Mary Rees: Good morning. We'll just wait a minute to start while people are entering. Good morning.
Good morning. We're going to give about another two minutes while people are entering
good morning, and welcome to the first summer Moorpark College Campus Update.
Well as I said good morning or good afternoon, I should say, and welcome to the Moorpark College Campus Update for May 18. This is our first one for the summer session.
I hope you all are doing well. The webinar is recorded, so that users may review the information provided a later date after it is proofread it will be posted on the President's page just reminder that the
update is closed captioned. If you click on the CC at the bottom of your screen you will be able to see the closed captioning
for today. Another just a housekeeping, Zoom will be updating at the end of the month, so please update your Zoom so that you'll be able to continue with an updated version of Zoom for the future.
Good afternoon, Julius, President will be joining us this afternoon.
Julius Sokenu: Hi everyone, it's nice to have you join us tonight. It's raining here in Pasadena. I don't know what it's doing on your end,
But it is rainy there too. Okay. So yeah, it's like a was it reminds me of when we had snow days when I lived on the East Coast, you know, it's kind of like, but it's not cold, cold, so that's good. So, just to sort of continue our conversation around our
planning and also. But first of all, I do want to start off by saying Happy professionals classified professionals week
it's, it's great to have wonderful
staff who not only support our students. They support our faculty and administration, but that they are partners in the work that we do to affect student success and to build our economic
workforce. So thank you so much for that. So,
important, today, we are still in the process of really looking at how we mitigate risk. And so a lot of our conversation. I think the term of mitigating risk probably should sort of
become part of our vocabulary as we talk about, you know, our fall schedule as we talk about our summer schedule as we really talk about moving forward over the next couple of months.
The idea is that we know we can't prohibit transmission of COVID 19 and that with more testing will know you know where
where we stand as a community, but for now really our goal is to try and mitigate risk. So that means you know having as few people as possible on our campus so that we can manage the risk
that means that, you know, as we've been doing, you know, calling in and let me your supervisor know that you'll be on campus when you when you are
getting their permission and making sure that the managers copy Lynda Dobson. So Lynda's aware of that.
But really the goal is to have as few people as possible on campus and that still is the goal.
I know that there are folks who are, you know, itching to come on campus and being their offices and I appreciate your energy and your determination, your diligence and I also know you want to get away from home and get away from some of those kids or some instances, but
unless it's really essential, please do not come on campus. It's that simple. In addition, we've been talking about mitigating risk.
You know, the reality of it is that we want to make sure that we have a safe working environment for everyone. So for those folks who are on campus on a regular basis
we know where their offices are located, we know that we clean their offices at the end of the day and are ready. If we don't know who's on campus
or if there's just, you know, infrequent violation of that then we put others at risk. In terms of testing, we will have on campus beginning today, Ventura County Public Health has identified us as a testing location. So I believe it's Lot C and they'll be
conducting COVID 19 testing in Lot C
and they're bringing their, you know, their equipment, their staffing, their porta potties, everything is coming with alongside them and we're just providing some some minimal support from what I understand.
All are welcome to come there for testing, and so we will be working on how we message that to the college community, but I understand I was informed this morning that yes, all are welcome.
And so if you are looking to take the the test, then you know we have it here on campus in Lot C, I took my test on Friday, not here, but at my doctor's office and just the idea of having something jammed up your nose
really, I couldn't,I never thought that I would have that experience and have that feeling
but my sisters who had children telling me that I should stop complaining that you know both giving birth is much more, it's much, much more painful and they just suck it up. So
but I did it and I am COVID negative, so, you know, for at least for now we know that that's true. So we'll see
Testing center I talked about that, the professionals week I talked about that. Okay, so the next, the next important thing for us to talk about is the budget as, as most of you know the Governor's Budget came out the May Revise came out last week, and it is not looking good at all
and so I would say it's good for us to have, you know, expertise that
in house to talk you through that and give you some sense of, you know, what this might mean for Moorpark College. So I'm going to turn it over to Jennifer right now as you can do that talk and then when she's done I'll come back into
my two sense to that piece. Thank you, Jennifer.
