Mary Rees: Good morning.
We're gonna wait just a couple minutes as more people come in. But, good morning to you all.
Good morning. Gonna wait just a couple minutes here. I know some people had to update their zoom this morning in order to join us. So we'll give them just another minute or two before we begin.
We want to thank you all for joining and coming together with us this morning, June 1 for our Moorpark College Update. First we're going to start with Julius Sokenu addressing the college.
Julius Sokenu: Thank you, everyone. I'm seeing that people are still getting on board. So I'll wait a couple more minutes, and then sort of just start
speaking.
Mary: Julius I also should have reminded people that this webinar is recorded, so the webinar is recorded and it will be a transcript and the webinar will be provided on the President's web page. I hope you're able to see that past webinars are now available there as well.
Also for closed captioning, if you click on the bottom where it says CC for closed captioning, you'll be able to see the closed captioning of today's webinar.
Julius: Okay. Hi, everyone. Welcome. And I thank you for joining us on this lunchtime.
Like you and like many of us on this call the events of this past week has
been heavy in our hearts and in our minds and, you know, along with it, it brings a lot of
frustration and rage and disappointment and we all kind of wonder, you know, where we go next? You know, what happens to us as a nation, and what happens to us as a civilization?
And I think it is really important for us as we sort of tried the territory that we are
to have a couple of things in mind. In the email that I sent to the college this morning I wanted to share with you from my own heart
and my own mind, the thoughts that are informing how I'm trying to process this, and so my hope is that you know this morning, this afternoon
and in further conversations that we all work towards how we look for solutions and how we look for solutions on our own campus level because as we all know,
the issues that we are addressing, the issues of inequity, the issues of racial injustice, the issues of the loss of life and property, all of these issues and issues that we address as we watch that unfolding and on our television sets and on our devices
there is hurt, there is damage and there is a call to the really key fundamental values that form this democracy.
And so they are not easy topics, there are no one single right answers,
and they are complicated and complex, just as we as human beings are complicated and complex, and my hope is that as a college community,
guided by our mission statement, guided by our value statement, guided by our vision statement and that contract which we
have with one another as Moorpark College community members that we will be able to at least speak to the solutions and the opportunities and the strategies that we as a college community can employ.
You will have the opportunity, as I am talking and as we continue this afternoon to enter you know your comments, your
questions, your observations, your concerns in the Q&A panel, please do so. My hope is that we will be able to sort of
collect those and then engage in a larger college discourse. My hope is that we will be able to do that sometime in the next 10 days, while this information is still fresh in our minds and we can process.
You know, I've gotten quite a bit of feedback this morning and what I'm hearing the most from folks is, you know, how do we move forward?
What I'm hearing from folks, is you know, "I want to help. I'm an ally. How can I, what do I need to do?"
What I'm hearing from folks, is, "I am upset. I am angry it frustrates me to see people destroying their communities and destroying our communities and I am fed up with that."
And how do we bring that conversation, how do we bring those emotions into this discourse and that, how does this discourse change from others that we've had?
Right? But this is not a solitary incident. How do we move forward as a nation, as a community, as a diverse group of people
in our work. Not only our work at the college but in our work in our own individual communities and our work in our families and in our relationships to one another.
My hope is that as a college community, we will begin by looking at how we engage one another.
We will begin by looking at how we engage our students, we will begin to look at the supports that we have in place, we will begin to look at the ways in which we dialogue and in which we communicate
and hopefully in that kind of investigation and examination we'll find ways in which we can be part of the solution.
We'll find ways in which we can identify what those questions are, we can find ways in which you can identify what those resources, those shared resources are
and make sure that we get it to folks who need it, make sure that it becomes part of our practice.
That is I think the only way in which we as a community and we as Moorpark College can address this national dilemma and this national epidemic for us to say that we are not impacted by racial injustice would be
not only be foolish, but it would be denying it.
For us to say that as a college and as a college community, "we have not built structures to help support our students and support all our students,"
we would not be acknowledging the strength and the power and the resources that we have in our own college community. So it's all of these pieces together that we need to muster and call into action.
It is important for us to look at our values and to look at our college mission. And in doing that, to ask the question, "how are students experiencing our college?"
