It is never a dull day at Pierce College, according to Interim President Ara Aguiar. This semester alone, she has juggled a number of responsibilities, including cultural events, leaky roofs and discussions about homelessness among the Brahmas.
For Aguiar, who has shown no sign of retiring since becoming interim president in 2021, what makes her job special is the community she has fostered at Pierce. Because of it, Aguiar said she has had successes, reached milestones and launched initiatives that will affect Pierce for years to come.
Aguiar sat down with the Roundup for a Q&A to discuss this semester and what she expects for the future.
Roundup: What were some of the goals you had this semester?
Ara Aguiar: Well, a lot of the goals that we had this semester focused primarily on enrollment and student success, which is one of the LACCD Board of Trustees goals for this year. With that in mind, it is very important to align our college goals with that. Plus recovering from the pandemic of course. We had a large drop in enrollment, so the focus was to get the students reengaged with our college. I’m certainly providing all of the necessary resources to ensure that they were successful in their course completion and then of course, ultimately graduating. That’s one large goal. Another goal that we had was to continue to pursue grants and other resources, scholarships for students through the foundation, and also build our enterprise areas of the college that bring in income to again support the resources that are needed for our students, staff and faculty. And the next goal that’s very important is that we remain financially stable, and also to develop partnerships and outreach efforts with LA Unified and other organizations in our community to ensure that we are engaged as a community college, which is one of our primary goals, and while at the same time supporting equity initiatives. So those were the primary overarching goals that I had for Pierce and that we as a management team developed and then at the end of every academic year, we evaluate what were the accomplishments. Are we in alignment with the goals in terms of the things that we implement on our campus.
RU: What were some of the biggest achievements of this semester?
AA: Well, you know, we had several so it’s hard, but I’ll try to highlight in terms of enrollment and student success. For example, one of the things that we were able to do this year is that we doubled the number of student athletes, so we went from 180 students in the past academic year to 300 this last academic year, intense sports. We’ve been very successful with our Pierce Global website. You don’t hear much about this, but it is one of the outcomes of this year that right now individuals from 22 other states can take our classes without them having to charge a fee per student. So these are states where we actually have a contract with an agreement. It’s more likely in agreement that students in those states can take classes here at Pierce College and get college credit for them. So it’s great to have national students taking classes here in California. You have to do this state by state. So we started this initiative a couple of years ago. That’s been a very successful outcome. Also, we have launched our MESA program and that is due to the great work of obtaining a grant that can support that process. We took one of the classrooms that was underutilized and we now provide tutoring and student support for students that are on the STEM major track. So we’re very proud of that. Of course, we had the grand opening of our Advanced Automotive Technology building. That was not so much an accomplishment that we have, but certainly it is a big celebration and we’re so very proud of it. And it’s a beautiful, beautiful building that will be well utilized. So the intent here is that we’re having conversations now for this next upcoming year, to look at ways to maximize the utilization of that building for example, and begin to offer classes in Spanish. So it opens up again, bringing the community in so we would be able to teach individuals in their language, and we’ll start with Spanish because of our community, being at our college is over 50% Latinos, Latine is my understand is now no longer Latinx. It’s now latine
So we’re very much looking forward to that and that we just began the discussions and one really great outcome that we’ve had this year has been the partnership that we have established with what we call LAUSD Region North and that constitutes the three valley colleges. So LA Valley, Mission and LA Pierce College, and we have been having meetings withSuperintendent David Baca at LAUSD, and as a result of that our partnership getting more students from the high schools to come to our college. That is substantial growth in dual enrollment in terms of our classes being offered at the high schools, but also our students. The students that come to Pierce from our neighboring high schools. The past year, we used to be at about eight to 10 schools that we were actually in there providing classes to high school students–that has more than doubled now. And so we’re very happy about that. We have made a lot more agreements with the high schools. And so the outcome has been now that those students and the high schools have college classes, which very much aligns with the state chancellor’s goal of Vision 2030, where the goal is to have every ninth grader and above take a college class while they’re in school. Not only are we meeting local goals, but we’re also meeting and very much in alignment with state goals. We see what other courses we have and our faculty have been hard at work. We have now 32 courses that are fully aligned with what is known as the Peer Online Course Review. And those courses the faculty that teach those courses is a review process where the faculty members go through this rigorous training. And as a result of that training, the success rate in those courses are 8.2% higher than other courses. So it is an initiative where