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>> Juan: Well good morning everyone.
Thank you for coming.
My Name is Juan Gutierrez.
I'm the Director of Public Relations here
at Pasadena City College.
And again, I want to thank you for coming
to today's press conference about our Title Five Grant
and all the wonderful grants we've received this pass fiscal
year and as we move forward, the grants that we receive
to help students achieve their educational goals.
The format for the press event is as follows;
Dr. Rocha will come up in a few minutes and talk
about the program in Title Five
and then we'll have Salomon Davila and Debra Bird come
up to talk about the program
and maybe have other students say a few words.
And then we're going to open it up for questions and answers
from the working press,
so without any further ado, Dr. Rocha.
>> Dr. Rocha: Well good morning everyone and thank you again
for coming this morning.
I have a very brief, very brief one page statement
that I'm going to read and then I will introduce my colleagues,
Salomon and Debra.
I am the Superintendent/President Mark
Rocha and today I am joined, let me make some introductions,
first of all I am joined by a member of the Board of Trustees,
Jeanette Mann, and I'm also joined by my colleagues
who serve the college, Vice President Bob Bell
and Vice President Bob Miller, and you met Juan Gutierrez.
That was another part of my text today, and you will meet--
oh, also Brock Klein who is the Director
of our Teaching and Learning center.
And you will meet formally and at greater length,
Salomon Davila and Debra Bird, who are the key prime movers
of this great program.
Today, together we come to announce unalloyed good news
for our college, our students,
and the broader community that PCC serves.
We have recently been informed by the United States Department
of Education that Pasadena City College has won a competitive
Title Five, Hispanic Serving Institution Cooperative Grant
along with our partner Cal Poly Pomona [phonetic] in support
of our Design Technology of Pathways Program
in the total amount of 3.9 million dollars,
775 thousand dollars per year, over 5 years.
We have included for you information that comes directly
from the official United States Department
of Education Relief Announcement.
This grant represents a major step forward in our goal
of transforming our current 20th Century Engineering
and Technology Programs
into 21st Century workforce education programs
that provide students the means to excel
in today's global workforce and employers,
and to provide employers the skilled workforce they
so urgently need to compete domestically and abroad.
This grant is significant for two further,
very important reasons.
First, it acknowledges Pasadena City College
as a national leader
in developing innovative new programs to prepare students
for the 21st Century economy.
Such innovation is the result of a superb faculty.
Second to none, Pasadena City College is, as I often say,
the Ivy League for the rest of us.
Second, this grant brings the total external grant awards
to Pasadena City College over the last two years
to 17 million dollars.
This shows how PCC with the support of the Board
of Trustees is responding to the severe State budget reductions
that have reduced our annual budget by 25 million dollars
over the past 3 years.
25 million dollars, by the way is greater
than the total annual budget of 40
of the State's community colleges.
Rather than complain, our great faculty
and our great staff have acted.
The result is an even better PCC
for our students than ever before.
Social justice and innovation are the two key values held
by PCC since its founding in 1924.
Today's announcement shows that we keep faith
with this long heritage of excellence.
I now have the pleasure of introducing to you the faculty
who are the key to this grant and to this program,
who will explain to you our design technology program
and how it benefits students, and I present to you,
Professor Debra Bird and Professor Salomon Davila.
[ Applause ]
>> Debra: Before we start, I think it would be appropriate
for Brock Klein to maybe say a word about the HSI grant process
and he can explain the significance of this grant.
>> Brock: Great, as Dr. Rocha mentioned,
this is a Hispanic Servicing Institution Grant
from the United States Department of Education
and we acquired that status through documentation,
Nancy Roberts in the Grants Office took care of that work,
25% or more of our students have to be
of Hispanic descent; and they are.
So we've applied for several title five grants.
We got one in 2010 and I oversee that project,
and that is to work with first year students helping them
transition from high school to college.
We received an HSI Stem Grant last year which is focused
on environmental sciences and post first year pathways
for students in the area of environmental sciences,
and now we have the third grant this year, which is focusing
on career and technical education.
>> Debra: So Professor Davila and I conceived
of the design tech pathway about 18 months ago as the result
of a professional development retreat where a number
of faculty were sequestered and where we were asked to come
up with innovative ideas to move the college forward.
We worked together during that retreat
and in the subsequent months and gradually formed an idea
about an integrated, holistic educational approach to career
and technical education based in not just the idea of technology
as it currently exists, but anticipating the needs
that our students will have as they move through their lives
and the workforce in a period of the next 50 years.
