Stephanie Fleming: Supporting PCC’s Frontline Teaching Troops

Pam Sornson, JD on September 17, 2020

“There are no work policies for pandemics,” deadpanned Stephanie Fleming, Dean of Instructional Support for Pasadena City College (PCC). She was speaking, of course, about the abrupt halt to standard college operations in March 2020, due to the unabated spread of the COVID-19 virus. Her role as Dean gave her both a front-row view of the virus-control processes rolling out across campus, and the opportunity to collaborate with Dr.’s Bob Blizinski and Terry Giugni (VP’s respectively of HR and Instruction) on strategies and next steps. She’s learned a lot from her experience assisting with redirecting a highly organized and connected institution and helping it juggle its myriad of obligations and aspirations when faced with what was truly an insurmountable barrier.

 

Many Perspectives to Consider

At first, like much of the world, all of PCC paused when the volume of both information and misinformation muddled everyone’s capacity to address the advancing health threat. After carefully reviewing all facets of the situation, the leadership team launched the first of many steps in response to the crisis, recognizing the need to craft short-, mid-, and long-term decisions.

 

Short-term considerations:

Initially, simply getting students out of the classrooms and off-campus was the goal. That was handled pretty quickly, and the physical site went dark just days after the call was made to close it. But the swift switch to remote learning prompted many more questions:

For the school as a whole:

How would the school handle those classes and courses that don’t translate to remote learning? Hands-on labs, courses with lots of field trips, or programs that engage heavily in work-based learning situations suddenly lost those training opportunities.

Even courses that do shift fairly easily to online learning posed problems when the student didn’t have the resources available to connect to them. Could the school help them, if it had the resources available to do so?

For the faculty trying to finish the semester:

As the Dean of Instructional Support, Fleming’s role on the leadership team focused her attention on assisting the faculty to achieve their semester goals despite the COVID-19 concern. The project wasn’t an easy one: most of PCC’s teaching staff relied on years of standard teaching strategies, very few of which transitioned smoothly to an all-digital format.

Further, the ‘digital skill’ level of the overall faculty wasn’t balanced either; for some, the transition was more comfortable than it was for others. However, no matter their skills, all of PCC’s faculty was at a loss for what to do when they suddenly had to move all their curriculum online and, simultaneously, become adept at reaching their students remotely. Fleming was busy sorting who needed what and determining how she could help them.

She set her focus on maintaining as much instruction as possible while prioritizing safety for all.

No Easy Answers

However, Fleming quickly learned that there are no short answers to the questions she and the team were facing. Every decision had subsequent, significant, and sometimes devastating consequences, if not thought through thoroughly.

Individual issues illustrate the depth of the challenge as it existed in March and April 2020:

Some courses typically assigned grades based on hands-on projects, while others relied on technology to determine students’ marks. Without access to the tech or the data, how would students complete their work or professors grade those students?

Some courses simply couldn’t continue from a remote perspective, so they made an early decision to assign those students an incomplete grade, which wouldn’t affect their GPA. This election eliminated the requirement of assigning a merit-based grade, but also hindered the educational careers of students who needed that prerequisite grade to continue in their course of study.

It also raised the issue of the student loan that paid for that course. Would the lender pay for that course again? Would the school absorb those costs for the second go-round? How could the student remain unaffected in this circumstance?

The changes mandated by the transition to online teaching also created havoc with PCC-affiliated contracts and standards. In some cases, the virus interfered with long-standing agreements, and those terms needed review and sometimes revisions in the face of the pandemic. Other COVID-19 related accommodations resulted in violations of teaching and institutional standards, putting the school’s accreditation in jeopardy.

Never far from her mind, though, were the circumstances of PCC students, some of whom were facing potentially college-ending situations.

International students were facing the loss of their F1 visas if they weren’t able to attend classes. That loss would mandate their departure from the country.

Many other students were struggling to find the resources they needed when they had no access to the resources available at the school. Students without technical resources or Internet access at home were unable to remain as students. The pandemic had revealed the cultural divide between those students with assets and those without.

Teamwork to the Rescue

Fleming noted throughout the conversation how the ‘success’ of PCC’s transformation to an all-digital school was the result of the collaboration of its faculty and administration staff. Everyone from the Dean’s office through all the ranks and divisions came together with their talents, skills, and know-how to solve immediate problems and contribute insights that might generate strategic solutions to longer-term concerns.

The Distance Education team was a critical component of the school’s success. Those professionals contributed a variety of resources and efforts to get every teacher and every office online.

Decisions were hammered out in all-in meetings that included faculty, staff, and leadership. Together, they explored each element of every decision for its potential impacts across the campus.

The Professional Development team was also instrumental in getting classes online. They worked tirelessly to implement the ‘Just in Time’ training that the Distance Education department developed in response to the pandemic. That process brought the entire teaching staff onto a single strategy, so courses and learning would be at least consistent if they couldn’t be optimal.

In remarkably short order, PCC was back ‘in business,’ at least to finish the Spring semester.

 

Mid-term Decisions

The work done to get the school online also informed the strategy for PCC’s Summer Session.

Theories developed early on around student support were put to the test, including those that promised hope to learners with sensitive access and capacity issues.

Faculty training shifted from digital competence to ensuring the achievement of as many necessary teaching standards as possible. Grading plans and student supports were put in place, and Fleming assisted the VP of Instruction, VP of Human Resources, Dean of Distance Education, and the Faculty Association to craft parameters for appropriate additional training.

While all teaching staff received sufficient training to remain accredited, some elected to attend an extended course that gave them accreditation for distance teaching as well.

All academic staff also received at least basic training so they could understand what their colleagues were doing.

Summer Session also brought its own set of challenges:

Enrollment was impacted in strange ways. Some classes were almost empty (not surprising), while others filled up quickly and had waiting lists.

Some courses needed not just digital learning but also some semblance of an on-site opportunity, too. The health sciences departments are currently working through possible solutions to allow on-site work but in as safe a manner as possible. Hopefully, those announcements will come soon.

Fall Session is also revealing unexpected nuances to the challenge:

Fleming expects the college will continue building on the faculty’s newly established ‘uniform training’ platform, which lays the foundation for future building opportunities.

That platform is also proving advantageous for more esoteric training beyond getting lessons to students. Fleming is especially enthused about using it to develop a broader base of equity and diversity training, as an example.

Face-to-face teaching opportunities continue to present concerns, but the school continues to consider multiple options to provide as much learning as possible despite needed protections.

These and other concerns, challenges, and opportunities will continue to develop over time, as PCC works to build its ‘new normal’ in this decidedly different world.

 

Long-term Considerations

Looking back, Fleming is immensely proud of the work being done by PCC and all its teams through this entire adventure. It’s managed to save as much instruction as possible, and to preserve stability across its curricula. She is also immensely grateful to the teaching staff who, admittedly, have born the burden of learning how, adopting, then learning from their new digital teaching practices. She notes that both the faculty association and the district are seeking ways to recognize their effort.

Looking forward, Fleming is accepting the situation as an evolving strategic planning session. Regardless of the solutions in place now, it is almost assured that circumstances will change and that new solutions will be needed tomorrow. She will continue to work with the PCC leadership team to support the school’s professors, so they can accomplish their session goals (as much as possible) while also retaining the joy they experience in their teaching role. As the Dean of Instructional Support, that focus seems to be the best ‘policy’ available when there are no other policies to which to turn.

 

 

 

 

Shelagh Rose: Finding Opportunity in an Unlikely Situation

Pam Sornson, JD on September 15, 2020

Well, here’s some pretty sweet lemonade made from one fairly bitter lemon: Shelagh Rose, Career Community Faculty Coordinator at Pasadena City College (PCC), looks at the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity, not an obstacle. Like any other unexpected development, the situation forced her and her colleagues to re-evaluate the work they do to keep PCC’s stellar faculty and staff well able to teach and serve PCC’s equally stellar student population. She’s using both data revealed by inquiry into student experience at PCC and the conclusions it suggests to address long-standing concerns while building a healthier future for the entire PCC region.

 

 

She’s also enthused by the present mindset of the PCC faculty. The pandemic has opened their collective eyes to challenges they’d not otherwise been in a place to see. With their heightened attention also piquing their interest, Rose hopes to engage them in new considerations that better serve PCC’s greater diverse community.

