Senate Select Committee on Student Success

Let me begin by welcoming everyone to the Senate Committee on student success. Our special hearing here at Cal State University Fullerton. It's so nice to be here. I'm joined by the esteemed Senator Josh Newman, who's chair of our education Committee in the Senate. Senator Newman, thank you for being a part of this hearing today. You've been a great champion of our higher education institutions as well as education during your time in the Senate. We appreciate your great leadership. I had a couple opening remarks.

We're going to hear from Senator Newman, and we'll begin going through the hearing process, certainly with a nice welcome from our President here at the campus. But let me just say for me, this is my first time back at this University in about 40, maybe 42 years. I was last year when I was student body President at San Diego State and also Chairman of the California State Student Association.

And for those in the room who know and maybe those who are listening, who are aware, the students would get together every month at a campus somewhere in California to organize their business. And so had the opportunity to come to this campus many times. And so this is my first time back in a while. But it's a beautiful, beautiful campus.

And it used to be that San Diego State had the largest enrollment in the state, at the state universities, and now Fullerton is on top, I think, more than 40 plus thousand students here. So a great institution and a great place to advance their learning opportunities. Let me mention that in 2017, we first formed the Senate Select Committee on student success.

And the goal then remains the goal today, which was to advance educational achievements for our students, to examine how challenges in and out of the classroom are affecting graduation and dropout rates. The issue of on time graduation has always been important to this Committee. We know that student success is a driver to our economy. We know that that achievement for that individual has many ramifications for them, for their family, and for our communities.

And even in addition to the four year graduation rate goals that we're going to talk about today, we also know that students still struggle to complete degrees because of issues that are outside the classroom. Food insecurity, housing insecurity, healthcare. I authored a Senate Bill, 412, which created the California Promise program with the goal to assist Low income, underrepresented transfer and first generation students with finishing their bachelor's degree in four years.

And when I talk about the four year goal, we also know that it's about saving students and their family a lot of money entering the workforce sooner and what doesn't get talked about a lot, but inspiring their siblings that may be coming behind to do the same. It's a real impact to see that example being set by first and their family to graduate. And when the President speaks, she may speak about the first in their family to graduate here at Fullerton.

I know it's a point of pride. System wide, while we're going to talk and focus on the four year graduation rate here, there's some really great successes here at Fullerton. In 2015, the four year graduation rate was about 22.6%. Today it's around 44%. That's a fantastic achievement. I know it doesn't come easy. It requires great leadership here on the campus. It requires the faculty and staff, everyone working together, to have that rate grow in such a significant way.

It's 20 points in about 89 years, and that's having a big impact on so many. I want to note, though, that one of the programs here at Fullerton that, well, we're going to talk about the four year program here, as the testimony provides. But let me just say that we're focused very much on this graduation goal, certainly for underrepresented.

I note that when nine years ago, when freshmen came here to Fullerton, that 90% of that incoming class was taking 15 units or more, and the most recent numbers from this past year is that 91% are still doing that. That means they're getting off to a good start here. But somehow, as they have moved through the system, things get a little off kilter, whether that's issues in their life, it could be their inability to get classes. They need prerequisites that they need.

But I hope to hear in this hearing a little more detail as to what's going on and why so we can continue to do that. Well, but finally, in my remarks, let me just say that the big problem that we see here at Fullerton and system wide is that underrepresented students, that gap has grown, not shrunk in these last nine years that we've talked about the success and how well the campus has done.

But system wide, the focus of our work, seems to not be successful in terms of underrepresented. And so I look forward to the testimony on that as we, as we continue with our program. With that, let me just turn to my colleague in the Senate, Senator Newman. Thank you for being here and for your leadership and welcome your opening comments.

Thank you, Senator Glazer, for coming to Fullerton. I am glad to be a part of this hearing. I am proud to represent this area. I am especially proud to represent this campus, and I am also proud to serve as the chair of the Senate Committee on Education, which, unlike our counterpart on the other side, has jurisdiction over all three segments of higher education in California.

And I want to thank Senator Glazer for his continued leadership starting from it, but certainly since 2014 and the California Promise program. And I agree with the goals of the program and with his goals generally. I think we share the same sort of emphasis on the urgent need to help students make their way as quickly, but also as productively as possible through the baccalaureate process.

