CHANCELLOR’S C-DIRECTAugust 30, 2017

One of the new features at Peralta is the expansion of noncredit classes. In this picture shared by Associate VC King, one can see that the first class from Merritt College offered at the Fruitvale Center was a heartwarming success.

There are some real benefits to offering noncredit classes. To start with, there is no cost to the students and undocumented individuals are allowed to enroll. Offering noncredit classes is just the beginning of something we can certainly expand on a grander scale and should contribute

to enrollment growth for years to come. AVC Mel King was instrumental in working with faculty, and especially the Technology and A&R staff, to get us this program started. The

potential here is immense: Not only are we increasing enrollment, but we are increasing educational access to all.

PBIM Summit

The Planning Budgeting Integration Model (PBIM) group held its annual Summit at Merritt College this past Friday. Seventy of our colleagues, faculty, staff and administrators attended the retreat. Several leaders, including Cleavon Smith (DAS), VC Jason Cole and VC Siri Brown joined Chief Crawford in facilitating the event. The new Shared Governance committees will be smaller and, we anticipate, more engaged. There are new PBIM structures and committees this year as a pilot to a new Shared Governance process and organization.

East Bay MUD and PCCD Partnership

One of the focuses we have pursued is a Strategic Enrollment Management system that would involve the business industry. More importantly, we are the “Preferred Trainer” for our government agencies. One example of this inclusion is East Bay MUD. Our first class started last week. And here is the testimony by one of the faculty members, Kim Glosson:

Greetings EBMUD, Peralta and Laney College Partners, On Wednesday, August 23, EBMUD Manager Clifford Chan and Associate Vice Chancellor Mel King officially welcomed the employees participating in the first EBMUD-Peralta Cohort

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Program. WDCE Budget Director Sui Song and EBMUD Human Resource Analyst Maria Berbano also greeted the employees and responded to their specific inquires. Special thanks to Mel and Sui for the delicious treats and Heidi and Maria for your generous support during the evening class session! I’m excited to share our business communication class session was filled with excitement and anxiety. The diverse students actively participated in the icebreaker activity and clearly demonstrated their eagerness to learn based on their multiple questions and comments during the class discussions. This wonderful partnership exemplifies the benefits of organizational collaboration to provide educational and promotional opportunities for employees, students and our community.”

Best, K. GlossonBusiness Management Instructor Laney College

Laney Football Schedule

Sept. 2 Saturday CC San Francisco San Francisco 1:00pmSept. 8 Friday Butte Oakland 7:00pmSept. 16 Saturday Feather River Quincy 5:00pmSept. 22 Friday De Anza Oakland 7:00pm (Alumni Night) – District Office night at the gameSept. 29 Friday Contra Costa Oakland 7:00pm – Peralta Night at the gameOct. 6/7 BYE WEEKOct. 14 Saturday Delta Stockton 1:00pmOct. 20 Friday Sequoias Oakland 7:00pmOct. 28 Saturday Fresno City Fresno 6:00pmNov. 3 Friday Modesto Oakland 7:00pm - Sophomore NightNov. 11 Saturday Chabot Hayward 6:00pm

Van Ton-Quinlivan

Vice Chancellor Van Ton-Quinlivan, from the Community College State Chancellor’s Office, was the guest of the Employers’ Advisory Committee of the East Bay Development Agency. She explained to the employers (mostly businesses) about the leadership her office has been providing for the 114 community colleges in the state in the area of Workforce Development and Career Technical Education (CTE). She revealed the data that are available in the Chancellor’s Office. Debra Jones, Mel King and Siri Brown were also in attendance. Of particular

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interest is the success noted in one of the reports from the Chancellor’s Office in regard to some of our CTE programs. I am pleased to share a summary of that report:

Institution Program SuccessBerkeley City College Biotechnology Earnings by 212%College of Alameda Autobody and Paint Earnings by 68%

Comp. Info. System Earnings by 87%Global Trade/Logistics

Earnings by 78%

Laney College Digital Media 90% job placementConstruction Trades 100% job placementConstruction Management

100% job placement

Merritt College Community Social Serv.

