Embracing New Ways to Learn, Teach, and Connect – Nick Gomez and Sumer Avila, San Joaquin Valley College

Dr. Rishi Desai: Hi, I'm Dr. Rishi Desai. Today on Raise the Line, I'm happy to be joined by Nick Gomez and Sumer Avila, of San Joaquin Valley College. 

Nick Gomez is the president of SJVC, where he balances his extensive operations background with leadership abilities to implement strategic long and short-term goals for the college.

Sumer Avila is provost at SJVC, where she oversees regional accreditation and programmatic compliance processes and supports strategic accreditation initiatives. She's responsible for ensuring equity and integrity of the college's educational programs. Thank you so much both of you for being with us today.

Sumer Avila: Thank you for having us.

Nick Gomez: Good to be with you.

Dr. Rishi Desai: I'd love to start out by having both of you — maybe, in turn, Nick and then Sumer — tell us about yourself. What brought you to the positions you're in currently at SJVC?

Nick Gomez: Yeah, happy too. Good to be on the show today with you. It's a great story. I'm happy to share it. I actually started with humble beginnings in the college. I was a faculty member, a part-time faculty member, and it wasn't necessarily my intended career path. I finished my MBA, and I knew somebody who had shared with me that there was a need at the campus to teach an accounting course.

So I went with the intent to teach an accounting course, which I did, of course, and fell in love. I just fell in love with the idea of helping people learn something they didn't know before, and of getting to be an integral part of that, and it definitely filled my cup. So just in a short capture if I offered that to you, some 16 years on now, I have the distinct honor of being able to lead to college as president.

I started as a faculty member, went through a number of positions over the course of those 16 years, as you'd imagine, to now have the privilege of being president at the college. And that kind of gives you a summit view, just a snapshot. My heart is with the academics. That's what tied me to what we do, and then I got the distinct honor to apply operational knowledge to make sure we do it successfully. And I'm supported by a great team. Sumer is here with us as well to be able to share about that.

Dr. Rishi Desai: That's fantastic. Sumer, what is your story?

Sumer Avila: I came to SJVC after 10 years in public education. I was a teacher or an administrator and had done extensive staff development initiatives. From that, I entered the college as the Director of Instruction. My original position was academic in nature, training deans and program directors, and our faculty to ensure effective instruction in every classroom.

Over the course of my time with the college, I spent five years leading campus operations in a region in the Central Valley, and really enjoyed that time. Building teams and building people is my favorite thing to do, and I'm extremely passionate about that. I made my way back into academic affairs recognizing I have extensive experience in that arena. Now I serve as the provost of the college.

Dr. Rishi Desai: What are some of the programs you offer. and in which programs are you seeing the most demand these days?

Sumer Avila: That's a great question. SJVC is a very unique institution. We offer programs at the certificate, the associate, and the degree level in three domains. We have business programs, we have medical programs, and we have technical programs.

There's a wide variety of demand, given the middle-skill gap that we're experiencing here in the U.S. We are seeing increased demand in the trades programs—electrician and heating ventilation air conditioning technology. We're also seeing increased demand in our medical programs, as health care workers are needed more readily.

Dr. Rishi Desai: With the technical programs, I'm curious what sort of technical programs within that subset are you seeing the most demand for? In medical as well. Are there certain ones that you're seeing more demand for, now that COVID is upon us, versus what you saw pre-COVID?

Sumer Avila: It's an interesting question. The demand has been growing in our technical programs for some time, and it's continued to grow in the face of the pandemic. We're also expanding across the state of California. We're meeting the demand through our own growth as an institution.

We have a handful of programs with programmatic accreditation where we have set enrollment capacity based on those accreditors. You think of nursing programs, both registered nursing and licensed vocational nursing: We're only able to sit our allotted amount annually, but we are seeing increases in applications received.

Dr. Rishi Desai: That makes sense. Nick. Playing off COVID again, what adaptations have you seen or what changes have you seen among the campuses that have affected things like enrollment rates?

