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Opening quote

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- Life is about finding the people who get you and sticking with them. That encapsulates all of it.

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Students at ���۴�ý who find the place where somebody gets them, just stick with them.

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Just stick with them and you'll, you'll get over that mountain.

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- I wanna talk about your doctorate that you received here at ���۴�ý. Is this where CAA was born in your mind?

Founding of CAA

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- Yeah, well, CAA at this point in time is an inclusive collegiate partnership.

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So the first college that we were able to

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sit ourselves onto was West Valley College in Saratoga, California.

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We had gone through 10 plus years of just being all over the community in whatever

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space we could find. And it changed all the time. Our goal was to have an equitable spot on the college

1:02

campus for our students. Like other adults in the community have access to when they wanna go back to school, they go,

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if they wanna go to college, they go to the campus. And so whatever that campus is, we needed a campus space

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and just that central hub. And it took, just like with my University

1:22

of ���۴�ý program, it took a lot because it's like trying to get the brain around it.

1:27

Now what do you do again? And now is that, would it be like a department of our college

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and you know, just trying to explain what it is. So here's what it is. It's its own private nonprofit,

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charitable 5 0 1 c three.org program for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

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It's private college program. As a private college, it's providing, you know,

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professors and campus space and all the things that you would expect at a college. It's an equitable college for these adults

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who historically have not had access to structured high higher education in the same way

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that other adults have in our communities. And they're one of the last groups in our community that has really had the gate shut on them at the

2:15

college campus. And not, not because they don't want to educate them, they would ask all the time for ourselves and others.

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We, we were always going into meetings at colleges 'cause they were looking at how do we serve these adults?

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You know, how do we do it in an equitable way? And we would say, just put us on campus.

What is CAA?

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We have a program, it's all developed. We just need a place. And then to show how it works so we can replicate it on other campuses

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or other people could, we can start the movement. Just put us on your campus and the first college to say, we have space, we can do that.

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Come on over. Was West Valley the only one so far? And so we are forever indebted to them that it's our,

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our flagship campus there, just the creative

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forward progressive thinking of the West Valley Mission College District. So unbelievably supportive to our students.

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So we situated ourselves there. And then from there we've been

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able to put together the depth of programs

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that, that our students really expect when they're coming to tour college.

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- Tell me about some of those programs. - Well, we have 10 schools of study. So now we're a college of liberal arts.

3:35

Everything from science and, and dance and digital media studies with, you know, movie making

Schools of study

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and all that to communications and language studies, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, you know,

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whatever it is that they want to study. Our job is to come up with a way to make it happen in a school of study.

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And so they, our schools of study are very broad, like communications houses a lot.

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We have a brand new one that just opened up the School of Leadership and Civic engagement, which comes out

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of classes that were happening where the students really wanted to be able to work in

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that area during their class time as part of their structured learning. We have diploma tracks undergraduate, graduate,

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and postgraduate our students, as I said, with Downs Autism,

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any, any, any ability that they had come in with any learning ability.

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And people say like any level, but we really don't look at it as levels. It's just what are your strengths today

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and what are we working on as your next step? So their programs are progressive, where

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whatever it is that they need today is what they'll get in that class. They're gonna put in the hours of experience with

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and exposure to skills that are required to complete that class. And when they complete it, they get their credits.

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So we have students graduating with an undergraduate diploma from our college who are at all different areas

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of learning in different subject matter, but who have passions and have been pursuing them, things that they love.

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And then when they get into graduate studies, it, then in an even bigger way, it's how do we contribute with

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that in the community? How do we get out into the community with that? How do we start doing something with that?

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And then postgraduate studies is just again, how to maybe globally, so like locally, nationally, globally,

Student progression & diplomas

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just continuing to move out. We had some art students that were part of a global art exhibit, which is wonderful

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and inclusive global art exhibit to show their work, their meaningful work and just things like that.