100% job placement

Landscape design 100% job placementReal estate 100% job placement

Diane Dodge

Diane Dodge is the Executive Director of the East Bay College Fund (EBCF). Diane noted the success experienced this summer with the enrollment of over 400 students in classes at PCCD who had steps left to finish their matriculation. The East Bay College Fund team and our enrollment services team combined to enroll more Oakland students during the summer. We discussed the need for this work to be done proactively by having schedules available for registering high school students before they leave for the summer and schedules that coincide with the acceptance letters from four-year institutions. This scheduling efficiency would boost the confidence of the students planning to attend Peralta. We also discussed ways and that potential donors might support a year of free tuition for OUSD students and for the other cities as well.

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The upshot here is that we have real potential to support a greater number of college-going students in our cities. The OUSD estimate is that a third of the students who graduate move on to a four-year institution, a third to the community colleges, and a third do not attend college. Tapping into that last third to increase our percentage from OUSD by at least 50% would bring in a lot more students who would normally delay their college entry, or not access higher education at all. Furthermore, the EBCF would like to support more students going into CTE programs.

Oakland Thrives

Oakland Thrives was a Kaiser response to a comprehensive community wellness approach. The organization accepted five focuses where a difference can be made in the wellness of the community:

Education Housing Wealth

Health Safety

Different groups are looking at these important subjects. Peralta is heavily involved in the education and housing groups. As the groups continue their work, we may get involved in additional groups, especially in those pertaining to health and wealth.

Fall 2017 Address Conclusion

Note: I have not yet published my Fall 2017 Flex address because my allotted time was shortened and I had to make last minute edits. However, I am pleased to share with you excerpts from my original written speech:

Opportunities Before Us:A. Enrollment

We have unprecedented opportunities to increase our enrollment through a variety of

opportunities, including the expansion of noncredit and credit courses and greater outreach to students. We need to identify students with a low balance on their accounts

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who have not been allowed to register. If you encounter any such cases, please refer them to the College Bursar offices or the District Finance Office. We want to help these students.

B. Using our properties to leverage resources to accomplish Total Cost of OwnershipFor many years, various investors and corporations have eyed Laney properties, COA properties, and Merritt properties, yet there has not been any marked advance in any conversation.

For a few years now, there were public statements to use Laney College as the site of a baseball stadium, a mystery because nobody had spoken to us. Once people started to approach us, we quickly realized that they were no longer speaking about Laney College, but now had their sights on other land within the Laney infrastructure. Over the summer, I was able to successfully encourage the Oakland Athletics Baseball team to explore the Peralta District Land that is underdeveloped and underutilized, except by raccoons, rats, fleas and other creatures. An inspector from the state once said to me, we had over used the main District building and that it was time for us to do something else. He had been inspecting our facilities for decades.

As I stated last year, it would not be wise for us to sell our lands. Unless we find ourselves in an advantageous position to trade assets, we ought to, instead, lease our land. Here are some of the standards and expectations:

1. Equity: Any deals ought to revolve around equity- not as an afterthought, but as an integral part of our agreements. 2. Avoidance of gentrification: By all means we need to avoid gentrification.3. Housing for students: Any agreement should lead to the improvement of housing, food, and safety for our students. These are our paramount interests.4. Housing for faculty and staff: In any deal, we need to push strongly for housing for some of our faculty and staff who are having a hard time affording livable space in our community.5. Employment benefits: Any development investments need to provide career exploration opportunities for our students and employment for our alumni.6. Educational benefits: Building educational benefits for students, faculty and staff, and feeder high schools should be a critical concern in all our decision-making. For example, when we considered at Montgomery College a partnership with Holy Cross Hospital, the partnership centered on students’ internships and faculty access to hospital labs and clinics and students’ employment.

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7. New sources of infrastructure revenue: Maintaining our buildings is an ongoing challenge. Our aging buildings at Laney, Merritt and COA need repair, maintenance, and general upkeep. Our newest buildings, including the one at BCC, will no longer maintain their character and appeal, unless we can maintain them. Currently, we do not have the cushion in the budget to hire enough custodians and engineers to maintain the standards we want and need. We need solid opportunities that will generate ongoing revenue that we can invest in our infrastructure and its long-neglected priorities.