Nick Gomez: Sure. COVID is amazing. We agreed as a team that we would stop using the word “unprecedented” because it seemed to lose its value after a certain period of time. But it was real in the way that we were experiencing it, and the way it challenged us to do the things we do.

Adaptation was crucial. Right at the outset, when we all had to go remote, the biggest form of adaptation was, how do we support our students by getting technology in their hands—which came to take the form of iPads—so that they could connect with us and we could offer delivery of content? How do we prepare faculty to take what was a face-to-face interaction and be better positioned to do that remotely?

Those were two key constructs that we had to tackle. There were a host of other things in between that time period—communication challenges, and things of that nature—but that was really at the root of how we connected the people, being the students and the faculty, with support from the overarching structure to deliver content that was integral. Adaptation was key.

Now within that, enrollment is the same thing. Our past context had been: Students would call out of interest and we would invite them to come to the campus so they could see the campus and see if this was a fit for them, where would be a fit for them. That was the way in which we did that predominantly. As soon as we move from off-campus, how do you do that?

Dr. Rishi Desai: Right. Exactly.

Nick Gomez: We had to pivot pretty hard, and develop some tools that would allow us to share with a prospective student: “What is the campus? What are the programs? And how would your interaction look with these if you chose to do this,” right? “And how do we continue to engage with you to ensure that this is a good choice for you? And here's all the information involved in that.”

So the same construct had to happen, but remotely instead of in person. It was a dynamic piece that definitely pushed us to adapt, but I'm extremely proud of the team and the feedback loops that we had in place to continue to get better at that. That should in no way imply that there weren't impacts. We did see impacts with enrollment, and I think that had a lot to do with people and the things they were going through in their lives.

But I think we've done far and above what we could do to ensure that we're connecting and providing the information that people need to make informed decisions about whether or not the school's a good choice for them, in the current context. I feel good about that.

Dr. Rishi Desai: I'm curious, Nick. When you have individuals previously coming on campus, having that in-person experience, and now you're doing that more remotely, do you have situations where folks don't feel comfortable with just getting content online? Where they don't feel like they're getting what they bargained for, and that maybe for them the value of education is being lost somehow? And if so, how do you communicate with that person or that family to say like, "Hey, we think that this is equal, maybe at parity, with what you were expecting?”

Nick Gomez: The first thing I would offer to you is we're not trying to convince anybody of anything, right? What we more so want to do is share with them what we offer, and if it meets them where they are, then encourage them to join us. But to your point, if somebody doesn't feel that that's a deliverable that works for them, they likely don't enroll. So that's the definitive takeaway from that piece.

I will shift to the current context, which is more encouraging for us and for the individuals. We’ve largely shifted back to campus now. With our coming out of what was a wholesale lockdown in effect associated with COVID, we've been able to find ourselves back on campus, practicing all the proper PPEs and protocols necessary to ensure people's safety. But opening that space back up to people again so that it's not such a distinctive proposition for them to consider.

"Do I do this completely remote, or don't I do it now?" Now it's, again, about: "What's my degree of comfort going to campus? What's my degree of comfort in what the organization is doing to ensure, to the degree it can, our safety in doing so, and do I want to do that now?" We're finding ourselves shifting back now, and we're encouraged to be able to offer students the opportunity to come and see the campus.

The cool thing is that we have both now. We are going back to campus. Students are able to come there and see it. But if that doesn't fit for a student now, we've developed the capacity to now engage with them remotely. It's a cool outcropping of something we didn't intend, but now we've developed a competency, and now can better meet students where they are, which is the key thing that we love to do.