Jennifer Clark: Thank you, Dr. Sokenu. Thank you Julius and good morning everybody. Happy Monday, kind of an oxymoron, but happy Monday, regardless.
Yes, I'm here to talk us through the kind of the high points of the May Revise and I just want to, before I get into it
remind everybody of the process that the May Revise is not the budget for next year, it is a strong indication always as to what our
budget is going to look like in the coming year, but it's not a done deal, there's still a lot of work to be done.
you know the different houses need to agree on, or they need to craft a budget and then they through a conference committee in June, sort of,
reconcile the differences in the budget, the Governor ways in, lots of folks are weighing in, and then the Governor is still he is still
he will be he is committed to passing a June budget, but we know that because, and I'll be talking about this a little bit more in the presentation, but things will be changing throughout the summer as more information unfolds. So with that, I'm going to start with the next slide.
So this on a statewide level, this is what's going on. So we know that since January
with the advent of the public health emergency it has drastically changed our budget outlook, we know and I'm going to say it, we were hearing it, we're reading it almost
every day that we are in fact in deep recession. Now how long that recession lasts, of course, is yet to be seen. We all hope that we'll be able to spring back you know quicker, as opposed to
you know, as opposed to a longer duration. So from January, we know that we had or we were projecting the Governor was projecting a $5.6 billion surplus only three months ago.
Now, and May Revise after the hit of COVID and the effects that have taken place we're looking at a shortfall of $54 billion statewide.
The Governor and the Legislative Analyst Office are projecting that this is going to go on for some time and that we're going to have deficits for the next four years.
now that doesn't mean to the same degree, they're just projecting that it's going to take a few years for us to fully recover from what's happened. Like I said, hopefully shorter rather than longer, but it is going to be this is not going to be a six months or one year thing.
We know that and this is really the struggle that the state is having is the tremendous revenue uncertainties. We all know through our personal lives that
all of our taxes have been postponed, right? We know that here the slide I've got state sales tax and the fuel tax
those deadlines were extended 60 days. The Franchise Tax Board, as we know, you know, April 15 right that's usually our deadline April 15,
it's postponed until July 15 and property taxes in case you weren't aware, I was talking to my husband about this last night, tax penalties and interest they are postponed until May 6, 2021 so and if
that will have a big impact on us because as you know in California, schools, the line share a great deal of our revenue comes from property taxes. So the state at this point does not know
what that's going to look like, what our revenues what the shortfall is exactly will be for at least
at least until after July, they're looking at August, September before we know more which is why this says amendments in August and September so while we will have a Budget
Act, signed by the end of June, we know that August and September will likely bring changes to programs, again, as the state
you know, as more information is filled in at the state level in terms of revenues and the whole impact of COVID. Next slide please.
So for the
California Community Colleges as a whole. We know since January the community colleges, a 115 schools or colleges across the state will be receiving $1.1 billion less revenue than we were projected in January, so the notable reductions
are all of the new programs that the Governor proposed in January and there were a number of them
have been eliminated. So all the new money and all the new expansions that were proposed are not going to be happening.
We know that the Student Center Funding Formula, at least initially, the rates and the overall effect that of that revenue will be decreased by about 10% now there are nuances, because our district is a
a Hold Harmless district. So, how this 10% plays at the SC FF formula versus the Hold Harmless
we don't know there is a lot of ambiguity and what has come out from the state level, at this point.
we do know, even in the current year even though we are held harmless, we are the state is deficiting even that revenue, so we know that we won't be receiving our hold harmless the question is,
how much less of the hold harmless? Again, we're going to be planning for a 10% reduction.
We know that while we were expecting about a 2.29% COLA in the in the budget year COLA has been eliminated, we're now at zero.
