Mary Rees: Good afternoon and we'll wait another minute or two while everyone joins us. Welcome to Moorpark College Remote Work Visioning Forum. So, thank you for being with us today.
Just wait another minute or two.
Well, we want to thank you all for joining us, like I said for this visioning forum. We know this is complicated and it's a process, but we are delighted to be kicking off the whole process.
This meeting is being recorded. It is also closed captioned. So if you want to click the CC at the bottom of your screen, you can see the live transcripts. Like I said, it will be recorded. The
verbal part will be recorded, also the chat. So if you think you're sending private chats, we're going to be recording all the chat
so that we can capture people's ideas. So we want to just give everybody the heads up on that. So we will be using the chat to say people's comments as well.
That's where we are on that. On the next page,
we'll talk a little bit about how people can participate, and what we're going to be talking about today. So Julius is going to give us...
So Julius is going to give us an introduction and then we have three different areas that we wanted to
focus on. One would be remote work lessons learned over Covid. One would be on new remote work practices and innovations that we have either,
the insight has come to us. So things that we started doing during the time that we want to make sure that we continue.
And the third is possible remote work guidelines. So what needs to be changed, implemented, and that, as far as guidelines related to remotely work.
And then, at the end we're going to look for workgroups to continue this work. So like I said this is complicated. This is a process but we're going to be kicking off the process here.
On the next page, slide I should say, we'll talk about how we're going to people can participate. So we have three ways for everyone to participate in the in the discussion this morning. The first one is the raised hand.
We do ask that people be be muted, unless you have been called on. So we're going to go through, and each of those areas there's some questions and
if you have a question, an answer, a comment, you can raise your hand and either Julius or Linda will call on you, and then, when you're called on, we ask that you unmute yourself and let us hear from you.
Those that don't want to verbally discuss input to the questions, we do have a chat with some additional questions and
your input through the chat will be very much appreciated. So you can either raise your hand and be called on to give your input, or you can put your input in the chat.
Also, Michael is going to put in the chat a link, which has the questions and you can answer the questions
there in the link and then that link will also be available. As you know the chat kind of comes and goes as you're moving through. So if you want to provide the input
to questions in the link, that's another way. So we have the three different ways that people can provide input to the questions.
As I said, the three different areas that we're going to be looking at today. So we have about 10 minutes for each of those different topics.
And then at the end we're going to take some time to look at next steps and work groups and time frames and all of those kind of criteria.
So Julius, good afternoon.
Julius Sokenu: Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. This is a very serious topic for us, but it's also a topic that will help in terms of how we move forward
as a learning community, as a working community, and as individuals in community together. So it is very important that we engage this with a sense of that gravity. This is not a conversation that is into solving just immediate problems we have
or the immediate concerns people have, this is about moving, looking forward and looking towards the future.
So if that if you're having you did particular problems with the service area or with your instructional area, this is not the venue for that.
This is a venue sort of vision, as we said, the emphasis is on visioning for the future. How we would like to see the nature of work, the nature of remote work, in particular for this college and for this district moving forward.
We are Moorpark College in a three college district and that's very important to remember as we're having this conversation.
That what we talk about might be appropriate and operationalized and can do it at Moorpark College, but we're also a system with a three college structure and so that they're making modifications that is necessary to fit into that three college structure.
Very important is for us to think of how we want the workplace to look like. What we want the workplace to engender. Moving forward.
And so things like, are we looking at work rotations, are we're looking at percentage of in person versus online or remote work,
are we talking about working in shifts. I mean what do we mean by remote work? Also we need to listen for understanding and action. So as we engage in this conversation I asked that listening is a part of this, as well as talking and articulating and chatting.
Part of our work and part of this conversation is aimed at helping us create accountability for all individuals involved. For the employee. For the manager.
In some ways, because it will involve students, ultimately, at some point. How do we hold students accountable as well, but in part of this conversation.
We're looking at creating a system that identifies best practices and how we can then take those best practices, some of them are being education, others might not be.
