'm just so proud and so thankful on behalf of the community, because it's really, at the end of the day, serving students. I'm just so appreciative. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Thank you, Board Member Clinco. Next, Board Member Hay? Any remarks? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Thank you, Chair Ripley. I want to echo certainly your opening comments, which were just so right on point in terms of the importance of democracy now as always. Also I would add that my thanks to the faculty and the staff and the students at Pima College, because an educated democracy is the foundation of everything that we do. That's why we are here. I want to thank the faculty and the staff and the students for their commitment to continue the fight for an educated democracy and to protect our democracy as we move forward. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much for those board remarks. And I wanted to add, yes, we attended the El Pueblo Community Outreach Day. We do need to somehow get our community to attend these things. We will have more of them. I would love to attend as many community events as possible. We also opened another veterans center, this one at Northwest Campus, this morning. It was very touching and near and dear to my heart as a veteran, and just shoutout to Hector Acosta and his team for making that happen. We now have robust veteran centers at every single college. It's really important to provide those services for many reasons. Thank you so much. Next on our agenda will be the Pima Mission Moment. The EMT Pascua Yaqui Tribe collaboration with us will be talked about by Amanda Abens, dean of workforce development and continuing education. Amanda, if you would. >> AMANDA ABENS: Thank you so much, Board Chair Ripley, and board members, Chancellor, guests, colleagues. I am Amanda Abens. I serve as the dean of workforce development and continuing education. We are so honored and very excited to share with you about our EMT and Pascua Yaqui partnership. Pima Community College has enjoyed partnership with Pascua Yaqui Tribe for many years. In 2018, under the leadership of Sharon Hollingsworth, who is our EMS program manager here at Pima Community College, we started the EMT partnership. It has been incredibly successful. Fast forward now to 2022, and we have graduated four cohorts, tribal members, to be EMTs. 47 learners have participated, and 40 of them now are fully certified EMTs. I really want to thank the board, Chancellor, Dr. Dor�, Dr. Roark, for all of their leadership to make this happen, everyone at the tribe, Sharon and her team, and a big thank you to Brian Stewart for being our college liaison to the tribe, as well. It has taken all of these individuals to make this partnership happen. Now I'd like to introduce our guests. I'm so appreciative to have our guests from the tribe with us here today. We have on with us Chief Carlos Flores, chief of the Pascua Yaqui Fire Department. We have Johanna Farmer, who is the deputy director for economic development for the tribe. Cheryl Bakari, director for the NACTEP career program. Erin Pazos, the assistant Itom Yoemia program manager. We have our students, our graduates. Angelica Talavera, Eucario Mendez, and Aniza Valenzuela. Now I'd like to turn it over to our guests to share their experience. Chief Flores, can you kick that off for us? >> CHIEF FLORES: Absolutely. Good afternoon. Good evening to all board members. Chair Ripley, I'm really inspired by your opening remarks. What really caught my attention was the fact that you mentioned family-oriented approach to your educational approach that Pima College is striving for. I can tell you it really resonated and was championed by Pima College and Sharon's team from Day 1. They came in and really interacted with the students immediately, not as a student number but more as an individual. They came in with the understanding that our tribal nation has unique challenges and unique barriers. They understood that and embraced it and really looked for ways to break down those barriers. Each student had, whether it was social, educational, or economic barriers, they found ways to overcome those and really allowed the students to focus on the program. That's proven with the success of this program. I went to several conferences throughout the state and even some national calls with other fire chiefs, and I have yet to find a program that has been as successful as this program was, which is a good indication of how being inclusive and really reaching out beyond your comfort zone to those maybe communities that might traditionally have been left in the shadows and really reach out there and see what their needs are and really do something about it. It didn't take very long to see that this was not only -- it started out as a pilot program, but as Ms. Abens said, there are four cohorts now, which is really remarkable. I don't want to take too much time. I just would like the students an opportunity to let you know for themselves how the experience was and how we, I am greatly appreciative of the opportunity that Pima College allowed in collaboration with the tribal department that participated in this and really become a one-of-a-kind program. >> AMANDA ABENS: Thank you, Chief. We'll turn it over to the students. Eucario, would you like to go ahead and share with us your experience? >> EUCARIO MENDEZ: Absolutely. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and to Pima Community College, the Pascua Yaqui tribe, and the Pascua Pueblo Fire Department for giving us such an amazing resource, allowing us to carry out our dreams and the opportunity to be here through successful development and through everyone giving us the tools to succeed. I'm very honored and very blessed to be here today to be able to speak out and especially for such successful cohorts of EMT classes and just striving to see the future success of how everything is going on. Again, I'm Eucario Mendez. I'm from the second cohort. Yes, that's a little about myself. >> AMANDA ABENS: Where is your uniform? You have a wonderful uniform on. Tell us about that. >> EUCARIO MENDEZ: So my current uniform right now, I'm actually on duty today. I'm at the station here today. I just wanted to wear my proper uniform for the Pascua Pueblo Fire Department. I have my Maltese Cross here, and Firefighter/EMT on this side. >> AMANDA ABENS: That's wonderful. Thank you so much. Angelica? >> ANGELICA TALAVERA: Hello, good evening, everybody. I'm a little nervous. I was actually the first cohort. It was a challenge. I am a mother of three. I was working a full-time job at the time. But it was something I wanted to do. I went to the info session and it was presented great, got my interest. Went into it. Very challenging. I was out of school for 13 years. But I did it. Then I went into the fire academy. Got certified as a Firefighter II, and I'm also working with Eucario at the fire department. I'm off duty though today. Yeah, that's a little bit about me. >> AMANDA ABENS: Thank you, Angelica. Congratulations. Aniza? >> ANIZA VALENZUELA: My name's Aniza Valenzuela. I'm from the third cohort. I started the EMT program, and shortly after we were able to do the fire academy, I was able to do it with Eucario and Angelica. I have learned so much along the way, especially just about me as an individual. I'm super grateful for the opportunity that was given. I'm even more grateful to continue to learn and to grow and just kind of see the challenges that I'm capable of that we all could just pretty much just -- I'm sorry, I'm getting tongue-tied. Yeah, I'm just super grateful, and like I said, I also work with Angelica and Eucario. So that's a little bit about me. >> AMANDA ABENS: Thank you all so very much. We are incredibly proud of you. You're all inspiring. You're out there every day on the front lines serving. We're honored that you chose Pima Community College for your EMT training and for your fire academy. Thank you for all that you do for our community every day. We have a few more minutes. I would love to hear from Cheryl Bakari from the NACTEP program, and from Johanna, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the program. >> Good evening, everyone. Board members, Amanda, and to our alumni. I am not going to cry. It's so wonderful to see these students. I wanted to let the board members know a little bit about the special partnership that created these fantastic individuals that you see right here. Sharon Hollingsworth and her team got together with our community members, Chief Flores, Greg Madril from WIOA, Chief Matus Senior, and said that we wanted to put this program together. We knew that there were some unique challenges to do it. We started this first cohort, and some of the things that were unique to this program is the students get a huge amount of support. E-mails are flying back and forth all the time. Hey, so-and-so has not done any of the quizzes in Chapter 17. And then people on our side would jump on it and get with the students. They had an enormous amount of support. That wasn't because we didn't think they could do it. That was just because we wanted to let them know that we are here to help them all the way through this process. The students didn't do themselves justice. Most of our students work full time, raise families. They went to school in the evenings. We had part of the class at the PY Fire Department, and they'd be in class until 9:30 at night, which was my bedtime. I'd say a little prayer about them while I rolled over and went to bed while they were still in class, and then they would meet all day Saturday for months and months and months. These are incredible students. Sharon and her team worked with us tirelessly. They say it takes a village to raise a child. We were a village to raise up these EMTs. Sharon and her team are probably too modest to say this, but I will tell you that we are getting better with each cohort. Our fourth cohort so far, 10 of the 11 students have tested and 10 of the 11 students have passed. So right now we have a 100% pass rate. That is outstanding. That is due to the quality of the instruction and the support that they get all along the way. Thank you to Tribal Council and all the people who allowed us to create this opportunity and put this all together. I don't know if I left out anything else that was important to highlight, but take it away, Johanna. >> I just want to thank everyone at Pima for your support in creating this program. We continue to build partnerships. We just hired a program manager, Pascua Yaqui, to focus on liaison work between Pascua Yaqui and Pima Community College, so our partnerships can only grow and thrive. I think the one thing that wasn't mentioned already was Aniza and Angelica were the first two Pascua Yaqui tribal women to be hired in the fire department in over 20 years. So congratulations to them for that, especially poignant after International Women's Day to recognize their work. Not to take anything away from Eucario, did an awesome job also, succeeding at the fire academy and the EMT program. I wanted to say we highlighted them in the center of our CTE consortium notebook, and they are in a picture in front of a fire truck. We are so proud of all of you for what you have done, the students. Your guys' work was the hard work. We just were able to help guide you along the way. We are so proud of you, and thank you for being willing to put yourselves out there, you know, and go at your dreams. Thank you. >> AMANDA ABENS: Awesome. Thank you all so much. Erin, I know you're on with us from the tribe. Any comments you wanted to add? >> No. Just congratulations on this venture. It's a very positive one, and I hope that we can continue to move forward in supporting our tribal students as well as all of our other students in all of these ventures. I look forward to working with all of you. Thank you. >> AMANDA ABENS: Thank you. Thank you all so much for the partnership and for being with us this evening. It is hard not to be emotional about this. It is truly phenomenal and absolutely inspiring what all the students have accomplished. Thank you for the time today, Board Chair Ripley. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Amanda. Thank you. Applause, I guess, silently from our desks and houses to Eucario, Angelica, and Aniza. Really, it is hard not to cry, but you have no idea how proud we all are of you, and I'm sure your families are extremely proud of what you have done and the work you have put into it. It's appreciated. We are so happy to be a small part of this team. To the tribal leaders and to the entire Pascua Yaqui tribe, we hope that we can continue this relationship. It's extremely important. Thank you, thank you so much. I think we do have a question here from Board Member Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I just want to also just say to the three individuals, Angelica, Mr. Mendez, Ms. Valenzuela. I'm very proud of you guys. I know you guys have Saturday classes, as well, too. But more important, one of the things that Ms. Bakari can attest to is there was one young gentleman in one of the cohorts that came all the way from Guadalupe, because that's the epitome of being Yaqui, the commitment, the passion, and desire. Can you imagine this young gentleman? I was there, one of the graduations early, that his brother drove him all the way, 110 miles, to get the classes. That's the epitome of Yaqui is, having the passion, compassion, but also the desire to do what's available but more important taking advantage of it, but also giving back to the community. I really acknowledge and congratulate all three of you guys too. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. With that, again, thank you, Amanda and everything that you have done and everybody on this team has done. We look forward to continuing this program. With that, amazing, amazing Pima Mission Moment, let's go to the next agenda item. We next have reports from our administrators and representatives to the board. First up is the audit results for fiscal year 2021 presented by the Arizona Auditor General. We have Lindsey Perry, Donna Miller, and John Faulk. Are you here? If you are, you have the floor. >> DONNA MILLER: Thank you, Chair Ripley. I'm Donna Miller. I'm the office's financial audit director. Lindsey Perry sends her apologies. She couldn't be here tonight. Unfortunately we are a legislative state agency, and if you all are paying attention to the news, the legislature is in session. It takes a lot of her time away. Again, thank you, Chair Ripley. Thank you to all of you board members for inviting us. Chancellor Lambert, it's good to be here, and all of the members that are here. As I got on early before the meeting started, I was actually a graduate of Pima College. And that was a long time ago. An interesting story, with me today is John Faulk who is the manager over Pima College's audits. When I started with our office 28 years ago, my first audit was Pima College. John Faulk and I did it together. We have come full circle, and now together as leaders at our office we are presenting you, the board, which is great. In the 28 years that I have been with the office in doing your audits, I don't think we have ever met with the board and talked to you about our audits. So this is great that you have invited us. I know there is a new law that I hope all of you are aware of that changed Arizona Revised Statute 15-1473, which is what requires your financial audit, annual financial audit, and said that the board needs to invite us to these meetings. So we are happy that we get to do this. Believe it or not, we are happy that we get to do this. To give you a little bit of information about our office, our audit work of course focuses on the accuracy of the district's financial statements in compliance with certain laws and regulations. We also work to help yours and other college districts to understand important reporting standards and laws that help you all as governance make important decisions to ensure the district is spending and accounting for public monies, including those federal program monies, appropriately. We strive, as an office, to provide recommended improvements to help government fulfill their responsibilities efficiently and effectively. So that's part of our mission and goals. John's controlling the slides for me. Before I begin going over the actual audits, I just want to take a quick moment to very briefly explain the standards that we follow when we conduct our audits. I think that's a very important thing to point out right now in today's world. We are required to -- state and federal laws require Arizona college districts to receive these annual financial and compliance audits, including audits of your federal programs. When we conduct our audits, we do them in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Auditing Standards, which are issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. These are the same standards that any CPA firm has to follow when they conduct audits. We have to follow those, and there are upwards of 150 auditing standards right now that we comply with. For audits of most governmental entities, auditors must also follow government auditing standards that are issued by the Comptroller General of the United States. These require auditors to review and report on significant financial reporting, internal control, and compliance with laws and regulations. Finally, we are required to audit the district's federal programs following the federal requirements based on the federal Single Audit Act, and as stipulated in federal Uniform Guidance. These standards require that we maintain our independence, integrity, and objectivity, and that's very important to us to make sure we continue to do that. As you see on this slide, we of course conduct these audits annually, and as we have done and will continue to do in future years, we send you e-mails when your annual reports are completed. Today we will be discussing our work on the district's annual comprehensive financial report and the associated single audit report. We sent each of you links to these reports in separate e-mails, one dated December 15, 2021, and another on February 3, 2022, along with our report highlights. I will talk a little bit about those later. So to give you a little bit more detail about these reports, the district's financial report presents the district's annual financial statements and our opinion on them. As in prior years, we reported an unmodified opinion, that's a technical term for a clean opinion, which means that the district's financial statements are reliable basically. Second, the single audit report includes our required financial statement and federal program internal control and compliance reports. Everything has a long name in auditing. That report also includes our district schedule of federal expenditures, the district schedule of federal expenditures, not ours, and our opinion on it, and our opinion on the district's compliance with federal program requirements over each federal program we are required to audit. Finally, the single audit report is where you will see any findings we have found during our financial or federal compliance audits, along with the district's responses to them. We reported no findings for fiscal year '21, and we did see that the district corrected a finding we had reported in the prior year, and John will speak on that a little bit later. So because we know these reports are lengthy and include a lot of information, and you all are very busy readers, we always provide a report highlights. It's just a two-page summary that includes the district's largest primary revenue sources and how the district used these monies as well as brief information about our key findings and recommendations if we have any. Those highlights can be found on our website, and we send you links to those when we send the reports as well. Lastly, I just want to bring up that in accordance with standards, we are required to communicate certain information to the governance of the college. That includes you, each of you, the board members, and Chancellor Lambert and Dr. Bea, executive vice chancellor for finance and administration. As I mentioned earlier, we e-mail you when we issue the reports, including a report highlights. We also provide additional information to you by e-mail when we began our annual audits and when we complete them. We provide information in our audit completion e-mail to make sure you know our audits are complete and whether we encountered any difficulties. As always, we did not have any difficulties with Pima College's audits. Finally, I will just give a brief mention that our office provides resources on our website that you can see listed here if anyone needs guidance related to Pima College's financial related topics. Please never, ever hesitate to reach out to me or John. With that, I will turn the time over to John Faulk. I will be happy to answer anybody's questions they may have now or after John's finished with his brief discussion. Thank you very much for all of your time and attention and again for inviting us and again for the great relationship we have with the college. >> JOHN FAULK: Good evening, everybody. Thank you, Donna. Thank you for letting us present to you today. My name is John Faulk. I'm the financial audit manager here in Tucson, and I'm the manager over the Pima College audits. As Donna mentioned, we reported no findings in our audit reports for the year ended June 30, 2021. However, we did report on the status of previously reported findings. This information is reported in a document called the summary schedule prior audit findings which you can find at the end of our single audit report. In the prior year, we did note one finding, reported one finding recommending that the district improve their controls over their IT change management process. During the current audit period, which would be fiscal year '21, we noted that the district fully corrected this finding through implementation of its new change management process team dynamics, which incorporated our recommendations from the prior year finding detailed on this slide. In addition, over the last several audit periods we reported various findings over the district's IT controls. The district has successfully implemented our recommendations to mitigate those findings as well. So congratulations to Pima College for doing that. Also, I wanted to mention that each year, usually in February, we meet with the district's finance and audit advisory committee also to discuss the results of our audit reports just in case some of you didn't know that was occurring. Are there any questions that I can answer for you concerning the district's audit? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any questions from board members? I see none. Thank you. >> JOHN FAULK: All right. Well, as a reminder, we just wanted to -- we provided these reports to each board member and that you can find them on our office's website. Also there, you can find various resources such as frequently asked questions, fraud prevention alerts, reporting guidelines, user guides, and webinars that our office offers. I want to thank the board to present our results today. I'd also like to thank Dr. Bea, Daniel Sosa, Agnes M., and the rest of the district staff for their cooperation in the audit. We have had a great working relationship with the district's management and staff, and we look forward to getting started on next year's audit in the spring. Thank you very much. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Looks like we have one question from Board Member Clinco. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: It's actually a comment. I just wanted to take a moment and congratulate Dr. Bea and Agnes and Daniel. You know, I don't think there has been a clean audit of this caliber since I have arrived on the board. So when I opened the package, which all of the board members receive independent copies of the audit report, I was so thrilled to see just that all of the work again that we have been doing to just make sure all of our Is are dotted and all of our Ts are crossed. It really gives us, as board members, the confidence in both the accuracy of the information but also that we are making continual improvements to protect the institution. Thank you, Dr. Bea, and your entire team. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. >> DONNA MILLER: Excuse me, Chair Ripley. It makes our audit much easier when we have good auditees like the college. So we do appreciate it. >> JOHN FAULK: Absolutely. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much for that report, and again, echoing on Board Member Clinco, it's really important to all of us that we continually improve ourselves, because it's a constant effort. I think one of the most important things that I love about this institution is that we do provide this kind of transparency and we welcome any kind of comments and suggestions for improvement. Thank you. We look forward to working with you in the future. With that, if there aren't any comments, we can go on to the next item. Next we have legislative update from Jonathan Paton. Are you here? >> JONATHAN PATON: I'm here. Thank you very much. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: You have the floor. >> JONATHAN PATON: Thank you. I want to basically put my comments in three different buckets, talk a little bit about the governor's budget, talk about some of the bills floating around at the legislature, and then finally talk about the healthcare occupations Center of Excellence proposal. So just going to go in that order. Start out with the governor's budget, as he proposed in the beginning of January, one, full funding for STEM for the community colleges, that translates into a little under $2 million for Pima College. There is also an allocation for -- it's $30 million that will be allocated for workforce issues. They are calling them accelerators. We would be applying for these. They are in $6 million increments. I think given the fact that Pima has already a long history of working on workforce and the kinds of projects we have already in the pipeline, I think it's going to be a very -- I think we are going to be very competitive in applying for those through the Arizona Commerce Authority. So that is the top-line issues of the governor's budget. Obviously there is going to be changes to that budget as you go through the legislative process. We are about in the middle of the legislative process or at least the middle of where the bills are. We just went through crossover week, which means all the bills from the Senate now are crossing over to the House. All the bills in the House are now crossing over to the Senate. So we're starting to reach some deadlines at the end of the month when bills are going to be heard in the opposite chamber. A lot is going on. A couple of bills for you to be aware of, there is a dual enrollment bill that has been making its way through the process. That bill puts a tuition cap for dual enrollment. Pima College doesn't charge tuition. So we are not necessarily affected by this. It's something I think the Maricopa College is very concerned about. That bill is stuck now in the Senate. It doesn't appear to be going very far because of opposition from the Senate education chair, Paul Boyer. Another bill that I think is of big interest to the college, and that's the expenditure limitation bill that's been floating around through the legislature. All I can tell you is I think every year I talk about the expenditure limitation, and I cannot tell you what a lucky position that the college is in that we went through this process to the voters already, because there is a level of desperation among a lot of the other colleges about the situation that they find themselves in regarding expenditure limitation. This bill, it made it out of the Senate. It is now stuck in the House. The majority leader asked whether this bill is constitutional. They asked for a ruling from the rules attorney. They have said that it's unconstitutional. That doesn't make it so, but it's caused some controversy. AC4 is trying to come up with their own experts to comment on that. As I always tell you, the legislature is created not to pass bills but to kill bills. Every step in the process is designed to hold up a bill or derail it so that there is a winnowing process. This is exactly where this bill finds itself right now. It's struggling over this constitutional issue. Doesn't mean it's dead, but it definitely has a major hurdle to overcome. It is fortunate that we are in a better EL situation than a lot of the other colleges because they are very much depending on this bill. This bill would also be good for us but it is not quite the same sense of urgency that maybe the other colleges have. Finally, I just want to mention that Goodwill has tried to pass funding for their adult education aspirations statewide. We have objected quite often because our own adult education with the community colleges has not been fully funded by the state. I think that what they are trying to do this year, there are three different bills. One is to fund what Goodwill wants. One is to fund more of what the adult education folks at the community colleges want. Then there is a third issue. I think what they are trying to do is fold them into one package and so that they all live or die based on each other. So that at least has been the plan that I have been told about, and that's where that bill is moving along. Finally, I think this is one of the most important things I want to talk about. Some years ago, we approached the state with a proposal for a dramatic increase to our Aviation Center at Pima College. We received $15 million after a long process of applying to the state, talking about getting stakeholders together, getting our partners, industry partners to comment to lawmakers, and through a lot of lobbying and a lot of effort on behalf of the college and a great proposal, we received $15 million towards that program. We are trying to do the same thing now with the healthcare occupations Center of Excellence at Pima College. We have been speaking with the governor's office, the executive branch, about this issue. We have put together a proposal that your staff has worked on, we have submitted that to the governor's office, and then at the end of this month we are going to be at a formal meeting with them, with their state budget director and others, to directly apply to the executive branch for another $15 million ask. I think that we are in a great position for that. I said this some years ago about our aviation request. That came to be true. I think we are in an excellent position of getting this as well. They certainly have the money. I think we have a great proposal. I think we also have the employers that are willing to say, look, we really need these folks. We are in desperate need of more nurses, of more folks in the dental profession, et cetera. I think we are in a great position to get that. I have a lot of confidence in our team to make that proposal. That's where we are at. So it's never boring at the legislature. There is always something new happening. It's a little bit crazy right now, but I'd be happy to answer any questions about what's happening in Phoenix. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Jonathan. Any questions from the board? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Again, just a comment. I just want to thank Mr. Paton for his remarkable and consistent advocacy at the legislature to advance the college's priorities, help assure that we get some state funding and help kill bills that would adversely affect us. Thank you, Mr. Paton, for your tireless work in Phoenix on our behalf. We really appreciate it. >> JONATHAN PATON: Thank you. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Hear, hear. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes, thank you. Thank you for tirelessly doing what you do and keeping us informed of all of these issues and all the moving parts. Some of us do know how crazy it is up at the legislature. Thank you for that. You mentioned expenditure limitation. I just wanted to point out how, with Prop 481, how people power and the power of the community can triumph. Education is nothing to blink about. I think this is something we just have to keep fighting for, and with all the moving parts, politicians, community, with yourself and with our school. Thank you so much. We will just keep plowing ahead. >> JONATHAN PATON: Great. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Next we have our last administrative report from -- there is a Santa Cruz update from Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda, our provost. You have the floor. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you so much. Good evening, Board Chair Ripley, members of the board, Chancellor Lambert, students, colleagues and guests. I have a very positive report to share with you. I have also invited a couple of my colleagues and they are Ted Roush, interim vice president for the Santa Cruz operations, and also advanced program manager Brian Nelson who have been leading this effort and have been very successful. With that, I will continue sharing to the next slide. I'd like to provide a brief history about Santa Cruz. So we used to offer services in the '70s until 2003 and then we picked it up again in 2017 until the present. There were some concerns regarding accreditation that have been addressed. For example, there was a concern about not having enough tutors for the students there. We have increased funding for tutors and so that has been addressed. But because of COVID, we went completely virtual, and so in that case, the tutoring wasn't needed in person, but we had the online tutoring services. So now we are resuming to in-person tutoring as well. Also, the new IGA was implemented just recently in July 2021, and there was a very thorough review by both boards and also our leadership, academic leadership and college leadership. We came to an agreement for a new IGA, which was approved in July 2021. Every January there is an annual meeting which combines the leadership of both Santa Cruz and also Pima College. We are one college, we are together, but we just give each other updates on things. That took place this past January towards the end of the month, and it was very successful and positive. We have results as far as strong enrollment was creeping up every year in a positive way, but then of course COVID hit us, and that shifted things to the way things were going. But as you'll notice in the next slide, all of the services had been in person, and students preferred in person before COVID, but in the next slide you'll see that there was an increase in wanting to stay with some virtual classes and online. We have also improved on our relationship with the Santa Cruz board. Ted and Brian have been instrumental in that, and I want to thank them for their role in really smoothing out the wrinkles and having a strong relationship with the Santa Cruz board, so much so that they have invited speakers to go, present to the board. For example, Libby Howell has provided legislative updates. Dr. Bruce Moses has gone down to talk about accreditation. Also Dr. Ian Roark and his team on workforce, business and industry initiatives. So they feel very much a part of the college, which is so important. As well, there is a stronger dual enrollment presence. Then also more engagement with the community itself, Nogales and Santa Cruz. Also a greater variety of mode of delivery for the Santa Cruz students. You will see here in this chart the development of how students have been interested. As I mentioned before, students had preferred in-person classes and services, but because of COVID, and we were all pretty much forced to be virtual and online, they have indicated an interest to continue having some virtual classes, as well as in person, of course, but we just wanted to highlight that. So that is a brief overview of where we are with Santa Cruz, and Ted and Brian, I don't know if you have any other comments you'd like to share with the board? >> TED ROUSH: Just to quickly echo what Dolores said is we feel like we have come from a place where we weren't well communicating and the relationship was not all it could be. We really feel like we are in a positive place now. The Santa Cruz board feels very included in the Pima family. Really enjoy having our administrator and team members to come down and tell them about various aspects. It's been a great relationship, and we feel like everything is double thumbs up going forward. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Board Member Hay? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Yeah. Thank you, Dolores, for that excellent summary. I just have a quick question. I saw some of the students prefer online for various reasons. How are the outcomes compared to online versus in-person? >> TED ROUSH: I would say that, Dr. Hay, that the outcomes for Santa Cruz students are generally reflective of what the rest of PCC students see. There is in general in online, hopefully I'm not quoting old information, this paradigm hasn't changed, but we generally see a little less success in online mostly because students have more responsibility placed on them and sometimes don't react soon enough and put enough work to be successful sometimes. And also, those online interventions we have done more with in the last few years, so embedded tutors and things of that nature, are resources that do help students. We have been diligent in identifying those. But kind of at the same place you'd expect to see for Tucson students. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. We have another comment or question from Board Member Clinco. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you so much. Again, I just want to thank Dr. Duran-Cerda and Ted Roush and everybody down in Santa Cruz. This has not been the smoothest always, and we spent a lot of time working to sort of reframe this relationship. I'm so glad to hear that it's working out so well. I mean, we have continually said, the board has continually said over the last five years how important it is to ensure that the educational services truly are reflective of those offered here and that providing those services to Santa Cruz is important for our region. I just want to say thank you for all your work. We know how much time it took and how much it continues to take. I'm just so glad to hear it's moving smoothly now. Thank you. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you. Any other questions? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I guess if there are no questions, thank you so much, Dr. Duran-Cerda. Thank you, Ted Roush, for everything you have done. I mean, your work is acknowledged and we do understand how hard it was. Thank you for hanging in there and really doing the work. It's very much appreciated. With that, I'm happy to welcome comments from our representative groups. First we have our student report from Collin Bryant. Collin, are you here? >> COLLIN BRYANT: Yeah, I'm here. Hello. Good evening, Chair Ripley, Chancellor Lambert, members of the board, faculty, fellow students. Short-and-sweet update tonight. The Student Senate mural will be located at the Downtown Campus. We are hoping that it will unify people with Tucson's culture and compassion. The Student Senate promotion strategies are coming out as well. Yesterday PCCTV filmed an interview at the West Campus that gives a look of what it's really like to be a student senator. This coming Friday there will be a virtual Q&A with all of the senators. This session will allow students to learn about senate and bring any issues they have directly to their senators. Elections for Student Senate will be held after spring break. To enter, students will have to record a video essay and fill out a short application form on PimaEngage. Be sure to look out for D2L announcements and fliers around campus for when the time comes. Thank you all for your time and have a great night. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Your leadership is very much appreciated. Next we have from adjunct faculty report Mr. Sean Mendoza. >> SEAN MENDOZA: Hello, Chairman Ripley, Chancellor Lambert, members of the board, honored guests. I'm happy to report that college administration continues to work collaboratively with adjunct faculty on a number of important topics. Tonight I'd like to highlight our access to professional development funds and the administration's support of our development of a tiered system for adjunct faculty. Through our work with the AERC, the All Employee Representative Council, and college administration, adjunct faculty now have access to enrichment funds up to a thousand dollars to further your professional development. At our last adjunct faculty meeting, Aubrey Conover shared the form that highlights funding criteria and the process for awarding funds. Most importantly, we also discussed how this benefit would positively impact the institution and our students. Having been with the college for nearly 30 years, I'm happy to see that this resource is now available to our employee group, which was not possible in the past, if it were not for the board and administration support for adjunct faculty. Thank you. At the last meeting, I shared an example of adjunct faculty facing a difficult decision, doing something that they love, which is teaching, or qualifying for the state's healthcare program for themselves and their families. With support from the provost's office and college administration, an adjunct faculty tiered system team was formed a number of months ago to address this and many of the diverse needs of our group. Through the leadership of co-chair Kate Schmidt and Sarah Jansen, I'm happy to report the team has made significant progress and is ready to meet with college administration to move forward on this important initiative. We look forward to meeting with Dr. Bea and the provost in the weeks to come. Thank you for your support of adjunct faculty. This ends my report. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Sean. As always, we desperately need our adjunct faculty to be intact and happy. Thank you so much. Our next report is a staff report from our new staff representative, Erika Elias. You are next. We welcome you as a new member of the board. >> ERIKA ELIAS: Thank you. Good evening, Chairperson Ripley, members of the board, Chancellor, and guests. First I want to say that Staff Council really appreciates the administrators that were in attendance for a meeting on March 4. Their support and efforts to discuss different topics and address questions from the various groups was beneficial to everyone at the meeting. At this meeting, some questions were brought up regarding transferring more than 40 hours of sick leave to annual leave. Another question that was brought up was childcare. Also questions about the cost of living and inflation and how that impacts the workplace. We at Staff Council understand that we are charged with bringing the concerns of the staff board but also know that not everything can be addressed. So anything that can be done to review these concerns is greatly appreciated. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. Again, welcome to your position. Finally, we have a faculty report from Denise Reilly. >> DENISE REILLY: Hi, good evening, Chair Ripley, members of the board, Chancellor Lambert, colleagues and guests. I want to say that I really appreciate and I just want to thank you to the Board Chair Ripley and members of the positive start to our meeting. Just highlighting the local and international events that truly inspire us to just continue doing what we do on a daily basis, which we love to do, which is teach. Students are here, as you mentioned earlier, to educate themselves, to put themselves in a better place for themselves and their family members. So I just want to say thank you. It was a great start to a meeting to recognize not only are we in it as a small community in Tucson, Arizona, but we are also in it as a large global society. That was something that was mentioned today in our faculty leadership meeting with officers of the Faculty Senate as well as leadership of the college. I just think it's really appreciated to just recognize we are in a much bigger space than just here, as much as we are focused on our students and what's going on here. Just thank you so much for the start to this meeting. I want to share that there is some good news to come, but I don't think I'm privy to share this, as a Phi Theta Kappa advisor, which many faculty members do faculty advising and have clubs on the side, I can share we are ready for some great student international and national recognition, but that's to come at another meeting. We will save that for then. I just wanted to share a little bit about the last couple meetings and just a hot topic that's been brought up. I just want to share that we have just, our group of Faculty Senate officers, we really highlight the diverse groups on campus. We represent emergency medical technology, we represent health information technology, accounting, writing, and college readiness and student success. We kind of have the gamut of everybody all together in this leadership group. We have really formed, stormed, normed and tried hard to push the initiative of shared governance. I just wanted to highlight, and I will actually post it in the chat, a great presentation by our president, Rita Lennon. I want to highlight just her leadership and sharing that with the HLC visit coming up and with this idea of shared governance that it's really important to talk the talk and walk the walk. With the expectation that the college in the last ten years, I would say, maybe has had different stances on what governance is and shared governance, but I would say that we are really seeing some great strides and we are really proud of the leadership team. We are really proud of the shared governance that is taking place and the expectation that we have as full-time faculty with our role in that process and shared governance. I really appreciate the chancellor, the provost, and many other at the director and higher levels have been at many of our meetings lately. We have really been talking about that expectation of where can we move forward? We have shared articles today and discussions about where we are moving forward as a college. I just want to say that, and we look at the visit coming up with the HLC and 5C and embedded in the criteria is this idea of shared governance. I just want to keep reiterating that, that we are going to continue to push for that, but we also appreciate that the faculty leadership as well as the leadership of the college has really heard that and has really tried hard. I just want to recognize that and just say I appreciate the work that everybody is doing right now in order to move us as a college, as the chancellor has mentioned, in a different direction, in the direction that it needs to go. I just appreciate that, and I just want to share Rita's presentation, so I will post it in the chat because I think it really reflects the great ideas of what we are meant to do and what we need to do moving forward and our expectation. And I just want to say thank you. That ends my report. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Denise. It is really important to us. It's important that the spirit and the practice of shared governance is always in the forefront of our minds with the AERC and all of the employee groups. We don't know what we don't know. So we depend on you to let us know whether -- and again, the good, bad, ugly, we need to know that. Thank you so much to all our representative groups that reported today. We really appreciate the feedback. Again, I will throw this out, Chancellor, you know, his door is always open, as well. If you have anything you need, please don't hesitate to give him a call, because again, he doesn't know what he doesn't know. So thanks so much. Next on the agenda, information items. The information items were provided to the board for general information purposes, and if any board member has clarifying questions regarding any of the information items, please let me know and we can have the chancellor follow up or add a topic to a future agenda. So with that -- >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes? >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: You skipped over the chancellor's report. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: (Laughter.) I did it on purpose. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Denise did such a great job. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: She did. I got so excited. I was looking at the chat. Okay. Thank you for interrupting me. With that, item 2.3, we hand it over to the chancellor for his report. Thank you so much. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Well, good evening, everybody. Thank you all for what each and every one of you do for our students and for our community. We are coming up on the second-year anniversary of going into this pandemic. It's been a long, hard road, but through it all, many of you, all of us, really have really shined and stayed focused on our mission. I want to thank you all for that. Also, I just want to remind us of the importance that we place on the dignity of each and every one of us, and in light of what's going on in Ukraine, it's easy to sometimes forget and separate what's happening with the Russian leadership and their oppressive moves against the Ukrainian people versus the Russian people. I think that's important for us not to lose sight of that either. Why I bring this up, because we have had some of our own employees, Russian employees of the college, in the community, being harassed because they are Russian. I think, as a community, the more we can do to help support all of our employees, especially our Russian employees and students, as well as our Ukrainian employees and students, anyone from Eastern Europe and throughout Europe and really across the globe, the more that our folks at least feel a sense of belonging and connection to this community. I just want us never to lose sight of that. But also highlight something bigger in many ways, and that's what the purpose of education is. I think UNESCO really lays this out very nicely. I want to reinforce this. This is my paraphrase, very simply put, it's both, we are really preparing people to be well-rounded individuals and preparing them for a successful career. It's not one versus the other. It's how we manage to integrate the two and support both. That's why we have the liberal arts side of the college as well as the career technical education side of the college, held up with our focus on DEI, our focus on adult education, our focus on dual enrollment, our focus on developmental education, all the pieces that allow for access to those opportunities to get to those two larger goals. So I just want to thank everybody who has been involved with that. I want to make clear, because there was a rumor out there that the college wasn't being supportive of its adult learning centers, and that is just outright false. I am very committed to strengthening what we are doing at the adult learning centers. We want to look at how we can turn them more into community hubs and continue to support the respective parts of our community, and then to the extent we are able to, where else should we have adult learning centers. I just want everyone to know you have my commitment to that. Looking at bringing more holistic opportunities. We know we have to do better by our youth in this community. How can we help support them and bring them into those learning centers as their first foray into a higher education experience, along with their parents and larger communities. So you'll hear us talk more and more about this as we go forward. But I also want to put that into context. So I had a recent conversation with Ron Shoopman from ABOR, and he shared some important and some alarming statistics about what's going on in the state of Arizona. I shared some of that with the Faculty Senate leadership earlier today. Today's ninth grader, ten years from now, only 17 of them of the 100, out of every 100, will get a Bachelor's degree. Only 3 out of that 100 in that ten-year period of time will get an Associate's degree. That is not acceptable. I came from a community, and I saw what happened in the State of Washington, so many Washingtonians getting locked out of great opportunities because talent had to be imported in because the Microsofts and Boeings could not get their talent source within the state. That unfortunately is happening in the State of Arizona as we speak. We are key to making sure that doesn't happen to our community members. We need to make sure people leave K12 with the STEM foundation. That's why you hear the provost talk a lot about that digital literacy component. It's going to grow ever important, not less important. We also need to make sure we are infusing the ethics around all of these technology pieces and focus on the well-rounded human being. I just want you all to know that that's top of mind for us and how we think about the way we lead the college. Also, Bruce and I unexpectedly, I know there was others of us who were supposed to go to Washington, D.C., for the ACCT legislative piece, and because of what was going on and so forth, unfortunately flights got canceled and delayed, so only Bruce and I made it out there, but we saw a wonderful presentation by the National Clearinghouse, National Student Clearinghouse. It's a presentation that I certainly want all the board members to see. Certainly would be a great presentation for anybody who cares about higher education to see. We have enormous challenges ahead of us, driven in large part by the demographic realities, the shifts that are happening in each and every one of our communities. Also had a great meeting with the Foundation board, had a nice retreat. Thank you, Marcy, for that retreat, to really focus on, again, strengthening and growing support to the college through the Foundation. As you know, we have had some really good recent success and we want to keep that success going. A lot of it centered on what's the vision for Pima, where is the future of education going. I'm hoping to share that with the board but tie it into and show you through that vision, how we are going to make decisions about the future financial reality of the institution so that it aligns and allows us to continue to march in that direction. We have already been doing it, so that's the great news here at Pima. I think you're seeing it reflected in the Bellwether awards. I want to thank David, Ian, Amanda, all the folks who were there on this trip. Thank you, Demion, for being there. It's always great to have a board member. Cat, you'll be the next board member I think we hope to bring, because you're the chair. I am hoping that we will submit I think the Pascua Yaqui partnership, EMT, would be a perfect submittal for a future Bellwether award. We are going to be looking to submit that piece. And then we had a student with us. I think it's important to have a board member, a student, faculty as part of our team. So I'm just so proud of what we have accomplished in the last three years. Also, I want to thank a couple of individuals. First of all, Officer Diana St. John for your generous gift to the college. Your art collection that you and your husband has donated to us, much appreciated, and thank you for your service to Pima. Also want to thank Laurie Wright. You heard this wonderful auditor's report earlier. Well, a big part of that report are our federal grants. We have been so successful at Pima in getting federal grants. Laurie Wright and the team have done a phenomenal job. Laurie also just retired. Just want to recognize Laurie for her tremendous service to the college. Also want to say, and it's been pointed out, I had a chance to meet with Staff Council, with Faculty Senate, with the adjunct faculty group, as well. Thank you for your questions, and please keep them coming. I want to be as transparent and open -- as you know, Denise, I'm going to tell you what I think, you know, and know that that doesn't mean that's what we are going to do, but I want you to know that's what's on my mind, right, and we will work through a lot of those things. But I think it's important that I share where I think the future is going and how we can continue to push down that direction. Also, just want to mention that some of the questions were about inclusion. We talk a lot about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and inclusion of our LGBTQ+ employees was a big part of the conversation. As you know, we have done the Campus Pride Index. We are going to work to improve what we are doing here at the college. Questions have been brought to my attention about our medical and dental -- medical plans, prescription plans. I just want everyone to know Pima does a lot in the area of supporting gender-affirming care. Our plan is not like the state's plan. It's important to keep that distinction, right? You might hear about some other entity. Our plan is different. We will always be glad to share what we do in that front. But also our prescription plan. Yes, we use Magellan, but if you think about how that plan is constructed, and how we support the gaps in the plan, I really encourage all employees, please come and talk to Denise Morrison and her team before becoming too confused or disoriented about what is covered and what's not covered. Denise and her team are so well-prepared to help guide you through that process. You'll find in many ways that the college will try its best to support our employees. So I just want to say again thank you, all. Tomorrow I'm going to say more about the pandemic and what we have accomplished over the last two years. We are going to have Dr. Garcia come in and talk about the state of the pandemic today and where that's going to go here into the near future. Things are improving. That's important to note. And as you all know, NAU has gone public and has lifted their mask mandate. ASU, last I knew, are talking about doing the same thing. We will probably hear from U of A in the near future. My understanding is Maricopa has already announced that it's pulling back from its mask mandate. The county just recently made its announcement. A lot of shifts are going to be occurring here in the next few weeks. Pima has got to look at where it is in the context of all of that. With all that, thank you, all, for being at the college and please enjoy your upcoming spring break. Faculty, especially, because the rest of us, unless we take leave, we don't get spring break. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you for those remarks. Thank you so much. Any questions or comments from the board? With that, again, thank you, Chancellor, for your remarks. We will move on to now the information items. The information items were provided to the board for general information purposes. If any board member has clarifying questions regarding any of the information items, please let me know. We can have the chancellor follow up or add the topic to a future agenda. With that, our next topic is the consent agenda. The consent agenda was provided also to our board members for review. May I have a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any discussion? Any opposed? So with that, all in favor, please signify by saying aye? (Ayes.) >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Opposed? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Opposed. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Opposed? Two opposed? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So let me, Chairperson Ripley, the items -- my understanding is that we are approving the tuition increase, or am I wrong? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: That's not part of the consent agenda. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: This is consent agenda. That piece will come -- >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: We'll get to that. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. Forget it. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yeah, this is consent agenda. We will get to the action items. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. I'm sorry. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: No, that's fine. There is a lot of moving parts. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'm going to change my vote to yes. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: With that, we do have a majority. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I do too. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: We do have a majority. Consent agenda has been approved. Thank you. The next item are the actual action items. So we will now consider the action items on the agenda. Mr. Silvyn, will you please read the first recommendation from the chancellor? I believe there are two items. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yes, but we will take them in order completely separately. I will read the recommendation. The board can decide what it wants to do on the first item. Once that's completed, we will move to the second item. For the first item, the chancellor recommends the Governing Board approve the college permanently provide student support courses at no cost for tuition or service fees beginning with academic year 2022 through '23. A list of success support courses will annually be provided to the Governing Board when tuition and service fees are set. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Do I hear a motion to approve the chancellor's recommendation? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I now open the floor to discussion. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Chairwoman Ripley, if you don't mind if we just share a little bit more background for this so that way the board members, before you do take a vote, you just have a greater context of understanding. So we have shared a little presentation piece here about the impact that this has had this last year in which we have implemented this, and we feel that it has been very positive. And the impact from a retention standpoint is well worth the consideration for why we are recommending that we make this a permanent part of what we are doing. I don't know if Dave or Dolores, you wanted to add to that. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Chairperson Ripley, members of the board, Chancellor Lambert, colleagues and guests. The one thing I might add is I will do it like as a real quick return-on-investment type of exercise that sort of follows up on some of the information provided. So in the information provided it talked about in the fall that there were 2,000 students who took a certain series of these courses that now it's been two years running since we have stopped charging tuition. This was something we initiated two years ago. And what we are looking to do tonight is just continue that on a regular basis so that we don't have to come back every year. That's essentially what this item is about. To give some context about those 2,000 students, you saw that the persistence measures improved about 7% for those who were taking the courses versus those who weren't. Just a quick way, there are multiple ways you could do return-on-investment kind of calculation on this, but I will try and keep it real simple. If those 7% now who are persistent, that translates into about 140 students, if those 140 students then follow up and take 12 units, that basically that covers the cost of what those entire 2,000 students we were foregoing for the entire 2,000 students. That's just tuition, so that's not including also the fact that when you think about our FTSE and the enrollment, how critical enrollment is for expenditure limitation, for how the STEM funding is calculated, how 301 is calculated, and also how 207 is calculated, enrollment really matters. So not only is it good from an academic standpoint, it's showing that, yes, it actually is having a positive return in terms of student success, which is ultimately the most important thing. I don't want to make this about the money. This is actually about the student success. But on top of that, it's very reasonable to say that providing these courses and getting the enhanced success from the students also pays back to the college. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Dr. Bea, for that discussion. Anything else, Chancellor, you'd like to add to the discussion? >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: No, other than to say I think our faculty, like Denise and others, who teach these STU courses make a huge difference for our students. I think that I guess the PowerPoint we shared here really highlights, there is learning gains in each instance. I think this is hopefully you would see it the same way, I will use this term, a no-brainer, and I hope you will support passing this so we can make sure that we can scale this across the entire college on a permanent, go-forward basis. >> DR. DOR�: Board chair, if I may, may I comment? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes, please. >> DR. DOR�: I think the other thing is that these courses make the most difference for our most vulnerable students. These courses are a real game-changer for those students who are falling between the cracks. So I just want to applaud the board for supporting this initiative and all of our STU faculty, because they are really making a significant difference for our most vulnerable students. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much for reiterating that. Is there any more discussion? Any further? So is there any objection to ending the discussion? Board Member Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: One quick question. It's a comment. I think it's ideal in reference to providing what we are going to be passing. I support it. But more important, the focus of the students is going to be which area? For example, are we looking at focusing with the high school students who are going to be graduating in May? Or are we focusing on students that are returning or which -- what is the focus of these students? That's what I'm asking. Or what was the focus? >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: If it's okay, I will have Dr. Irene Robles-Lopez answer for us. >> DR. IRENE ROBLES-LOPEZ: Sure. Really the STU courses are offered to all students at Pima College, so again, as we have talked about how this really helps to support those students that need additional help with study skills, critical thinking, transfer strategies, we cover so many things within those courses that really help our students get the foundation for success, whether they are in the high school, just coming into college, or if they have been out in the workforce and then are returning. So it really is key. As a former counselor, I used to teach the STU courses. I can tell you the growth, really the bonding that occurs within the class, it really is key to student success. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Right. Like I mentioned, I support it, but I just wanted to see what the focus or the target are with the young people. Because if it's returning students, as long as they have demonstrated or -- what I'm trying to say, are those people that are in good standing or ones that are going to be eligible, correct? >> DR. IRENE ROBLES-LOPEZ: So all of our students are eligible to register for an STU class. The majority of them do not have any type of prerequisite or anything that is required for them to take in addition to that course. Many times we recommend these, especially if students are just starting. So whether it's at the beginning as brand new, incoming high school students, or those students that are returning, because it really does help them with that skill building. And so if a student is struggling, they may be referred to take an STU class, because maybe they are having challenges with note taking, and maybe not being sure how to take tests, test-taking strategies. So sometimes it can be a recommendation for a student that maybe is not being as successful as we know they can be, but then also for a student that is just coming in that wants to make sure they start off on the right foot. Dr. Dor� did just put in the chat that students can also take them as dual enrollment, so again, that high school population as well as our students that are already regular students at the college. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Irene, for explaining that. Any other discussion? If there is no further discussion, Mr. Silvyn, would you please take a roll call vote to approve the student success support courses at no cost? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Sure, be glad to. Demion Clinco? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Yes. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Maria Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Meredith Hay? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Yes. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Luis Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Catherine Ripley? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes. So the motion is approved. Thank you very much for that. The second and last item for our action is the academic year 2022 to 2023 tuition and service fees. Mr. Silvyn, if you would? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yes, be glad to. The chancellor recommends the Governing Board set tuition and fees for academic year 2022-2023, including an increase of $2 per credit hour to the instate resident, nonresident, including summer and online, and differential tuition rates and maintaining service fees at the current year rates. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Do I hear a motion to approve the chancellor's recommendation? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: So moved. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Second. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I now open the floor to discussion. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair -- sorry. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Go ahead, Chancellor. You can explain things up front. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: You want me to go ahead and provide a context? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: As you recall since going into COVID we have not recommended a tuition increase. So this would be the first year of us coming before the board asking for this increase. Also what I'd like to do is have Dr. David Bea provide you a larger overview. As part of that, Dave will also talk about how we are connecting the increase to what the students are going to get in terms of the value of that increase. Dave? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Good evening again, Chairperson Ripley, members of the board, Chancellor Lambert, colleagues and guests. You can all see the screen? See it okay? I have a brief presentation tonight to sort of put some context around the recommendation for the tuition increase and how it fits into the budget. So recall we have had a couple of study sessions with the board, first in November and then more recently in February, to sort of outline the budget parameters, what some of the expense priorities were, and to have a conversation with the board about the board's priorities, what the board was supportive of, what the board wanted to make sure how we approached things in terms of going forward. With the feedback related to tuition and fees, and Chancellor Lambert just mentioned this, it was really clear that the board was interested only in considering a tuition increase, one, that would keep tuition as low as possible, and that has been a commitment that the college has done everything it can to maintain for years, and then secondarily, that any tuition increase would be tied directly to things that would benefit the students in a direct way. And so we talked more specifically in February about what the recommendations were in terms of a potential tuition increase. Those were the priorities were institutionalizing initiatives that we were able to fund from the federal aid that we received through the COVID relief money, the higher ed emergency relief funds, particularly related to the student device lending program, so our having tablets and laptops available to students to borrow, including actually hotspots as well, which has been popular. I think it's really helped students who may have come from backgrounds where they don't have that technology available to them. So initially we were able to use the federal funds to kick off that program. As you would expect, if you think a program like that, as much as we do follow up with students, we do have program to program ending at a certain time frame, there is damage that happens to the equipment, and then there is equipment that gets lost. So firstly, it's to be able to continue that program on a revolving basis. Then also that there is staffing involved in being able to prepare the machines, get the machines ready to respond to students if they are having issues with the equipment, so there is some staffing dollars involved in providing that support. So the first part of the ask is about, it's around $600,000 combined for the ongoing needs for the equipment and then for the staff. We expect there will be at least about $100,000 after we fold that into the budget from a $2 tuition increase to enhance the student scholarship money. So the recommendation is a $2 tuition increase that generates about $700,000. Again, that would be then directly supporting the ongoing effort to have the lending equipment available, supporting the lending equipment, and then enhancing our scholarship dollars a little bit. Then I'm going to go back, and I went through that already, the Arizona colleges, our peer institutions, they are in various stages of their tuition increases and proposals. On average, they are increasing it $1.75. That's excluding one that I will explain in just a second when I show the chart. It's really right around the average what we are talking about when we are proposing a $2 increase. It's really a range. There are a few institutions that are at zero, and then there are a number that are at 3, so we are sort of in the middle of that mix. And then to show you in comparison to our peer institutions, this is what the proposed rates appear to be going forward, either what they have had approved or what they are proposing and where we fit in with it. We are a little bit on the higher end when you factor in our service fees. The one caveat that I said is Central, which is there at $50, I said that excluding one college, it's $1.75 on average. That's because Central is going from zero, they used COVID relief money to provide their students with the opportunity to have zero tuition. They are phasing back in to what will be a more normal tuition model over the course of a couple of years. So their upcoming rate will jump from 0 to 50 and then they are expecting it to go from 50 to 75 in the next year. If you're wondering why is it so low and why am I saying there's an exception, it's because there's one college that did something very dramatically different from the other colleges. But they are essentially going to be moving toward the normal model also. So that's where we stand versus our peer institutions, and then we provided in this chart what does it mean a dollar tuition increase, what does it mean in terms of all the nonresident rates because they are proportionately changed, what their change would be. They are not actually proportional. They add the same dollar amount for those other programs as well. Again, the recommendation is to do this last column, the +$2. The processing fees, technology fees, will all stay the same. And again, this is reinforcing what the idea is, a moderate $2 increase, we haven't increased tuition in a couple of years. Again, it's turning those potential tuition increase dollars right back to providing ongoing support for those really necessary student support mechanism. One other piece I will add when talking about that chart and what the action was that the board just took a few minutes ago is that we don't factor in and don't take down the tuition total average or per-unit amount because we provide those student support courses at no cost. So that's not factored into it. I think we are the only, there might be one other school that does it, I think we are the only one right now that does it, so when you are looking at that tuition chart, that's for those other courses. Again, we provide the student success courses at no charge, which I think we should really take some credit for recognizing the importance to our student success that that provides. With that, I will ask if there are any questions or conclude what my brief presentation was related to this. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, first of all, I just want to clearly state that I do not support a tuition increase, and I'm going to give my justifications for that. No. 1, with gas prices being as high as they are going right now, I really don't think that people can afford any additional increases, with housing costs as high as they are, with day care as high as they are. You know, $2 may not seem like a lot of money, but when you factor in everything else, it can be considerable. It could be a meal. Now, the other thing is that I believe that, and this is just -- I think that with the new -- as I stated before, with the new housings coming in and college getting additional revenues from the marijuana money that they are getting and the new housing costs and you guys have noticed how much that revenue is going to be, I believe this college can manage with what we have and what we are going to get and there should be no increase in tuition. So that's my take on it. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. Board Member Hay has her hand up. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Yes. Thank you, Chair Ripley. I wanted just to state my support for the chancellor's proposal. Primarily, as I stated a few months ago, I don't think the faculty have seen significant raises in a number of years, whether that's adjunct faculty or regular faculty as well as staff. I fully support excellence at Pima Community College, and excellence means excellent faculty. We can't afford to lose anybody. While I appreciate Board Member Garcia's acknowledgement of the increase of costs to the students, there is also increase of costs to faculty and staff making a living. We have not done a good enough job, I don't think, in my opinion, to really retain and promote those faculty members we have. They have done such an extraordinary job in fulfilling the missions that the chancellor has laid out. So I am fully supportive of this proposal. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Board Member Garcia? Do you have another comment? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Board Member Hay, I don't believe that the tuition increase was connected to the salary increase for faculty, or to relook at that. My understanding when we had our budget session, that was not. Tuition increase is different. It's to support specifically the students for the equipment repairs, providing additional hotspots. So correct me if I'm wrong, Dave Bea. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Madam Chair, can I respond to that? I think you have to first step back and look at things holistically. Because we are able to use the tuition increases to now come in behind the HEERF pieces and then to use it to come in with the STU courses and the like, we now don't have to use other monies to do that. That money then is freed up to do the things that Dr. Hay is talking about. So I think you have to look at it holistically. Otherwise we will have to make other kinds of choices around those things. So if you want to see us continue to offer the digital tools and devices, you want us to be able to do these STU courses, you want us to do those kinds of things that are a direct benefit to the student, we're going to have to take it from somewhere else if we don't have this revenue enhancement. I don't know, Dave, if you want to add to that. >> DR. DAVID BEA: I think that was effectively said. You know, essentially what you'd be saying is there are sort of two choices, that we don't provide these types of equipment because they are not supported by tuition, or we do, and then those end up being funded by other sources, then we have fewer other sources to do the important things. What we have been talking about with the study session is there is a very big increase that in order to make headway on compensations to address the concerns that our employees have about inflation, those other revenue sources that Board Member Garcia referenced are going to be critical for us making good headway in terms of the compensation issues. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any other discussion? Board Member Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, I did not hear that in the study session that we had, Dr. Bea. I guess I would like to see us go back and relook and you give us other options so that the faculty can get their increase and we do the correct compensations for them that they are entitled to, and the staff, but I believe we can get those revenues from the property taxes. That's for you to figure out. And I'm done. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: So from my understanding, Dr. Bea, it's an all-funds budget. So we get funds from multiple different sources. We have not increased funds from tuition in a while. We have funds from other sources recently to help fill those holes, as the chancellor discussed. I think the faculty deserve and the staff deserve our support, because quite frankly because the students expect excellence. We can't retain excellence and we can't recruit excellence unless we can recruit and retain our faculty. So from an all-funds budget perspective, it's all funds. It's tuition dollars, it's real estate dollars, it's tax dollars. It's all of that. It comes into balance and we allocate those as we see most appropriate. Absolutely now is the time to support our faculty and our staff, and that's through an all-funds budget increase, which includes a tuition increase. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any other discussion? I would just like to add, just to bring it back down to my level, I guess, so our revenues are tuition, property taxes, and state funding, which we don't get, so those were the three normal sources of revenue. Because of that, we have been creative in getting grants. Very generous grants. The last one was $5 million. And then the HEERF monies but the HEERF monies are not sustainable. We haven't increased property taxes or tuition, because two years ago we didn't know what was going to happen with COVID. So we did that knowing at some point, God willing, COVID will end and we are going to have to regroup, because at the same time, enrollment is decreasing. So these are all the moving parts. We are standing up an enrollment committee. That's really crucial. We are making a more robust effort at boosting our enrollment resources, the people and the money that's spent on recruitment. But that has not happened yet. We are still experiencing a down trend in enrollment. So it's all numbers. Thank you, Dr. Bea, because it would make my head explode. But there is a lot of moving parts and a lot of numbers to crunch. It's really not magic. So something's got to give, and to me, these are the, like I said in my opening remarks, these are the hard decisions and the hard work that we have to do to make sure that we take care of everyone. I would like to add the class comp study is almost complete, and we are quite sure there is going to have to be adjustments. Those adjustments are going to come pretty harshly, and we are going to have to increase the salaries on people that are not being paid what they should be paid. Where is that money going to come from? So this is where we, as a board, have to make these hard decisions for the good of the college. With that, Board Member Clinco, you had some comments or questions. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you. Again, I just want to reiterate a number of points that were made by Dr. Hay and yourself. When I ran for this board, it was not my vision that we would sit here and have to raise tuition. But the financial realities of the institution, you know, we've spent multiple years looking at the ins and outs of the money flows in and how it is chopped up and carved out and spent. I simply at this point could not imagine -- what we have seen with COVID -- you know, at the very beginning of this meeting we had an enrollment report that talked about -- I think it was at the beginning of this meeting, might have been an earlier meeting today, but the enrollment report of just how many students are, Dr. Duran-Cerda I believe was reporting on how many students are still going to be online in the summer and how many are going to be, how many we anticipate online in the fall. Without the technology tools to support those students, how many will be left behind, unable to enroll into classes online or with the hotspots needed to be able to actively participate in this hybrid or a virtual learning space. I'm hopeful that the pandemic is over. There's still uncertainty. Again, to everyone's point this evening, yes, inflation is happening. This tuition proposal is not keeping pace with how inflation is increasing not just this year but over the last three years. I think this is a modest increase that helps us offset some of the commitments that we have been talking about now for two years with the compensation study. Again, it's not something I want to support, but I'm not sure I see a way to be able to effectively achieve the goals that we have asked for and have a balanced budget. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Clinco. Any other discussion or questions or comments? Yes, Board Member Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: As mentioned before, the inflation is coming -- it's not coming, it's here. It's impacting a lot of people, a lot of students, and more important, the families. As mentioned before, I have always been supportive of what we have and what Pima is doing, as well, too. But I think right now is not the time. The rest of the group is correct. We need to provide our faculty their due compensation, as well, too. But more important, this impacts the families. I do not agree with the tuition increase. That's part of the thing that we need to look at, at all options. We do have, as mentioned before by Dr. Bea, there is very healthy reserves for this year. Utilize some of those reserves and do not raise the tuition. Because I think, and I believe strongly, that if we do increase even $2, it's going to impact not positive but more negatively. That's my opinion. But like I mentioned before, if there is no other option, utilize it at least one more year. Because inflation is not coming, it's here. Utilize some of the reserves. That's why we have them there too. That's all. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Gonzales. Any other discussion? Okay. Again, I would like to add that this is why we are a board. We have to make the tough decisions and we do have to look at everything from every angle. If this motion does pass, this vote passes, I want to assure people that, or even if it doesn't, that we are expending an inordinate amount of energy and time and resources that out of love for this school to try to get tuition to as free as possible in accordance with the Arizona Constitution. We have done that through donations and grants and scholarships and apprenticeships. We are going to continue to do that in addition to providing, like Dr. Bea pointed out, the hardware and the software, the Wi-Fi spots. We will try, we will not leave any stone unturned to ensure we consistently strive towards as free as possible, but until that happens, this is something that again this is a hard decision we have to make, and there are so many moving parts. Again, I can't imagine how much number-crunching had to happen to get to this point. Again, I agree with Board Member Clinco, this isn't a decision any of us want to make, but it is one of those hard decisions. With that, if there is no further discussion, Mr. Silvyn, will you please make a roll call vote. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Demion Clinco? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Yes. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Maria Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: No. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Meredith Hay? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Yes. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Luis Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: No. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Catherine Ripley? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes. With that, with the majority, this action item does pass. I think those were the two action items. It was a lot. We got through them. The last item on the agenda is request for future agenda items. Would any board member like to request an agenda topic for a future meeting? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I'm requesting that we have face-to-face meetings for next month. I think it's very critical that we meet. I think as mentioned before, everybody is lifting their mask requirement, but I think the next meeting should be a face-to-face meeting. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Gonzales. Yes, we are seriously moving towards that. The next meeting may just be in person. I'm hoping it will. We are just consulting with the county, with the city, and with all of the medical professionals to make sure that we can do that safely, and so, yes, it most likely will happen, yes. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: And the other thing I mentioned earlier is that I really would like to see at least rotate our board meetings as well, too, to the different campuses, beginning with Downtown or Desert Vista or West Campus, Eastside and Northwest, too. I think that's something we need to look at and put in the agenda for discussion, because I think it's important that people want it, as well, too. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Great. Thank you. We will put that on the agenda. Any other requests for future agenda items? Well, we have completed all items on the agenda. Is there any further business? Hearing none, is there any objection to adjourn? Hearing none, we are officially adjourned. Thank you very much. (Adjournment.) ********************************************* DISCLAIMER: THIS CART FILE WAS PRODUCED FOR COMMUNICATION ACCESS AS AN ADA ACCOMMODATION AND MAY NOT BE 100% VERBATIM. THIS IS A DRAFT FILE AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD. IT IS SCAN-EDITED ONLY, AS PER CART INDUSTRY STANDARDS, AND MAY CONTAIN SOME PHONETICALLY REPRESENTED WORDS, INCORRECT SPELLINGS, TRANSMISSION ERRORS, AND STENOTYPE SYMBOLS OR NONSENSICAL WORDS. THIS IS NOT A LEGAL DOCUMENT AND MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED, PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. THIS FILE SHALL NOT BE DISCLOSED IN ANY FORM (WRITTEN OR ELECTRONIC) AS A VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT OR POSTED TO ANY WEBSITE OR PUBLIC FORUM OR SHARED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE HIRING PARTY AND/OR THE CART PROVIDER. 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