We know the two programs that are hit that are being hit or proposed to be hit quite significantly are Strong Workforce by about 55% and the Student Equity and Achievement the SEA budget by about 15%
Now I'm not mentioning a lot of other programs, I'm just going to mention a few. They're not on the slide because at this moment, there is no mention of any reductions in these programs like
AB19 The College Promise, no proposed reduction there none to EOPS or CARE, none to DSPS, none to BFAP, to CalWorks, none to the Student Success and Completion Grant or Nursing grants the Veterans Resource Center those so programs like categoricals like that
again, no proposed cut to those programs at this point.
We know that the State in order to balances budget is is bringing in or bringing back a few of the strategies that it used last time we had a deep recession.
Or last about 10 12 years ago and around 2010 there were massive deferrals meaning that the state still
committed to giving us revenue but they differed it. So instead of giving us
revenues, say this year in fiscal 20 they're going to defer that they're going to give us that revenue in fiscal 21 so we'll still get some of the revenue
in this year, they're deferring 300 they're about $330 million statewide or system wide.
For fiscal 20 they're going to be giving it to us in July, instead of August. So again, I'm sorry, July instead of June.
And then they'll do the same thing again in fiscal 21 by about $600 million again differing from fiscal 21 to fiscal 22.
A little chink of good news in this is that the state is paying down some long term liability for STRS and PERS. So they are, we will see about a 2% reduction over all
versus what we were expecting with STRS and PERS rate increases or employer contribution rate increases, I should say. So that's going to help us a little bit.
So again, a little bit of good news there. Next slide please.
So Moorpark. What does this mean for us? So at first blush, we're looking at 10%, a 10% cut to our Unrestricted General Fund is about $6.5 million.
The good news is our district as well as our college is in good financial position, the district has reserves,
the college has carry forward, so that's good news, that's going to help us ride out, weather the storm a lot better than otherwise.
We are district wide in fact, evaluating every single vacancy that is current, that may be coming forward many vacancies may not be filled for a while, we have to again evaluate every single one and determine how essential it is.
We're also going to be putting our heads together and looking at identifying, you know, low hanging fruit.
What are some areas in our budget that maybe we can defer or we don't, you know, we don't need this year, or, you know, we can really where we can cut back
a bit here and there and we can still, you know, maintain the integrity of our programs and our support services to students, so
you know, we're going to be looking at those kinds of things, reducing costs, increasing efficiencies all over the place. Every little bit helps it all contributes to what we need to do and that is tighten our belts.
So I already mentioned possible postponements and it is imperative that we begin this process immediately.
Because as you are aware of, particularly with your own finances, the sooner you get your arms around it. The sooner you get a handle on what's coming in and what's going out
the sooner that you can come up with a solution and, you know, look at your savings and have a plan a multi-year plan that will help us weather the storm, but as a last
kind of as a last comment before I turn it back over to Julius is, you know, we're committed to each and every one of you, all of our students, all of our staff our faculty, you know, we don't the
I know people are thinking layoffs. Those are the last, the last thing that anybody wants to do. There is no discussion at this point of any
kind of that nature. Again, we're looking at tightening our belt using reserves, carry forward as much as possible. And again, tightening our belts, so that we can weather the storm. Thank you.
Julius: Thank you, Jennifer. For that, you know, comprehensive
summary of sorts of our situation and Jennifer's correct really the there is no conversation of layoffs at this particular point in time. And the goal is not to do that. The goal is not to decimate the system or decimate the district
and create further chaos. The goal is not to eliminate student access
So all of those
all of those concerns that that we have and that you have, you know, concerning a budget downturn are valid, but we are going to try our very best to
you know, mitigate the impact of that on our college community some things that you will see, most likely, very quick, very soon is sort of major reductions in supply budgets for construction and non-instructional or supply budgets, most likely you will see that we will we will
freeze travel and that will be really Professional Development to travel.
Most likely as Jennifer mentioned will be looking for low hanging fruits. So instances where their positions where we we might have been looking at hiring, we might reduce that and not hire
because we know that there are people who may be under employed in our district and what we don't want to get rid of them, we don't eliminate those positions,
or eliminate those individuals, so, we will be able to look at ways in which we can retrain and redeploy people to other positions within the organization.