more and more faculty are going to be taking this high intense course in terms of how they can better deliver instruction in an online environment. So that it better serves our students so we’re very happy with that. In addition, from a fiscal perspective, we have received over $4 million in state and federal grant awards this past year and approximately $1 million in debt, enterprise activities, filming on our campus and utilization of our facilities when we’re not using them. So those are ways that can support other parts of the college that need this investment. And we ended the 22-23 academic year with a positive balance of $5 million. So it’s always good to end in a positive balance because that gives you the flexibility and it better prepares the institution to be able to meet the needs of our students through courses and hiring of faculty and staff. That shows that the college is working as efficiently as it possibly can and we’re always looking at that. So those are really big. My opinion is that fiscal stability is important. And also we’ve had a lot of external activities that we’ve been doing, working with partners and what have you. So for example, we had the second annual Valley Day of Service with Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, so that was a fun event and Mayor Karen Bass was here so that was a nice surprise for us. We’ve had our second annual Valley Asian Cultural Festival. Of course, we celebrated our Hispanic Heritage Month with the Speaker Series thanks to our faculty member Professor Rovero, and we had the Filipino Baseball World Series game here on our campus, and we hosted the French Film Festival. We’ve had our first annual Horticulture Day in our Arboretum and our Marching Band Music Showcase with LAUSD. So we’ve had several things that we should be very proud to have celebrated on our campus, but our activities that engage our students, our community, and our team here on the campus, so it’s just fabulous.
RU: I was wondering if you can explain the double enrollment in sports. What would you say attributed to that double enrollment?
AA: Okay, so we almost doubled the student athletes right from 182 to slightly over 300. With intense sports, one of the areas we added was men’s soccer. Of course, our coaches have been hard at work. The coaches have been out there, and really going and being very strategic about bringing in and so I know for example, I remember the 21-22 year where we had just over 30 football players on a team and one of the the issues there was that if someone gets injured, we just didn’t have enough to turn the game. So I think that’s why the football players are struggling, or the football team, I should say. But now my understanding is we doubled the number of students in our football team, so that now means that there’s more interaction and more support. And that is all due to the hard work of our athletic director and our coaches, and the dean over the area has been really supportive. Claudia Velasco and Deborah Hefter have really been hard at work. Of course, Professor Armenta also did a fabulous job. But I think it’s also a way out of the pandemic. That’s another reason why we’re seeing this growth.We were growing in a lot of areas, and we’re slowly coming out and recovering to what we were at pre-pandemic. And that’s our ultimate goal at this point in time. Let’s get back to where we were and then we can continue to build from there.
AA: Another great thing that I did not mention earlier was that we submitted for approval for a baccalaureate program here at Pierce. It would be a bachelor’s in biomanufacturing. We have currently received what is known as provisional approval by the state chancellor’s office. So we are awaiting one of them. What that means is that we have met all of the criteria and it’s just on a hold and being evaluated by the CSUs. So that to ensure that we’re not in competition with any of the CSU issues. That’s just a process that has to go through and then we’re hoping that there isn’t a problem but you never know. And we expect full approval. We are pursuing and we continue to have discussions about other baccalaureate programs that we can pursue in the near future.
RU: When do you expect a Bachelor’s in biomanufacturing to be implemented or when should students expect that to start?
AA: Oh, well, we expect and we hope for approval by January of next year. The process then will be to start to create all of the upper division courses, which can easily take at least one semester. I would say in being realistic, I think January of 2025 would be a realistic goal. We could push it for Fall of 2024, but that may be a little bit too close of a timeline because there’s an approval process of the courses so not just here at the college level but also at the state level. And then we have to get the whole program together, the sequence and hire the faculty, although we are very well positioned and ready to have faculty that can teach the upper division courses here on this campus.
RU: There was a mention about high school and college classes or at least having high school students from the ninth grade start taking classes that will be accepted at a college level at Pierce. I was wondering if there is a difference between those classes being offered and AP classes that the usual high school student would take?
AA: Well, the classes that they would be taking would be the classes that our students take here. There’s no difference. It’s our faculty. It’s our classes. It’s our curriculum that they would be taking. They would be actually taking our community college class. And the classes that are being offered are either part of a degree or a certificate here on this campus and the majority of them are actually transferable classes to the CSUs and UCs. For example, Chicano Studies, that’s a class, it’s the same class, same faculty that teach students here. So it gets transcripted as if it was a Pierce class. The only difference is that the class is being delivered at another facility.