But what are we hearing from other areas, and what are we doing from other areas that inform the way in which we do our work.
It is imperative that as we move forward that we acknowledge the fact that remote work will be a part of the work we do.
It is imperative that we remember that these are
brick and mortar institutions. Moorpark College is not an online institution per se, and so we need to start work with that dynamic and be very clear with that dynamic. Nobody's been employed at Moorpark College, maybe a handful of people to work exclusively online.
And so we need to be very much aware of that.
We also need to work from the notion that we're looking at operations.
That we're looking at creating policy. So whenever we're talking about here this college, our sister colleges will also be talking about, and there'll be district wide policy around remote work that will come out of this.
Administrative policy, Board policy will come out of this conversation, ultimately.
And that also says it's not something we'll be able to rectify the next month or the next two months, but we're looking at the long haul. I'm really thinking of all this conversation and culminated in practice, maybe in the spring, at the very earliest.
Also, we need to have evidence and data to support what we're talking about.
And thus we talked about but bringing together a small groups of people to look at each of these areas for operations and investigation and then using data to support that.
So, it is not just how people feel, it's not just what people want, but it's how we will impact the delivery of instruction and services, both student services and business services
moving forward. We have learned a great deal from working remotely during the Covid pandemic.
And there's a lot to be leveraged from what we've learned. This is an opportunity to take that and use that. So that we can better serve our students, we can better serve one another and our working relationships, we can build an institution that is not just being
reactive but has been proactive. Again, our goal with the meeting today and this is to really
almost, I'm re-using the term or expression [undiscernable]. Tell me what we want to have happen as a college community and then we'll build together what we want to happen
as a college community. Now that information needs to be taken to the district wide forum for conversation. And so that district wide forum will take what we as Moorpark College has
presented, what Ventura has presented, and what Oxnard has presented, and then come up with some baselines, some standard practice around that. And then there might be areas for nuance with each campus, for each campus culture is different.
But that's kind of what we're doing, gathering information to put together to inform district wide practice. So having said that, I'm going to sort of have us move on to the next slide and I believe Mary will be doing that slide.
Mary: This topic is remote work lessons learned.
Julius: Okay. So we want to start off by - next slide please?
By asking you to go ahead and give us some insight on remote work and the lessons that we've learned. So the first part of this is, if you can put in chat what one or two words describe your work experience of working remotely.
So one or two words. Just words. So you can start inserting that into chat, we'd appreciate it.
Linda Resendiz: Doable. Effective. Productive. Efficient. Accessible. Convenient. Efficient. Less stress.
No drive.
Convenient. Isolating. Work life. Balance. Flexibility. Challenging in a positive way. Convenient. No traffic. Effective.
Didn't get to.
Less valuable. Flexible. Less gas. More accessible to students. Adapting. More productive.
Effective and efficient.
Julius: I see better work life balance. This whole notion of creating a pace that's a safe safer environment.
Less carbon footprint, thank you.
Okay. So keep populating that. While we're doing that, there is a raised hand question. So what did learn from working remotely?
Again, you can enter that information into the link, but we will ask for folks to also raise their hands, and we can share some of that with the larger group.
Linda R.: Don't be shy. Participate.
Alright, our first one, Allison. Go ahead
Allison and unmute yourself.
Allison Barton: I learned how to use Zoom better and I learned how to use a lot of technology, better.
Julius: Thank you.
Linda R.: Dina?
Dina Pielaet: It redefines the notion of multitasking.
I mean I'm able to sit and do so many things at one time on multiple systems, and have less distraction. And I find
that going to campus is wonderful and I love it, but it's like almost taking a vacation from the level of work that I can produce when I stay here and focus. So multitasking.
Julius: Thank you. So productivity keeps coming up quite a bit here. That the notion of productivity, being more productive or less productive, but it seems to me that we're hearing a lot of people talking about how efficiencies can be put into place
and they're being productive. I see that there's some hands raised? [Linda R.]: Yeah.
Linda Corrigan.
Go ahead and unmute yourself Linda?
