Stories of Hope

February 17, 2022

Day 3: Student Success: Stories of Inspiration and Practice from all sectors of California Post Secondary Education

Erandi Albor, Undergraduate student in the Psychology department, University of the Pacific

Robert Bowman, STEP-UP Program Director, Restorative Justice, Shasta College

John Gardner, Founder, and Executive Chair, John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education

Shelly Gulati, Faculty Fellow for Academic Advising & Chair of Bioengineering, University of the Pacific

Olaseni Sode, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, California State University, Los Angeles

Meynard Ancheta, Lead Coordinator of the Tutorial Wing of the Center for Academic Success, California State University, Los Angeles

Catherine Haras, Executive Director, Center for Effective Teaching and Learning, California State University, Los Angeles

Michele Hawley, Associate Vice President and Dean, California State University, Los Angeles

Addressing Equity and Student Success Post-Pandemic: Lessons learned from aligning student support with professional development in course redesign.

In 2018, the California State University system ended remediation. The Cal State LA division of Undergraduate Studies and campus Center for Effective Teaching and Learning joined forces to design a professional development program for course redesign which addressed scale and was structured for continuous improvement. Five years later, Cal State LA still uses this model to address equity gaps in so-called low-completion courses. The Cal State La panel of faculty, staff, and administrators will describe their collaborative model of redesign, which has improved pass rates for redesigned courses and transformed the way we work within and across various areas.

Eva Jimenez, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development, Shasta College
Shasta College STEP-UP Program

STEP-UP’s mission is to provide academic, logistical, and limited financial support, for students who have been formerly incarcerated and/or have suffered from drug or alcohol addiction.

Christine McLaughlin, STEP-UP graduate, Shasta College

Kevin McAninch, Second year STEP-UP student, Shasta College

Tracy Patton, Executive Director Community Involvement and Educational Equity, University of the Pacific

Ann Marie Sakrekoff, Chief Operating Officer, Growing Inland Achievement
Practical Ideas to Increase Equitable Student Success in the Postsecondary Pipeline

Growing Inland Achievement will engage with a few of the regional champions who will share how the region is building out the path for equitable student success.

Sonia Singh, Second-year student in the accelerated 3+3 Pre-Pharmacy/PharmD program, University of the Pacific

Edie Sparks, Vice Provost & Professor of History, University of the Pacific
The Community Involvement Program at the University of the Pacific

At University of the Pacific, the Community Involvement Program (CIP), launched in 1969 by a group of students, community members, faculty and staff who wanted to provide educational opportunities to the local community and diversify the campus, has been advancing student success and social justice for over fifty years. This comprehensive need-based scholarship and retention program for first-generation college students from the local community who have demonstrated potential for sustainable leadership and community involvement has graduated more than 1,000 students since its founding. Administrative leaders, faculty, and students will discuss what makes CIP successful and how the university has seeded elements of the program in other initiatives to scale their benefits to the larger undergraduate student population. The university’s #CaliforniansForAll College Corps program—a recently expanded community engagement and service-learning program funded through the California Volunteer Office and AmeriCorps—as well as the university’s First-year advising pilot which embeds extensive individual mentoring and metacognitive coaching into the experience of first-year students will be explored by the panelists. Join us to learn about University of the Pacific’s “stories of hope”: community-engaged learning as student success and advising as social justice.

Summer Steele, Director, Pre-College Programs, California State University, San Bernardino

Talisa Sullivan, Administrator, Equity and Access, Educational Services, Riverside County Office of Education

Dari Tran, Co-Program Manager, College Corps Program & Professor of Political Science, University of the Pacific

Mary Wardell-Ghiraduzzi, Vice President for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion & Professor of Communication, University of the Pacific

John Whiteley, Professor of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine
Moral Education for Social Justice with First-Year Students Centered In a University Residence Hall

This presentation describes the UC Irvine curriculum of a residence hall delivered academic year class now in its 47th year. In the context of a supportive just community, the purpose is to stimulate first-year student thinking about the uses to which education can be put toward greater social justice from examining the moral challenges in the broader society. This initiative is an approach to meeting the responsibility of higher education to provide a context where moral issues can be addressed reflectively by university students.