President/CEO Message

October 21, 2021

This President/CEO Message is late because I was watching the Dodger game last evening with Kamilo Ali Curry. Like many of you, I was excited the Dodgers won. In the President/CEO Message - October 29, 2020, President/CEO Message - December 14, 2020, and the President/CEO - April 8, 2021, I shared my involvement in the University of California, Davis, School of Education's Wheelhouse Institutes. I want to share the "A Foot in the Door - Growth in Participation and Equity in Dual Enrollment in California" report published by Wheelhouse. This is a fascinating report, and below are some key points from the report:

The number of students participating in dual enrollment is growing with each cohort, and significant growth is coming from participation in HS-Only courses.
Community college courses that are designed for high school dual enrollment are clearly on the rise
Students' opportunities to take community college courses are often determined by the high schools they attend.
Latinx students have the highest participation rate in HS-Only courses at 18.6%
The evidence on HS-Only dual enrollment programs offers a promising picture of access to this important opportunity for historically marginalized high school students.
The expansion of HS-Only courses in the California Community Colleges embodies an important partnership across segments to reach students historically underserved by dual enrollment and underrepresented in College.

At the Tuesday, October 19, 2021, Compton Community College District Board of Trustees meeting, Dr. Nelly Alavardo, Director of Educational Partnerships, provided a Dual Enrollment Presentation, which is available here. On page 23, which shows the Dual Enrollment Student Counts from 2016-2020, the Dual Enrollment at Compton College has more than doubled since 2016. Please note, the following updates have been provided on Compton College's relationship with our K-12 partnerships with Compton, Lynwood, and Paramount unified school districts in multiple President/CEO Messages:

President/CEO Message - November 23, 2020, and President/CEO Message - November 16, 2020, talked about the $100,000 donation from Believe in Students to Edquity to support our dual enrollment students. Nearly 850 dual enrollment students from the Compton and Lynwood unified school districts received $114 in the fall 2020 semester.
President/CEO Message - October 5, 2020, talked about the "Dual Enrollment Playbook" released by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, at Columbia University, and the funding from the College Futures Foundation to create our own Compton College Dual Enrollment Handbook. We are still working on completing the Compton College Dual Enrollment Handbook.
President/CEO Message - September 3, 2020, provided dual enrollment student and success data from the past five years. More details and the ability to disaggregate the data are available on our Dual Enrollment Dashboard.
President/CEO Message - July 16, 2020, listed the external funding sources for many of our initiatives, including $40,000 from the Pritzker Foster Care Initiative to hire a Dual Enrollment Specialist, and with the support of this grant, promote college enrollment for foster youth in feeder high schools.
President/CEO Message - May 29, 2020, talked about the monthly meetings with our partner districts and the number of sections being offered at the high school sites; three new Dual Enrollment Specialists who began on June 1, 2020; the funding for those positions; and tied our commitment to our dual enrollment programs to our enrollment strategies included in Compton College 2024 and the 2024 Enrollment Management Plan.

We are doing a lot concerning Dual Enrollment, and special thanks to everyone that has been involved, including the faculty, Classified Staff, and the many managers/supervisors. Dual Enrollment across California will continue to increase, and I anticipate our local high school districts will be requesting additional dual enrollment courses soon. The President/CEO Message – October 21, 2021, includes COVID-19 information and other campus-related updates.

Compton College COVID-19 Update

Los Angeles County's Daily COVID-19 Data webpage reports 1,267 newly recorded confirmed cases in Los Angeles County as of 6 p.m. on October 20, 2021. For more information, go to publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/. As of October 18, 2021, 79% of Los Angeles County residents have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine; and 71% are fully vaccinated. For detailed vaccine information, including individual city data, go to publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavirus/vaccine/vaccine-dashboard. Compton College is operating at Level 3 - Moderate Infection Rate according to the Compton CCD Pandemic Outbreak - Emergency Operations Plan.

Updated Wellness Survey

An updated Wellness Survey went live at 4:00 p.m. yesterday. The survey will now be completed via a Microsoft Office Form versus Qualtrics. Please use the "Daily Wellness" survey tile via MyCompton or use bit.ly/Compton-Wellness-2021-2022 for entry to campus.

Fall 2021 Enrollment Update

As of today, October 21, 2021, Compton College has generated 1,296 FTES for the fall 2021 term. Our fill rate is currently 61%, and our seats filled is 9,095. Click here to view today's enrollment snapshot.

Please encourage interested students to check the Searchable Class Schedule, which can be found online at www.compton.edu/studentservices/admissionandrecords/ClassSchedule, for the most up to date information on open sections. A variety of eight-week classes offered the same credit as full-semester classes began on October 16, 2021. Please note that once a class starts, an authorization code from the instructor is required to add it if any spaces remain. Interested students should email the instructor as soon as possible. The last day to add a second 8-week class is Monday, October 25, 2021. Please refer to the Fall 2021 Short-Term Calendar for more details.