Linda Corrigan: Got it. I found it to be, it forces you to organize everything. Organize your living space, your workspace. You have to organize your files. You have to do online. I mean it just incorporates all good organizational skills and management of your work life, and your life at home.
And I found that to be a rewarding and challenging.
Julius: Thank you. So again, we want to think of when we say challenging, what does that mean for you, Linda. What does that mean for everybody.
Linda C.: It challenges me to really think about where I'm at and working with students. It makes me aware of their environment and my environment,
and how I look to them when I'm online. It's challenging and you have to be really, really cautious and aware of how you present yourself to the students when you're online.
Julius: Okay. So that will lead us to as we're continue our conversation in terms of the nature of how we interact with students and some of the things we need to be aware of when we're talking about remote work.
Banea has her hand raised.
Linda R.: Go ahead Banea.
Banea Sumpter: Okay, thank you. For the Fiscal Department in particular, we're not exactly student facing but as far as productivity, we definitely experienced or learned
that we can be had faster turnarounds and tracking of documents that are signed electronically, rather than having such a heavy focus on paper documents and going here and there, and putting in mailboxes and tracking down signatures. We have much faster turnarounds and again, higher productivity.
Julius: Thank you. Automation. It sounds like automation. I see that it's also referring to that in terms of students coming to
virtual office hours. I see that in terms of paper work. Thank you. So automation is a benefit
or an outcome that we want to hold on to after this pandemic is over, and as we move forward. Excellent. Okay.
Any other hands raised or any other comments, before we move on to the next forum topic?
Dina, you have your hand raised.
Dina: I think I forgot something really important. I feel so much safer, to be quite honest, especially in lieu of the fact that our hospitalizations
are higher than they were the first time around. It's just I don't feel safe. We just had four exposures
in the household. We all had to go get Covid tests, we were all negative, but still, and I just got a call from two friends who are fully vaccinated who just recovered from Covid from going to the supermarket. So for me I still don't feel safe being in person with a lot of people.
Julius: So this conversation, I think one aspect of it is about safety, working remotely, but this conversation is really I want us to think of it as post Covid. So what are we thinking of and what are we looking for, for the nature of work post Covid.
And I'm one of those who believes that Covid will always be with us. It will become an endemic and we just have to deal with it like we do with the Flu and everything else.
If we know that and if we if we subscribe to that, then everybody will have to come back to work in the office space
for a majority of their work day. What would you want that work day to look like and what do you want that work distribution to look like. So that's the conversation we're moving into.
I'm not dismissing the concern around safety and I'm just saying that... okay, so moving forward, what does that mean for us? How does that play itself out?
Linda R.: Rosleen has a question. Are you going to take more questions for this one Julius? We have two more.
Julius: Let's take a question, sure.
Linda R.: Okay Rosleen, go ahead and unmute yourself, please?
Rosleen Aurora: Hi I just have a comment, like, I was surprised that all these years working in Financial Aid, I never thought that our job can ever be remote and it will be accepted
by the students and how well they adapted to it and how fast the processing became like for their sake. You know
there used to be long lines and they're waiting and actually respecting their time too, where everything was processing lot faster. So I felt like they were getting better customer service and that's how I felt. Thank you.
Julius: Excellent. So efficiencies. Thank you so much Rosleen. Michelle, you have your hands up?
Michele Perry: Thank you. What I've learned, but also best practices might go hand in hand here, and what I learned is that, as a campus even as a district, we were very
one person had answers or had the knowledge and so on, and I learned that it was better to have everything centralized and up to date, whether it was HR Tools,
or business tools, or some kind of process outline where you could send via email to somebody for efficiency. And I found then because we
decided at one point to learn from the person before us, or from the person who's in the office next to us, that it was really important to have written process and procedures. And where that was, we were real clear with people.
Julius: Yes, so the documentation. The impact in documentation and then widely shared knowledge. Let's go to the next topic.
[Mary]: So the news topic. Go ahead Julius.
[Julius]: Go ahead Mary. [Mary]: The next topic: new remote work practices and innovations.