Our aim should be to look for and to evaluate those potential opportunities that are offered us that will enhance our funding to meet our “total cost of ownership” criteria, as well as to enhance quality of life and to assure equity for our students, faculty, and staff.

To realize these ideas (and ideals), we need to have strong Participatory Governance committees to develop and to implement our plans, to retain the memory of our commitments to build our infrastructure and to hold future leaders/chancellors accountable for the promises that are made. We followed a system like this at Solano Community College which allowed for its Biotech Building to be completed, the theatre to be completed, and the 44,000-square foot Science building in the process of being built, as well as a new library that is in the works. Peralta (you and I) ought to establish strong processes and structures whereby no faculty member or administrator can undermine the process for the allocation of additional resources. We can do it! We should do it.

At times, we may fight and let go past us the opportunities that can transform our District. Let us make sure we attend to the big things—and not allow the petty things to distract us from our ideals that can help our students and colleagues live better. And as Wes Jackson from Kansas said, “if you are dreaming of things that can only be accomplished during your lifetime, you are not dreaming big enough.” So, let us dream together the big things now to ensure a solid future for those who will follow us. Let us not anguish over small matters. Let us dream big and focus big.

C. Workforce Development and Continuing Education Much work and much planning has gone into the WDCE Unit, but more is left to be done until we can feel secure. I promised you the development of WDCE should contribute greatly to our prosperity as a District. One year after we started the unit, we can see some great progress, but I am expecting even more as we move into our second year. WDCE is blazing some paths for us with major companies like East Bay MUD, PG&E, and

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AC Transit. We are seeking greater partnerships with the State Chancellor’s Office, and are knocking on many doors to serve our community and to ensure greater financial returns for Peralta. We will embark this fall in a search for a permanent leader for the WDCE unit. I look forward to our work together to build a strong WDCE. I am grateful for the work the WDCE team has done and for their collaborative work with the Colleges.

Conclusion: The “New Peralta Way” is taking shape and I thank all of you for having the courage to engage in the hard work that is inherent to dynamic change. An essential ingredient of this New Peralta Way is a dynamically functioning District Office that proves everyday it is worth the investment that have been made in it.As the year goes forward, I have two wishes for you:

One: Challenge yourselves as you challenge our studentsQuestion information and seek the truth so that the gossip and untruths you hear do not take away from your commitment to students, to one another, and to the educational purpose you have dedicated your life to. Paying attention to rumors can be defeating and unproductive and often leads to low morale. I was asked by a dear colleague how can one lead when people engage in gossip and are often critical and/or blind to good work being done. In response, I asked my colleague to reflect on the importance of those national leaders whose good work have remained long after they have left office, but who were, at the time, underappreciated: Consider the Affordable Care Act of President Obama-- even a few Republican law makers are not ready to throw it away; the Dream vision of Dr. Martin Luther King; the remarkable Moon Landing under President JFK; and who would have thought that President Carter would now be remembered as a leader for peace.

Two: Allay your fears There are fears that we all have that must be overcome. Nothing good becomes of fear; the antidote to fear is to be driven by principle. There is wisdom in FDR’s dictum that we have nothing to fear, but fear itself. Let’s all get this point across to our students. Our country is going through an amazing time of both greatness and sadness----sadness with the tweets our government puts out regularly that strike fear in the hearts of almost everyone; but our country is going through some greatness when we see our sisters and brothers of all ethnicities take to the streets to say “no” to bigotry, injustice, discrimination, and unfairness. Let us not allow fear to deaden our native instinct for the achievement of justice, namely:

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o Let us work diligently in our quest for equity. That starts with respect for one another.o Let us support our students’ basic needs for housing, food, health care, and educationo Let us work to educate our students such that they are meaningfully employable and employed.

JowelJowel C. Laguerre, Ph.D.

Chancellor

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion … if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”

― Nelson Mandela

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