Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC) is the Partnership’s Higher Education Priority partner. Its focus is: Partner with Complete College America to increase college completion rates and reduce remediation time. Develop policy reform regarding foster care/transitional youth and college completion. Work on Central Valley GOAL 2025 with partners in all four sectors – higher education, K-12, nonprofit, business for profit. Work on education advocacy with Partnership Board.

Central Valley Higher Education Capacity Building

The Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC) wrote a grant proposal to the College Futures Foundation for capacity building. The grant was submitted May 2017 and was awarded July 2017. The grant has allowed CVHEC to strengthen the reach of its regional footprint by expanding staff to include Regional Coordinators that will facilitate CVHEC strategies throughout the Central Valley region from Stockton to Bakersfield.

CVHEC Regional Coordinator Visits

CVHEC on-boarded two Regional Coordinators to facilitate CVHEC strategies in Northern and Southern Region in September 2017. The College Futures Foundation also allowed the capacity expansion of CVHEC’s Strategies Lead to serve the central region.

Northern Regional Coordinator serves the following institutions:

  • Columbia College
  • CSU Stanislaus
  • Merced College
  • Modesto Junior College
  • San Joaquin Delta College
  • UC Merced
  • Yosemite Community College District

Central Regional Coordinator serves the following institutions:

  • CSU Fresno
  • California Health Sciences University
  • Fresno Pacific University
  • Fresno City College
  • Reedley College
  • Clovis Community College
  • State Center Community College District
  • West Hills College Coalinga
  • West Hills College Lemoore
  • West Hills Community College District
  • National University

Southern Regional Coordinator serves the following institutions:

  • Bakersfield College
  • College of the Sequoias
  • CSU Bakersfield
  • Cerro Coso College
  • Kern Community College District
  • Taft College
  • Porterville College
Complete College America (CCA)

CVHEC identified its CCA Alliance Team members representative of CSU Fresno, CSU Stanislaus, Fresno City College, Merced College, National University along with CVHEC staff. The CVHEC Alliance team attended the CCA Summer Convening held July 2017 in Indiana. Additionally, CVHEC participated in the CCA Co-requisite Remediation Convening.

Lumina Foundation Community Partnership for Attainment

CVHEC along with its partner, The Fresno Compact, submitted a Talent Hub grant proposal in June 2017. The Talent Hub grant is a follow-up grant to the initial Lumina Goal 2025 grant, May 2015 to December 2016. In September 2017, Lumina Foundation announced CVHEC/Fresno Compact named one of 17 national Talen Hub Designations. A media roll-out was held September 25, 2017.

CVHEC Legislative / Policy Advocacy Committee

As part of the October 2016 CVHEC Legislative Policy Summit, regional legislative representatives invited CVHEC to update legislators on higher education matters. The CVHEC board members decided to convene a Legislative / Policy Advocacy Committee to accomplish the goal of educating legislators. The Legislative / Policy Advocacy Committee convened for monthly from July to September.

Central Valley Higher Education Legislative Policy Summit

The committee provided input on the planning of the October 2017 CVHEC Higher Education Legislative Policy Summit.

CVHEC Branding Update

The CVHEC 2017-2020 strategies which position CVHEC as a convener with a goal to increase the Central Valley’s degree attainment required a re-branding of CVHEC’s logo, identity and website. The CVHEC logo and identity were updated during this reporting period. The website update was undertaken with completion in October 2017. The new website can be found at www.cvhec.org.

CVHEC Regional Data Dashboard

The College Futures Foundation backbone grant also provided funds to support a CVHEC Regional Data Dashboard. This dashboard was designed to measure the CVHEC 2017-2020 strategies and creates a baseline for that effort. The design included the framework and data metrics. The dashboard provides the following data views: CVHEC Regional Profile, 18-24 Profile, 15+ Unit Enrollment, Degree Awards, Transfer Velocity, Pell Grant recipients, Enrollment and Success in English and Math. The CVHEC Regional Data Dashboard is available at http://cvhec.org/regionaldata/.

FASFA Work Group Meetings / Workshop

A FASFA Work Group meeting was held August 2017. Participants included representatives from Fresno Unified School District, Clovis Unified School District, Fresno County Office of Education, CSU Fresno, and National University. A CSAC/FASFA Counselor Workshop was held September 2017 at the Madera College Center. The CSAC/FASFA Workshop was attended by 92 participants representing regional school districts. The goal of the workshop was to share best practices for increasing FASFA completion rates.

Central Valley Promise

The Central Valley Promise launched as a pilot between State Center Community College District, West Hills Community College District, CSU Fresno and a number of K-12 Districts. The Central Valley Promise Champions overseeing the participation of the community college participation are CVHEC staff members Barbara Hioco and Saundra McGlothlin.

Reverse Transfer

The Reverse Transfer Webinar was held September 2017 to discuss the National Student Clearinghouse Reverse Transfer effort, reverse transfer research that supports degree attainment and local data on the potential for associate degree designations through the reverse transfer process. Participants of the webinar include CSU Fresno, National University, State Center Community College District, Fresno City College, West Hills Community College District, and Reedley College.

CVHEC DACA Op-Ed Published

In response to the September 5 announcement to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the CVHEC board responded with strong support to encourage Valley congressmen to act immediately to pass legislation providing a permanent solution for Dreamers. The support was presented in an Op/Ed piece titled “Congress must act to save our kids, our neighbors, our dreamers.” The Op-Ed ran in the Merced Sun Star on September 19, 2017.