Dr. Rishi Desai: That makes sense. It sounds like a really, really nice silver lining. Maybe not even just a lining, but kind of a really nice tangible benefit of COVID. It may have sped things up from what you were doing previously. I'm curious: It's pretty chaotic in these times, with logistics and supply chains. And you're offline, like you said, strictly, and now you're kind of transitioning to a blended environment.How do you keep communication smoothly flowing both with students but also among faculty? You were once a faculty member, Nick, as you pointed out. How do you keep everyone on the same page so that it's not like all the cats are moving in different directions?

Nick Gomez: Well, first I want to talk about that word “smoothly.” I think there's a lot of implication in that. I don't know if “smoothly” would be always the best way to describe it [laughs]. But to the core root of it, how do you ensure effective communication? It's constant, and it's pulses, and no one of us individually can really do that effectively: It's us as a team and as a community doing that. What we find amongst each other is a constant communication thread.

We have maximized the use of Teams at a level that I don't think we had ever anticipated as others are doing with Zoom and similar pieces. But we have our one-on-one connects on an ongoing basis throughout the college. We've continued to offer our interactions with Teams in what we call our executive council meetings and in all-faculty and staff meetings through both a remote modality, and now, more recently, in some more in-person context.

Each one of those serves as a communication vehicle within our structure, because it engages audiences in a moment we share. Overlaying that is a constant stream of connections like this, where we see each other and talk with each other through the technology that's available to us—emails, phone calls, and intermittent visits in between. So those are the mechanisms.

At the root of your question now is ownership from us at a leadership level to share and to own with our campuses, that we owe it to each other to communicate effectively, both our challenges and our successes. We look to model that in all that we do and look for the same from the individuals involved. Sumer, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

Sumer Avila: I would just add that one of the benefits of transitioning to remote trainings and meetings is it has afforded us that serve the entire institution the ability to attend more campus meetings and trainings than we could before. Every Friday, I am attending a faculty development session on one, two, or three campuses all throughout the state because they're being held on a platform that I can get to easily. And so, I can be in Ontario up until 10 a.m. and at 10:01 a.m. I'm in a meeting in Rancho Cordova, and that was never possible before. I can connect directly with all stakeholders as a function of our transition, and that's really exciting.

Nick Gomez: Such a great point, Sumer. I appreciate you bringing that up.

Dr. Rishi Desai: You brought up, Sumer, the fact that one of your program threads or verticals is in healthcare, and you have a fixed number of RN and LVN seats. I'm curious about the motivations. Do you see any difference in terms of the kinds of folks that are reaching out to join these programs in light of the fact that we have this huge pandemic? We've also seen this huge focus on making sure that we remember that frontline workers are heroes and that they're carrying on an important mission. Has that changed at all the types of candidates for the programs?

Sumer Avila: I think, and we believe as an organization, that getting in touch with the “why” of what brings students to us at the onset is very important and that's been a part of our process for a long time. There has been some transition over the last year, outside of just looking to get into a career. Although recognizing that healthcare is booming as a career is still part of what is drawing students.

You will hear stories of folks who interacted with healthcare workers as a result of the pandemic and were touched by what these healthcare workers did for them, and they want to be a part of that. Or the essential worker movement. Or as you shared, the recognition that there are heroes among us is drawing on individuals to join those fields. You are hearing that more than we did in the past, with students that are coming to us. They want to be a part of that, for the betterment of our communities.

Dr. Rishi Desai: When folks graduate from these health care programs, I'm curious if they get placed in jobs, if you help support them in applying for jobs? How does that work? And then the final part is, how did the employers then get pulled into the training itself? Do they get a say in terms of what is taught, how it's taught, and things like that?

Sumer Avila: Yes, all of the above. We're a career-focused organization. We're educating these students with the intent that they will be launching into their careers. We begin discussing that at the onset of their interest with the college. During their orientation, they meet their career service advisors who are working with them all throughout. We have individual activities integrated throughout the program. We’re focused on resume-building, interview skills.

There are several components of professionalism that are part of our institutional learning outcomes that we would see all of our graduates as having. And we have a career services department that is deeply connected with the community. Several of our programs have an externship, or a clinical component where students are out in the field during their last module or term, and they're getting on-the-job experience. That can be a launching pad towards employment.