I think it's very important for us to focus on how students experience our college as well as how we as members of this college community from different backgrounds with different political
perspectives with different aspirations, how we experience Moorpark College, because I think that is part of the larger community of collective discourse
that will move us into a place that is solutions driven. That is part of the larger collective discourse that will move on into a place where we honor one another as humanity. We cannot do it otherwise, we can spend time pointing fingers at one another can spend time, you know,
being angry and frustrated, but beyond that, what do we as a college do? What do we as a college ask of one another so that we can engage?
I've had comments this morning as to read the resources that we have on campus that can help support our black faculty, the resources we have on campus that can help support our allies.
We cannot do this alone. Nobody can do this alone. We need one another so that this society so that this civilization so that this college community which exists within the largest societal structure
can continue to thrive and going to continue to meet its mission. My hope is that, you know, I am hearing from folks that I will hear from folks with all kinds of perspectives around this and that we as a college community can create opportunities for dialogue. Town halls for dialogue.
You know support groups for dialogue, pages for allies, Whatever we see as possible solutions to this national dilemma that we'd be able to address it. I want to be very clear to folks that there is in my response this morning, there was no attempt to excuse any kind of
destruction of property destruction of communities. I know that there are people in our college community who are heavily impacted by this. I know that there are spouses and there are
family members who are on the front lines, either as protesters or who are working as part of Law Enforcement.
My hope is that with the message that I'm able to sort of reach all of us and say we are working. We need to work together to find a solution and that if we don't do that, that we fall into the same
trap into the same societal
structures that created this.
We know, we all know that there is a social contract, and we have a responsibility to one another.
How do we at Moorpark college help to move that dialogue and help to shape, help to craft, help to revise it as necessary, that social contract.
That is the conversation I hope that we will have moving forward and my hope is that every perspective,
every voice will be part of that so that all are welcome and help to move us forward.
I don't know if there are any questions that are imposed or any suggestions in the Q&A and that we can go to at this point in time, or if there's anyone who really sort of feels the need to
Mary: Julius most of the questions are more comments. We have a variety of comments.
Bringing talking about
the greater social good, fundamental difference between protesting and rioting, there is a suggestion for an ally web page that maybe you could address. Julius: Okay.
Yes.
Thank you. Allison for for for making that suggestion there. As you know, we have been doing a lot of work in terms of creating safe zones for LGBTQ
A community and part of that work that has been done so well that by our Student Health Center folks kudos to Sharon and Allison and Matthew Morgan and
if I'm forgetting any I'm sorry I'm not intending to forget to exclude people, but the folks who've been doing this work, I think
Renee folks who've been doing this work with our college community and training folks so that we can be allies to our LGBTQ community and Allison thank you for making that suggestion around, you know, how do we
create the same and offer the same training and resources to folks who want to be allies to our students, our faculty, our staff of color who want to be able to be available to folks who may be having a challenge and a difficult time navigating our college environment, and particularly
in these times of concern. I would love to be able to have us as a college community finally for folks who are invested in being able to do that work and then be able to work with the health center in looking at ways in which we can then define that agenda and build that out.
Mary: Julius too. I think there's maybe we can go back to in the past, we've had some speakers that talked about how to have hard conversations.
People are doing a great job of acknowledging their emotions, but understanding that others have slightly different lenses and we all view the situation from hopefully from a
having a big picture view and being aware of about these pieces.
Julius: And I think that, again, is part of the work that we as a college community can invest in.
I mean, we have, you know, we've brought in speakers to do this work in the past, but I'm also very conscious of the fact that we have
our knowledge and we have insight in our campus community and that we need to sort of pull that and utilize that in this moment, so that we have experts in our college community. How do we then bring those experts to bear on the conversation that needs to happen.
Mary: Thank you.
Julius: So again, my hope is that as we do this conversation that we figure out ways in which we can reach out to communities.
It is a suggestion about how do you reach out to you know to our students of color, and particularly our black male students and
and our female students of color who are struggling with what they are seeing, the images that they're seeing on their devices, who are struggling with whether or not to continue
their education because they're so overwhelmed by the moment and how can faculty and staff and administrators helps to support them in their struggle.
And so I do think that, you know, it is very important that we acknowledge you know, the need for for dialogue and create venues for doing that.