And that is complicated, as Senator Glazer noted, with all of the other issues that students face, transportation, class offerings, mentoring, other support, and housing especially, which is especially true here for Cal State forward. And this is especially important for first generation college students, for other underrepresented groups. And as Senator Glazer notes, Cal State forwarding should be and is justifiably proud of its role in providing opportunities for educational attainment, especially for those groups that this program has endeavored to assist.

And we're going to hear from President Alva, but I know how proud you are, and you should be for being a Hispanic serving institution, but also for all of the other good work that has been done recently, which is consistent. I was surprised not to hear it with Senator Glaser's new motto for the program, finish in four as it relates to community colleges through and two, and so glad to be here.

Glad to continue working with the center, but very much looking forward to hearing from President Alva and other stakeholders, and we will take back your input and that will inform our work in education moving forward. So thank you for having us.

Thank you, Senator Newman. And without further Ado, Doctor Alva, President here at Fullerton. Thank you for welcoming us to your campus. I know that while you come here from the chancellor's office as the Executive vice chancellor of academic and student affairs, that in some ways it's a homecoming for you coming back to a campus where you were a Professor in earlier years. But thank you for being here and having us, and we turn the microphone over to you.

Thank you so much and good morning. Chair Glazer and Members of the Select Committee on student success. I am Doctor Sylvia Alva, and I have the honor and the privilege of serving as President at Cal State Fullerton. I want to start by thanking Senator Glazier for authoring a bond legislation that includes higher education. You have always been one of the CSU's strongest advocates, and we appreciate that and you understand the impact such a bond will have on institutions like Cal State Fullerton.

And thank you to the whole Committee for providing us the opportunity to host this hearing today on our campus. We see today's hearing as an opportunity to share our vision as well as the transformational initiatives and programs that make an impact on the lives of our students and the communities we serve.

I look forward to sharing how we're moving Fullerton forward in our five year strategic plan as we look to be even more strategic and more data informed in our work and how we see collaboration as important part of the response to the emerging needs of our students. Cal State Fullerton serves 41,000 students and we are the only CSU in Orange County. We receive about 80,000 applications annually for roughly 8000 incoming students.

Student slots we graduate approximately 12,000 students annually, of which nearly 60% of our students are first generation college students and more than 60% are from underserved communities. Half 50% of our students are Pell eligible, which means that a large part of our student population come from families who earn less than $50,000 a year. When we talk about Cal State Fullerton's regional footprint, I'll note that nearly 80% of our undergraduates stay, pardon me, our graduates stay within a 50 miles radius of the University.

Cal State Fullerton produces the majority of Orange County's teachers, nurses and accountants. Titans are the region's workforce the campus recently released its five year strategic plan. The strategic planning process provided us an opportunity to look at where we're at and recognize the strategic opportunities as well as the barriers that continue to impact and challenge our students as they pursue their college education. It drives us to look at current and future landscape of the region.

What are the top in demand skills that will be sought by employers? How can we better inform and prepare our students for the status and outlook of these employment opportunities once they graduate? And what pathways are we creating to ensure that our students are prepared and employed once they graduate? We not only have looked at the makeup of our current student population, but we're also looking ahead into the future of what our population is very likely to look like.

One of the areas that we are putting a greater focus on is how do we adapt the University and pivot. Given the anticipated decline in traditional college age populations, how do we increase demand for college higher education as part of our workforce responsibility? And what are the needs and the opportunities to attract non traditional and adult learners to Cal State Fullerton?

As part of our strategic planning, we will be looking at how we can further serve and meet the needs of our non traditional students and position ourselves to support the increasingly diverse population in our service area. What does it mean to be college educated? What is the value of a college degree? These are the questions that higher Ed and Cal State Fullerton, in specific, are grappling with.

A recent survey showed that alumni who developed skills during college earn $8,700 more in their first year of work compared to their counterpart. A college degree can completely change the trajectory of an individual's and their families lives. We strive to do all that we can to provide equitable access to a quality college education. As tuition is scheduled to increase across the CSU, Cal State Fullerton has a new seven step pledge that we have committed to ensure that the transformational promise of a college education remains possible.