 

Always Learning; Looking to Teach

Rose is currently a student in the doctoral program in Educational Leadership at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSEIS). She is also fortunate to be a part of a long-standing Research-Practitioner Partnership with faculty and Ph.D. students from GSEIS. As a member of this partnership, Rose, along with a multiconstituent group from PCC, participates in a Data Inquiry Group (DIG) focusing on student ‘career decision-making processes‘ at all stages of their education. As the research partners gather data about the barriers and supports PCC students face in their career exploration and decision-making process, Rose gains insights about the additional supports that would benefit students engaging in this process.

One of the significant drivers of the UCLA program is its focus on equity and how inequitable access to information affects long-term outcomes for historically underserved students. The COVID-19 concern is acting as a substantial disruption to ‘standard operating procedures,’ revealing where those inequities lie and how destructive they are. She intends to partner with others campus-wide to use the information to inform the changes she hopes to see at PCC. She likens the COVID-19 situation to the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, which educated millions of Americans about long-standing injustice, and ushered in years of enlightened legislation to address those challenges.

 

Deeper Insights = Better Decisions

One of the first concerns Rose noted when reviewing data provided by PCC’s UCLA partners was how often Latino/Latina/Latinx and Black/African American students choose career paths that may respond to their personal values, but that don’t necessarily lead to a livable wage or a wider range of career options. While most seek jobs that will improve their community, they may limit themselves to a narrow field of known choices and fail to discover a wider selection of careers related to that occupation. Rose and her team of career community faculty leads are working to introduce them to those expanded options, many in the STEM field, that address their concerns with social issues while also facilitating a more lucrative future.

At PCC, she’s bringing her insights to her work with the Robert G. Freeman Center, its Work-based Learning department, and the PCC Transfer Center, who have partnered with her and her team to organize PCC’s six Career Communities. Supported by a federal Title 5 grant dedicated to Hispanic Serving Institutions, she has also engaged the partnership of a collaborative “Equipo” (Spanish for ‘team’) – an advisory board of students who work with their PCC faculty colleagues. The six Career Communities they advise now provide a space for all students to explore career and major options while also connecting them to the academic, career, and personal support they need to achieve their goals. Because her work is faculty-facing, Rose also supports the faculty in their role as leads for their respective career community. (When asked, 28 faculty members applied for the Team Lead role, and the college hired all. Many of these leads attend the UCLA inquiry partnership, gaining valuable information about students, which they can then take back to their specific Career Community development team.)

 

Pre- and Post-COVID-19: It’s All Good

Rose is just in her second year as Career Community Lead, after spending 13 years fully dedicated to classroom teaching as an ESL instructor and another ten as faculty lead for the First Year Pathways programs. During these years, she participated successfully in campus leadership positions:

As a member of the Senate Executive of Academic Senate, she suggested that updates on the school’s Guided Pathways program be added to every meeting agenda to report on the program’s progress for the full faculty.

As a member of the Pathways team, she coordinated College 1, developing professional development, in which over 200 faculty, administrators, and staff participated.

Rose is proud of the long-term relationships she enjoys with PCC’s faculty, staff, and administration, including several significant friendships that she treasures and on which she is relying as she moves forward. She deeply understands that it takes many collaborators to transform a college so that their processes actually improve students’ lives.

For the early part of the 2019-2020 school year, Rose collaborated with her team to develop several events to introduce students to explore the broadest possible range of career options. The highlight was a two-day ‘Explore Your Career Comunidad’ fair that attracted approximately 1,000 PCC students. Since that event occurred in March immediately before the college went remote, it has been challenging to plan additional events. Instead, Rose has taken the opportunity to team up with Myriam Altounji, the Guided Pathways Faculty Lead, Jacqueline Javier, the Director of Work-based Learning at the Freeman Center, and Jason Barquero, the new Freeman Center Director, to develop a strategy for ongoing collaboration between the Center and the instructional side of the campus.

 

Past Lessons; Forward Progress

Looking back, Shelagh Rose wouldn’t change anything that’s gotten her to this point in her career at PCC, and she’s very excited about taking those next steps towards her Ed.D. She recognizes that making any substantial change in an academic setting is a process. In her opinion, PCC is already deep into the process of ‘awareness building,’ as more faculty, staff, and administration members acknowledge the social realities of bias and inequality. There is a growing realization that the campus must play a role in achieving an equitable outcome for Latino/Latina/Latinx and African-American students.

Looking forward, she’s excited about PCC’s Career Communities’ ‘Social Justice Conference,’ running September 15th through the 17th. Following the conference, she and her team, with support from Strategic Communications and Marketing, will roll out a new website designed to streamline the PCC student’s user experience. And she’ll continue to plan career events for the future while exploring new ways to help PCC teachers help PCC students gain the satisfying careers they want. Far from being dismayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Shelagh Rose has embraced the opportunity it created to sharpen her focus and commitment to find even more success for all of PCC’s student body. Now isn’t that refreshing??

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Thoen: Electrifying Online Instruction

Pam Sornson, JD on August 31, 2020

It’s no surprise that Professor Thomas Thoen, electronics instructor at Pasadena City College (PCC), is popular with his students. He’s been an avid fan of electronic gaming since childhood, and most of his students identify as ‘gamers,’ too. Thoen shares his natural affinity with his students and works to make his classes as much fun as they are educational.

 

Finding a New Circuit

When the PCC campus closed down in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both Thoen and his students were non-plussed that the learning fun was screeching to a halt. In this case, that cessation of classroom and lab activities was particularly challenging because so much of the Electronics Technology that Thoen teaches requires hands-on learning. His students learn about the strategy and design around electronic circuitry, printed circuit hardware design, microcontrollers, digital electronics, and robotics, all of which require skillful manipulation of materials and tools. Without those hands-on training opportunities, they won’t gain the skills they need to enter today’s thriving electronics technology industries.

Thoen was equally dismayed about how to digitally replicate – if that was even possible – what he does at the school. His PCC lab is populated with special lab equipment, machines, tools, circuitry boards, etc., all the paraphernalia needed for the students to complete their labs. He was confident none of his students had those resources just lying around at home. However, after an almost 20-year teaching career (preceded by several years as an electrical engineer), he also knew he would be able to solve that problem, too.

 

 

An ‘AHA’ Moment – the Light Bulb Goes On!

While he had no problem moving his theory lectures online, he knew he had to provide his students the opportunity to practice the electronic skills those theories suggest. Fortunately, he had Strong Workforce Grant funds available, a stable home-based Internet connection, and a reliable car. He would purchase the parts his students need and meet them near campus, and in some cases deliver them to their homes, where they could practice what he was attempting to teach them. This possibility offered its own challenges:

Typical electronics equipment is expensive, and he needed to stretch his financial resources as far as he could. Shopping online, he found less costly but still eminently usable alternatives for each of his students.

He also needed licenses so his learners could access the designs and software they’d need to add to their home computers. The “Autodesk” online store came through with the solution to that problem. They directed him to comparable open-sourced software, which was free.

He also pursued a variety of reduced price options offered by companies actively helping students gain the resources needed to continue their education from a remote location.

Within a few weeks of going remote, Thoen had provided his students with both the equipment and the software they needed to implement at home what he would teach online.

Not that the situation was easy. The campus was closed, so Thoen only returned to it to retrieve needed supplies. Otherwise, he collected his wares in his home office/supply depot/family room, and the back of his car on delivery days. He also developed the video capabilities needed to record and upload his lessons to PCC’s online portal. Regardless of the difficulties, between Zoom meetings, video chats, and supply drop moments at each student’s home, he was able to retain almost 100% engagement with all of his learners right through to the end of the term.

 

Creating New Connections

According to Thoen, a big part of the success of his first COVID term was the excellent engagement by his students. Spanning the full scope of PCC’s student population, they included electronic tech wanna-be’s, yes, but also entrepreneurial types looking to build or improve on their big idea, budding electrical engineers, and just recreational folks looking to have some fun and learn some science. Almost all completed their labs and their term, and Thoen can’t be more proud of their accomplishment.