My hope is that we can work the executive team can work with our, our constituents stakeholder groups, the Academic Senate, the Classified Senate, ASMC and see ways in which we can create opportunity for building
Places for dialogue, places for engagement and in terms of concrete,
actionable,
strategies, right, that lead to something and that helps to support the work that we're doing here at the college. This is a college that prides itself
in being a place where we talk, keep on talking to come to a resolution, and I think this is one of those moments where that value and that ethic will serve us well. I see that there's a question about if there's a message from the Chancellor's Office.
That will be going out to students. Dr. Gillespie will be sending out a message tomorrow
to the college community and he's drafting something that's specific for students as well. I am working on a message that will go out to students later on today
it will be probably much later on today, but on drafting something that I would want to just speak to our students and speak to our students from the various
perspectives and roles, they inhabit. If you haven't seen it Chancellor Oakley from the California Community Colleges
crafted of four and a half minute video that just went live right before we started this update and it is powerful. I recommend that you take a look at it.
as well.
In terms of moving forward around our college agenda and our college goals. I think it's very important for us to sort of visit
not only our mission and value statement, but to also visit our equity plan to look at the comments that we have an educational master plan and metrics and strategies that we have in those plans so that we keep that can inform our conversations moving forward.
My hope is that it will, we will hear from as many people as possible and help us move create opportunities for addressing this national dilemma on our college campus.
In terms of our fall,
another message will be coming out from Chancellor Gillespie tomorrow addressing the fall, and fall scheduling and an assumption that informed that, there was a retreat held last Thursday with the Chancellor's cabinet, as well as our vice presidents from all three colleges and Vice Chancellor.
and very clearly, you know, the message that you'll be hearing from the Chancellor's email
tomorrow is that the college will be predominantly online in the fall
with some opportunities for how, certainly for opportunities for how to convert classes to be delivered on ground and also that there'll be opportunities for certain courses with very clear rationale to be delivered on ground as well.
That that is informed by the work that we've been doing in terms of tearing, but I want to, I would one cost caution us in terms of how we
How we bring instruction to campus, knowing the you know the costs of that and and and knowing that there's so much that is still unknown about about the virus and about the potential for a second wave and probably a second one was more sooner than we thought.
So that conversation around around the fall continues. Now this week, and it will be focusing on on the budget and as you know 54 billion budget shortfall has triggered.
From the state from the state governor. A 10% budget cut and that 10% budget card is a proposal as of now, but the legislators working on it and I'm working on it within a time frame that by June 15
They will have a proposal for the they will have a budget for the for the for the for the governor to respond to by June 30 so things are happening really quickly and we as a college
Will be impacted by this last week, Jennifer walked us through it. Thank you, Jennifer. So, it is clear that tough times that I have for us and
So, how we address that and how we work through that as a college matters. The, the Chancellor's retreat this Thursday for the Court for the District leadership and the college leadership to address this will be looking at
A district wide approach and then we will then take take a campus lens in Topeka and operationalize in that. So when we meet next week for our campus update I expect that you will have some more information.
As well.
There's a slide regarding a celebration, which we would like to do for, as you all know, when we transitioned to
online instruction with remote instruction we did this a couple of days before EATM was supposed to have it's Spring Spectacular.
And I don't know if Mara, or anyone from EATM is online, but first of all, I want to thank them and congratulate them for being exemplars and role models for how we do this work of transitioning to a remote
Context. They took the Spring Spectacular and basically delivered it online.
And they delivered it online so that anyone who wanted to experience the Teaching Zoo and I'm wanted to experience the students of EATM could get that opportunity, but also that the students have em could get the opportunity to demonstrate their hard-earned
skills and and to illustrate that the learning and their competence to the rest of us. This was so much
in the press that as celebrating the work that we do at EATM and you will see that some of this is beyond our state. This is
as you know in Sacramento in Colorado and in Texas, and we have folks who are hearing about the work that we are doing at EATM, and they are sharing that as ways in which we can get through this pandemic.
Wisdom, which we could show that we came to responsible and committed to our not only our fellow human beings, but are you know our
animal
cohabitants on this planet. If you haven't had a chance to see this, we'll also post the links. So you can see all the wonderful
accolades that that the birds at EATM received.