Julius: So the question here is in the chat responses, in a few words identify a new practice that you or others created to support working remotely.
So we've already heard the response to documentation that helps. Information sharing. Are other thing and you can enter those in chat.
Recording every lecture. Excellent. Thank you Cindy Reed.
Automation of repetitive tasks. Yes.
Remote signatures. Thank you.
Payroll moved timesheets to fully digital. Yea!
Recording and editing demonstrations Thank you so much Erika.
Remote support tools. Thank you Aaron.
New creative and engaging learning methods. Virtual office hours.
Converting to Teams.
Intentional collaboration.
Online meetings.
Raider Rocks registrations. They were more effective.
Local POCR process.
Online submission of applications for cohorted programs, which I'm sure saves a great deal of time.
Group exercises. Interoffice mail. Career week online.
Virtual drop in for nurses. Tele-health.
More participation through Zoom. What we're doing today is a clear example of that.
Shared files in SharePoint. Thank you Brandon.
Tele-health.
Creative reporting mechanisms. Yes.
So, the raise hand question is, what practices and innovations have been established during working remotely,
to help our students. So we're focusing on how those practices; some of the ones you've already identified are helping students. But think of it in terms of these are really not just about your own operational work, but
helping students learn better. Helping students navigate our services better. Helping students so that they can help make our work more streamlined.
Forms.
Yes, thank you Jodi. Allison? [Linda R.]: Yeah, Allison.
Allison: So the Student Health Center offers Tele-health, which we weren't before. So we weren't able to offer distance learning students our services until now so that's great. And then some people just like it better. So we can offer that to students.
Julius: That's a keeper. That's something we want to continue way after this is over, and build it into our regular practice.
Online tutoring.
Linda R.: Attendance for professional development.
[Julius]: Humanizing online instruction. Claudia, you have your hand raised? [Linda R.]: Claudia.
Claudia Sitlington: We implemented in all of our areas.
We went online in March, so probably around April or May, what we call our virtual community hours.
We actually had the opportunity to present on a virtual community hours at the First Year Experience conference this past February,
in ways that we could still keep our students engaged
and not feeling like they were having to sit in their rooms all day. So it was really a nice way that we invited them to have these conversations. It was really a virtual hangout and we've actually started exploring other
things like glimpse and things like that we utilize for our new orientation for students and for FYE. And it's it's just been extremely helpful and we're doing the same for Second Year and CHESS students as well.
Julius: You used the expression, glimpse or glintz. What'd you say?
Claudia: So I'll put it in the chat here. So it's a social outlet. It's very similar to Zoom and they can go in and they can
do meet and greets and how is it, you know, "What movies are you watching? What books are you reading?" And we figured we had to act fast and think fast. And it works so well that we're continuing to be that moving forward.
Julius: I appreciate Claudia's comment that they're sharing what we're doing
at Moorpark College with others across the system. Part of what we want to do is as we're figuring out these innovations, that we're sharing it and all the creative stuff that's happening at our campus,
that that becomes part of the statewide discourse and maybe when national discourse on remote learning.
Linda R.: Do we have any students here?
Just wondering if any students.
Julius: Completion of forms.
Linda R.: There was the one comment that caught my attention, and this is from Shannon Macias.
Confidentiality during office hours.
So meetings
are more confidential.
Julius: Yes.
So the advantages from our organization seems to be something we want to also explore further. When we're done
before we're done with the conversation today, we're going to ask folks to volunteer to be part of work groups that looks at operations and policy and best practices,
and then making recommendations in terms of the nature of work. So start thinking of where your passion lies, where you're commitment lies, and how you can help us build this college for the future, which includes, online and remote work. Okay, let's go on to the next topic.
Mary: Next, possible remote work guidelines.
Julius: So, again, chat responses. identify one word guideline that we should consider for remote work assignments. Identify one work guideline that we should consider for remote work assignments.
So we were thinking of what gets to be remote work, who gets to do remote work, or how about what gets done. What guideline would you provide us?