We know that the future is very uncertain
and that technology is rapidly accelerating, so we thought
that the key elements
that students need their education are 21st Century
skills which are reflected
in the master plan for the college also.
Communication skills, critical thinking, creativity,
initiative, resilience, adaptability
and problem solving, so we conceived of a program
that would project based so that all the students,
rather than learning in a theoretical,
traditional classroom environment,
would be actively solving design problems using technology.
Working in teams to foster communication,
working out the physical skills and calculations needed
to produce prototypes which integrated map
and so we conceived of a learning community
which would require not just ourselves as a design teacher
and an engineering teacher, but we also needed a math
and an English teacher to form part of our team,
and we were able to recruit two very dynamic young teachers,
Jay Cho in math, and Kathy Kutaries [phonetic] in English.
And together, we formed a team and integrated our curriculum
so that the students were getting what we call
contextualized learning.
English and math, while they remain separate classes,
were integrated into the design process.
So, what they were learning in design, they would also learn
in English and in math simultaneously
so it reinforces the learning
and it makes it real; it makes it relevant.
So it was a new pedagogical approach, it was a new idea
about learning communities and then a task to try to sell them
on to discuss the technology in that--
>> Salomon: I do want to state that before we continue
that professor Bird and myself,
we actually have doctorates in education.
Although she's an architect and myself an engineer,
and we worked in the workforce as such, our initial state
of profession is actually as teachers
and so we approached this with a pedagogical approach,
is that you just heard from, from Professor Bird,
but the slat was how do prepare them for the workforce?
And so our experience in working out there in the industry
and we have amongst ourselves more than two decades working
in an industry, we're able to address the fact that,
you know what, we're not preparing students
for the workforce by teaching button pushing in a class
and that's all they're learning.
Button pushing is not preparing them for the workforce.
>> Salomon: Teaching a machine per class is not preparing them
for the workforce.
Teaching them one software program per class is not
preparing them for the workforce.
So we felt, going back to what Dr. Rocha mentions,
a social justice in innovation that PCC stood
for was very much about design tech.
We weren't preparing students adequately for the workforce
and so we felt that problem solving a real problem,
whether it be designing a shelter,
designing a Rose Parade Float toward designing something
to be more manageable for people with disabilities was more
of an integrative problem that they had
to use whatever technology needed to happen
at that moment whether it be 3D-Cad, 3D-modeling,
3D-scanning, laser cutting--
it didn't matter how to use the technology to solve this problem
which made it integrated with the math and English very real.
And so the focus, very much was on workforce skillsets
that could be what we call transferable skillsets.
What does it take to actually have folks transfer the skills
that is not content based, but 21st Century skill-based,
and that was the premise for the use of the technology
that we use in design tech.
>> Debra: And so we started a pilot one year ago
and we're very fortunate enough to have Brent and Sandra
who are students who just completed the first year
of the program.
We'll ask them to say a few words in a minute.
But the great thing about what these two grants,
because there's a grant from Ervine Foundation
which will enable us to do outreach into the high schools
in Pasadena, primarily Pasadena High School
and John Mueller High School and work
with their linked learning academies in arts
and entertainment, and draw those students into the pathways
that we're setting up at PCC and ensure a greater level
of success certificate and transfer for them.
The other great thing is that the Title Five Grant
which will be over a period of 5 years will enable us not only
to develop our pedagogy and bring
in new certificate programs and work with Cal Poly Pomona
to increase transfer into 4-year degrees
through that relationship.
But it also offers us the ability
to fund some larger capital investment
in retooling the technology in our fabrication lab
and so there will be a few wonder--
>> Salomon: The focus that we have
for the design tech achievement that we want
to do is prepare our students for a high tech, high pay,
high demand jobs; that's our focus.
So, that requires high tech, which is an investment
in capital and equipment that we do not have currently here
at PCC.
High demand, so we're focusing on jobs that are not distinct
in nature, like oh this is the job title, but no, the qualities
of these jobs that are in high demand, so that's the main focus
that we want to push design tech to actually have
that as the result; high tech, high demand, high paying jobs,
and so we need the technology
and this grant will provide that.
Do you want to come up here and say a little bit
of what you guys have done or been through?
>> Brent: I didn't prepare anything.
>> Salomon: That's okay.
>> Debra: That's okay.
>> Sandra: Hi everyone.
My name is Sandra Perez.
>> Brent: I'm Brent Cano.
>> Sandra: And we are the first students of design tech.
So the program that was something new, we were also new
to the college so, we were both new to each other,
so it was something that no one has done or explained to us.
So, this design tech pathway kind of explained how the major
or your GEs collaborate together
because everything was separated from high school?