And also what the EATM staff and faculty received. Again, you know, Moorpark College is striving for excellence, innovation, creativity
and we do this all with an awareness of the importance that this has in the lives of our students and EATM is certainly is doing that. So thank you to Gary, thank you to
Cindy, thank you to Brenda, thank you to Mara. I'm sure I'm forgetting other people's names, Gary, Molly, a whole bunch of folks at EATM who keep our program going even in the face of this pandemic.
Jennifer.
Jennifer Clark: Thank you. Julius. Good morning, everybody. Happy June. Wow, it's going by so fast.
I just have a couple of small items, just to update everybody on and I did want to just clarify one thing that Julius said. Yes he's absolutely right. The governor is committed to having an adoption budget signed
in place or a state budget by by mid June. Actually, I just want to remind everybody, though, that again, the
deadline for taxes is still not until July. So what the governor anticipates happening as many trailer bills will be coming out after the budget is
basically signed by the governor in June, there will be updates to it that we're expecting in July, August, September as more information comes. I just wanted to make that point of clarification.
I did want to update everybody on the first wave of the CARES Act money.
allocated 100% for students for Moorpark. It was like $2.77 million. We've done a lot of work in determining
rough percentages of how money would be awarded when that sort of thing. But roughly 15% was allocated or the initial 15% for summer enrollment and then the rest for fall and then spring, etc.
The money started flowing last week actually Friday were the first checks that went out to students. To the first 70 students that
You know, I think they Kim said the amounts were a roughly $39,000-40,000 so we've only just begun to allocate but those
Those few 70 students are our first and we anticipate many, many, many more.
The other thing I wanted to just remind everybody, if you're coming onto campus, you need to come into your office or you need to
You know, whatever it is you need to do. Take care of business, maybe put in a few hours of work, whatever.
Please let your supervisor and Linda Dobson know and please include where your office number like what building and what number because Linda doesn't know when you email her, where you are and where you're going to be going.
So please include that information along with the rough period of time, you expect to be there so that she can schedule and let
custodial, campus police, etc. know. We have a cleaning crew that goes through, particularly in the public areas around any campus areas where folks are visiting.
Very important for us to stay on top of that. So just a quick reminder about that. That is it for me. Thank you. Julius there's anything else I'll pass it back to you.
Mary: Thank you Jennifer, and thank you, Julius as we're seeing so many wonderful
comments being called out.
There's a great line that I saw that was talking about lending our voice to those who feel unheard and our power to those who feel powerless.
I think Julius is really calling the campus to look for what we can do.
I want to remind people that we are really implementing Guided Pathways and I think that this is a powerful tool that we can use leading forward. There's a lot of work being done. People have been working on it and
This year, and a lot of work is going to be done over the summer and we're really going to be able to see our phase one
In the fall. I want to thank all the people that have been actively involved in Guided Pathways. I think we can use this as one of our many tools that we will be using to move forward on this. Also another definite thing that we can work on is our Civic Engagement ADT.
Everyone will be glad to know that's one of our things that we're saying we want to accomplish, and I think that is very doable.
We can have, and it will be very impactful for our students and our community and our world around us. So just two very small examples of things that we can and are in the process of doing here at Moorpark that can truly make a difference for all of us.
You've heard from Julius that our summer is continuing to be a very big success. It is all online, with a few exceptions
for our hard to transition. These courses are in EATM and Julius truly we need to call out all of the students that keep making EATM possible.
You know, most of us are online, but our students are working with our staff and our faculty to keep this very important essential work ongoing so a huge call out to all of them
as well as our allied health and nursing students. Summer is going well enrollment is doing very well as we try to help our whole community.
Move forward, the fall is going to be largely online as the Chancellor and Julius were saying, and we will have some of the hard to transitions on-ground. We are working with the faculty, the staff and all to try to define our fall
schedules so that we have as much opportunity for all of our students in a very equity manner to succeed.
One of the other things on a third note is that for future updates as Julius called out, we will have additional conversations dealing with
the issues from today. But also, we're going to have many issues that we're going to talk about over the summer. One is mitigating risk in a COVID world here on campus and within the community with a panel.
curbing attrition within the college community helping our students.
Supporting student services during COVID and beyond. So what we want to do is work on having updates that are more themeatic for some of the future ones.
So that we can really reach out and meet all of your needs and provide the appropriate information and support that will help the faculty and staff and the students.