RU: So it sounds like there’s at least with with the Pierce college classes in high school there would be more options than just the standard AP classes.
AA: Yes, because they’re applicable to more degrees. This is the course.Our goal, for example, ethnic studies is now a requirement in the high schools. It’s a requirement for community colleges, and it’s a requirement at the CSUs. Chicano studies, one of our Chicano Studies classes has already been approved to be that ethnic studies course at the CSU. So therefore, a high school student who takes that class already has fulfilled the high school, that community college and the CSU. So \hat’s the goal, to align our curriculum, so that students are not having to retake classes. So it is one way also to graduate faster and you’re not wasting time taking a class that you can’t apply to a degree or actually get credit for to, then go on to as a transfer institution.
RU: So coming back to Pierce, what were some of the unexpected occurrences that happened this year?
AA: Oh gee. Every day something happens that’s unexpected. We’re, I’ve been very lucky. Things that happen are just things that you can’t prepare for you know, like when we had that storm, for example. And we had downed trees that damaged our tennis courts, and we had things of that nature. We had flooding in several of the buildings and leaky roofs. Things that you can’t plan for. I think those are the only things that right now comes to mind as unexpected in a way that you just simply can’t prepare for. All you can do is solve the problem, and of course our team did a great job. They cleaned our campus right away. We still are having to do some repairing because I’m very concerned with El Niño. We’re gonna get a lot of rain this winter,so already our campus is preparing for that.
RU: Are there any additional plans for Pierce College in 2024?
AA: Oh, I always have a lot of plans for Pierce College, nothing but success and growth. But I would say I can continue to support those programs that are really important. Our Care in Campus Initiative for example. We have activities with our staff and our faculty to really see what it is that we can do to have students feel like this is a very welcoming campus. I’m new to this campus, as you know, I don’t feel new anymore. It’s been two and a half years, you’re no longer new, but when I got here, I felt very welcomed by everyone, the students and staff. And I would say that we continue to expand those programs that are in high demand. Our STEM area is really growing. Our nursing program continues to be one of the top in the state. Our transfers, matter of fact I just had a meeting with the President at CSUN and her management team and we have a partnership with Mission, Valley and Pierce, and we meet regularly and seeing how we can better work together, and what we need to do with our course of study so that we better align our transfer and our programs, and students that do not get accepted or postponing enrollment at CSUN can be referred to us and we can help align their pathway here to then transfer. So those conversations we’re having, I’m very excited about that because we are not just looking at our transfer rate and we are the number one transfer institution to CSUN, and we can continue to build pathways in a way where again, it goes back to that alignment and having not only discussions at the president level, but having discussion also at the department level and at the faculty level. And so that there is that professional connection and network that better support our students. In addition to that, looking at what they have–master’s programs that they have–so that they can refer faculty to us, people that are on an educational platform. For example, ESL instructors–we need ESL instructors to better serve our classes. So they’re now connecting and seeing how that department could work with us and then refer individuals to [Pierce] maybe they can do some internships here on the campus while they’re getting their master’s degree there. So those are the kinds of conversations that we’re having. And so I like to continue to build that because it just removes the barriers for our students.
RU: What have you enjoyed most about your time here at Pierce College?
AA: Oh my goodness. What have I enjoyed the most? Well, I love gardening so of coursethe arboretum and the Botanical Gardens are just naturally here for me to enjoy. So that’s been a real personal joy to walk through the gardens and enjoy the beauty. But I think the students and the team here that I have, I’m very very lucky. We have a fabulous management team, and the teams, Deans and the staff are very supportive and always there too. So I enjoy just working with the people and the kind of friendships that one establishes, a good collegiality amongst us, ourselves and the team, so it’s been a fun two and a half years I must say. I enjoy what I do and what I’m doing but I think the reason why I do enjoy it and why we are successful is because we are able to work well together. And it’s really that cohesiveness of a team that makes a difference. What I always say is one of my favorite things that has happened in the past two years was this past graduation. Unfortunately, I missed the first year because of COVID, so I was not able to attend, but this last year’s graduation was fabulous at the stadium. The team really worked hard at getting that stadium ready for our students and their families and friends, and I think that that was a really nice day just to see that achievement. Graduation for me, for 36 years, has been the ultimate day because that’s when as a faculty member, you get the highest reward and you know, you really feel it.