From grants and scholarships to technology tools and a food pantry stocked with healthy choices, the University offers resources to financially assist students. Navigating the myriad of resources on campus and in the community can be complicated and can even feel like a barrier itself. We're committed to pledging to our students and future students that will continue to reduce these financial barriers and provide additional support resources so that they can successfully thrive and complete their degree with little or no financial debt.

Approximately 68% of Cal State Fullerton students graduate with no college debt. The CSUF pledge is an effort to ensure that the number of students graduating debt free increases even as costs go up. As I close Chairman Glazier and Members of the SeLAC Committee, I want to thank you for visiting our beautiful campus and giving us the opportunity to show you the transformational impact that a titan education has on our students and on the community.

Today will be an opportunity for you to hear about our successes, but also the challenges, the challenging areas that the campus is facing. And I look forward to working with you and the Committee to together continuing to serve future generations of Californians. Thank you again for taking the time to be at Cal State Fullerton.

Thank you, President Alva. Thank you for your leadership here on the campus and more so your long term leadership in the system. Really appreciate it. Loved hearing about the mission statements and of course, you reflected the point that I made earlier about first in their family to graduate. Those numbers are stunning and impressive within 12,000 graduates that you're going to be anointing here in a matter of weeks. So congratulations on that.

CSU Fullerton is certainly a point of pride for this community, for Orange County and for our state. So thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so we're going to move to our first panel. Let me invite up Doctor Matthew Jarvis, who is the chair of the academic Senate here at Fullerton. Doctor Jarvis, I know that you are a Professor of politics, Administration and justice here, but I also know that you have some roots in the Bay Area as a Berkeley graduate back in my neck of the woods early in your career. So we thank you for being here.

We look forward to hearing your testimony, as well as your perspective about the successes and the challenges of getting students to degree here at the campus. So welcome, Doctor Jarvis.

Thank you. Chair Glazer and Senator Newman, I'm Professor Matt Jarvis. I'm chair of the academic Senate at Cal State Fullerton. Thank you for the opportunity to address your Committee today regarding the priorities and concerns of the academic Senate, particularly concerning student success. While student success is typically defined by legislative and CSU standards as the rate at which students graduate, I believe it's crucial to expand this definition.

While timely graduation is important for economic mobility and aligns with the CSU's mission, it's not the sole measure of success. Cal State Fullerton nurtures diverse talents, including many who may not follow traditional academic paths. My colleagues in the arts count many professional artists among their successes. Those artists developed their talents here at CSUF, but many of them began their careers without graduating. I have to consider Matt Chapman, Justin Turner, Kurt Suzuki, Ricky Romero, and Phil Nevin to be titan successes.

Moreover, the emphasis on timely graduation overlooks the challenges faced by our working students. When we define success in a way that excludes these students, it's both demoralizing to them, for the opposite of success is failure and at risk blinding us to what we can do to ensure their success. I know that you have heard about Tuffys basic needs and mental health counseling and other related programs today, or you will later. And I encourage you to think about meeting all our students where they are.

Some need support to graduate in four years, but a lot needs support for graduating on their timeline. Do you know what I call a student who graduates in seven or even 10 years? I call them an alumnus, the same as those who did so in four. I commend the Committee's efforts to address bottlenecks and improve graduation rates, and I'm very proud of the achievements we have made in this area at Cal State Fullerton.

But we must analyze why certain programs or colleges exceed graduation targets while others fall short, particularly considering persistent disparities among underrepresented minority students. The part of graduation initiative 2025 that I think there is near universal support for on campus is narrowing and removing gaps between students tied to race or class, but we would also add gender and other ways people have been historically marginalized to the list.

Indeed, one of my proudest moments as chair of the division of politics, Administration and Justice, my previous job before I was chair of the academic Senate was when we found that we had eliminated our gaps before COVID brought them back. Before setting new goals, we must understand the underlying factors driving these disparities and successes. By doing so, we can better address the root causes and ensure equitable outcomes for all students. Finally, I would like to address what I see as academic Senate priorities. First is funding.