Looking ahead, Thoen is now more excited than he has ever been about his teaching future since he’s learned so much about how to optimize his already formidable skills for an online format. He has a clearer understanding of all the necessary bits and pieces that go into lab work, so he’ll have those ready and organized for his next class. His video’ing skills now capture the intricacies and nuances of electronic circuitry building and design, and he’s getting officially certified to teach via Distance Learning through an eight-week course provided by PCC. All in all, he’s much better prepared to meet student needs from a remote position.

However, as good as all that is, it is still not the icing on the top of Thoen’s cake when it comes to the COVID crisis. In his opinion, the best lesson both he and his students learned through the Spring 2020 PCC semester was how to be resilient. Regardless of the barriers and pivots and equipment swap-outs, he and they were able to meet the course goals as they were initially designed. Plus, everyone is now also skilled at online activities – how to attend virtual meetings, connect through the Internet, and follow through with strategies when they’re working at home, and there’s no one watching them.

All of these benefits will serve his students well, Thoen thinks, as they reach into their respective electronic technology futures. Those looking for careers now have more than just technical skills; they also have the work habits and collaborative abilities that will make them valuable employees somewhere, sometime, after the pandemic has passed.

As far as program updates, currently, Thoen is working with other faculty on updating the curriculum by developing new electronics courses based on the Internet of Things (IOT) and Audio Electronics.  These courses will bridge the gaps between different disciplines and help students to understand the “bigger picture” of how electronics connect to different industries.  Additionally, a stronger social media presence has been developed, including updating the PCC website, along with creating Facebook and Instagram pages.  Please feel free to check these out!

Jesse Torres: PCC EWD’s Guide to Industry

Pam Sornson, JD on August 28, 2020

Pasadena’s Economic and Workforce Development (EWD) department works with a myriad of agencies, industries, and businesses to gather the information needed to drive its programs and services. However, connecting with all those resources takes time and strategy to maximize both the effort and the result. Consultant Jesse Torres, principal of ArroyoWest LLC, a Los Angeles-based economic consulting company, takes on the task on behalf of the department and brings a long and well-versed personal and corporate history to the project.

 

 

Education + Experience = Value for PCC EWD

Torres’s communications and business development talents were already sharp when Pepperdine University hired him as the Director of Alumni Relations for its Graziadio School of Business. He had received his MBA in finance from that alma mater, and his focus was always on helping businesses and industries thrive economically. That focus paid off, apparently, when he left Pepperdine two years later to become the Regional Director for the LA Small Business Development Center Network (LASBDC), and then again three years later, when he left the LASBDC to join the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.

In both agencies, Torres’s attention was on working with companies and regional industries to grow and develop new economic opportunities, whether through direct contacts and communications or through the strategizing and development of business-friendly policies. Both jobs also revealed to him the diverse eco-systems in which California’s industries thrive, based on their geographic location, cultural backgrounds, and community connections.

What his education and experience have taught him is that the State of California is bursting with talent, innovation, and opportunity and only needs connections across its resources to nurture those opportunities to fruition. In his position as a principal at Arroyo West, he provides those insights to his clients as they develop their small businesses into bright futures. Through his work, he is helping PCC EWD foster industry connections even during the COVID-19 pandemic.  In addition to a notable Rolodex of who’s who in California’s business community, Torres brings a wealth of knowledge about what’s what and how to get things done.

 

Macro View; Micro Details

His position with the SBDC, gave him an understanding of the finer details of managing a successful business: customer management services, HR practices, and even regulatory compliance and his state-level position offered insights and information about the interplay of industry, communities and small businesses at large.  Knitting the two views together creates in Torres a formidable bevy of tools, strategies, and comprehensions that are applicable in almost any corporate or enterprise situation. It’s this bevy of tools that Torres offers to the PCC EWD. He helps the department make connections with its industry and corporate neighbors, while also engendering success in those relationships for both the school and its business compatriots.

From these perspectives, Torres brings several lessons to the PCC EWD table as the department reaches out to new and potential business partners:

To a company eying Pasadena as a potential home base, the available labor pool is as significant a deciding factor as other economic incentives or something more intrinsic like our year-round good weather.  Companies won’t make any city their home if they can’t find the labor resources they need to thrive in that community.

That labor pool also needs to develop the skills and abilities demanded by regional companies, tailored as much as possible to both the relevant industry and the specific business. Teaching students anything less serves no purpose.

Successfully connecting the two – corporate and labor – requires a strategy that ensures the needs of both are met, and that they can successfully partner to achieve their common goals: good jobs, healthy communities, and successful companies.

It’s from this perspective that Torres’s real work begins: helping PCC EWD advance on its industry priorities and supporting EWD leadership in determining and developing what programming is needed to attract and retain corporate engagement and to demonstrate that PCC is in step with the evolving industry sectors.

 

 

 

It’s All in the Details …

As in all other LA and California regions, there are identified industrial sectors that have a higher representation within the area, so those are the sectors that determine the scope of PCC programming. In his initial scope of work as a consultant for the department, Torres’ work involved researching key industries, reaching out to industry representatives and introducing them to PCC’s unique labor-development resources for those industries.  He played a significant role in the design and implementation of the department’s first Future of Work conference which brought many industry, academic and legislative contacts to PCC to discuss the opportunity for greater collaboration on economic and workforce issues.

Part of his work also involved exploring how to best support PCC EWD in developing strategies to connect industry and academia in term of talent development and upskilling.  From the school’s perspective, the business’s information about its specific needs not only impacts curricula development but also often defines economic investments in books, tools, and even lab construction.  From the business’s perspective, seeking well-trained staff may also be an indicator of corporate growth, which will, in turn, require analysis of the company’s finances, its capacity to take on more workers, and even a review of its HR protocols.

 

… Pivoting in COVID-19

As noted, the original scope of work entailed face-to-face meetings, seminars, and other networking opportunities. Then COVID-19 hit, and, like the rest of the world, it compelled Torres and PCC EWD to adjust his tactics and scope to reflect that new reality. Again, his past experience informed his decisions and his steps forward.

Back in 2018, while still at the Governors’ Office, one of Torres’s projects was to assist the countless small businesses impacted by that year’s devastating wildfires. The ability to adapt to one’s circumstances quickly rose to the top of the ‘most desired skills’ list, and the impact of Torres’s experience both personally and from observing the effort of those business owners remains with him today. That experience helped him pivot (like other PCC colleagues) to accommodate the virus while maintaining a steady focus on his goal of connecting PCC EWD resources to the businesses and companies that need them.

 

Looking Forward

The COVID-19 pause has also allowed Torres and the PCC EWD to regroup and rethink their next steps, although those will be different after receiving the benefit of Torres’ inputs. They’ve engaged in a retreat to review overarching intentions and resources, and have already implemented new communications tools (such as podcasts for both Torres and PCC EWD) to get the virtual work out to the community. Moving forward, outreach will be more strategic, and goals will be both clearer and most cleanly defined, which will help with metrics and measuring success.

Most importantly, though, is the fact that Torres’s work remains unchanged, regardless of the pandemic or any other barrier that has already popped up or will in the future. His focus remains on helping companies find success within their industry, and workers find success within their jobs. Adding in assisting students to find their future seems a logical next step in Jesse Torres’s already stellar career trajectory.

Dice Yamaguchi: Professor of Pivots

Pam Sornson, JD on August 11, 2020

‘Pivoting’ seems to come naturally to Dice Yamaguchi, an Industrial Design professor at Pasadena City College (PCC), as his pivot from in-class to online teaching was a relatively easy task to accomplish. His extensive training and experience in design, engineering, and art all facilitate his uniquely adaptable skill for pivoting to unique and often delightful solutions to seemingly insurmountable challenges. His students, therefore, were not just able to remain ‘at school’ (albeit remotely) during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they also gained resilience skills as they pivoted with their leader through his transition to the digital classroom forum.

 

Pivoting in Pursuit of Goals

Yamaguchi has always been intrigued by engineering puzzles (as a self-described ‘STEM geek’ even in high school) and began his college education in mechanical engineering. However, that discipline failed to capture his equally artful imagination, so he pivoted to industrial design to pursue his creative drive as well as his urge to build. The art+engineering combination took him through studies at both PCC and Pasadena’s ArtCenter College of Design (ACCD) and into a notable career as a physical and digital product designer.