So that's a chat response. One guideline that we should consider. So if we said productivity, then what do you mean by productivity? Give an example.
[Linda R.]: Reflect student needs. [Julius]: Reflect student
needs, good.
Linda R.: Rotations. Require remote office hours.
Julius: Fantastic. Efficiency. Yes.
Linda R.: Sharing files need to be more streamlined.
Julius: Excellent. And when your kid is, there's flexibility, so you don't have to just take a day off.
Linda R.: Phil is asking what do you mean by a remote work guideline?
Julius: So if we're looking at how we want...
Linda R.: Remote assignments, I'm sorry.
What do you mean by a remote work assignment?
Julius: It just means working remotely.
So not from your office or if you are doing work from your office, it means, just not -- not from your office. Let's look at from the work site.
How do we define remote work assignments and what guidelines should we use, to make that determination.
So I see one, and said, if work can be done remotely, something, something, something. So we need clarification on that kind of guideline.
So they need to match on site hours. So you can have everybody working online, of course, or remotely from home, you need to have some some
guidelines. So, for example, currently, we have, what, about 30% of our classes are online. So if we're just looking at services, should we be looking towards making sure that at least 30% of our services are online and then the rest are on ground.
So you're getting plans from staff, so as to ensure coverage and effectiveness. Excellent. Thank you Claudia. That's important.
Okay, so online work takes more time then on site. The equity in
assignments.
Linda R.: Do you have your hand up Phil?
Or your?
Phil Abramoff: I didn't know how to do it on the
computer. [Linda R.]: Oh okay.
Julius: Go ahead Phil.
Phil: I have sort of maybe a general
overarching question for you and our other VPs and deans. If we have a particular project we have to get done, like writing a program plan or creating a schedule spreadsheet,
if we are getting that done, what would your concern as an administrator be as to whether we're doing it in our office or at home?
Julius: So are you meeting your hours for on campus presence?
Phil: Well meaning that, for the particular project, if we are the particular project done,
does it make a difference to you, whether it's done physically on campus or just simply working at home?
Julius: So if it's like the question you asked around
program plans, I would ask a couple of questions, if I were your dean. I would say so, "Are you going to be meeting with others? And will that meeting need to be done virtually?
Are you going to need information or data that is physically in a particular space?
Will the work tasks require interaction with others, that cannot be done remotely or is better done in person?" I would ask those questions before I would then sort of say,
"Okay, this work needs to be done remote and this work needs to be done in person." I think we need to figure out task.
Then we need to figure out who is needed to accomplish the task and what's needed accomplish the task.
And I think it's also important as we do that, we need to figure out is this is something we're going to do consistently and all the time. So we're building it to permanent
practice, or is it a temporary thing, or is it a seasonal thing? So program plans are seasonal, right? So I don't see a reason why, if you're going to work on your program planning, gather
departments and then you have a meeting and you do it virtually, and so you can meet that virtual interaction, either by getting your home or being on campus, and people can join from various locations.
That would be acceptable. But again, I would say it's very task dependent and it's dependent on the community that's going to be involved in that work, and also, clearly involving students. Then what is the nature of interaction with students and their access to that interaction?
Phil: So, I guess to answer your question briefly,
I think a lot of us have been able to do this by say making a lot of phone calls. Creating maybe, impromptu Zoom sessions, with one or a couple of people.
And a lot of the work doesn't necessarily have to be done with other people. Like once we've gathered all the information and we're simply writing all the text into the program plan template, things like that.
I guess my concern is that we can do a lot of that at home and get it done at home. But then again, we may not want it to be the new normal because there is something missing with us not being all physically in a room together and seeing each others faces in that way as well.
Julius: So those are factors that need to be taken into, that's what I mean by the nature of the task, right? Part of the nature of that task, might be that it requires a community assembly. And if that's what is required in that interaction, then you give that priority over the ease of gathering online.
Phil: And I think a lot of us have adjusted by doing work as it fits our schedule at home, like
two hours from 10:00 pm to midnight to work on program plan, things like that.
