Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome back to Data and Donuts, my name is Aaron, I'm here with my friend and colleague, Dr. Vince Rodriguez. Today, me and Dr. Rodriguez are going to talk a little bit about enrollment management. But before we get into that conversation, I'd like Dr. Rodriguez to tell us a little bit about himself.

Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Aaron. So for those that don't already know me, I've been in higher education for 23 years. I started off in our distance learning department, became the dean of distance learning, was the vice president of instruction for the last eight years. And then starting last week, I became the president of Coastline College. So I've had all those time at one institution in those variety of roles. So that's helped to inform me as we start talking about data and other things.

Speaker 1: Excellent. And so with our first question, what data do you look at in regards to enrollment management?

Speaker 2: Well, I think it all depends on what is my role is an important factor in that. So when I was vice president of instruction, the first thing I was always looking at is what are enrollments? What is the full time equivalent students that we're likely to be able to get out of those enrollments? And how about that affect the income that's going to come to our college and our district as a result of that? But the other one that is important for me to look at or has always been there is our efficiency numbers. What is the average enrollment, the number of weekly student contact hours to the number of equivalent faculty, the number of students to faculty, whichever way is the most comfortable way for you or your district or there's many different ways to do the same thing of level of efficiency would be the next thing that I would look at. And then lastly, more holistically is what degrees and certificates are being completed? What are the totals? And digging a little deeper, starting to disaggregate more of that information of who is completing these degrees and certificates and who are we missing? I think right now and for the last 15 months, I think more and more our colleges are focusing on not only who did we serve and who was successful, but who didn't we serve and who was not successful.

Speaker 1: That's a great set of components to look at, especially as we start digging into the equity variables and looking at the opportunities to help students and help change the narrative of what we've seen in the past. And so with that, as you put together enrollment management plans over the time, who's in that conversation and who's a part of your enrollment management planning team?

Speaker 2: Everybody's a part of that team. But I'll get to really the specifics of it. First off, we want to include people from all aspects of the college. Early on, I will admit that I was focusing with me as a dean and then a vice president with our instructional team, with our instructional deans, and what was the schedule of classes and how efficient were we? But as we became more organized and we became a more holistic overview of how we were managing enrollment, our student services vice president and managers and team, along with myself, became a cohesive team and we did that together. Because it doesn't matter how well we do or how poorly we do as far as the enrollments and students completing degrees, there's also, they interact with student services. They interact with people from the entire college. So it was important that we bring everyone together. So right now, that team is actually led by the vice president of instruction and student services. So make sure that those areas are heavily involved. We also invite people from our administrative team so that they can also have input. Because oftentimes, just like many other parks, theme parks and so forth, the people that get the most questions are usually the ones out on the grounds. Most definitely.

Speaker 1: And I think that's really cool to have that team-driven approach. It's really cross-functional in nature, which really helps, I think, tell the story as opposed to one or two people trying to navigate some numeric data. And so as I start thinking about this, when you put together with the team here, the last enrollment management plan, we did something with the equity audit to really look at the language we're using. Can you explain that a little bit?

Speaker 2: Yes. We were fortunate. We had some of our deans and directors helped us with that. So we turned to them and said, help us do this. We had sent them to some of the equity workshops at USC, and they came back and said, this is what we learned. So we took our equity plan, which I'm trying to think, Erin, you probably remember it better than I do, but we have anywhere, our plan will be anywhere from 12 to 20 pages of our plan. And we identified multiple people to check each section. And within that, see, how well did we address equity? Did we talk? Did we use equitable language when we did that? Or did we pick wording that itself is not equitable? And did we address equity as we talked about that section? So you're looking at equity from a variety of different lenses as we looked at that plan. And it was quite interesting, even when you broke it down to just a couple paragraphs of some subtle changes that could change the whole dynamic and really how it shows that the college is focused on equity. I will admit, as I read through that, and I even helped with some areas in reviewing it, realizing I was a little embarrassed that we had used language that wasn't equitable, or we didn't address how we talked about equity and we didn't describe it. And I think that helped us tremendously. And so we spent that in this last semester, doing that and vetting it through the entire institution. So other people could also review it and provide input. And I think that's going to help us tremendously through that. And again, we leveraged some expertise that some of our other members had, our deans and our directors had, to help with that and turn over control to them. And then a variety of faculty, staff, and managers each took a piece of it. And then we brought that report back together.

Speaker 1: And I think the big key was when we really addressed that deficit mindset and brought that back to the institution. I think the key factor was explaining why we did that as, while this is a planning tool, it's also an education tool to say, we need to change the way we speak so we can once again meet our students where they are. And I think that's really been at the heart of what we've done is really focus on equitable outcomes. And like you said, it's really integrating that in all aspects of our institution, not just in a single plan. So I think that's really demonstrating that. And so now we get to our bonus question. So they're highly correlated with the name of the show. So the first question is, how do you pronounce the word data? So some people say data, some people say data, some people say data. How do you say it?

Speaker 2: I usually say data, but I think I have said data at different times, depending on where I was at. And I'm trying to think back to when I was in my research classes at Cal State Long Beach of how to talk about it, but I use data.

Speaker 1: Excellent. Perfect. So another question and the second bonus question would be, what's your favorite donut?

Speaker 2: Oh, a cinnamon roll. But if you ask some people, there's a debate. Is a cinnamon roll a donut or is it not a donut? So those of you that watch a podcast of Julie Fowdy from soccer, they are constantly arguing whether it is or isn't. But that's my favorite when I go to the donut store.

Speaker 1: You know what? When it's sold at the donut store, I think it's a donut. When you go to the section inside of maybe the supermarket and buy the little roll, the cylinder roll, maybe that's just a roll at that point because it's in the roll section. But when you go to the donut store and it comes from there, I would agree that's a donut. So that's a good choice.

Speaker 2: That's what I'm going to say. That's what I had yesterday when I brought donuts for our executive team. Excellent. Perfect.

Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much today. This has been a great conversation. Thank you all for listening in. And Dr. Rodriguez, we'll talk again soon. So have a good one. Thank you.