It was math-to-math, English-to-English,
art-from-art, but it never--
the teachers or any school explain how
that connected with your major.
They just say oh your major has math or your major has English,
but it never explained the student how that works,
it just said it has it.
So business design tech program was the solution
or the explanation how your major integrated
with all those classes you needed.
So, when design tech program started,
the first thing they taught us is try to stop thinking
like a high school student
because we basically follow the rules, we follow the book,
and they taught us it's okay to get away from the book
and do something that is real, but it's possible.
And so with that said,
design tech program also started throwing us math
and explain that's how math integrated
with the programs we've used, or how or why we need math
or English, like speaking or writing reports and explain them
with words and other things
that you never thought it was possible.
And so design tech actually explained the whole solution;
why your major needs this and why you also need your classes
and the classes also helps math, like Profession Cho,
start getting this math homework
that also involved us using the programs by saying oh,
you need to measure a frame by this much and this high
by using that program.
And we had to figure out why or how much of an average person is
to a smaller scale, so that was one of our projects.
Another thing is, we also started going bigger.
Our final project was a Rose Parade float and I had
to create something that was not normal because we [Laughter]
because we wouldn't-- for students to do something
like that, we don't believe we are capable.
We think oh, we have to be a professional to create a float,
but we don't really have to.
We can be students and start designing things at a young age
or older age or any age, but anyone can do it.
That's what they taught us that no matter what age
or what math level you are in, or English level, you can do it.
You just need the right tools and explanation and teaching.
And that's when all the students who were
in the design tech program, we were all surprised
that we were able to create floats our Rose Parade floats
that it's possible.
That anyone can do it if there's the right teaching.
>> Brent: She pretty much summed it.
[Laughter]
>> Salomon: Talk about your business or--
>> Brent: Well, since design tech started,
I started a small business of making actual skateboards
through laser cutting.
I started making a lot of other things.
We started making leather bands, I started making a website.
[Whispering]-- What else did I do with it?
There's a lot of things and--
>> Etching math books.
>> Brent: Oh, I started etching math books actually.
That's my major thing.
I have my whole math book fully designed with something.
I first tested it out on my own
because someone told me it was actually capable
and I believed him and he lied to me.
[Laughter] And then, [inaudible] tried it shortly after I did,
and now we're actually selling like the design
if you want something on your computer, we'll do it for you.
That's partly--
>> Sandra: Technically it's being bold and not being afraid
to test something out because if you're not going to do it,
might as well don't be a major because you have
to test everything out.
If you don't test it, how would you know it works?
That's technically what design tech is doing is just jumping in
and doing something you've never done before
and that's what the design tech program was, just jump in
and try to help students because other students fight for classes
but they never get there.
We have classmates or friends that have been here for 2,
3 years and they still don't know how to use laser cutter
and we, who are 1st year, already have done that
and we're the ones teaching them and they have to fight
for classes and they have to wait to at least 3 years to get
that one class to get taught how to use
that one particular machine.
And design tech is like they teach you that
and you can start going to the machinery
and that we are the ones who have
to teach our own classmates which,
sometimes they feel unfair because they're like,
we're seniors, well how come you get to do this?
[Laughter] It's not fair, but we're like it just happens, so--
>> Salomon: So what are your majors
and your roles in the clubs here?
>> Brent: You can go first.
>> Sandra: I'm Mechanical Engineering and I ran
for President for the Engineering Club,
which I am now.
>> Brent: I'm the Vice President of the Engineering Club
and my major is just General Engineering right now.
I haven't really decided.
>> Sandra: So right now we're trying
to fix the Engineering Club and try to turn it
into somewhat a design tech style
and have more people involved like if students who want
to major in design or engineering, we;
Engineering Club, we want to teach them so they won't have
to be behind of the classes.
So they say, "Oh, I couldn't get in this class
for Engineering Club, and we'll be the one helping them
to be prepared for what they're going into in new class.
So that's where we're hoping to do.
>> Brent: And we're trying to integrate just like design tech,
putting all the things together and making one thing.
So, we want to think of small workshops
where you learn one thing.
You use it to make a small project, use that project
with another workshop and as you go along,
make a final large project.
That's what we're hoping to do.
>> Debra: So, as you can see these students are phenomenally
motivated and they've been really successful.
It's even amazing to us
that they've only been with us for a year.
It's astonishing, and what we're seeing in the success
of students like Sandra and Brent is
that collaborative environments really foster the development
of confidence, the transmission of skills,
we're at the point now where some
of our students are actually teaching us technologies.