Will be watching our cost and expenditure is key. And so, you will see that as we look at our schedule, you will see that as we look at purchasing
as I said supplies and such
but we also don't want to do what we what we did in the recession of 2010 and 2011 and that timeframe where there was some
attempts at reducing costs and reducing expenditure that that fight in some way that that so you know destroy some relationships we have built with community and we don't want to go back there. So we're cautious of that as well.
As far as Moorpark college is concerned, as Jennifer said, you know, we're in a decent place. You know, we can withstand some of this. But, you know, it is not going to be easy.
These are times where we have to band together and really look at what's what's best for the institution and and what's best for our students.
The commitment of this management team is to make sure that we keep as much, if there are cuts, away from our classroom as much as possible, that's our commitment that's always our commitment,
but we also know that we will have to make some decisions that are going to be challenging in terms of
our expenditure. I'll listen to the questions that folks have and address the questions at the end. So I'll pass this on to Mary.
Mary: Thank you Julius, we do have quite a few questions, but we will come back to them at the end. Just a kind of a deep breath and I way to go for spring semester you all did splendid
you know, we are now on to summer and with a lot of heavy planning coming up for fall and for all next year,
but just a collective you know we had graduation, we have just so many wonderful emails from students about
the support that the faculty and staff and administration provided to those students this this semester, the spring semester when they really needed. So a huge thank you.
For summer, our enrollment, knock on wood is looking really good.
We're delighted with that we are continuing our loaner program for computers for students that are in need. So if you have students in your class that do have needs, please
help them work with us to reach out and see if we can help them meet their needs. A reminder, we do have loaner laptops, we're also getting
some Chromebooks that we would be able to lend out to students and the top floor of the parking structure is designated as a six foot social distancing WiFi center.
Please have their students stay in their car, but they can go there to get WiFi access to help them in their summer classes.
The tutoring is ongoing, we have tutoring going on this summer
from 10AM to 2PM please encourage your students to take advantage of it. We also do have our NET tutoring, which is 24/7, which is another great resource
to help our students who are still getting used to the online either synchronous or asynchronous and we do want to support them in every way possible. So
we also did send out some information. I want to thank you, Gilbert, not only just acknowledging all the fabulous work of art classified professionals,
this week, and every week. But I want to thank Gilbert for sending out information about loaner books.
If your students, if you got an email, we can work with you to try to send out books, loaner books to your students.
Because we do know books are always a access point. It's difficult for many of our students.
Getting the books that they need in order to succeed in class. So please take advantage of that if you're one of the groups that we do have those particular books to loan out to students.
For fall, hopefully have been seeing some of the emails that we've gotten us are sent out to you either trying to get information, surveys from you as far as your comfort index will
Also for the faculty as well as for the students getting input from how last semester and what people's comfort
indexes are for the fall. We're also working on tiering classes to try to define which classes
are hard to transition and do need the additional resources of being on ground.
We are looking for what we can do to help each class and each student in each faculty and staff be successful. So we're looking to see what kind of resources we need to provide
in order to help everyone succeed. So please work with your deans and help us help you reach out to your students.
One of the ways we've really been doing a fantastic job. A big call out to the instructional design group is the DE Certification and the recertification that's been ongoing.
In the DE recertification people that have taken the certification course and it's been a few semesters and want to either be
up to date on the current technology or on the new title five requirements. There were 36 just finished the recertification class and then there's another recertification class
Starting June 15. There's a DE certification class for the ones that have not taken in the past. 62 just finished and there's 83 and the one that started today.
If you're in today's class and you want to put it off. Like many of us want to put things off. There's another one starting July 6, that is not quite as full so
If the July 6 class works, instead of the one for today. I think there's a link that wasn't attached to the DE certification class that you could read going to the third DE certification class which is in July.
This is absolutely incredible the number of faculty that have reached out to be DE certified or recertified. A huge kudos to all the faculty that are
lifelong learners on their own trying to always improve their pedagogy in the classroom, as well as the instructional design team that are working so hard to help our faculty
Reach out and meet the students.
I think those are my main things, Amanuel?