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We, it's, it's based on what they want to do and what their goals are, of course, but we have those opportunities for them.

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And then if they finish their postgraduate diploma and they still wanna learn, then they can do a postgraduate too with another emphasis.

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And we're getting better and better as time goes by at being able to develop the infrastructure of

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administrative databases and all those things needed to manage transcripts and learning goals and helping the students

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and families understand where they are on their diploma journeys, you know, in their portals and just putting the,

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putting them in the driver's seat. Say, here's where I am, here's what I need, here's how I wanna do it.

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And I'm getting, you know, a, a larger and larger student advisory capacity going

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within our college. You know, when you're a, a startup nonprofit, still pursuing a code that really fits what you do

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and funding that really fits what you do. It's, it's an interesting task to try to build things

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and staff them and, and you know, you get really good at being, you know, le tiny but mighty and just bringing in everybody's ideas

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and you know, knowing that you don't have to invent every wheel. And that's what we really hope is to find other programs doing the same thing that we are

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with lifelong opportunities for unlimited numbers of students online, on site

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with all these different areas of study. And really focusing on getting adults everywhere.

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Anyone who wants to come in and learn to be able to find those opportunities, they can then learn to take actions on and move forward and,

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and make changes with. So we're looking for 'em. And I hope anybody that listens to this podcast that knows

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of a program will contact us. We have a lot of friends and programs that are those post senior or those like more finite number of people

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or number of years or whatever in different colleges and different communities. But we know they're out there

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and we don't wanna invent every wheel. And, and that's another thing, somebody that comes into the diploma program at University

7:43

of ���۴�ý, for example, say their doctorate 'cause that's where I was and they don't know where they're going,

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but they just know what they have a passion for. And maybe they don't have a job doing that right now, but it's something they'd like to do.

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That's, you know, that's really the key is to just as we're finding, to be able to get, to get

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what you are doing, put together in a way that you can share it with other people

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and get it encapsulated somehow so you can offer it. That's, that is such a tough thing

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to do when you know you're trying to figure it out yourself. And the, the assistance that I had in trying

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to put together the ideas that I had for our programs that were just, you know, how do I encapsulate that,

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as I've said, has been just invaluable. But for anyone encapsulating what it is that you are learning and what your specialties are becoming

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and finding out where you can take those to make a change. I think that's, that is one of the big things

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that I know the alumni program too wants to reach out and help people with that have come

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through programs at ���۴�ý and that is all of our goals. That is the goal. Yeah.

Why focus on adults?

8:55

- You had this experience with your daughter and then you created this incredible college.

9:04

When did you make the decision for it to be adults that are neurodivergent or IDD as opposed to children?

9:11

What, what, what was that that, - So that's a great question. We were coming up with all kinds of programs

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for my daughter, you know, at the age, age range of five to 22. And definitely five to 18 till they get out of high school.

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Lots of programs, lots of parents starting programs for the kids, you know, when they're at home

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and they're not, you know, independent or working on trying to become as independent as they can and maybe getting out of the home.

9:37

But when they're younger, there's a lot of programs in the Bay Area where we were so many

9:43

that you could never possibly take part in all of them. I mean, just wonderful things and all these startup things. I was singing all these new programs popping up,

9:50

popping then the theater and everything else. And so yeah, we, my co-founder

9:55

and I were working with the theater program previously for the kids and I was bringing my theater background when I

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went back for my master's and my daughter was diagnosed and I had to take the big break. I actually was looking at children's theater,

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taking children's theater out to teach kids about all kinds of, you know, lessons and equity

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and diversity and inclusion and all those wonderful things that we were embedding into the shows.

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And the show. One of the shows that I did when I first got with that group was, it was a musical version of The Odyssey

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for Children and I played Athena and it really was life changing because that group

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and that experience made me want to do that with the art form, you know, with my art.