So Amanuel?
Amanuel Gebru: Thank you Mary. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon, just have a few updates on the campus know that we've hired Monica Garcia, as the new Interim Dean.
Of English, Humanities, BIT, Conduct and student life so she'll be working with those folks starting July 1, and transitioning to that position
For one year as the Interim Dean. I also want to recognize our last two hires in counseling: Kelly Porto Garcia will be our counselor in general counseling,
and also in EOPS Esmeralda Garcia. They are our latest hires, they will be starting July 1 as full time counseling faculty in those respective areas. I also want to take the time to really thank
Gilbert and Nenagh Brown for serving as Classified and Academic Senate President
Thank them for their effort for leadership our campus community and welcome our new two new folks Eric Reese and Linda Resendiz will be writing leadership in those areas for work.
Also want to thank Gilbert for his leadership in the great work for Classified Appreciation Week last week. They did a phenomenal job and thank you for those I send emails and thank you. Gilbert for putting all that together with you and your team.
That's awesome to recognize the wonderful work our classified continue to do given where we are with COVID and before then. So thank you so much for that.
I'm also want to say Julius, thank you for your message in that email today and also this morning, or a few minutes ago.
Sharon will be sending out resources to our campus community that our students can take advantage of. This is a time where faculty and staff, where we can be courageous.
We may not have all the answers, but this is a time where we can listen to our students, listen to one another and come together to really unite and bring resources and support as we continue to
come together to find solutions on how we address these issues dealing with systemic racism and all the things that we're seeing in the media that continue to impact everyone.
So thank you, Julius for that message this morning, so please look out for an email from Sharon Manakas that should be coming out to the whole campus.
Also there's, you know, a lot of folks are asking in terms of support services. When do we come back on campus. What's the plan. What are we doing?
We had a retreat last week with the with the Chancellor, Vice Presidents and Presidents and Vice Chancellors as
soon as we finalize the the class scheduling and what that looks like. We hope to roll out a plan for out next step in terms of support services and what that looks like. So thank you for being patient with us.
During that time and not knowing what's going to happen with the support services that we hope we will do the best to ensure safety.
And roll out a plan that will address the needs of our students, depending on how how many sections or what percentage of classes will have long ground and that's all I have. I'll pass it back to you, Mary.
Mary: Thank you, Amanuel. There was discussion on what conditions are going to be required in order for people to work on campus. We might want to address this from both Jennifer from both the staff as well as the faculty and student aspect.
Julius, do you want to address it from students or faculty?
Julius: I think Jennifer is on.
Jennifer: Jennifer Yeah, I'm sorry, I missed the first part of your stuff.
Mary: What conditions are required in order to work on campus.
Jennifer: Yeah, without question. Well, again, we take direction from County Public Health. Right. So at this point I know the Chancellor
Came out and gave us a date, which I think was helpful that
You know, summer session is entirely online. We're all to be kind of continuing in the current mode.
With the exception of a few essential workers. I know the FM&O department and the folks in IT are coming onto campus in a regular basis. There are a few others.
You know, have to take care of the animals in EATM and folks like that. But for the rest of us that are working from home, this is going to continue to be the case up through at least through the end of July, beginning in August and September as again
we continue to work on fall and the fall schedule. And what thing what campus is going to look like in the fall. We're not sure, we don't have all those answers yet. We know certainly that it will be someone different than it has been.
Again, it's all about mitigating risk, limiting the potential spread or potential second waves or the coronavirus
Again, we're not sure exactly how that's going to look like exactly. Again, we take direction from public health and I'm sure direction will be coming out from them and then coming weeks month. I don't know if anybody else has anything to add, but
Julius: I think it's important for us to sort of ask why you want to come on campus.
Because I do think it's important for us to know that for us to be able to flatten this curve and I know people say well you know what, Ventura County has not had a high incidence of this
and, you know, we're okay. I think part of the reason why we haven't had a high incidence of this is the folks are following the social distancing protocols.
So to sort of have people on campus in offices, even if it's in your own office, in offices that and then you leave and the folks of FM&O I know need to clean offices. So we need to get that information to identify who's on campus that we can do that work.
The more people we have on campus, the more we have to deploy resources to doing that. We don't have the resources to do that way if everyone who wants to come on campus is allowed to do so.