His talent was such that ACCD took him on as a product design instructor just two years after he graduated, and there, he discovered his love of teaching. He launched and has been leading that school’s Summer Intensive program for high school students since 2012. He began teaching PCC students in the Visual Arts & Media Studies department of PCC’s Industrial/Product Design program in 2015.

 

Pivoting Through Problems

In the Spring of 2020, the COVID-19 concern posed not a challenge but a ‘fun exercise’ to Yamaguchi. Not at all dismayed by it, he chose to view the online transition as a ‘project’ and eagerly encouraged his students to work with him to navigate it. Together, he and his two classes worked through the bugs that are inherent in any big project: how to communicate across teams; how to achieve goals using different tools; how to stay on course when forced to travel a different road than was expected.

His work was a little bit challenged by his student’s circumstances. Some had all the resources they needed readily available at home, while for others, the at-home learning situation presented some daunting challenges. Yamaguchi happily worked to accommodate them all, holding virtual office hours at their convenience, and expanding ‘class time’ to include whatever time frame was needed. He also held ‘classes’ in Zoom rooms where students could actively participate in the discussion or just listen to the inputs of their peers.

Technically, Yamaguchi appears to have thoroughly enjoyed modifying his teaching practice to make room for the ‘all-digital’ format:

He used overhead cameras to capture imagery of his demonstrations and added more explicit detail to his narration. (Overhead cameras can’t capture dimension, apparently, so Yamaguchi added those minute details orally as he went along.)

And he replaced his whiteboard with his iPad. The iPad, apparently, plugs into Zoom and provides a similar appearance as that tool while also conveniently converting the project to a shareable PDF. Who knew?

Like his other PCC colleagues, he, too, opened a ‘Canvas-Pages’ site where his students could upload their work, see what their peers were doing, and engage in chats and conversations outside the formal ‘classroom’ setting.

 

From his student’s perspective, the semester was a very successful one.

They really enjoyed being at the ‘front’ of the class since the online program doesn’t line them out in rows. Instead, it switches screens, so it highlights the speakers.

The online discussion boards, chat rooms, and other digital resources kept them connected to each other and their teacher, regardless of their location or even the time of day.

And they appreciated the normalcy of ‘attending school’ even while they were stuck at home.

As learners, they probably weren’t as aware of the ‘teachable moment’ offered by the COVID-19-induced transition to remote learning. However, they certainly benefitted from having an instructor so well versed in changes and pivots, who helped them normalize that skill as well.

 

Pivoting toward Progress

Yamaguchi says that the overall ‘in-class to online transition’ experience was a good one for him because it made him rethink his approach to both teaching and product design, and because the ‘rethinking‘ process itself is an invaluable tool for future design projects and classes. He will use these newly discovered insights and the digital skills that grew from them to inform his teaching endeavors to give his future students that design-forward skill, too.

He also sees that the transitioning adventure was a positive one for his students. Yamaguchi notes that the Industrial Design field was already in flux before the pandemic, as 3D printing, Computer-Aided Drafting (CAD), AI, machine learning, and other technological innovations compelled changes in how products are designed and used. Further, remote teams – and the technical tools they use – are becoming more common as companies add diverse talents from across time zones and locations. Those innovations are continuous, and his current and future students will need to pivot to address all the innovations they bring.

Yamaguchi believes that working through the COVID-induced transition to remote learning has helped his students understand that a successful design process is rarely linear and that the COVID-curveball they faced won’t be the only such obstacle in their future. He is gratified that they embraced the pivot as the ‘project’ that it was, just as he as their teacher did, and he hopes they maintain that pivoting talent as they move forward into whatever future lies ahead of them.

 

 

 

Colleen Nanno: Culinary Arts From a Distance

Pam Sornson, JD on August 11, 2020

Online teaching was never part of Colleen Nanno’s plan. A life-long chef and cook, she’s spent her culinary career in professional and educational kitchens and had just recently engaged those skills to refurbish the defunct Culinary Arts program at Pasadena City College. Only one term in, she was dismayed in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic closed the PCC campus as well as her cafeteria-based teaching facility. While it took her a minute to get her bearings, she did what any cook worth their salt would do: she found the ingredients and recipe she needed to create an informative, enticing, and ‘tasty’ online culinary course curriculum.

 

 

Life-long Learning Leads her Way

Nanno attributes much of her success to the people who’ve provided influence and support to her career. Her family owned restaurants in the Pasadena area, so she grew up in a professional kitchen. That childhood laid the foundation for her on-going training at the Culinary Institute of America, through her internship in London, and into her subsequent career in the kitchens of numerous hotels and restaurants. She’s spent the past ten years teaching culinary arts at various California schools and was invited to bring the PCC culinary arts program back to life in Fall 2019.

At PCC, she’s found a fabulous partner in Dr. Mark Keene, the Director of the school’s Hospitality Management program. With his training, her students gain exposure to the business and ‘front-of-house’ sides of the professional culinary experience.

She drew on both her history and her partner as she refocused her curriculum to address the new COVID-19 driven teaching adventure.

 

Same Menu; Different Method

The school term was three weeks in when the pandemic hit, so Nanno had already established a good rapport with her students. Now that they were at home and attending school remotely, she was determined to maintain their engagement and education in this new configuration. While weekly Zoom meetings with the class as a whole maintained visual continuity, she needed to provide as closely as possible the hands-on learning that a culinary class requires.

Nanno’s first thought was to present cooking techniques and theories in online classes, then let the students practice those lessons at home. This approach was hit-and-miss, however, as students struggled to find the ingredients they needed and were missing the attention to detail they got while with Nanno in the kitchen (a ‘slow’ oven can create significant problems for a novice cook).

Instead, with the help of her assistant and husband, she launched her video career as she took to the camera to demonstrate her skills. The home-based project required significant negotiation skills, though – not with her husband, but with her two-year-old son. Once they had that sorted out, she turned her attention to actually teaching via video.

At first, she was all about the cooking, but video reviews indicated that she needed to devote equal time to the pre- and post-video preparations.

Proper lighting and sound capabilities were needed to ensure that the process (and the instructor) were accurately captured in the digital format.

Transitions from image to image are significant, too, especially since the final dish’s success is ultimately the result of an accurate progression from the beginning to the end of the preparation process.

And editing the raw footage into the final upload was creating a visual library for her current and future students, so each one had to be as pristine and perfect as possible.

 

Same Dish Reimagined

Looking back on that semester, Nanno is very enthused about what she was able to teach her students and about how she was able to grow as their teacher.

The video work allowed her to ‘preview’ her classes and coursework so she could edit/revise before publishing it.

Her students report that visual interaction was a big part of their continuing engagement in the class. Despite the distance created by the remote connection, they could still experience the feelings they have with Nanno and that she has with them.

Her ESL students were especially happy with the videos. The format allowed them to catch the action with closed-captioned support, and translators were available through a dedicated translation website.

Not insignificantly, Nanno now has the beginning of what will certainly be an extensive library of teaching resources that will prove invaluable in the years to come.

 

Developing a New Menu for the Future

Looking forward, Nanno plans to expand her new-found video capacities while also building the reputation of PCC as the premier Hospitality program in LA. Chef Nanno and Dr. Keene dream of expanding the kitchen capacity into a state-of-the-art building with five to eight kitchens, a cafe, a bakery, and any other culinary service that fits in. The plan is to populate LA and global restaurants with talented cooks and bakers, and find local taverns and eateries that will provide on-the-job training and internships for the students.

Alongside Dr. Keene, she wants to develop PCC into a world-class magnet for top culinary and hospitality talent. Since he’s new, too (they both started in Fall 2019), they both have a lot of new ideas to offer and exciting plans to make. With Dr. Keene at her side, Colleen Nanno has only just begun rebuilding the future of Culinary Arts at Pasadena City College.

 

PCC: Powering Progress Past the Pandemic

Pam Sornson, JD on August 11, 2020

Like most schools across the country, Pasadena City College (PCC) abruptly closed its doors in March as the COVID-19 pandemic spread through Los Angeles. Although the school offers an excellent ‘Distance Education‘ opportunity, most students prefer to attend classes on campus, so the campus closure was particularly hard for them. Both students and faculty were distressed and unnerved by the disruption of their school year, unsure how to continue with coursework, maintain connections, or move productively through to the end of the semester. It was a very stressful and difficult semester for everyone. 