Julius: And I
would say we probably would be doing that all along anyway.
There's always an element of that in all our jobs, in most of our jobs and now, it's just that, now we have that
authority and that technology, and that support to do that.
Phil: Okay, thanks. That's my input.
Julius: Thank you Phil.
Shall we move on to the next forum
topic?
Mary: Those were the three topics Julius. We were going to then go and talk about next steps and work groups and what kind of time frame, we have around
this work? [Julius]: Okay. So before we go to that. Are there any general questions or comments that folks want to make, either as a raised hand or as you type something into the chat?
Mary: Julius one of the questions that the Chancellor raised this morning, I thought was a very interesting one, I believe he suggested that what we're doing is that we're down about 20% from where we were prior to Covid. So his question is,
is the 20% due to
Covid and all of those dynamics? Is it about our changes and what do we have to do differently to get those 20% back? So I thought that was an interesting
piece to throw into the mix as well.
Julius: Exactly. Yeah I mean, if we start looking at
enrollment, then we need to look at ways in which we meet the needs of students, so that we distribute the instruction and the services, particularly student services,
around that. But it also means we need to listen to what students are saying more often, as you build that schedule and so it's not instructor
preferred scheduling, it's not staff preferred scheduling, but it's really about what do students want from the data that we get gathering from them and can we deliver it and what formats are can we divide it to as many students as possible.
Students are voting with their feet right now, right? They're saying, "We want online," and so does that mean that we become an online college?
Not really. Built and invested in structure. But what does that mean, in terms of we build services and build instruction.
And how do we do that. Are we really hearing from the ones who are feeling comfortable about online, is that the case? Or are we hearing from everybody and it's just the reality that that's where the distribution is, because folks are figuring out how they can make their life's work.
Okay. So I think it's important if you're a department chair, or if you're a program lead to think about these notions of enrollment, but it's also important if you're faculty because the reality of it is that our classroom numbers have been declining. Even prior to Covid.
The average units taken as a declining prior to Covid and we know our students have incredibly busy lives, maybe a little bit more so than before.
We also know that the demographic of our college is changing. So it's not just the 18 to 24 year olds. We're getting more older students. And even with the 18 to 24 year olds, we're getting more and more people who have multiple responsibilities and school is just a slice of that.
Mary: Some great comments Julius in the chat regarding this.
Julius: So I'm hearing that students are upset that they're aren't many online. They like an eight week class and a model that PACE uses. So that's an example of something, we can say, "Okay that model is working and where else can we replicate that?"
And how else can we develop programs in our individual career education programs or even some of our transfer programs? I mean nursing runs as eight week classes and the semester is built around that and it's worked for the nursing program. What might work for another program?
For example.
Good insight. Thank you so much for your sharing.
Linda R.: There was a comment made about most of our students being millennials and how they are used to technology and how they love it and it would be
something to consider as we adapt and respond to that. So keeping a combination of online services and remote.
Julius: Yes, and that aligns with what Loay was saying that trying to make sure that we're meeting the needs of both groups of students.
And then, Michelle Perry asked the question, "What's the difference between working in an enclosed office on campus and working remotely from home?" That's a very good question. And I would love to hear what people have to say in response to that question.
Drew LaFave has his hand up. Drew?
Linda R.: Go ahead, unmute yourself Drew?
Drew LaFave: Alright, there we go. Okay, sorry about that. I've been wondering that too, about working in a closed office versus working remotely. I think
those of us who don't have positions that really face students much at all, it seems very much like it's like working from home, but just with different walls around. So that's something I've been wondering about a lot too.
Julius: Thank you Drew. What that says and I see a couple of comments,
agreeing with you is that the nature of work for different positions, for positions differ, and we need to take that into consideration as well. That some work is done in isolation or "isolation", independently is actually a better term.
And so...
so what we want to do is note and acknowledge that. Sile?