So I ask of you to please sort of come from a place of what's the public good. And at this point, the public good is that there's less of us on campus as possible.
Sure. I mean, you want to come pick something up in your office, no one's going to, sort of, you know, castigate you for wanting to do that.
You know, talk to your supervisor. Get that permission but it's when folks wants to just be able to come on campus every day.
We can't do that. What that does is it creates opportunities for transmission of infection. We don't have the resources to be able to do this well.
And if what we want to do is make sure we maintain the safety of our community,
We have to have some guidelines. I know that there are folks who have plants on campus and they're concerned about the well being of their plants.
You know what, yes, come on campus and grab your plants. Take it home and you can take care of it at home. the folks that folks having their offices. You know what, you can come on campus and take it home with you if it's something that you can
Otherwise, please, please, please stay home.
I beg of you, please stay home.
We will
Be better off if you do so.
Mary: Thank you. Julius, there was a question about wanting us to deal with the, the concept of inclusivity and equity within our classrooms.
Julius: Yes. So this is a very good question. I think it's important for us based on, you know, the social moment and the National moment and the discourse that we're having that we as a US faculty
Do not shy away from addressing this particular issue. The question for us is how does the curriculum and how to meet the learning outcomes of the curriculum.
How do we differentiate between having a conversation that is
integrated, that is purposeful and intentional and built into our curriculum. How do we differentiate between that and having a conversation that may be perceived as serving a political purpose.
and sometimes it is almost impossible to do that. So the best thing for us to do is to look at ways in which we identify the student learning outcomes we're trying to accomplish. What skills and competencies are we trying to
Facilitate/develop? when we do that, and we engage in discourse with our students around that,
Then we are able to actually meet the outcomes of the course, but as well as our social responsibility to one another as members of a learning community.
So I am not saying that we cannot address the issues of police brutality, racial injustice, destruction of property,
in the process of protesting and looting. I mean I'm not saying we can't do that. I'm saying, make sure that it is integrated into your curriculum in a way that is meaningful, in a way that allows us to meet those outcomes. But I also think it's important for us as
a community of academics, a community of learners, a community of practitioners to figure out together
What strategies and what what methodologies can we put in place? What pedagogy is can we put in place to address this? So you know if folks in English, want to address this I folks a political science, want to address this,
How can you do it, and how can you share best practices in how to do that?
We're doing this in an environment of online instruction that does not always allow us to see the eyes and and the expressions of the other individual if it does, it's within a set of
an artificial context. So how do, how are we able to take these conversations and move them forward? At the end of the day, it is the authenticity that we bring to the engagement and it's the authenticity in which we engage the issues that matters.
Mary: Thank you Julius. That's very profound. Thank you. Those questions about what if you have a class online for fall and then public health allows the College to be fully open. Can we change or should we be considering something more along the hybrid approach.
Julius: Right. That's a very good question. I think that everyone who has a class should be perceiving that that class needs to exist.
But let me let me rephrase everyone who has a class on ground should perceive that that class and prepare for that class to be in a hybrid format.
Because we know that all the modeling tells us that there will be a second wave and that we might have to come back to having exclusively online instruction again sometime in the Fall. So I think it's best for us to prepare for for everything as if it were hybrid period.
But typically, the online classes. I think if we take that frame of mind, then you're able to pivot and you're able to adapt, whatever the the health, environment looks like or whatever it ends up being. I think that's that's important.
As the direction we get or the information we get allows, we will look at what is on-ground and what is online, but I think just
Being given the authority by Ventura County Public Health to transition courses to fully on-ground doesn't mean that we can do that within a minute or a swift
pivoting. We need to be very also aware of the costs of doing that, you know, the context in which
being able to deliver on ground instruction
will matter. If we're told that everyone needs to have a mask, if we're told that everyone needs to be six feet apart,
if we're told that we need to take temperature of every single student who's coming in and our faculty and staff.
this is going to add additional burden to our experience. We are not going to move everything back on ground. We will not, we will not be it will be financially ruinous for us to do that.
So I think we need to be as as flexible, we need to be as open
and we need to also bear in mind that when we tell students that a course will be offered in a particular mode. We've seen this this past spring semester. Unless it is such a drastic issues such as a pandemic students are
disenfranchised students are concerned, students are upset when you change them order delivery or we change anything that is not aligned with the syllabus or the course content they initially provided. So we will need to be very
Thoughtful and purposeful and intentional when we make those kinds of changes that maybe this is too much. I'm saying too much here. But I think it's important for us to just come from that place.