We also have connections with employers in each community that we serve all throughout the state for our online students. Those employer relationships—seeing employers coming to campus, interacting with our students, doing presentations, serving on our advisory board… There are times that at advisory board meetings, they're interviewing graduates and hiring them right there. It's a wonderful thing that I've experienced personally.

Those advisory boards and those externships, or clinical relationships, are two vehicles where we do get direct feedback from employers that are integrated into our program review cycle. And their feedback helps us determine what revisions need to be made at the course level in terms of learning outcomes, new technologies, or concepts that we should be teaching. Feedback from our graduates and our extern students informs how we improve, so that we're meeting the needs of the employers in the communities that we serve.

Their voice is very important. It is a triangulation with the standards that are set by the program, our own faculty's experience as subject matter experts that they're bringing, and the employers that we're serving. As we bring all that together, it helps inform, and also revise, our program each year.

Dr. Rishi Desai: I'm trained in the medical model, and I'm curious: You mentioned a couple of nursing programs—and I'm sure there are other health care programs you run. I'm curious how they've changed. For example, what are some things that you all are teaching now, and if you were to wind back the clock and look back 10 years ago, 20 years ago, you'd be like, "Wow, that's actually quite different?”

Sumer Avila: Electronic medical records. They’ve definitely come a long way in the time that we've been in the college. The transition from analog to digital has been a big transition in several of our programs. In dental and even in our veterinary technology program, there's been increases in technology there.Also in some of our roles, the scope of the role has changed over time. When you think about our respiratory therapy program, respiratory therapists, and shifts in the medical field, which I'm sure you're familiar with, there's a greater sense of team collaboration, right? As we're training nurses and surgical technologists, and respiratory therapists, there's interdisciplinary work that we're now teaching. A collaboration in communication as the shift to inpatient care has been made in the industry. We see that shift simultaneously in our programs.

Nick Gomez: I would offer another piece in that change is the integration of simulation. High-fidelity simulation has been a powerful piece. It was out of necessity in some regard. We had to make sure we understood programmatic allowance for it because its variable based upon the discipline.

But the idea of using simulation in that space to augment the students understanding of how to apply a skill set before or in tandem with when they're in a clinical environment is fantastic. We've been able to see that really pick up a pace in this environment that will now carry forward as well, which is pretty cool.

Dr. Rishi Desai: As a former faculty member, Nick, just drawing on that experience, I'm curious, how do you train the faculty to teach these new things? And also, how do you want to teach them, how do you get them up to speed, given that they may have been trained themselves in an era when these things were not around or not taught?

Nick Gomez: It's all about training faculty. I'm reliant on Sumer, but I'll offer to you my overview. We very much engage with the manufacturers as well. When we get a high-fidelity mannequin, for example, and bring that to bear, it is in a pretty involved system. We have an agreement with the manufacturer to come out and do training, installation. And then we look to build the knowledge base within the participants at that given site so that they too can apply it. That is a key aspect right at the forefront because you're right, it's a different form.

Sumer Avila: Yeah, I would offer that fundamentally, we approach teaching, which we equate with training, from using what we know about adult learners. Both with our students and with our instructor, sharing the “why”—the value that's in it for them, and then organizing, in this instance, professional development based on what we know about brain-based learning.

This means setting the environment up so that the information can be received. Having clear strategies to help them unlearn previous concepts. It's harder to unlearn and relearn than it is to learn something new for the first time. We do take great care when we're seeing a transition that would require some unlearning for faculty, especially folks that may be coming from the industry.

Dr. Rishi Desai: This is a question for both of you, in turn. We have, on this program, a focus on teaching. We try to fill in any knowledge gaps folks may have, any myths that they may want to dispel. Maybe, Sumer, you can go and then Nick. Are there any kind of knowledge gaps you can think of that you'd like to share with our audience, keeping in mind that we have a lot of folks that are early career folks or just starting in their medical journeys?