Amanuel Gebru: Thank you Mary, I just have a few updates.
We are starting the process to hire the Dean position over the English and humanities area. So we will be hiring an Interim Dean position for a year.
So we would love to be working with human resources to get that finalized and get it going this week. We hope to have this position and place in the next few weeks
and we will provide you updates when we hopefully hire that position, but also want to take the time and thank Dr. Sydney Sims.
We're continuing to support the English and humanities division, along with Christy Rossi, who is their admin in that area.
They've been phenomenal in supporting all the efforts in that area while working with me and hopefully we'll have a dean in their area pretty soon.
I'm also want to announce that Anne Marie McCarthy is a new senior admin over the student support area so she'll be working in my area.
So we will have somebody in that office, hopefully we'll be back on campus soon. But if you need anything, in the student support area, please work with Anne Marie McCarthy to schedule appointment or whatever needs for the student support.
And also big kudos and congratulations to Traci Allen for completing her doctorate. That is amazing. I know it's been a long journey, o we are happy for you and congratulate you
Tracy for completing their degree. And another congratulations to Crystal Sanchez, who's in admissions area who completed her master's degree. So another congratulations to our staff who continue to work on their education and continue to support our students as well.
And then also I know we've had a lot of changes with the bit team, but I really want to thank the bit team and especially Howard.
For leading our bit effort, all this year and this semester and will hopefully when we finalize the Dean hiring position.
we'll have someone take over that area, but thank you Howard for your leadership, as well as the bit team for all that work.
And I also want to thank all our classified staff! Happy classified Appreciation Week.
In all the areas, we appreciate all the work that you do to support our students and thank you for the for your efforts, especially during these times, and
being able to transition online and still make the support for our students as seamless as possible.
And then also our counseling faculty continue to do an amazing job.
They're seeing a lot of students, a lot of appointments, I noticed some changes on the calendar. So thank you for being patient and working with us as those changes happen and also thank you to Jodie for her leadership and continuing to advocate and support our counseling faculty.
And then dual enrollment. We served 579 students this spring, we will serve 240 students this summer, and we are projected to serve 810 students for the fall semester.
So our dual enrollment. Thank the faculty, the department chairs, the deans who continue to work with our high schools to make this work for our community.
And hopefully we will continue to grow and support those areas. And thank you also to Kushner and her team Diana.
Diana for you know, continuing to support all of our dual enrollment efforts and outreach and also support.
So those are my updates from my area and also thank you to all the faculty for a great semester of all your work and we hope to see you soon. I know summer is going to be all online, but hopefully we find a way to connect with you in the near future in person.
Mary back to you.
Mary: Thanks, Amanuel. Julius, we have a lot of questions as you can well imagine,
Let's go with some of the
easy ones first. On the
The COVID testing in the parking lot. I know this is an antigen test, not an antibody test.
Have you been, have they confirmed, whether it is the nasal? They want to know whether it's been confirmed, whether it's a nasal specimen, or whether it's the sputum and saliva specimen.
Julius: I'm not sure which is I know it's supposed to be a drive by test and so whichever one you can sort of accomplish very quickly and they can give you the feedback is what it is.
Mary: Okay. Well, we could get some information. I do know it's also appointments are needed, is that correct?
Julius: I believe that, yes. And then I but it's open to anyone. So I know I saw a question as to whether or not you had to pay for it or or whether or not you have you know anyone could go and have my understands that it's open to anyone in the community they can come by and get tested.
Mary: Okay. And if we get some more confirmation from the County, we could probably send this out to the community.
Julius: Yes, and actually part of the conversation later on this afternoon is what, you know, how do we publicize this to students and faculty and staff.
So we will have a
Protocol and and strategies to get that done as soon as possible.
Mary: Onn to what the budget concerns which are probably heaviest on people's
right now two big areas. One is a budget, as well as the second area has to do with we define social distancing and safe protocol on the budget piece there seems to be a lot of questions about will there be a salary cuts?
Julius: There's been no conversation around salary cuts and one of our goals is to sort of forestall that so no.