I realize that the state is looking at a rough budgetary future in the near and medium term. In light of this, I can only advocate that the state recognize that some bills end up getting paid regardless. The recent key bridge accident in Maryland reminds us that an ounce of prevention can sometimes save billions. Plenty of research shows that higher education is a smart investment, driving down future costs for prisons and the social safety net, and even growing the economy itself.

When our state allocation doesn't meet our needs. CSU needs to raise tuition, and that hurts not only our students, but whatever businesses they would patronize for the years it takes to pay off those loans. But another piece of this is our deferred maintenance Bill. Our buildings are falling apart. As one example, CSUF needs about $2 million just to cover damage from recent storms, and we need another 10 million to prepare roofs for future storms.

When those fail, we will incur much higher costs for emergency repairs, not to mention all the lost instructional time and risk to life. Eventually, all this comes out of the same budget as instruction, and all the goals we have set for us won't matter if we have to cancel dozens of sections to pay to fix a leak.

And while I don't mean to cast aspersions toward other CSU campuses, Cal State full vision has been either number 22 or or 23 in per student funding for decades now. This isn't just an economy of scale issue. It would take many millions to bring us to the level of the other large Cal states. This chronic underfunding has long term implications. You can only ask people to do more with less for so long. Eventually, we will pivot to doing less with less.

Second, the academic Senate, both ours and those throughout the system, have grown very concerned with the increased tendency for curricular changes to be imposed upon us from above. The GE package has now been changed from the outside three times in seven years. The pace of these changes has increased, and the consultation with faculty has decreased. Many of these changes have laudable goals, much like the push for student success.

But I'd be a poor academic if I didn't point out that the devil is usually in the details, and those details are difficult to see from the top. We've not been involved in a consultative process on these changes. We've had changes dictated to us. Allow me to share what that looks like from the cheap seats. Curricular changes have been made without real faculty consultation by both the Legislature and our system.

Yet our collective bargaining negotiations need not only our system to agree to them, but the state to Fund them. After that, faculty got reduced raises because of this loophole a few years ago and are at risk of that same two step this next year. Governor Brown once spoke of a psychic income faculty get for teaching. When faculty are not part of shared governance, that income is negative. In time, our view won't be from the cheap seats. It will be in the rearview mirror.

We'll leave for institutions that value us monetarily, intellectually, or both. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor Jarvis, for coming in and sharing your thoughts. I agree with you that every student that comes here has their own unique circumstances, and getting a degree may not matter, but certainly you know that for many, it is a critical point in their future. So. And it's always dangerous to generalize. But, you know, every year here at Fullerton, there are not just a few, there are thousands of students that aren't able to get to graduation. Do you have any?

And as you have noted, and I have as well, this equity gap is. Persistence isn't just because of COVID It goes back a decade or more. What do you see as the key bottleneck here at the campus that you have some control over, that the faculty can help with?

So, in response to GI 2025, the campus has taken a very multifaceted approach. It's a big challenge, right, to take your graduation rates and effectively double them. So that has looked like a response from all corners. We've seen changes in advising. We've seen changes in the curriculum. We've seen changes in how we schedule classes. We've created toughies, basic needs. These things didn't exist when I came, so there's a number of changes we've done.

Part of the problem I have as a social scientist is figuring out which of these changes had the effects. So I know we've had. We've made progress. I can't necessarily tell you why, because we've thrown a lot of stuff at this. It. We took this challenge very seriously, that we had to increase our graduation rates, and we did. But I can't tell you necessarily why it worked, because we threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at it and all these.

As a social scientist, we have all these simultaneous causes. It's very hard to tease out causation. So I would say what we need is a period. We need to definitely do a deep dive. Continued study. We have to figure out which of these things we did worked and which of these things looks like it worked, but it really was window dressing so that we can then redouble our efforts on the productive steps.

I would say right now we've taken a lot of steps, and on paper, they all look great, but I can't tell you which one of them is the thing that worked.

Right. So then answering the question of what you can do more is a hard one to answer.

Yeah, I would say what we need is more study. Your Committee is doing great work in this area by trying to get to. Okay, what's the next thing? And I would say just before we sort of set new goals would be kind of to figure out where did we get in the last, sort of, shall we say, about a dozen years that we've been working on this.