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And so Athena was the second stage of my Alice, and it's Alice and Athena

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and I just love her, her owl, I didn't even think about it at the time. The, the wisdom and the, the, the owl is the symbol

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and the, yeah, it was just such a great experience. And then just that, that imagery of that, it was kind of cool for me.

11:01

So kind of the starting to then where I was going with it, with education and leading, you know, forward and,

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and trying to get out in front of it and just like, you know, Athena did with Odysseus, you know,

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so symbolic in different ways. It can make it whatever, you know, but find a lot in. But anyway, so I have Alice and Athena are my two things,

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but realizing doing that with the kids, that that was really a joy of mine. But then what happened was in that theater program that

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my co-founder and I were working on and my daughter was coming out of high school just finishing high school up,

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she was buddy coaching in it, so was my son. Our first musical was Wizard of Oz. And my son wore all black and had a dog puppet

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and he was toto, let's go this way, you know, was wonderful with them kinda like a buddy coach. And my daughter was buddy coaching Glenda

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and was able to do Glenda in one of the shows just for fun. So they, we were all involved in it

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and then all of a sudden, you know, the, some of our most beloved actors that had started with

12:01

that program were aging out and they couldn't come back and do a show and there was no adult theater program

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that they could just slide right into that was similar, approaching it the same way, which was everybody

12:13

of all abilities on stage together with this wonderful play that was the model was, it's beautiful

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'cause it's, theirs didn't have to look like anybody else's play. A lot of improvisation and fun and joy in music

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and collaborative camaraderie, everything I loved, right? Yeah. So that's what was being built there.

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So we thought, well let's do it for the adults and we'll make this college of adaptive arts. 'cause we had some town hall meetings

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and they were telling us they wanted a college and telling us the problem of not having college. Could it be a real college? Could you teach reading?

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And like, okay, so the first workshops that we did involved all kinds of different subject matter kinda in the arts.

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So everything was through the channel of the arts. And then as it moved forward, then we just started

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to develop more specific classes for those areas and then ended up with the schools of study and now it's a college of liberal arts with 10 schools

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of study and and on like that. So it's really a matter, I think often for families and for parents of really needing to be,

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and rightfully so focused on your child, the age that they are, what they have, what they need, and making sure that you're finding the programs

Arts as a foundation

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for them at that point. And then you do hit a point where a lot of people call it kind of the cliff of service drop off

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and it's not expected. There's a sense that there's gonna be so much there

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for them, they seem so happy in what they're doing and then all of a sudden it just kind of drops

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because, you know, there aren't the programs that the parents are creating and running and everything like there are for the younger kids.

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And for reason, there's reasons for that too. So that was something that we could contribute access

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to doing these whatever it is that they have a passion for and they want to be part

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of their life ways they wanna contribute to the community, whatever that is for them, that we could bring that to them.

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And so d and I would just say we're their agents, like I mentioned before, Dee and I were their agents

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and we just created the stage with the light on them. And we, if we look at an organizational structure

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for college of adaptive arts, the very bottom is us as co-founders and our board

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and our staff is up there kind of like this, you know, the people that are the stage managers and that you'll see out on the stage.

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But, but the, the students are the ones up on that stage, the community's really gonna see and it's their voice we want them to hear.

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And when there's ever an opportunity to, you know, be at city hall to talk about something to,

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there's no anything going on. We really hope the students can be the ones out there.

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And so that's where this new department of leadership and and civic engagement is coming in, is

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to really build up not just self-advocates and advocates for the college or,

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but to really build up those community leaders that are going to be able to step out on that same level.

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And just as CAA created an inclusive place for an inclusive model for higher education,

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have an inclusive model for community engagement. So we're all involved and their voices aren't just heard,

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but they're at an active part of change making and, you know, societal change and pursuing social justice.

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- CAA just sounds incredible and it sounds like it's really supporting people and giving people similar to your daughter,

15:27

that encouragement, that confidence to be able to your point to go out and serve and to create other environments for people like-minded

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or possibly in the same or similar situation, to also also feel empowered and confident.