Mary: Thank you, Julius. Amanuel, thank you for mentioning about Monica
Being the interim dean for
June conduct English and ESL. We had announced earlier that we've had a couple questions as the other Dean's we had announced earlier that the Dean for arts
Was is going to be Priscilla Mora, currently a dean at Santa Barbara City College and will be joining us on July 1.
So at that same time, we announced that Robert Cabral was our Interim Dean for Physical Sciences and Career Education and he has joined us and will be with us for the next year, at least.
Let's see any additional information Julius on us for a new hirings or hiring situations?
Julius: Not right now.
Mary: Moving forward, oh, we had originally quite a few comments,
you did mention that you are going to have perhaps at a later
date or some kind of a
event in order to have some of this
Cultural Competency and some of these hard conversations and that just as reminding people that what your plan would be to what to notify people either that it's the next update or when it would happen.
Julius: Yes. So my hope is that we'll be able to sort of gather some individuals who are interested in helping us move this conversation forward.
So for example, you know, we've already gotten the idea about the Allies we've already gotten Sharon sending out information to college community around the resources available for a variety of needs this time of challenge.
So I think part of it is being able to bring those various individuals those various resources and those various perspectives together.
This is not my conversation. This is our conversation. And so as a college community, folks, we need to stand up and say we do want to engage in this conversation if we do.
And my hope is that, then we'll create the opportunity for doing that. My envisioning right now is that sometime in the next week to 10 days, we will have a
"town hall," that's just really invested in doing this conversation. And we, you know, will send out a
Outlook invitation. We'll send a zoom you will be able to participate in conversation. It will be an open forum for folks to share to ask questions to engage for us to build strategies for moving forward. So that's my hope so. That's the first step. But again,
we need you as a college community to invest in participating in this conversation and bringing your own
talents and your own resources and your own questions and your own frustrations all of this to bear in this conversation. So you will hear back from you certainly will hear back from me sometime in the next couple of days in terms of here's a town hall.
Here as clear as possible time to host this town hall, hope you will join us. And then my hope is that we can pull together folks
Who would want to participate in this. Again, I am calling on the academic side I'm calling in the classified site. I'm calling on ASMC and whoever else wants to participate in this to come and help us plan this, that's the intention.
Mary: Thank you. Questions about whether these resources can be put on the student portal and made available for
Students.
Julius: I would I would hope so. And I'm guessing that with the ones to shine is sending out will be put on the health center page and they'd be a link to our students services page right Amanuel?
Amanuel: Yes, she's sending out the email. In addition, I'll touch base with her in terms of putting it in the right place where staff and students can access the information.
Julius: And I think it's really helpful for us to sort of identify resources for staff, resources for students and I would ask that we have resources for managers
Because we all need it right and that we're able to, sort of differentiate them out that we're. Some of them might overlap but for this work to happen. I think just sitting in our individual roles.
May not be enough and being able to sort of understand, you know, the experience for another person and and what their concerns on what their struggles might be and would be important as well.
Mary: Thank you. There's a question: Is there a date when final decisions will be made for classes
for fall?
Julius: Yeah. Chancellor Gillespie's goal was that by the middle of this month that there would be some
message that goes out beyond the assumptions that will go out tomorrow. I think when you see the assumptions tomorrow, you will have a very good sense of what the playing field is.
It's the filling in the blanks. It's the, you know, do we require everyone to have a face mask if they're coming on campus. You know, it's the how often are we going to clean the classrooms? It's the, you know, what happens if there is outbreak in a particular
department or in a particular program? It's those kinds of detailed questions that we're still waiting for some answers from Ventura County Public health.
It's those kinds of detailed questions that we need to sort of figure out how we're going to support our actions or operations with resources. Those are the only things that you will hear further as the month unfolds. I mean, the
email from Chancellor Gillespie tomorrow will be very explicit in what the,
I guess the baseline is, you know, the foundation is the, you know. And so once you get that, I think you'll get a better sense, as I've been saying it predominantly online.
