Sept. 9, 2022 - Vision in Action No. 86
Sixth Annual Undocumented Student Action Week Returns the Week of Oct. 17th
As the higher education system that enrolls the largest population of undocumented students, the California Community Colleges are instrumental in ensuring every student, regardless of their citizenship status, can pursue their career and professional goals free from institutional barriers and discrimination. Our annual Undocumented Student Action Week (USAW) was born out of this premise: to build greater awareness of and support for policies that lead to undocumented student success.
USAW is a joint effort originally led by the Board of Governors, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, Foundation for California Community Colleges, and Community College League of California, in partnership with many statewide advocacy organizations. Now in its sixth year, USAW mobilizes faculty, staff, students, administrators, and policymakers to support the needs of undocumented students enrolled at all California community colleges through outreach, professional development, and collaboration. By participating in daily systemwide webinars, engaging in federal advocacy, and hosting campus events, we can dismantle silos and ensure undocumented students are welcomed and heard—not just during USAW but every day of the year.
This year’s theme is “Juntos Podemos (Together We Can): Collaborative Ecosystems that Support Undocumented Students,” which recognizes that we must continue to advance best practices, ensure authentic, campuswide collaboration and advocate for policy solutions to support long-term success.
Registration for USAW webinars is now open. Register here to participate in the series of daily webinars. If you are unable to attend, you will be able to access recordings of the daily webinars in the Vision Resource Center.
More information regarding USAW systemwide webinars can be found on our website.
GUIDED PATHWAYS 2.0 PROJECT INSIGHTS
New resources to support Guided Pathways implementation are available in the Vision Resource Center. The third brief in the Guided Pathways Playbook series, “Connecting Students to Their Program of Study and the Greater Campus Community,” highlights equity-focused practices colleges can consider to help students explore, connect, plan and gain momentum in their program path and field of interest. The brief amplifies strategies and resources shared by national student success experts and leaders in the California community colleges at the April 2022 institute of the Guided Pathways 2.0 project.
These briefs are being curated as a collection titled “Guided Pathways Playbook,” which will continue to develop along with the institutes and webinars through 2023. The briefs and recordings and resources from most presentations at Guided Pathways 2.0 institutes and webinars are available in the Vision Resource Center Guided Pathways community in the Guided Pathways 2.0 folder (found under “Topics” in the main Guided Pathways community). You must be signed in to the Vision Resource Center to access these links.
System Guidance/News/Webinars
REGISTER NOW: Join the Chancellor’s Office College Finance and Facilities Planning Division for its monthly Fiscal & Policy Webinar Series. Members of the College Finance and Facilities Planning, Institutional Effectiveness, and Government Relations Divisions will provide timely updates on issues related to college finance, state budgets, fiscal policy, innovative and promising practices and federal issues. Webinars will be held on the last Thursday of each month (excluding holidays).
The next webinar is Thursday, Sept. 29 at 11:00 a.m. Register here.
TUNE IN: The next Chancellor’s Office System Webinar is set for Wednesday, Oct., 5 from 9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
If you haven’t registered for the 2022 System Webinar series, please register via this link. If you have already registered there is no need to register again.
SAVE YOUR SPOT: Registration is now open for the 3rd Annual Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) Summit on Friday, Oct. 28, from 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. via Zoom.
Join us to learn about emerging strategies, procedures, reforms, partnerships, and technologies—all designed to demystify and simplify the process of awarding appropriate CPL to our veterans and re-entry students.
Sessions Will Feature:
1. How to articulate Military CPL and CPL for Re-Entry Students, including Industry Certifications, Portfolio Review, etc.
2. Updates from cohort colleges, including emerging strategies and best practices.
3. Discussions on policy, regulation alignment, and potential reforms.
4. Strategies for building partnerships for transfer and updates from the CSU System.
5. Demonstrations of evolving MAP services and technologies to support CPL.
6. Strategies for supporting and institutionalizing CPL at your campus.
7. Simple steps for your college to immediately begin granting CPL to veterans and re-entry students this year.
There is no cost to attend this event but space is limited to 300 participants. Register here.
Student Supports
Starting this month, families of low-income public school students can now access college savings accounts created in their children’s names. The CalKIDS program invests $1.9 billion into accounts for low-income school-age children in grades 1-12 and for newborn children born on or after July 1, 2022.
Nearly 300,000 recent graduates of California public high schools may be eligible to receive up to $1500 for use toward education expenses. The California Kids Investment and Development Savings Program (CalKIDS), funded by the State of California, is providing eligible students with these funds to promote a college going culture. Eligible student participants may receive awards to use for higher education:
- $500 automatic deposit in a CalKIDS account for eligible low-income public school students (As determined by the LCFF);
- $500 additional deposit in a CalKIDS account for eligible; students identified as foster youth;
- $500 additional deposit in a CalKIDS account for eligible students identified as homeless.
Eligible CalKIDS participants will be able to request a withdrawal of funds from their CalKIDS accounts immediately to pay for qualified educational expenses. To use the funds, eligible CalKIDS participants will be required to do the following:
- Log into their CalKIDS account on the online portal.
- Select the institution of higher education they are attending.
- Input a student identification number from their institution of higher education.
- Complete the distribution request to have funds in their CalKIDS account be sent to that institution of higher education by check to pay for eligible expenses incurred by the CalKIDS participant.
If you have any questions or need additional information about the CalKIDS or the disbursement process described above, please contact CalKIDSAdmin@calkids.org or (916) 651-6380. The CalKIDS.org website and Program Information Guide and FAQ’s also offer more information about the program.
Items of Interest
The California Education Learning Lab recently announced the release of a new grant opportunity to promote the buildout of critical data science educational infrastructure. Through this RFP, Learning Lab’s Grand Challenge seeks to incentivize public higher education institutions to embrace data science as an opportunity to build new pathways, modernize majors, attract historically underrepresented students into STEM, and deepen both civic and interdisciplinary learning. Through this RFP, Learning Lab intends to award the following categories of grants:
- Pathways Development (Up to 3 awards)
- Faculty Development (Up to 5 awards)
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration (Up to 9 awards)
- Grand Challenge Cohort Coordinator (1 award)
Find more information on the application process, timeline and FAQs at the Grand Challenge website.