Sumer Avila: Yeah, I think the advances in technology have changed some of how we as learners are receiving information. There's a body of research on thinking about, like when you're watching a movie, how many times that scene is shifting to keep our attention. As learners, the greater clarity we can gain on how we learn and how we need to organize information when we're learning based on how our brain has been adjusting to our own technology use is very important.

The process of getting information from exposure into working memory and then long-term memory really varies. We're seeing that more pronounced as technology integration and stimulation have increased over time. I just offer that as something that's always been true, but that we're experiencing as learners more and more.

The better we can get in touch with ourselves and our learning styles, the better we'll be able to engage with whether that's a course we're taking or, just like we shared, we're out in the field and a new machine comes. What do I need to do as a learner so I can best fully understand and develop my competency in utilizing this new tool or system?

Dr. Rishi Desai: That makes sense.

Nick Gomez: That's a great point, Sumer. And I don't know if I'll be speaking necessarily to a knowledge gap as much as a great opportunity to speak to your audience in as much as they're listening. I think there's this wonderful opportunity that these individuals have gone through some degree of training or education themselves before they find themselves in these fields. And as you note, they're early in the process, what are they able to do or in a position to do to encourage and support those that are coming in behind them?

They've already walked this path to a degree. While they're at the beginning of it, they're further along than those just coming out of an educational institution like ours. And so, how do they be that bridge for those people coming in, to the degree they can, and having mindfulness to that? It's not a knowledge gap per se, but it is a connectivity gap.

The pace of a medical environment is highly demanding. I've had the opportunity to go walk in these locations and meet with people and I am awestruck at times by the degree of pieces in their field of view, and these are life and death scenarios while they're still managing operational needs and working with each other in the process. That can be daunting, I imagine, right?

For someone just coming out of an education into that environment, it can be even more so. So anybody who's in that environment, who's had that experience and knows it, put yourself out there. Have an opportunity to connect with somebody who's just putting their feet down for the first time, and recognize they're part of that team and allow them to be on that path with you.

Dr. Rishi Desai: That's fantastic. And maybe then, to contextualize this, we're going through COVID, it's still here with us. I'm curious, what are some things that you'd advise someone as they’re emerging through this COVID economy and learning state? What are the things that they can do to get their sea legs and make sure that they're making the right decision around pursuing a career in healthcare?

Nick Gomez: Sumer, you want to take a stab at that?

Sumer Avila: Sure. I think recognizing that adaptability and flexibility are needed now more than ever. As you're thinking about pursuing a career, asking yourself, "Would I be okay if it looks slightly different in two to three years?" and really feeling comfortable with the fact that if you're entering health care, that it's an evolving field. We shared some examples of how it is dramatically different.

But most importantly: Do you want to make a difference in the world? Because that's the beautiful part about becoming a health care worker. You are in your everyday experiences going to positively change people and their family's life for years to come. That's a wonderful question. Do you want to be a hero in someone else's life?

That's really what I would hope that they would be asking themselves and that they would be saying yes to. And then have comfort in knowing that the unprecedented evolution that we've experienced has also shown that there's a lot of opportunity in these fields because we don't know what the future will bring. If you have that flexible, adaptive mentality, the sky is the limit when you're entering this industry.

Nick Gomez: That was well said.

Dr. Rishi Desai: Fantastic. Well, that is a great note to end on. I think that idea of getting folks ready to become heroes on the front line is very inspiring and certainly a big part of why people find purpose in their life. I appreciate the fact that both of you are helping them accomplish that through their education. Thank you so much, both of you, for being with us today.

Nick Gomez: Good to be with you.

Sumer Avila: Thank you for having us.

Dr. Rishi Desai: I'm Rishi Desai. Thanks for checking out today's show. Remember to do your part to flatten the curve and raise the line. We're all in this together.