RU: Walk us through a week as interim president. What are some of the responsibilities you are responsible for?
AA: Never a dull moment. One meeting after another, whether in person or in zoom. Always problem solving. you have to be flexible. You have to keep one thing as your guide and that is how will this impact students, you know, how does this impact our students success, our enrollment. So every meeting doesn’t matter if I’m talking about cleaning the campus, fixing a roof. I know, hard to believe that I would be engaged in the discussions of fixing a roof but I am, the air conditioning system is not working, What classes do we cancel, what classes do we add? Faculty and students, things come up that we have to make time and solve the situation. Homelessness for students that comes up student housing, so it’s such a wide range of things that you sometimes it’s hard to believe that we’re having those kinds of conversations, but that’s what it takes. You just do what is needed. And again, I tend to be a person or a leader. I have a leadership style where I like team approach to solving problems. And I think that I’ve been very successful at that as an interim president and I think people that are around you appreciate that. That they are listened to, but they are also empowered to be someone that contributes to the decision making. And so I think it has worked very well. At least while I’ve been here it has worked well thus far. And I’m sure it will continue to do that. For example, one of the things that I have been in consultation with the classified staff 1521A a the guild a union and one of the things that we have been able to work with on a professional level not so much the Union but also a group of classified members. Classified professionals. We have been able I have approved the the implementation of what is known as the Classified Position Identification and Prioritization Committee. I know we are really into its CPIP. And what that means is that every year when departments go through a program review process, they self evaluate, they come up with needs, and one of them may be the hiring of a classified professional. And in the past it was always left to the management and of course financing we always have to take that and everything was left out. But now by having a classified committee that can work in this they actually can get through. The classified professionals in this committee can actually actually review all of the requests and then they make a recommendation to the President. So we’re able to then have their engagement, the feedback of the classified professionals in the decision making process and that’s why I’m what I mean by something like a team approach to leadership.
RU: What kind of legacy would you hope to leave Pierce before you retire from interim president?
AA: I think that the number one legacy that I’d like to leave here would be the implementation of baccalaureate degrees.I think that access to baccalaureate degrees is going to be a game changer for community college but most importantly for community college students that need to have flexible schedules in their baccalaureate work, for example, be able to go part time because many of our students have families, they cannot go further. They need part time, they need to work while they’re in school. So baccalaureate level programs in there to meet their career goals that also are going to meet the needs of our employers in our community. And we’re very lucky we’re actually near an area that you know, we have CSUN and there’s various other universities and UCLA of course, but many of their majors are impacted. But these are degrees that are very unique to the workforce. They’re intended to serve employers in our area that need people to have a baccalaureate degrees. So also providing that gap that those that are currently working already. We can close that gap and actually go back and train people that maybe already have an AS degree, graduated from here, got a job, but now to go up in salary right to upskill these individuals to be able to give them the knowledge that they need to close that gap between the work that they do and other things that they can do within a company or an employer that can get a larger salary. For example, if they get more management or automotive with zero emission vehicles, we may have a lot of graduates that aren’t doing very well, but they need to learn more about zero emission vehicles. So there’s different pathways that we can pursue. And I would say that would be a legacy that I’d like to leave behind, the process and the opportunity for the students to do those kinds of programs here. Okay
RU: What kind of advice would you leave for the next interim president? I understand you were supposed to be retiring in 2022 and it’s almost December 2023 .
AA: I was. Yes, I actually was going to retire in 2021 and then I came here, but it’s truethat I was going to retire here. I still go back and forth. Sometimes I feel like okay, I’m gonna apply for the permanent stay. And other times I go okay, now it’s time for me to let it go and, and, and retire. I can still be engaged. I can still work on let’s say baccalaureate degrees here as a faculty member, so I can still come back. And I just work in a different mode. But I’ll see what happens. I’m still not 100% sure. But what would I say to somebody who comes in? I would say to remain flexible and stay focused on the student. If you do that, you be always you know, in staying on track with things, working with the people around here. We have a great strong team. So I think that the team here is very well prepared to bring in any president and we should still be on the same pathway because I think that the pathway that we are on, the things that we are doing and the things that we’re changing are all things that benefits everyone as a whole and so just stay on the path that has been charted out. And I think whoever comes in behind me should be fine. I think the institution is very well positioned to move forward to continue to work on pursuing grants that can support those goals. And I think there’s nothing holding Pierce back.