Hard to convert classes will, you know, on ground. When we look at services, we're going to be looking at service in the context of, you know, can we fully offer this service on online. And if we can fully offer it online we'll offer it online.
You know, those will be the conversations, you know, where are people working, what do their offices look like, how would that impact their ability to interact in a service context.
Those are some of the questions that will need to be further filled out. But I think the sort of the broad swath, at least for instruction.
You will get that from the email from Chancellor Gillespie
tomorrow. And if you don't get that, please email me, you know, we will bring it back again on Thursday when we have a retreat with the chancellor
to to ask for some more clarity. But again, what we know in this point in time is that things are changing at such rapid speed. So we need to be able to sort of pivot and
adjust as things unfold.
Mary: Julius, there is a question about people that don't live in Ventura County. Do the rules still apply? What's going to happen for them, and also people that take classes on more than one campus?
Julius: Yes. Um, so you mean the rules in terms of
those who don't live Ventura County.
Mary: I think the concern is that if LA has tighter restrictions than Ventura County.
Julius: Oh, I hear you.
Folks can't get to work because they are required to be at home under stay at home order, that kind of thing? Okay.
Mary: My assumption.
Julius: Okay, so if that is the question. Yes. I mean, we will certainly have to abide by the order in which, from where you live. I mean, we can't have you
transgressing or violating, you know, the order, but I know that we've tried our very best to provide resources for folks so that we can work remotely. And I'm forgetting
if IT and Dan is online, please type this into the Q and A. But last Friday, I think it was. And Jennifer, You may also know this. Last Friday was really...
I want to say it's part of the office suite, but maybe it's not. I think it's the Adobe suite not the office suite, that technology that allows us to do a lot of the things that we do
in our offices on our desktop at home without a VPN. And I think that
that capacity, again, sort of reminds us that technology allows us to do a quite a lot of things from various venues that are not on campus and that we can do our work with some success from that venue. That is not to
dismiss the concerns of those of us who don't have the space in our homes to do this work and do it well and do it effectively.
Part of our conversation moving forward is how do we accommodate and how do we address that. But for now we're living under an order that says we work from home and we try our very best to
deliver instruction and service through that medium.
Mary: Dan responded and said that we're using Adobe suite from home and Adobe extended the free licensing until
July.
Julius: Thank you, Dan. so can Dan, you know, maybe in an email from it or something
explain to folks, you know, who has access how they get access and all of that. So that way, we're all clear as to what it means. I'm always thinking of us, you know, I have something to sign something and I have
you know, Linda copy my digital signature, even though I know that there's a way to do it easier than that. But,
you know, I'm sure that those are some of the features that you could do from home or you can fill out forms from home and a bunch of other things. So there are resources.
Mary: And Dan does mention that everyone has Adobe Creative Cloud.
Julius: That's what it's called. Thank you, Dan.
Mary: Julius, do you have a final comment for the group. Before we leave for today.
Julius: Again I do want us to be kind to one another. I do want us to try and walk in another person's shoes. I know we do this at Moorpark, but I think we're being called to be extra sensitive and extra
thoughtful in our interactions and intentional in our interactions in these moments in our nation's history and in our social consciousness.
You know we are struggling with the Covid-19 pandemic. We are struggling with, you know, the challenges of folks who are
experiencing in our own families and in our own lives, experiencing unemployment and experiencing,
you know, ill health. And all of these add to the stressors that we bring to our work engagement.
But we're also struggling with, you know, the legacy of, you know, systemic racism. We are also struggling with the legacy of, you know,
discrimination, and we as a college community are part of the solution to this. I am convinced that we are part of the solution to this. And so I do ask that
as we are all sort of uncomfortable, and as we're all struggling. As we are all trying to sort of, you know, figure out voice and figure out place,
that we just be graceful to one another, a little bit of grace goes a long way and I really appreciate the work that everyone's doing. We will not always agree on everything, but I would hope that we will be able to just, you know, discourse and find ways in which we sort of move
towards
a way in which we celebrate one another as humanity and within which we acknowledge and live in one another's humanity. Have a great week. I, you know,
please, please, please, I have office...I have open door hours this week. Linda will send those hours out. If you do want to speak with me if you have any concerns, I ask you to please contact me and I will make my very best effort to be available to you.
Mary: Thank you all. Bye.