Mary: There was also questions related to whether offerings for the fall and the spring will be decreased.
Julius: We will need to look at our fall offerings and see how how our ability to deliver t those inspire instruction we'll most likely have to
modify our spring schedule, when we start building that so that it is much less than that which we offered this past spring.
Mary: Questions about coming back on campus. There are
Questions about there was one about whether we're looking proactive, I can assure people that you've had many, many, many meetings as far as planning for contingency upon contingency upon contingency. So the answer is, whether we're looking proactively, yes?
But what procedures will be followed returning to campus? What type of social distancing will be followed?
Julius: Yes. So we know that for us to return to campus Ventura County Public Health has to a sanction that activity. So we can return to campus without their authority and they will help set the context in which
That will happen, and the guidelines that will will define our social distance in protocols.
The chancellor is meeting with the Ventura County Public health folks on Thursday. So hopefully by the end of this week,
We'll get some more insight or at least get some of our ask questions answered and others may be different.
But right now, our goal is to follow the social distance in practice that's been set
In our county, which is sort of, you know, it's open in terms of that it's six feet six feet instance in between people.
The number of folks who can gather changes by each kind of order, so I can't tell you. We can't tell you what the oreder will be you know come August and and that will most likely define what our classrooms look like.
And so we can sort of work off that. But at the moment, what we know is that for sure, Ventura County Public Health will will provide us some guidance.
But if you look at the guidance that they've provided business and industry, it's pretty pretty open ended in some way.
I'm hoping that that will not be the same for education. I don't think it can be, but who knows. So we will look to them for some guidance in terms of that. I see that there were questions about, you know, PPEs and and retrofitting offices and
space, we are doing some research around that to see
what we will need to do for high traffic areas but part of the reason why we are leaning to having predominantly online instruction in the fall,
Is source to minimize traffic on campus. And as such, mitigate risk. So as we do these conversations about folks wanting to come on campus and wanting to teach on campus. What that means is that we have to take into consideration
the cost of of retrofitting areas, the cost of providing PPEs to to students and faculty and staff and the cost of cleaning, all of which is not is not minor so
as we do these conversations that we engage in the planning. We're trying to be as as proactive as possible as visionary as possible as we can be. But there's so many unknowns in this in this context that
You know, we have to work with what's provided us by our state and our district. Someone just asked if we can require students to wear a mask.
If the Public Health Department does not. I don't know the answer to that question. That's a question for the district's legal counsel, whether or not we can do that. And so that would be a question to pose to the legal counsel as to whether or not we can require a practice that is not
Within the state. The state or the county's
protocols.
Mary: But Julius. We don't know at this stage what their requirements will be as far as facemask, temperature, questioneers any of that. And of course we would be in line with any of those requirements that they set out. Yes. Great, thank you. Um,
Let's see, information about loaner computers.
Maybe Jennifer could tell us again about how students request loaner computers.
Jennifer: Sure. I believe, Linda Resendiz is still collecting putting together a list collecting names for folks who
have requests for computers and then she's working with IT forwarding that information to IT and then Dan is working with those individuals to schedule appointments to get them laptops and as soon as possible.
Mary: Thank you, Jennifer so they could send an email to Linda Resendiz or to myself, and we would then approve them and then send them to Dan McMichael
Jennifer: Yes, ma'am.
Mary: Thank you so much. Julius, a question about what if the county is not open by August?
What would be what would be our process for both the
Assume all the courses would be online? And what about the instructors?
that are not able to teach online.
Julius: Right. So one of the reasons why we were working on the tiered approach is to be able to sort of identify which courses can go exclusively online based on the
Outcomes, and which ones need to stay on ground based on mandates or course level, or course learning outcomes.
Or just the practicality of being able to deliver the structure itself. And so what we are working towards is to be really clear as to what needs to be online at what needs to be on ground.
And then there'll be those nuances between within that the predominant amount of our classes will be online
in the fall. Because we as that conversation is unfolded. That's the safest and most cost effective way of delivering instruction.