Ultimately, the 2019-2020 school year did end, and a significant number of PCC students were able to complete (mostly) their coursework to achieve the necessary grade and credits to move on. The process wasn’t smooth, however; some students had to leave their studies due to family or personal circumstances. Others struggled to find the resources they needed to carry on. Faculty members were flummoxed, too, as they – almost overnight – became online teachers, which required a skill set that was foreign to many of them. For both groups and PCC administrators, the transition from an on-campus to an online college was lurching, uneven, and confusing.  

 

Pushing Past the Hurdles

Despite the challenges, PCC’s faculty and staff pushed on through the Spring, looking for solutions to social and technical barriers while also working to ensure teaching remained as accessible as possible. Staff worked hard to find new ways to support their constituents remotely while administrators secured new resources and assets to bridge the newly revealed gaps in their systems. Even though the campus itself was closed, PCC as a school did its best to provide its students with the education they needed, much of which is now enhanced with newly developed digital resources and capacities.  

 

Lessons Learned …

Looking back, the challenges presented to the faculty by the COVID-19 pandemic were significant; in-class, face-to-face instruction is the traditional college ‘comfort zone.’ Further, the transition to ‘online teaching’ was necessarily quick, which contributed difficulties to the situation. However, some were able to embrace the ‘opportunity’ and three of them – Colleen Nanno, Thom Thoen, and Dice Yamaguchi – are happy to share with Pulse readers how they reinvented their curricula to accommodate the changes, how their students responded, and how this COVID-19 experience will forever alter their teaching styles. 

 

… And Applied

Looking forward, PCC leadership has embraced the coronavirus’s technological opportunity and spent its summer investing resources into helping its faculty improve their online teaching chops. Besides offering an 8-week course on how to teach online, the school also offers online guidance on how to reach students and teach remotely. It turns out there’s more to think about than just ensuring an adequate power supply and a quiet room.

 

Teaching Remotely – A Primer

Shifting from in-class to online instruction requires changing the approach to four distinct aspects of the teaching experience:

Communicating with students

Per usual, students do better when they have access to their professors both in class and individually. While they are not optimal, online courses accessed through a digital portal provide a ‘whole class’ opportunity without the travel/bookbag/desk attendance experience. Email and other social media channels also open doors between students and teachers, making ‘chatting’ with the instructor easier and more accessible than ever. 

Delivering course materials

“Hand-outs’ become ‘uploads’ as lecture content and assignments go digital. Students can download them at will, or simply store their class notes in an electronic file. Course organization changes, too, since there’s no innate ‘ebb and flow’ of classroom conversation to segway into the next topic. Modules now collect ideas and principles into single units that build on each other sequentially. No longer live, demonstrations become videos that create a permanent record of the lesson, even though they also mandate the development of a new skill set around camera angles, lighting, and even costume and make-up. Video tools also capture on-screen images (documents, graphs, etc.), and adding voice-over technology enhances the lesson.  

Encouraging student engagement

Fortunately, PCC learning tech isn’t confined to the classroom. Digital tools connect learners to lessons in a variety of ways:

Discussion boards facilitate class discussions long after the class is over. Learners can ask questions or look to follow up on comments through this digital portal, which maintains student attention and learning.

Breakout rooms offer a similar opportunity. Students can engage with both their professor and their classmates in breakout rooms based on project work, topic, or any other course-related subject. 

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of engaging students electronically is that it also creates a permanent file they can refer to at their convenience, extending both the lesson and their education.  

Assessing student achievement

Interacting in person daily isn’t available in a remote learning situation, so teachers must develop alternative ways to measure their student’s progress. Digital tools facilitate several accessible assessment opportunities, so both teacher and learner can gauge improvements.   

Assigning projects through a learning portal allows students to clarify expectations before beginning, which maximizes both their and their teacher’s time.  

Quizzes and exams issued digitally enable teachers to choose the difficulty level of the subject matter, and students test their increasing knowledge. 

Digital portfolios accept uploaded assignments and record the date and time of the submission, any feedback or revisions, and the final grade, all in one location. 

Sharing student materials in breakout rooms also gives classmates insights into the course’s subject matter and their cohort’s perspective of that. 

 

As the 2020-2021 school year approaches, the staff, faculty, and administration of Pasadena City College will build on the lessons learned from the COVID crisis so far, to ensure its students continue to receive the high-quality education they’re expecting.  

Pasadena Bio Collaborative Incubator: Leadership Through Experience

Pam Sornson, JD on July 28, 2020

Call it kismet: the partnership between Dr.’s Wendie Johnston and Robert (Bud) Bishop, while only three years old, combines two already exceptional skillsets into one dynamic, forward-leaning leadership team for one of the state’s most influential incubation entities, the Pasadena Bio Collaborative Incubator (PBC).

Dr. Johnston earned her Bachelors, Masters, and Ph.D. degrees in Zoology, with a specialty in Cell Physiology. Dr. Bishop maximizes his Ph.D. in Biochemistry with the business acumen developed through his M.B.A. Individually, they each carry the depth and breadth of experience generated over decades-long careers in the life sciences and biotechnology industries. Together, they create a genuinely unique nexus: their talents merge to direct and drive the integration of the ‘business of science’ with the ‘science of business’ on behalf of LA’s thriving biosciences industrial sector. Combined with the impressive abilities of the PBC Team, this project has partnerships with the region’s schools, colleges, bioscience researchers, industries, and governments.

 

Dr. Wendie Johnston – Managing the Business of Science

A self-professed risk-taker, Dr. Johnston’s forays into new avenues of discovery has served her – and her students – well. After many years of teaching standardized science theories to her Natural Sciences students at Pasadena City College, in the mid-1990s, she embarked on what would become her seminal career journey. She spent her sabbatical year crossing the country, working as an entry-level lab technician at some of the nation’s most prestigious medical research centers, including the National Wildlife Forensics Lab in Ashland OR, Trevigen in Gaithersburg MD, Strategene in La Jolla CA, and the Huntington Medical Research Institutes in her home town of Pasadena.

She learned from that adventure that to find meaningful work, her students needed to understand not just the theories of science but also the teamwork of laboratory science: how to clean lab instruments, take accurate measurements, record and report data, and (especially critical) ensure quality control in every effort. Dr. Johnston rewrote her curricula to reflect her newfound insights and launched PCC’s Biological Technologies Program in 1997. It transformed her courses into career-focused training experiences. That year, she also launched the LA/Orange County Biotechnology Center (LAOCBC), where she continues as Director today.

By 1999, the high value of Dr. Johnston’s ‘business of science’ program had attracted notable attention. She joined an effort led by Dr. Jack Scott, former President of PCC, and then elected California Assemblyman (and, subsequently, California State Senator and 14th Chancellor of the California Community Colleges) to create a center of incubation and training in Pasadena.  The CSU system wanted to develop a center of bioresearch, and Dr. Scott had created the financial allocation that would facilitate that goal with fiscal control given to CSUPERB – the CSU Program for Education and Research Biotechnology. The founding partners in this project proposed that the co-location of shared lab space with dedicated work-based training would be a successful opportunity for both researchers and students.

From 1999 through 2004, Dr. Johnston and her like-minded colleagues gathered the data and resources they needed to launch the PBC in reality: non-profit status, tools and equipment, a strategy for its use, and space where it could live. Dr. Marc Baum, Director of the Oak Crest Institute of Science in Monrovia and an enthusiastic supporter of the project, indicated the availability of 500 square feet of space in his facility. The PBC officially opened its doors there in 2004, with Dr. Johnston as Lab Director, a position she still holds.

Dr. Johnston receives the first LA Biostar Award from Cal State LA

In the intervening 16 years, PBC has grown into the nationally recognized incubation model that it is today. Its location is open 24/7 and hosts more than 30 biotech startup companies, working on a wide range of projects to improve humanity’s health and welfare. Dr. Johnston’s experience, knowledge, and professional connections ensure that PBC tenants get the opportunities they need to take their work that one critical step further. That the lab also hosts extensive and immersive training programs for high school, community college, and college students is the icing on her already magnificent cake. She is, indeed, a Master of the business of science.