RU: Do you think that hybrid classes will become a standard in the classroom at Pierce College?
AA: You mean hybrid, or do you mean the high flex?
RU: A combination of both in person and zoom classes at the same time?
AA: I think that those days are here to stay. I think that the utilization of technology, instruction, both on campus and online, at the same time concurrently, is a model that well, I’ll repeat myself that classes that are both online and on campus concurrently with the same faculty and students in two different environments is something that not only creates flexibility for our students, but I think it’s going to at some point become almost an expected utilization of technology. I think for us, not to do it is going to just keep us where we’re at. I think we have to try and reinvent ourselves as much as we can each time. Learn from of course, learn from our experiences. There’s some great things to that type of setting. There are some negatives, of course. It is more stressful as a faculty member to do that kind of delivery. But I think it almost becomes an expectation of our students. And many institutions are almost 100% on this kind of modality. So I think that and also the amount of online education. I don’t think we’ll be back on campus. There are some disciplines that are more likely to remain online. It’s just more conducive for some disciplines. But I think it’ll still always be a mix of the two. Now what that percentage is going to be that I do not know. But it’ll probably be more on campus. Our students do better while on campus than online. I think it’s just that commitment coming in and that continued contact with the faculty member being, you know, being able to walk to the library, get tutoring, that kind of flexibility is there. Can you do that online? Yes. But that requires quite a bit of self motivation. And a lot of times that’s difficult especially if you’re busy and you’re working and have a life outside of the college. So I think that that’s difficult, but having said that, I think we still need to serve the community. And that person that needs to work all day, and then come home, be able to do their class online. I think that that still needs to be an option for our students.
RU: Ultimately, what do you think is the best way to increase enrollment?
AA: I think that the best way to increase our enrollment is to be aware of the data, look at the evidence, and continuously self-evaluate what areas are in high demand As I mentioned earlier, our science classes are in really high demand. I think that we also need to continuously build programs that are going to better prepare our students to transfer. For example, looking at what programs are there that maybe are not the exact career that someone was looking for, but maybe something complementary to that career where they can still be successful in it with employment and provide them that transfer pathway. So and really staying open to always being responsive to employer demand. I think if we look at industries that are growing, and building programs that meet those needs, and engaging inadvisory committees in different industries, for example, health care. I know we have a great nursing program here. But I think healthcare is a huge area of growth. If you look at any data trends, healthcare is one of the top industries where it’s just expanding. So we need to build a few more healthcare tracks. An example for it would be something like public health, and we build that program out. We have the majority of the classes already, we create a couple, two or three classes that are part of that pathway and transferred to CSUN and CSUN has got a public health baccalaureate and Master’s program. So you’re in health care, working in a different type of environment, if you decide eventually to become a nurse, or a nurse practitioner, those are very complimentary tracks that support success in the work environment outside you know in population studies and things of that nature, World Health Organization. So those are the kinds of things that we need to then we need to look at.
RU
And also focusing on offering enough sports, doing the bachelors, having Pierce accredited classes at high schools?
AA: All of those things. You captured it very well. But yes, absolutely. Reaching out to the high schools, continue that work. And so for example, we applied for a grant that supports what it takes to get and expand dual enrollment. So we were able to put resources into it as a result of the grant. So continue to pursue grants so that we can do these kinds of initiatives that are then going to complement our enrollment goals. There isn’t one right answer. It’s new programs, building out, looking at programs that are struggling for enrollment, and looking at that and say, why is it that we don’t have enough enrollment in these particular classes? What is it about this that we need to change and fix it? And we have a very unique opportunity. We have beautiful facilities in our equestrian area. We have the farm that needs some resources, and I think we need to look at our Animal Science and see what else we can do to build our vet tech program that just got reaccredited. So that was a great outcome this last year. So seeing how we can in very successful program, but what else can we do to build that out to to increase enrollment in those areas and outcomes in those areas. So the equestrian area would be one it is the building there is underutilized. We are going to commit to having horses year round and as a result of that, okay, so now that we have that, that now that we’re investing in that resource, what else can we do to build that area and as a result ends up happening is you end up with increasing your enrollment.
RU: Thank you very much.
AA: You’re very welcome.