For those instructors who cannot go online, we will work with people on a case by case basis, and see you know what transpires
It is important for us to know that. The more people we have on ground and the more expensive the delivery of the instruction becomes. So there will have to be on. We have not developed that yeah, we'll have to be some very clean.
Rubrics for assessing those exceptions. But our goal at this point is really to work with the tiers that we've developed. I know tiers are very clear. Faculty have been asked to provide input into what their departmental
Preferences are and and we're them working within that.
Mary: Thank you. How is it be determined which courses must continue to meet on ground.
And it's interesting. Then we also have the questions about what's determined in order to allow, of course, to be
To be online versus on ground. So again, you said it would be about tiering and how the outcomes and the state mandates around them are determined
Julius: Yes. And so if you think of the programs that are hard to convert they're hard to convert, because, for example, in the case of nursing or allied health, the Board of Nursing has some has a very clear.
threshold for offering online classes. So we cannot offer courses
In nursing online because there's a mandate around that, you know, if we can, we can only offer the lectures. The practical
course content needs to be done on ground or in some simulated environment.
Those are very clean those we know, we know what those are. So those will will be on ground for the most part, in areas that can be done by lecture on a on an online context will do that.
So that's clean. We also know that there's certain courses that that we have over time, and particularly since this past semester. We've been able to deliver them.
Online because they exclusively lecture courses so those courses will be online.
And we will look at courses where there may be a need to supplement the online interaction with some on ground activity or with some simulated interactive experience. When that's the case, then that will be that will be the situation.
We will try as much as possible not to get into this very
Black and white kind of
Context. So we want to make sure that we're following protocol that is informed by regulation that's informed.
By pedagogy and we also want to make sure that folks are aware that flexibility will be required.
Flexibility with the required because there's a, there's a, an additional cost of delivering these courses. Now, because of the coven 19 restrictions and the coordinating social justice and protocols.
Mary: Thank you. Joyce, the questions about staff with loaner laptops. They were originally going to be returned by May 14
And they're wondering whether it'll be they can continue to use the laptops until the campus reopens and then a second part of that question. Jennifer would be about what's the expectations about classified returning to campus in the fall.
Jennifer: So regarding laptops. Yes, we're still under the the county order to be at home as much as possible. So yes, all classified staff that have and
Faculty, for that matter, is a particularly if they're teaching if they have loaner laptop. So yes, they can. They don't
You know, obviously you're not at being asked to return the laptop at this point that will you know that that date has obviously been pushed out quite a ways
We don't know what that date is yet. So yes, hold on your laptops. The other is about staff returning to campus again as Julius mentioned
In the same ideas apply to staff, you know, we want to minimize the number of people.
On campus as much as possible in order to do the best job mitigating risk more people we have on campus, you know, ultimately, the more cleaning that has to be done. The more modifications of work areas that the more expensive it is, the more
potential risk there is so we at this time. Again, absent any any further direction from county health. We want to keep people at home as much as possible. Now as county health
You know as county health, the kind of revises their what they tell us they're what they advise us, then, you know, we then we're going to look at, you know, department or sort of
division by division and sort of what the needs are. But again, always wanting, keeping in mind that the need to mitigate risk. So we don't have
We don't have a definitive answer for anybody. At this point, but we do want to keep people as much off campus as possible for the time being.
Mary: Thank you. The question also about counseling. Will this be online or on ground.
Amanuel: Yes, the same response to Jennifer gave them probably be online until we figure out next steps, but everything will be online until further notice over here. Any other information in the county and then also from Julius and Kevin
Mary: Okay, so that was talking about counseling. Yeah. Great. Thank you.
Julius convocation.
Will that be what we have convocation. Will it be online or on ground.
Julius: I do hope we have convocation. It's one of those central traditions of academic here and it helps to set us on the course for the for the academic here as well as in terms of our
Goals and
Outcomes for the year that that whole flex week and and the professional development that goes along with it. Plus, culminating in the convocation is significant to our college culture. My hope is that we will be able to do to host FLEX FLEX week week and convocation.