Sile Bassi: So I've been doing new student remote intakes now on campus, where I was doing them at home,
and I was way more efficient at home. I had a better setup with my computer. I had two computers going and I had such a seamless system. Now I'm in my office
and I actually end up bringing in my own laptop so I can have the two computers. And the system isn't as efficient as I was at home. And I'm still serving the students remote.
And you come on campus and I close the door in my office and I just work by myself on my computer at work, instead of being at home,
where I am more efficient, with just even my technology that I have available for myself, and even the comfort of my chair and the ergonomics and everything. I think I've seen one student on campus since I've started and everyone else is remote.
[Julius]: So what you're saying it's a technology support that you have at home that's different from on campus? [Sile]: Yes.
Sile: Very much so. I mean it's even the comfort of my chair and the way the computer, I can see the students better on my home computer, because I have a huge screen and I have a much better setup
than I do in my office. And I'm doing the exact same work, but I find it more difficult on campus. And it's still isolating. I'm in my office with the door closed so I can take the mask off.
Julius: Right? So the point that you're making is that the technology support is necessary to get that piece of comfort.
And I would posit that for moving forward, that we need to start looking at the kinds of technology support that will replicate that comfort for as many people as possible and, of course, doing it within the resources that are available to us.
Mary: Nathan has a comment about from our music class, "One fourth of the online synchronous students struggled and ended up dropping."
Julius: So that's a factor to be very clear about so that we don't do a disservice to our students and our
campus mission, right?
Mary: Julius, do you want to move to the next steps, where we can really...
[Julius]: Let's do that. [Mary]: see input.
Let's go to the next slide. So our goal as we move forward with this is to
get work groups together and get work groups to work on the following topics. Our processes and policies. Areas and jobs. Best practices. And operational recommendations.
And the timeline we're looking at is between September 7 and September 30
for these work groups to meet on a weekly basis by Zoom,
and really help to clarify what we mean by best practices, for example, and gather the best practices from across the campus and
some from this conversation today. And make a recommendation in terms of, here are the best practices that have come out of remote work. Some we need to certainly integrate into our long term work and others, we need to look at particular context.
Make those recommendations by October 1. So again, with each of these groups, we're looking to have like we do with our social justice work group of faculty,
a classified, a manager, and a student. Having each one of those people to lead the group so that we get multiple perspectives.
So we're looking at getting volunteers.
Processes and policies just means we look at operational processes and then we'll look at policies that might want to come out of that. So, for example, we can say we want a policy to be that someone says,
40% of our work in a particular area is done remotely and we acknowledge that and we'll build processes to support that.
Or it might be that we want to have shifts of people coming in, so that if there is exposure, there'll be
a reserved group of folks who are not in the day that there was an exposed person or somebody who came in close contact and in so doing, build against [indiscernible] transmission.
In terms of areas and jobs, looking at particular areas across the campus and saying, "Okay now, what would remote work look like for this group of people? Can they do remote work?" There are certain folks who cannot do remote work.
There's certain folks who can do some remote work, but not predominantly
remote work. So what would that look like? And this group would also be looking at making recommendations for jobs that can be done remotely and then we kind of write job descriptions that are very close
in support of that and others that may not be. Best practices, that speaks for itself. And then operational recommendations like someone just talked about, technology and such, that helps to
support their efficiency. So these are the four groups, and we would like to make sure that we get a cross section of participants in each of those four groups. And
so we're looking for volunteers. Are we asking that people put their their names on the link? Sign up? And thank you very much Michael.
So to sign up for a particular work group, there's a link right there here and
now for you to do that. If you want to think a little bit more about it and then come back and do that, you can also thought we would like to get as many people as possible, so that when we come back from Labor Day, the groups can begin right away.
Mary: You want to go over the time frame too Julius? So you're looking from after Labor Day, the 7th through the 30th, and then summarize the recommendations?
Julius: Right. So the recommendations are available by October 1. So that means at least meeting once a week, if not more, so that you can go ahead and
look through the data, gather more information, in some cases, you may need to look through our contract and see how this might be impacted.