They're finding things that we haven't heard about,
and so the idea of the learning community that started
with just 4 teachers, with the support of people like Brock
and this institutional group is now extending
and the information is flowing both up and down, you know,
if you want to think of it in a traditional way.
We're thinking of it in a much more flattened way
that everyone is learning from everyone else.
It's a very democratic way of learning.
It fosters access, it's welcoming,
it gives people the opportunity to grow at their own speed,
but it really instills valuable skills that, you know,
we term life-long learning.
These students will be successful.
The idea that Brent started a business after 6 months
in community college is just phenomenal
and he's not doing it alone, he's doing it as a team.
So we're incredibly proud.
>> Debra, you mention the [inaudible] learning connection
with [inaudible] grant that we are finalizing right now,
are very grateful
to [inaudible]for this opportunity [inaudible] we have
the Cal Poly Pomona transfer and I think it would be good
to say a few words about how that's benfit the program
and how that enriches and makes more dynamic results.
>> Salomon: Well, we try and work backwards.
At Cal Poly Pomona a colleague of mine that I've worked
in the past, he's the Chair of the Engineering Technology,
Bachelor of Science so there's a major at Cal Poly Pomona
that is a non-calculus based Engineering Major
which is attainable to a lot of students
and a lot my previous students actually transferred
to that program, got the jobs and believe it or not,
when they're downsizing companies, they're the ones
who are kept because they're the ones
who keep the company rolling.
The Engineers that have more [inaudible] work actually are
the ones that go first.
And so there's [inaudible] strategic dynamic
that if you actually have both the design skills
and [inaudible] skills, you're valuable
and you get paid quite well.
And so we work backwards from that Engineer technology
of Bachelor Science, what do we have to do here to,
for instance, transfer there and then of course,
we look at the high schools and we need to work
with the high schools to prepare,
we have high school teachers that we work with
and how do we have a special development,
how do we include the students?
How do we bring them here and collaborating in projects
that we do here and in campus the [inaudible]
that we've done here in the past,
and they do competitions here and of course,
robotics competition that we host here now for 2 years
and we keep on making it larger
and larger the [Inaudible] the engineering [inaudible] expo
where we bring middle school here on campus.
So we're starting with middle, working with the high schools,
preparing them here at PCC with the right skillset
to then transfer to the Bachelor
of Science Engineering Technology program
as the full pathway from middle school to college.
That's the goal.
>> I think this is a good time to open it
up for any questions from the media.
I'll ask you guys to stand up here
in case there are any questions.
So are there any questions?
>> Could you spell your names
and I thought maybe what jobs do they hope to get later on?
>> Sandra: Sandra Perez, and well,
my dream job is actually working for NASA.
I really want to build spaceships.
That's been my dream since 6th grade.
>> Wearing the red suit.
[Laughter].
>> Brent: Brent Cano, I haven't really thought of it.
I'm kind of young.
>> How old are you Brent?
>> Brent: I'm 18, barely.
>> How old are you Sandra?
>> Sandra: 21.
>> Any other questions?
>> Can you talk a little bit how many students were
in the programs to begin with [inaudible]?
>> Salomon: We started with a cohort of 25
in the fall, we'll actually 26.
>> Debra: Well, no that was actually a larger class
in the second semester week we actually we reduced it.
So it's about 30 students in the first cohort in the fall
of last year, and 25 in this cohort for the spring.
And in term of the success rates, what we've noticed is
that our success rate, so the students
who pass the classes are higher than the average,
both for the class level where the students tested
into their math and English level, more successful
than the general, average population
and also exceeding the success rates usually
in the Hispanic demographical sort.
But the most significant result we had is that almost,
without exception every single student
who completed the design tech semester persisted
into the second semester of college which means that,
they had a valuable experience
and they gained enough confidence to know
that they could succeed in college and they came back
for a second semester.
So it's that transition period
where students first start college
where they're particularly vulnerable to dropping out,
and so, I think we only lost one student from the first cohort
who didn't continue enrollment in the PCC in some nature
in the second semester and that was because of personal problems
that she just basically moved too far away
to get back to school.
You know, that's where our real success is.
We're opening up a world to the students and we're hoping
that we can interest them and engage them long enough
to develop confidence and success
and to chart a course forward.
>> How similar and different is this program to sort
of small learning communities that you hear
about at the high school level?
You mention that your sort of, [inaudible] reach out to them.
So, it seems like there are some similarities
between the two structures.
>> Salomon: Actually we started
as a model-- with that as a model.
We actually researched learning communities quite a bit,
we actually out of some colleagues of ours
that actually work in high schools, some Vice Principals,
come in and actually orient us within the learning community
and how does that work?