On ground. I think that it's probably prudent to plan to have it online or in some form of that. I think that's most likely what will happen. I don't know how many people will want to sit in a 300 person auditorium for four hours.
At this point in time, but that may be so even practicing social distancing when we will probably need to have some people on grant and some people
Online, to be able to do that. So we're planning to do convocation our professional development committee is charged with that work. And I'm assuming that they're planning to look into all the various
Iterations of delivering this. This is a manual or can you speak to that.
Amanuel: Yes, the PDA team has been working with Beth, how're Gilbert and Brian and they are working on planning off like sweet.
They're trying to prepare activities, potentially, to be on ground or online as we get closer to the August eight
But they are diligently working on and there will be meeting with the executive team follow week to present
What they've prepared so far and some of the workshops. So, we will have some activities. We just don't know exactly what it will look like depending on our, our process to return on campus to be online.
Thank you.
Mary: Julius, there was a question and that just blew my mind. Let me try to remember what that was.
People asking about their contracts. Um, there have been a little bit of delay in contracts, probably due to the changing of of schedule for fall. Is that correct,
Julius: That's correct.
Mary: So Julius, how do you intend to communicate with the students and the campus over the summer and and provide information for them to prepare for summer for fall
Julius: Um, we. My hope is that we continue to do this update for as long as it's needed, and will continue to entertain and engage questions and feedback and suggestions I say come through this format.
We I send every I want to say to every 10 days attendees are so I send out an update to students through our reviews and regroup, which is
A software that allows the college district to send black mass, mass emails to our students are about every 10 days I do that I like to continue to do that through the summer.
And my hope is that we, as we share information with faculty and staff that those that that information that's appropriate to students in specific programs.
And specific departments that that information will get to those students through them.
And and we will be using, you know, our social media platform to send information that we believe is urgent and and through that medium as well as that becomes the case but again it will be through email messages, it will be through
Through our faculty for communicating with their students in their classrooms over the summer and it will be through the campus updates.
Mary: And thank you, Julia.
Do you have any last minute last words of
Either budget or scheduling or comments for summer before we take off for today.
Julius: Um, I just, I just want to
As much as one can reassure folks in these times of, you know, grave concern that as a college and as a college district.
Our commitment is to make sure that we retain our employees. Our commitment is to make sure that we continue to abide by our core values of access of equity, our focus on the completion agenda.
Our focus and creating learning environments and learning communities that are supportive of all stakeholders and stakeholder groups. That's our goal. And we were still committed to that budget concerns or no budget concerns Coby
But we will we will have to of course modify how we do that because these are these are real constraints.
But
Again, we're not talking about Lean of people. We are not looking at, you know, our furloughs. We are trying our very best to forestall that
As best as we can. But there's so much that we don't know right now folks that I do want us to sort of focus on
You know what we do know and work from there and they're only advice information becomes available. Our commitment is that will will make that available to you.
And someone had asked, you know how we're going to make sure that we get
Information and feedback from the logic college community around these decisions, decisions like politically around what's the low hanging fruit.
And as we always do at this college we have plans.
We have, you know, education, master plan. We have our various facilities and other other plaza equity plans and those plans inform how we go about making decisions. We have a making decision, participatory governance.
Handbook and and guidelines that sort of determines and defines who does what and when
And we are invested in making sure we follow those protocols and if a decision is going to be made that may not be of that may not be popular.
Trust me, we will get feedback from every single individual. Moorpark College, the college where we talk and we talked some while we talk some more that tradition is not going away. It is here.
But when it is done and the decision is made with a very intimate very clear and my expectation. My hope is that we will all be able to stand behind it, because these decisions do not come easily to anyone. And so we work with our partners in this.
It is as Jennifer said they're tough times ahead but my hope is that we don't look at
You know, the most worst scenario and and work from that as being the reality because it is not at this moment. And if we can live in the moment. I think we we save ourselves and our well being, mental health, and that's much more important than anything else at this point.
Thank you.
Mary: Thank you. Julius and then till next next week. Everyone have a great summer semester, and we'll talk to you all soon.