In addition, the Winter 2022 Schedule of Classes is now available online. Registration for the five-week Winter Term begins on Tuesday, November 2, 2021.

Food Truck Tuesday - Free Hamburgers for Compton College Students

All currently enrolled Compton College students are invited to stop by Lot A and pick up a free hamburger courtesy of the Associated Student Government Tuesday, October 26, 2021. Marolyn's Old Fashioned Burgers will be serving free hamburgers (beef or turkey) with French fries and a soda from 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Students must show their Compton College student ID or their fall 2021 class schedule.

Student Survey to Inform Spring 2022 Scheduling

The Office of Intuitional Effectiveness is administering a "Student Survey to Inform Spring 2022 Scheduling" to students. Current Compton College students were emailed a link to the online survey via their @compton.edu email accounts. Click here to read the email. The survey asks students about how they want to take classes (online or in-person), challenges they are experiencing related to their education, and other considerations about spring 2021 that may inform how the College offers classes in spring 2022. The deadline to complete the survey is Wednesday, November 3, 2021.

FREE Resources Available for Fall Students

It is not too late to apply for free resources for the fall semester. Laptops, Wi-Fi hotspots, calculators, meals & food vouchers, headphones, and financial assistance are available to currently enrolled students via the Student Resources Form, available here. Edquity emergency grants are available to fall 2021 students who have experienced financial hardship and expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information and to apply for a grant or free resources, go to www.compton.edu/studentservices/student-equity-program/student-resources. Questions? Send an email to tartarsupport@compton.edu.

Fall 2021 President/CEO Virtual Student Forums

Compton College students are invited to meet with me virtually via Zoom Meeting to discuss matters affecting them personally or the College community at large. A virtual forum is scheduled for November 17, 2021, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Click here for more information, including the Zoom Meeting link.

Employee Mental Health Support

As an employee of Compton College, you have access to virtual and on-site mental health support services provided by St. John's Well Child & Family Center. To schedule a confidential appointment, email ifernandez@wellchild.org. Additional mental health support is available through Employee Assistance Service for Education (EASE) at 1-800-882-1341. These services are accessible to all faculty, Classified staff, and managers/supervisors. The "October 2021 issue of "Connect with EASE" focuses on Emotional Wellness Month and the importance of boundaries. For access to previous newsletters and wellness articles, click here.

Closing the Loop

As part of the annual program planning process for 2021-2022, multiple funding sources were reviewed to support as many recommendations as possible across the campus. The Annual Planning at Compton College Report summarizes the Planning Cycle for 2021-2022 Academic Year, including Prioritized Funding Recommendations. Today, I am announcing the approved recommendations for Enrollment Management. Please note, I held off on approving these recommendations to allow the Enrollment Management Committee another opportunity to review the proposed funding recommendations. Below are the approved funding recommendations:

Enrollment Management Funding Request	Amount	President/CEO Recommendation
Multimedia Advertising for bus shelter ads, and the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).	$16,000	Approved
Develop and implement a social media plan for social media campaigns to inform and direct interested candidates to apply by targeting high traffic online social media resources (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn).	$3,500	Approved
Translate the Dual Enrollment Student & Parent Orientation materials to Spanish as requested by unified school district partners. Pay salaries and benefits of two Dual Enrollment Specialists salary after December 31, 2021. One of the DE Specialists is currently paid from the College Futures Foundation, and the other is paid via Pritzker Foundation, and both funds will expire after December 31, 2021. These two positions are critical to support our Dual Enrollment efforts.	$66,000	Not Approved. We will explore other funding sources to support these positions.
Printing, postage, multimedia advertising for outreach campaigns. Graduate Communications has already developed a flyer and brochure, and the funding request will address the printing of the materials.	$1,500	Approved
Fall 2021 and spring 2022 welcome week prizes/incentives for students. Past prizes have consisted of technology items from the bookstore to gift cards to a virtual escape room.	$5,000	Approved
For additional units for emails and text messages, via Sparkpost and Twilio.	$5,000	Approved

In total, I approved $67,000 in funding. As I mentioned in my communication to the Enrollment Management Committee, I am hopeful the committee will forward me recommendations for allocating the remaining $33,000 in Enrollment Management funds. These funds are allocated for the above requests for the 2021-2022 year only.

Final Thoughts

In closing, I wanted to share the "A College for All Californians: A History of the California Community Colleges" book that was released today. This book provides the first comprehensive written history of California's community colleges - the largest and most diverse public higher education system in the United States. This book has been added to the President/CEO Reading list for fall 2021, and the original reading list was included in the President/CEO Message - August 30, 2021.

Please have a great weekend. And be safe!

Keith Curry, Ed.D.
(preferred pronouns: he/him/his)
President/C.E.O.
Compton College