And we took what we thought was relevant
for our environment here at PCC
because it's a little bit different
and our outcomes are a little bit different, but we started
with that as a model and we made it ours
at a community college level.
>> Are those the actual principles at the high schools
that you're reaching out to for the grant?
>> Salomon: No, there were others.
Friend colleagues of mine, friends of mine
that are also working in education but,
it is sort of a similar flavor of that.
One of the differences here is the aspect of technology
and the architecturalization which is maybe unique
and also the expanding of this to more than just small.
We need it to grow large and that's what this grant is
for to make sure this is a larger effect.
>> Speaking of the federal grant,
[inaudible]more specifically [inaudible] technology.
If you didn't have this grant what wouldn't you be able to do
or what can you do now because have the grant?
>> Debra: One of the great things that we can do is,
we now have 5 years in which to develop a long-term solution
to our current educational and infrastructural needs.
So, we're able to plan and to engage other faculty outside
of our current small group.
We are hoping to use our grant to not only educate students,
but to educate faculty and develop an increasing awareness
of technology and proficiency.
We want to expand this model, not just for design technology,
but we believe that it's a model that can be successful
in other disciplines and we've already seen the development
of various pathway models at the college and we'll be working
with those programs; music, [inaudible], business.
So we're seeing this as a new sort of network
for an institutional organization as well.
There's this scale, I mean we can obviously, with the--
this was a pilot program, you know,
which only served two small cohorts.
We imagined that a pathway of this importance with this value
in the workplace could handle up to 300 students
or maybe more at a time.
So, scaling up is a huge opportunity for us
with the grant that wouldn't have been possible before,
especially in this budget climate.
And in the creation of the fabrication laboratory;
a fab lab, which is available to students and faculty,
and possibly even as a community resource
which would create an even further, strong relationship
with the community of Pasadena bringing in people
into interesting collaborations.
Imagine inventors working with students
on projects, that sort of thing.
So it has created a huge range of opportunities for us
and it's given us the time to actually implement these.
>> Any other questions?
>> Doctor, what does that mean in terms of your immediate plans
for Fall Semester 2012?
What are you looking for here?
>> Debra: Well, we immediately suspended any plans
for a summer vacation.
[Laughter] No, we're already working on the next cohort.
We're preparing for our boot camp which is--
oh no, we've renamed that, haven't we--
design gym, which is a two week introductory class
for our incoming students.
We're already recruiting and filling our available spots.
We're reaching out.
We have a second English teacher who's interested, or maybe two.
I think maybe two more math teachers who are interested,
I'm talking to someone in computer science business,
various other people at [inaudible], you know,
at the arts, so we're already spreading the word.
>> Salomon: But to combine those two questions, I took note.
What we're starting with, we're starting with our instructors
because we want them to be able to assign projects
to their classes, whether it be in math, and speech,
and English; it doesn't matter.
In the Fab Lab, where the aspect
of having this fabrication laboratory
on campus would be a way for them to go and receive tutoring
for technology pertinent to that project, so we want faculty not
to stress about oh, I have to teach them this program.
No, no, no, we can take care of it at the Fab Lab
when students go in and check in to their part of the pathway
to develop the projects and so we're actually, at this Fall,
preparing a lot of workshops for faculty
to know what's actually capable and by students to be able
to produce real projects and use the subject they're
actually teaching.
>> Also you talked about Rose Parade, my ears perked
up of course, what [inaudible] are you going
to working in conjunction with?
Cap Polly or is PCC getting involved making floats?
>> Debra: Well that was a design project and it was intended
as a multi-disciplinary approach.
It had engineering, design, graphic design, everything else
and we approached it through the lens of sustainability.
What could be an idea for a sustainable--
so the students developed all kinds
of interesting ideas about that.
And then the other key part of this grant allows is
for really extensive work in the community with employers.
We can start to really setup really strong relationships
between some of the major employers
in Southern California; someone has already developed
and successfully placed interns at JPO.
So we see that sort of thing as an extension of this program.
So really working with business, and then also just continuing
to foster this innovative momentum
at PCC that's really starting to take hold.
>> Any other questions?
If there isn't any, everyone here, I [inaudible] Dr. Rocha,
Robert Miller, Vice President Bob Bell's available,
and of course the students are available for you as soon
as we're done, so thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> [Inaudible] I failed and to make grants
of this nature you have to have a grant [inaudible]
and we don't offer [inaudible] into the sunlight.
[Laughter] [Inaudible] writing all of these grants,
but I also wanted to recognize Nancy Roberts who is responsible
for writing all these scripts, shall we.
[ Applause ]