15:43

So simply incredible. You've had so many students within this 15 years, right?

15:49

- Yeah, yeah. - Tell me one of the success stories. Tell me about what it looks like for people to go

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through this process and a particular person or two that had a re a really pivotal moment.

Student success stories

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- Yeah. Well there's one student in particular that I think of automatically.

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People say, oh, it's, you know, this college is really only for those who would be able to go to community college

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but might have a learning disability or they're very high functioning. So, and they, but, but what about, you know, our student who doesn't read

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and, you know, they just to understand it's for everybody. So we had a student come in who we thought was, you know,

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mostly everybody kinda thought was nonverbal, it was just selective speaking I think, but very nonverbal

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and had some physical issues, deformities and things going on and had not ever thought about being involved in different

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kinds of physical activities or arts that's physically, you know, dance, things like that.

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And so actually found out that they could participate in dance and came in

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and found their way that they were gonna bring their spirit to that art form.

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And it was incredible and, but didn't have the confidence to

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pursue other areas of learning. Like, for example, reading that was so difficult or science

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or, no, don't even talk to 'em about science. They don't want school, they don't want homework. We don't have homework by the way. So the students love that everything happens in class like

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it would if you were homeschooling everything's in class so that they get exposed to things with the instructor in a way

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that's guided and strategic and then they have home activities they can do, but it isn't about grades

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and being competing with other people. It's about where you are and moving that forward, whatever that ends up being by the end of the semester.

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So once the student comfortable with that, then started pursuing some of these other areas and ended up finding a huge love of poetry

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and literature and still is working on those reading skills that now has been exposed, not only exposed to

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but has experienced, you know, great literature that they never approached before. And being able to be part of conversations

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and get out into the community to present information

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or what have you in, in a way that they're speaking so wonderfully

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and communicating in their own communication style so beautifully because they have the confidence to do it

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and not even thinking about being nervous about it. So just overcoming all the boundaries of fear of failure

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and anxiety and those things that get in the way of really feeling like you could approach higher education

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and finding out that it can be for you and that it will be set up for you. And then being able to broaden the scope of

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what you're learning to the point where now you're in the community communicating, you're in the community dancing, you're in the community,

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sharing messages in so many different ways and impacting people. So that's really neat. And then another student who did go

18:56

to a community college, we was with us for several years. We did not know that

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that student actually got their diploma from that community college and they completed it,

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but they didn't have any place to put what they were interested in. And then that was journalism and working on a paper

19:15

and had always worked on school papers and was really active in the paper at that community college.

19:20

And we had no idea that their dream was to like be an editor right, of a paper and

19:25

or to create their own paper. And this they, they knew they could do it and how to do it,

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but what would the resources be and where would you have, where would you do that, where you'd have the support to be able to do that.

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And so we said, well, okay, let's start a paper. And so this was a graduate student who's now in our

19:42

workforce development program and we started finding more and more of this out and oh my gosh, you have

19:48

that much journalistic background. Bring us in your columns, let us see what you've written. And so her, her goal is to be a professor at the college

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and now she's producing our first Cardinal Times newspaper for our students and reporting on things.

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The students went to a Barracuda's hockey game, they're invited to go to Barracuda and she interviewed a player

20:09

and she wrote an article about that and they invited her to come and interview a player. And that was just incredible, you know, opportunities that

20:18

what journalist in the Bay Area has a chance to do that every day and know back in the clubhouse

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and you know, get involved. And so, and then a student that just recently discovered photography as an interest, who

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before thought he might like to maybe work in the classroom with, with fellow students

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and things as a staff member, maybe a goal for him. And then he got involved with photography in one

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of the classes with an amazing teacher and now he wants to be a photographer. So guess what? He's a photographer.

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He's the photographer for the, the times that the other student is the editor for.