 

Dr. ‘Bud’ Bishop: Shepherding the Science of Business

No great biotech idea sees the light of day – let alone its potential market – without a lot of hard work going into its marketability as well as its effectiveness. And a biotech business is still a business, so getting its bio-product market-ready and marketable is as critical as monitoring the quality of the substances contained in its beakers and Petrie dishes. Enter PBC President, Dr. Robert ‘Bud’ Bishop.

Dr. Bishop’s selection as President of PBC is significant, as a quick review of his resume reveals that his long engagement with both the science and the business of the biotechnology sector is long, varied, and well respected. He began his career as a research associate at Hyland Laboratories in Glendale, which supported his PhD program. In 1976 he joined American Hospital Supply Corporation (AHSC), first as a program manager, then as a research director.  After completing his MBA, he rose to group vice-president for business development and finally to division president for American Medical Optics. When Allergan, Inc (AGN) purchased his division in 1986, he went with it.  He subsequently was promoted to division president for Allergan Pharmaceuticals and later president of the Allergan Therapeutics Group.

In 1992 Dr. Bishop left Allergan to become the CEO of AutoImmune, Inc., a start-up company focused on oral tolerance therapy.  In that role he led the effort to raise $120 million in an IPO, get two pharmaceuticals into Phase III studies and pivoted to make one of these into a nutritional supplement.  ‘Retired’ from that career now, he sits on two outside Boards of Directors and offers advice and counsel based on his diverse experience. In addition to a notable network of corporate and science industry contacts and colleagues, Dr. Bishop provides PBC with an unmatched skillset to inform its tenants, cohorts, and colleagues of the business opportunities and strategies available to increase their viability.

Dr. Bishop assumes the President’s role of PBC – 2017

In his role as President since 2017, Dr. Bishop brings deep insights from his ‘science of business’ career to the Lab as an exceptional complement to the ‘business of science’ offered by Dr. Johnston. His comprehensive understanding of entrepreneurship, corporate management, finance development and management, licensing and legalities, etc. – all the fundamentals that encompass today’s corporate entity – provides Lab tenants with the guidance they need to create the successful business that will embody their great idea. In short, Dr. Bishop teaches the ‘business of science’ to the PBC wetlab scientists who are brilliant in the Lab but not so much in the boardroom. With this information, biotech startup companies can bypass the fits and starts usually associated with any startup company and move into the market with a reasonable expectation of success.

Since he took office, Dr. Bishop has continued the PBC’s mission of growing educational and entrepreneurial opportunities for the LA region and its biotechnology sciences sector. He works closely with other wetlab resources in the area, maintaining for PBC the solid foundation and high respect developed by its previous President, the late  Bruce Blomstrom.

 

PBC’s Leaders of Science and Business Look Ahead

The partnership of these two ‘giants of science’ generates an ideal nexus to move the PBC to the next stage in its role as a leading member of LA’s burgeoning bioscience and technology sector. LA County continues to invest in biotech and bioscience startup incubators, and PBC, as one of the first wetlabs dedicated to research and collaboration, will continue its collaborative efforts with all its varied partners. Together, Johnston, Bishop, and the PBC Team will be working to further the intentions of the original initiative that drove the launch of enterprise: to provide the skilled, experienced workforce needed by tomorrow’s biotechnology industries so they can build and sustain the LA region’s economy and community.

 

 

Pasadena Bio Collaborative Incubator – Life Science in Motion

Pam Sornson, JD on July 28, 2020

It’s always a win-win situation when dedicated public investments in innovation drive both healthcare and economic development. Such is the case with the Pasadena Bio Collaborative Incubator (PBC), which launched in 2004 as a center where scientists could build their ideas into companies, and the region’s students could train for future careers in life sciences. The project is a partner of the LA County Bioscience Initiative.

 

Innovation for Economics Sake

The PBC’s nexus of scientific and economic interests solves myriad challenges:

It provides a reasonably priced, well-equipped laboratory space for researchers to explore the development of new science-based products and services.

It facilitates connections with the investors needed to fund the research, …

… and the financial resources to build businesses based on those innovations.

It provides a hands-on experience for high school and community college students interested in pursuing healthcare careers, and

It offers the capacity to generate the jobs and careers that those (eventual) graduates will fill.

The past 16 years have seen the initial idea mature. Since 2004 the PBC has expanded from 500 sq ft into a 12,600 square foot facility. Conceived in partnership with Caltech, the Huntington Medical Research Institutes, and the California State University system, and Oak Crest Institute of Science, the initial funding came from the California State Assembly.

 

Two Fronts: One Focus

The structure of Pasadena Bio is two-fold:

to provide researchers with the lab space and equipment they need to bring their ideas forward –  PBC Wetlab, and

to support workforce development by connecting regional industrial and educational resources to hands-on training for employment – PBC Training.

 

The Pasadena Bio Wetlab (PBC Wetlab)

Since its 2004 inception, the PBC Wetlab has nurtured more than 70 life science research projects.  Currently, it houses over 30 tenants.  Half of the companies that have left PBC did so to become larger entities. Those successes are built on the foresight and strategic planning of the facility’s leadership and the strategic partnerships they’ve forged with like-minded organizations in and around the LA Basin. The current laboratory director, Dr. Wendie Johnston (involved with the Collaborative since the early 2000s), has a career-long association with Pasadena City College and has helped many science students become full-fledged scientists. She oversees the Wetlab’s many operations and works with the entire PBC team to assist tenants in pursuit of their research:

The PBC Wetlab offers its current 30+ tenants access to mentors, use of the shared use equipment, and donated supplies.

It works with experts from various fields, who provide the tenants with information, support, and insights on everything from engineering prototypes to legal protections to developing business plans.

The PBC Wetlab also is a repository of a variety of scientific research tools and machines. Tenants’ access to this equipment means they don’t have to invest their project funds on expensive equipment. Having access to shared use and pay-for-use equipment allows the start-up to conserve resources.

Further, the PBC Wetlab works with local trade associations SoCalBio and BioCom, which offer PBC tenants discounted vendor options.

Current tenants are working on advances in cellular reprogramming, cancer drugs that inhibit drug resistance, and (especially poignant in today’s world) vaccines. In its short life-span, the Pasadena Bio Wetlab has contributed to the development of innovative new drugs and medical devices that now offer relief from pain, newfound mobility, and life-saving therapies.

 

Pasadena Bio Training (PBC Training)

Studying in a lab is vastly different from observing healthcare and medical practices in the field. The PBC Training division engages directly with local high school and community college students to provide a real-life work experience in a real-life science lab. Additionally, through association with the Los Angeles/Orange County Biotechnology Center, PBC Training collaborates with the region’s community colleges to align their coursework to match the bio-science industry’s employment needs.

For high schools, PBC Training’s connections are unique. PBC provides regional high school educators with access to the Amgen Biotech Experience (ABE): professional development opportunities for teachers coupled with research-grade equipment and lessons to use in the classroom. Teachers use the materials and equipment to bring high-tech science to their local high school classrooms. High school students are included outside the school, too. The ‘kits’ that travel to the schools are returned to the PBC lab (one of four Amgen distribution centers in the LA area), where a cadre of students clean and prep them to be shipped to the next school. These lucky learners experience not only the lab’s activities but also the ‘business’ of working in a lab: taking measurements, checking quality controls, and producing production sheets.

The PBC Training also includes college students by offering internships that involve interaction with PBC’s tenants. Interns and pre-apprentices spend 200 hours throughout the summer, working toward the milestones needed to further their bioscience career goals. PBC Training teaches these “employability milestones,” which include the skill sets necessary to gain employment:

Core Technical Competencies for Lab Personnel, which involve understanding the terminology, concepts, and operations of the lab, as well as how to perform, document, and preserve the records of fundamental lab techniques and procedures.

Core Cultural Competencies for Lab Personnel, which include soft skills for working in teams, communications, and maintaining integrity.

Hands-on skills training covers foundational lab activities, such as how to use the various devices and machines, how to design, manage, and perform experiments, and the fundamentals of protein chemistry and nucleic acid chemistry.