You want to look at our practices outside of the institution, outside of higher education, outside of our district. So all of this is really giving you time to really think through it, making sure that we identify who in that group
is taking on leadership from each of our various constituencies groups. We need to reach out to students, so we will need the folks from student services, particularly,
Kristen and the folks who are working with our ASMC folks to get student participation in these conversations, so that they would be meaningful.
Questions? Comments?
Michael has put up the sign up sheet for remote work.
Loay Alnaji: The sheet doesn't have a place to type your name or my name. So did I miss something?
Michael Ashton: Click next at the bottom of the form that will take you to the work group sign up portion. It's an all inclusive form for all of the things that we've covered today.
Loay: Yeah but where do I type my name? You know, like, I want to go there or...
How would you know me? It's anonymous.
Dina: It's on the last page.
[Michael]: Yeah. [Dina]: Just click next.
Loay: Okay.
Julius: Did that work for you Loay. Try that and see. Okay, did it work for anyone?
Loay: I'm on that page.
I don't see name.
Michael: You have to first select yes, you want to be part of a workgroup.
Loay: Ah, okay, so now it shows up. Okay.
Julius: Excellent. Thank you.
Okay.
Mary: So Julius, after the recommendations are made and the data is pulled together, then we can then have an opportunity to share this information out, after we can put some, I think some perhaps, some word clouds, I can really envision that I think will be really
helpful to all of us, as well as the solid suggestions. And take those recommendations and see where we can move them to the other campuses in the district. Is that what your plan is?
Julius: Yes. So the process is that each of the colleges is having conversations around remote work.
And they will gather information from the campuses and then we'll bring that to the district level. There will be a district level view of this, and some of it are being done by HR because a lot of
are work assignment related and then that group will then make recommendations to Chancellor's Cabinet,
as to how we go about doing this. Those recommendations will then be reviewed by Chancellor's Cabinet, and then taken to
the Board. The ones that need to be taken to the Board, the ones that are not operational in nature, the ones that are policy driven,
we're looking at a time line of really, starting to put some of this into practice by next spring. Late next spring, so the work of gathering information is done this semester. Conversation happens this semester between the three campuses.
And then to the district, and then in the early spring there's further review at the district level with
presentations to the Board in areas where it is policy and policy needs to be written or amended to enable things to happen. So if we needed to add new job descriptions that have built into
remote work, or if we needed to renegotiate a piece, those pieces will then be happening in the spring semester and beyond.
Okay.
Comments? Questions? I want to respect people's time. We said this will go for an hour. We now, got about seven minutes left of that hour, and so I just want to make sure that
we're taking the opportunity to give you a sense of what we're expecting, where things might go. And again, we do this the Moorpark way.
So we gather together, we talk until we stop talking, we put together unreasonable and operational
recommendations. It will be helpful for these to come in the form of recommendations and it would be helpful for these to come in very specific
directions. So if you're looking at a particular job classification, making that recommendation around that particular job classification, is important.
There was a comment at some point here that about feeling safe or not safe on campus and I just do want to make it very clear
that this is a safe campus to be on. The folks who have worked tirelessly this summer, to make sure that we have
our ducts cleaned and we have UV light put in and all of that work, have done it because we believe that we do that, and it will make things safer.
These no 100% safety anywhere.
But there is safer and we've done a lot of work around that and I appreciate everybody who's been part of that work. And we are also partially responsible for our own safety. So that means
we get vaccinated. That means that we are wearing masks. That means that will be models for our students. And that also means that we practice caution and all of that
is a community as well as an individual responsibility.
I thank you so much for the time that you spent with us today. I appreciate having over 150 people participating in this. This is Moorpark College. This is the way we do things.
I again, know that we're going to a lot right now and that people are in some cases are [indiscernible] or disenfranchised, but I would like us to
really come back to our purpose, which is really to serve students and do the very best by students. And agai,n I know everyone's commitment is to doing that.
I hope that you will continue to put that as the center of our conversation. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of the week, and please, please, please volunteer to be in these work groups. We need your voice. We need your energy.
Mary: Thank you all. Have a great day.