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And they are the team that are building this paper up and now he's finding this area totally out of the box

21:01

and non-traditional. And he's going other places and doing photography for them

21:06

because he's learning how to take some great pictures and he's doing it just, you know, he loves what he does and if he can, you know,

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build into doing this vocationally in some way, it would just be a dream come true. And so not ever having explored that,

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he didn't even know he had that interest. And now he's the photographer, the the photographic journalist for our, for our paper

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that we're producing for our college. So just really neat stories like that all the time all around.

21:35

And those that really had an anxiety going back to school because they had felt like with maybe learning disabilities

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or whatever the issues were, some of them have had real extreme bullying in their past and they're just not sure it's a safe space.

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So we also have an arts behavioral model that is, you know, making sure that students are respecting each other

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and coming in with, you know, positive attitudes of, of supporting each other and that they can trust each other in that space.

22:02

And the old theater term of we're going to leave it at the door, we employed that we're going to be glad we're gonna leave it at the door.

22:09

And learning that is a skill. That's a, I mean that takes a while sometimes for students to be able to understand the concept

22:15

of leaving it at the door, but an important one path. And then in the interpersonal relationships,

22:21

not just at the college, but with feathers outside of it, you know, the more they're able to employ things like attitude

22:27

and respect and you know, mutuality in their relationships in their classes, then they will know how to apply that outside of class

Behavioral & social model

22:35

and be encouraged to do that. And we treat the class space as a professional environment and how you come into the space

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and how you interact with others in the space, which can be very new to our students. And so that's regardless of if they're there for one class

22:49

or 10 years, that's always gonna be a part of their learning process of those professional skills.

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And then we have a school of business now too for them to pursue, you know, other kinds of professional skills,

23:02

but you know, those social, cognitive, developmental skills that we work on within this curriculum

23:07

that really was shaped and, you know, put into a, a structure that you could share

23:14

and train, you know, with others that is the foundation of everything.

23:19

Not how high do you kick or how well do you write a sentence or you know, how you can, you do a,

23:25

a lab experiment on your own to prove a hypothesis. It's, you know, it's just

23:30

what is your personal best today in your areas of learning choice and what does it mean for you to move forward

23:38

to your next steps and to continue to do that throughout your life. - You've made a pivotal change for these students.

23:48

You've created a place for them to feel comfortable. You've created a place for them to feel powerful

23:53

and you've created a place in them to where imposter syndrome is something of the past.

23:59

And I could, I could only imagine how that had to be transformative for them, their future

24:06

and the next generations coming behind them. So for them, and I'm sure if I were to meet any of them,

24:13

especially the two that you had mentioned, one, a journalist, one a photographer, and doing this with the times

24:19

and also setting up the brand new paper for the college, congratulations and an awesome thank you.

24:26

And your faith, your, your optimism is clear.

24:32

Like it is part of the vision and it is part of the value of the college. And you could see it moving into your students as well

24:38

as they move forward in their life and in their careers. And that in itself is absolutely incredible.

24:45

So thank you for that. Thank you for driving through and pushing past, 'cause I imagine it couldn't have been all unicorns and glitter, there had

24:51

to have been within this 15 years a little bit. There had to have been some rub.

24:57

Was there, was there, was there any, what what challenges did you deal with within this 15 years getting to this point?

Biggest challenge: gaining support

25:04

- The biggest challenge is when people just aren't getting behind you. When you know that what you have can, can con when you know

25:11

that what you have is viable and it's, and and you just are trying to find the support

25:18

and no matter how much you talk about it, no matter how much how you put it out there, it's just not like

25:25

taking root, you know, and you know that it needs to, and it should and it can, and it's not, it's not hard to do.

25:32

This is just us all getting together to do it. You know, we're training our teachers, right? You could have taught somewhere else

25:38

for 20 years in special ed. We still are gonna need to train you in our methods. It may not be a good fit.