Much of PBC Training’s work is based on the data and metrics driving the bioscience field in the LA region. Its many reports provide insights into the supply and demand for middle-skill workers, appropriate curricula for ensuring workplace readiness, and even a listing of job titles for laboratory workers.

 

Economic Development

Photo: South Bay Workforce Investment Board

PBC provides training for its tenants, too, not on their scientific endeavors but on building the businesses that will take their new product or service into the wider community. On the economic development side of the PBC is Dr. Robert (Bud) Bishop, who took over the helm of PBC three years ago. Dr. Bishop brings with him all the lessons learned during a long career in the corporate healthcare field. PBC is flourishing in part because of his deep understanding of the industry as a whole, his personal experience, and his connections in the health care industry.

 

The PBC is looking forward to a robust and productive future for itself and its tenants. With Dr.’s Bishop and Johnston in charge, there’s no reason to believe it won’t continue its long and successful winning streak.

The Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation: LA’s Strategic Partner for Economic Growth

Pam Sornson, JD on July 20, 2020

Even before the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 struck, the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) was asking its members, “where will the well-paying jobs come from in the future?” Launched in 1981, the non-profit Agency continues to pursue its mission of guiding regional economic development through public-private partnerships between governments, industries, and education centers. Embracing the benefits of its geographical location, the LAEDC engages the many globally competitive industries that have already invested resources in the community, helping them to build out supply chains that employ ever-growing numbers of LA County residents. Its members’ efforts collectively drive the Agency to achieve its “Triple Bottom Line”: regional economic strength, environmental sustainability, and shared equity and prosperity.

 

 

How the LAEDC Works

The LAEDC is comprised of more than 500 stakeholder organizations, all sharing a common vision of an economically stable, safe, and thriving LA Basin. Through communication and collaboration among its 26 focus groups, the Agency created a series of seven goals:

    1. Invest in people;
    2. Strengthen export-oriented industries;
    3. Accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship;
    4. Be more business-friendly;
    5. Remove barriers to critical infrastructure development;
    6. Increase global connectedness, and
    7. Build more livable communities

Each goal also numerates four distinct solutions, directing the efforts of goal-specific groups toward those determined ends:

      1. Increase the supply of qualified and skilled labor;
      2. develop and grow consumer demand by creating new products, services, and markets;
      3. capture and promote innovation to grow both legacy and new sectors, and
      4. develop industry-based business clusters to encourage competitiveness and differentiation.

Each group’s task is to apply its efforts to develop these solutions for their particular goal’s challenge.

Collectively, the LAEDC is working to address the fundamental challenge of today’s society (before COVID): how to engage human labor and effort in an increasingly technological world? Throughout history, old systems have given way to innovations that make those legacy activities obsolete. Today’s technology threatens the current labor force the same way:

Automated robotics technology performs routine and mundane tasks faster, more efficiently, and with fewer errors.

Radiofrequency identification technology tracks millions of products across billions of supply chains.

Computer networking is eliminating the need for shared office spaces, and the transportation systems needed to get people to them.

International out-sourcing of industrial production chains only adds to the challenge for today’s workers to find well-paying jobs in LA or anywhere in the U.S. All these technological developments have caused millions of lost jobs in the LA area and around the world.

The LAEDC believes that lost jobs don’t also always equate to missed economic opportunities. Its challenge is to assist its members in paving their individual road to success by developing both the technical resources that will create their future growth and the human resources that will power and control them. Its purpose is to “capture the power of many to propel economic equity and prosperity for all.”

 

Measuring Success

According to its 2019 report, the LAEDC has already achieved significant success on its mission. In data collected from just a few of its programs indicates that not only is the Agency on the right path but so are its constituents:

 

The Business Assistance Program

This multilingual team offers business advice and assistance to local companies, cities, and the County itself for opening, building, or finding success in the LA County region. Its goal is to attract new businesses to the area and help them establish a sustainable consumer base. It works to ensure existing companies stay in the region and in business, protecting their workers from job losses and the subsequent calamities those cause. Finally, the team helps any business expand into new frontiers, helping them identify and remove barriers to growth and prosperity.

Metrics gathered since 2014 indicate that the Business Assistance Program has saved upwards of 7,000 jobs, created almost 14,000 new jobs, and generated over $3 billion in economic outputs to the County.

[Notably, a long-standing project within the Business Assistance Program is building resilience into the fabric of the industrial community. Until very recently, these efforts centered on managing disruptions caused by earthquakes, wildfires, and economic recessions, and provided resources that outlined strategies for surviving and rebuilding after such a disaster strikes. While the Agency couldn’t predict the COVID pandemic, its prescience and foresight guiding economic resilience in the face of a disaster will undoubtedly prove invaluable as the LA Basin works to recover from its catastrophic impact.]

 

The World Trade Center LA (WTCLA)

The WTCLA invites international interest and resources to invest and participate in LA’s industrial complex as part of its goal of attracting new business to the LA basin. Already, LA acts as the export hub for the western United States, and building those trade partnerships will only bolster its economy further. In the 2018-2019 Fiscal Year:

WTCLA engaged in 66 international investment consultations;

Hosted ten business and industry delegations from countries including Canada and the United Arab Emirates;

Recruited delegates for trade missions at Australia’s Avalon Airshow, New Zealand’s Tripartite Economic Summit, and Hong Kong’s Asian Financial Forum, and

facilitated the investment of over $11 million into LA County.

 

The Institute for Applied Economics (IAE)

This body performs the research and analytics that underpin the LA region’s economic decision-making opportunity. Gathering data from diverse resources, including industry clusters, workforce development efforts, and labor supply and demand, the IAE provides commercial and business insights to hundreds of clients. The Agency’s work informs the LAEDC about the aims and successes of its programs and how they contribute to LA County’s Strategic Plan for Economic Development in general.

 

Coordinating Growth in Critical Industry Clusters

Much of the LAEDC success comes from its strategic alliances with LA’s major industrial clusters, which provide the foundation for many local and regional economies. By building connections between leadership in these sectors and city and county governments, the LAEDC helps to knit together the systems that encourage success on both sides of those collaborations. LA’s Aerospace, Advanced Mobility, Bioscience, and Digital Media & Entertainment industries all contribute and participate with LAEDC members, generating system alignments that wouldn’t happen without the discussions and discourse.

 

And Coordinating College-to Career Opportunities: Propel LA

Propel LA is the operational arm of the LAEDC, leveraging the activities of hundreds of stakeholders to implement the 2016-2020 Countywide Strategic Plan for Economic Development. Linking companies, individuals, governments, and educational institutions, Propel LA facilitates the conversations that turn industry labor requirements into educational programs and well-paying jobs.

Its Workforce Development team engages all aspects of the workforce development continuum to achieve three major objectives:

align college and university curricula with occupational demands, as employers, businesses, and industries determine those standards;

develop work-based learning opportunities for students to experience employment parameters while learning valuable hard- and soft skills, and

create industry Councils to advise, inform, and solve current and emerging workforce challenges.

Using these resources, government and school leaders can develop the investments and strategies needed to transform LA’s community colleges into the talent pipelines demanded by LA’s growing industrial community. Students can enter college with their speific career goal in mind and a clearly defined pathway to achieve it. And the LA region can bank on the improved economics generated by well-trained workers performing critical jobs in support of their families.

Propel LA relies on the work of the LAEDC’s Center for a Competitive Workforce (CCW), which also evolved through collaboration across industries. It now generates the labor and occupational market data that informs businesses, governments, and – most importantly – LA County’s 19 community colleges about labor trends and future hiring needs. Schools realigned courses and programs to respond to hiring needs, and businesses turn more frequently to those schools for the skilled workers they need. Because of these interactions, in fall 2019, 523,000 of the LA Community College’s 770,000 students were enrolled in some form of an occupation-directed education program.

 

Established and Growing

As a non-profit organization, the LAEDC is always seeking new members, donors, and investors to maintain its momentum toward better jobs and a higher standard of living for all the region’s residents, both human and corporate. Members enjoy unique and informative forums, ‘RED’ Talks, social events, and cutting-edge research and insights on the future of LA’s economy. An an entity, the LAEDC is unique to California, and its vision, goals, and strategies are unique to the country and perhaps even the world. With such an authoritative resource available, there’s no reason why LA County and its industries, businesses, residents, and schools shouldn’t build the economy of the future: fair, equitable, sustainable, and profitable.