25:44

You know, it's like just teaching people what it's about and well, usually it is,

25:49

but you know, it's definitely coming in and learning how we teach in the classroom, which is very different. But that's the main thing is just getting people to get

25:57

behind what you're doing and what the students are doing. That's been the big challenge. And of course, as you're around longer

26:04

and longer in the community, people start to get it more and more understand it. You have people spreading the word for you,

26:10

but then they're talking to people that have never seen it. And it's really, it really requires people, meeting the students, seeing what we do

26:17

to really understand it, seeing it on that campus and understanding what kind of a, of a,

26:23

of a inclusive partnership that can be and how that brings these individuals in our communities

26:29

that haven't had access. How it brings them access and how it is such a social justice issue.

26:35

That, and funding, of course, always funding, but it comes, it's the right thing at the right time.

26:43

By no fault of our own. I mean, we were just, you know, told by everybody else it was the right thing at the right time.

26:48

And we jumped in and we always say, Dee and I, we call each other we're Sisters of the Swell,

26:54

which is this, this watercolor that she got. We have two women on surfboards, you know,

27:00

waiting for the wave. 'cause we always talked about, we didn't even know that we were kind of catching one at the time that we were,

27:07

that this really was so, such a big hole in our educational system.

27:13

And then you've gotta, it's exhausting to ride it, get up on it and try to ride it to shore. Then you get there and you feel like, oh, okay, we hit

27:20

that milestone and then, you know, you're soaking wet and you're tired and you're looking around and you see all of these other people with their surfboards

27:27

that were out there at the same time, you didn't even know were there. And then you're just saying, Hey, okay, let's, let's climb this hill together

27:33

and see if we can get into the valley over there, you know, and where you, and so, and you don't even know what's there,

27:38

but you know, you gotta go to something else. So you're all just climbing the hill together

27:44

and getting strength in each other. We call our supporters mountain movers. They really, truly are.

27:49

But you're climbing that mountain or trying to move that mountain, you know, and then you get to the other side and now you know, there's, there's, you know, somewhat

27:57

of a bounty over there to be able to try to, you know, be part of, but you know, is it gonna go, are,

Climbing the mountain together

28:05

are you gonna be at the table? Is someone else gonna be invited to the table? So now you're all over there looking for tables to be able

28:11

to sit at, you know, and we're talking about our students really, you know, being able to get them a seat at the table in these places.

28:18

And so just, you know, all the, all the work that's required to really just have that hope and optimism

28:25

and what you're doing founded in the fact that you know, that you've, you know, gotten where you are, that you have what you have underneath you,

28:31

but primarily you have that meta support, all those people that are climbing that mountain with you

28:37

and that together you can come up with the information and the resources required to stand on, to get

28:43

to each new level. Like when mountain climbers put in their hook, and I'm not a mountain climber, I'm gonna call it a hook

28:49

and a rope, you know how they have to do that, you know, and if you have multiple yeah. And somebody at the top, you know, helping you out

28:56

and you know, you have to learn to do it before then you can even really get on, get up there at all to any degree, which we had to learn, kind

29:03

of build our processes. So all those things were challenges, but it really is just primarily being able to continue

29:12

to communicate until you can just build that group around you that understands, gets it,

29:18

and wants to go there with you in anything that you do. - Absolutely. Dr. Pamela, you were phenomenal.

29:24

And the, the things that you've accomplished with your partner and, and simply your, your goals

29:30

and aspirations moving forward, wanting to be able to touch and serve more so that they can feel more successful and empowered.

29:39

It's admirable. And so we are proud that you are a university ���۴�ý alum.

29:45

We are so, so grateful that you joined us today in sharing your story. I know that the listeners

29:51

and the viewers are definitely going to be able to get something from this that brings us to the end

Closing remarks

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of this episode of Degrees of Success. I'm your host, Frida Richards.

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Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe and remember that your next chapter just

30:07

might be your best one yet. See you soon.