 

 

 

 

The Center for a Competitive Workforce: Building Tomorrow’s Labor Force

Pam Sornson, JD on July 14, 2020

For several years, California has led the nation with its forward-thinking college education goals. Seeking to maximize existing investments in its community colleges, in 2016, the State mandated a new vision for those facilities for training the next and future generations of workers. For the project to succeed, however, the State also needed the cooperation of its business and industrial communities to inform schools about preferred skills and knowledge. The potential partnership invited equal investment of time and money from California’s diverse industrial complex but offered the enticement of a well-trained, ever-growing ‘skilled worker’ talent pool for any business willing to contribute to the effort.

Fortunately, community buy-in by both schools and companies was immediate and heartfelt. Four years on, the resulting Center for a Competitive Workforce has evolved into a unique, creative, and – most importantly – productive collaboration between educators and business leaders. Their combined efforts will ensure that California’s community college students gain the skills and knowledge needed to do the work their future employers require. The Center is led by Richard Verches and housed within the LA Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), and its work engages both colleges and businesses in the work of building the State’s economy.

 

 

On the College Side:  One Clear “Vision for Success”

The California Community Colleges (CCC) organization has wholeheartedly embraced the philosophy of ‘education for career’s sake.’ Its 115 schools serve over 2 million students annually, providing career and job skills for millions of workers. The CCC has embraced a singular focus – a Vision for Success – as the primary goal of each of its 115 members: to ensure that students from all backgrounds can succeed in reaching their goals and improving their future, their families, and the communities in which they live.

To achieve that goal, each school must evaluate and respond to the current realities of their individual community college student population:

Too many students attend college classes but never graduate or complete a full course of study.

Those who do complete their program often take five to six years to achieve that milestone, taking – and paying for – too many excess and irrelevant credits.

Non-traditional students – those who also work or are beyond the typical age of most college students – face financial and social barriers simply because they don’t fit the ‘standard’ student profile.

Each of these circumstances drives college costs higher and reduce the possible returns on the college investment by both students and the tax-paying public. And they are all exacerbated by socially driven inequities caused by economics, race, and social status that erode the higher education opportunity for too many students in all regions of the State.

The Vision for Success seeks to remedy these challenges so that every member school can offer an affordable education that will support a comfortable lifestyle for each of its students in the career of their choice.

 

Education for Career’s Sake

The CCC also engages with local and regional industries to assist with course design and curriculum development, so that schools are teaching the skills that their business neighbors require. That effort is coordinated through its Workforce and Economic Development Division (WEDD), which produces labor market research about the desirable job skills needed in each industry.

Programs designed by the WEDD address opportunities for both students and potential employers, such as:

the California Adult Education Program (CAEP);

the California Apprenticeship Initiative (CAI);

Strengthening Career and Technical Education (Perkins V);

Economic and Workforce Development, and

the Strong Workforce Program (SWP), among others.

With research and community data in hand, California’s community colleges can reorganize their resources so their students can attain both their educational and career goals.

 

On the Business Side:  The Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation

Providing comprehensive career courses means schools must teach what businesses need students to know. Founded in 1981, the LAEDC harnesses its private industry and government resources to guide economic development and generate a more prosperous community for all its constituents. Member businesses come from all industries and sectors, providing a rich and comprehensive perspective of the region as a whole. Los Angeles is home to many thriving industries that create and sustain well-paying jobs, and there’s tremendous opportunity for that growth to continue. Together, LAEDC and its corporate partners have worked to build out the feeder industries and supply chains that keep its communities prosperous and sustainable.

With these resources and experience as guides, industry and civic leaders can create policies and practices that will benefit the entire region. One of these practices is the fostering of the relationships between its corporate entities and its educational system. The LAEDC recognizes that up-skilling the regional workforce is the key to future profitability and prosperity, so it created the Center for a Competitive Workforce to develop those capacities.

 

The Center for a Competitive Workforce

The CCW fosters the regular engagement between LA’s 19 regional community colleges and businesses engaged in the area’s high-growth industrial sectors. These industrial sectors are populated by both well-established companies and entrepreneurial endeavors, have a high need for a skilled labor force, and require workers with polished middle skills and abilities. Interactions between the schools and these industries allow both sides to inform the work of the other, permitting schools to develop the programs and courses that will create a well-skilled workforce.

The CCW pursues several workstreams, each of which provides unique information and insights for all CCW participants, including:

Labor Market Analysis;

Industry Councils;

Regional Program Advisory Meetings;

Work-Based Learning Partnerships;

Company Visits and Career Videos;

Workforce and Education Partners Portal, and

a Bioscience Industry Portal.

For colleges, the CCW publishes ‘playbooks’ that offer ‘industry-education’ insights about the relationships building between the LAEDC and the region’s community colleges. Those playbooks provide faculty, school leadership, and industry participants about their workplace counterparts, and pave the way for internships and other work-based learning opportunities. The ensuing partnerships create pipelines of skilled talent accessible by companies seeking workers, based on industrial demands, and populated by local community members.

So far (it’s been a scant four years), the collaboration between the California Community Colleges and the LA Economic Development Corporation is proving advantageous to both entities. Their ‘progeny’ – the Center for a Competitive Workforce – is now leading the way for both schools and businesses to contribute equally to California’s ever-expanding economy.

 

 

 

 

The Center for a Competitive Workforce: Meet Richard Verches – Part I

Pam Sornson, JD on July 7, 2020

As the Executive Director of the Center for a Competitive Workforce (Center), Richard Verches brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and compassion to his work. His many careers in law, policy, business, and humanitarian causes have honed his focus on the most human of human interests: the drive to succeed and thrive. He uses that focus and his numerous talents to move the Center forward in its quest to unite the LA region’s businesses and industries with the evolving talent pool emerging from its 19 community colleges. Not even the COVID-19 concern has slowed him down.

 

 

Familiar Work; New Opportunity

On the job for less than two years, Verches has been busy taking over management of the Center’s many projects. His directive is to attract and engage the attention of LA’s immense industrial complex and the leadership of its 19 diverse community colleges. His goal is to forge ongoing partnerships between the two that will accomplish a myriad of objectives:

Assisting the schools to develop and implement curricula and programs that will facilitate well-paying jobs for their graduates;

Introducing to regional businesses and industries the potential labor force resources that exist in local college populations;

The development of internship and entry-level work-based learning opportunities that directly connect students to jobs, and

The creation of a region-wide network of training and teaching programs based on actual business and industry demands and standards.

His partners in the effort are the Executive and Advisory Committees that represent the schools, including 13 Workforce and Economic Development (WED) Deans from nine of the 11 Community College Districts and Strong Workforce Program Managers from the California Community Colleges (CCC) organization. He also works closely with the leadership of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), where the Center is housed.

His position at the nexus of industry and education is intentional; his purpose is to knit the two into a unified economic engine to drive forward the economy of the LA region and all of its citizens.

 

 

Personal Interest; Global Impact

Verches has spent his career pursuing humanitarian rights in a variety of positions. Highly attuned to his Latino heritage, his activities have always included championing the under-represented. As a lawyer, he worked with both the United Nations and private industry, advising business and government on human and environmental rights in areas covering half the planet. He brought those insights to his later work with LA County, as a deputy director of its Commission on Human Rights, and as the Executive Director of its Workforce Development Board. He left the County to direct the LA/Orange County Regional Consortium of Community Colleges, which led him to his present position at the CCW.

Through it all, he remained supportive of Latinx-related organizations focused on supporting and building minority communities. He champions the Latinx Education Achievement Project (LEAP) and advises the Ethics and Development Circle for Talent for Humanity, among many other efforts. Not insignificantly, he also teaches at UCLA, leading classes on illiteracy, Human Rights in the Americas, and comparative and historical perspectives of Latinx communities and the Law.

It’s hard to imagine another person with the precisely right talents and skills to lead the CCW than Richard Verches. And he arrives none-too-soon, as is revealed in our next article.

 

 

 

 

 

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