Right. You know, if you were to look to places to give you the data to figure that question out, there could be no better place than here at Cal State Fullerton.

And as a social scientist, you know that you want to see data and facts. And I guess that would be my encouragement to you and your colleagues, is that you have the intelligence and ability and resources to, even as a client class project, when you have thousands of kids dropping out. I use the example. If you were a business and you lost 10,000 of your customers a year, wouldn't you spend some time trying to figure out why?

Yeah.

So we have, there have been a number of efforts. These aren't really on to the academic Senate, but I'm aware of them, where we've tried to contact the students who dropped out and figure out what happened. So I hearken back to a story, story I learned early in statistics. So they were sending a whole bunch of planes over in world war two, and they're sending the planes over, and they looked at the planes coming.

They were losing a lot of planes, a lot of bombers getting shot down by the German air force. And looked at the planes that came back and they saw all this damage, and they put the armor where they had the most damage, and they sent them out again, and the losses doubled. And they said, what happened? And the answer is, well, you, the armor slows the play down. And they put it on the planes that came back. They looked at the wrong data.

The data is the planes that were in the fields in France and Germany. So that sort of hearkens to the problem. We have the current students and we can survey them. We have found it very difficult to connect with the students who have disconnected from us. I know our survey response rates when we tried to contact them have been very Low. So this has been a key problem for us, is figuring out why a student has left after they've left it.

We've been engaged in the intellectual exercise of trying to put ourselves in the student's shoes, and we've been asking the students who are at danger of leaving why, you know, what are your problems? We have some indications there. The most common answer we hear is economic pressures. The most common answer we have heard from students is I had to leave because I had to take an extra shift to target.

I had to leave because I had to go from part time work to full time work to help my parents. As we've noted, many of our students are Pell eligible. A lot of those students are supporting their families. And the problem is they're being forced into an immediate choice of I need to help my family pay rent next month. I can put off for a year or two when I get the benefits because I need that money now for my families. So that's been it.

But to be perfectly honest, that's what we've gotten from talking to our students. Now, it's not necessarily the same as talking to the students who left. We've tried, but I would say our efforts in that really could use some more effort and help and data.

And if you do have studies going forward in that space, I certainly would welcome that coming back to us. You know, when I talk to students about it, the number one answer is they couldn't get the classes they needed at the times they needed. If you look at the freshman registration numbers at 15 units, it's very impressive. At some point, getting those classes can be a little bit more challenging. Senator Newman, I know you have a follow up question.

Senator, just briefly. Doctor shivers, I appreciate your, your input here, but the thing I'm always struck by is the need for urgency, right? So, you know, if we solve a problem in 10 years, that's 10 graduating classes, right. That have not benefited from the solution. So I do appreciate how hard it is going to tease out all of the different factors and then balance them. But what I'd ask in sort of building on this, intuitively, we do know some things are necessary and useful.

So, you know, give us your top three things. They don't have to be statistically proven that you would urge us to look at, irrespective of finances that can frame our thinking as we move forward by way of improving educational attainment.

Okay. I would say the first would likely be advising. We hear it from the students. We have. Our student leaders are here in the audience. And I remember the ASI President talking about advising just earlier this semester. We were talking about a change we were thinking of doing. And the cry from the students was, get us the advising first and then fix the rules. And so I would say that also speaks to Senator Glaser's point. A lot of the students are not necessarily.

Sometimes a lot of them graduate with more than 120 units. And that's a little bit part of they took a class they didn't know they needed. I know when I've done graduation checks, we catch a decent number of students who somehow made it through four years and they didn't quite have that graduation requirement quite right. And so we end up maybe delaying them for a semester. Hopefully we catch them in time. But sometimes you need more than you think you need.

So advising, I would say, is a key component of it. It also helps solve the class problem. Done right. And we have a pilot program that we're looking at implementing next year and hopefully really coming into full force the year after. Being driven by our provost is going to be the ability to combine that advising with a little bit of future class selection. And that gets a little bit to Senator Glaser's point about having the classes available.

Part of that is knowing when we have a surge coming for psychology 382 or whatever, that we can then plan for that in advance. We have a fundamental problem. We have to build the schedule so far in advance. We build it before we know how many freshmen are coming. We build it before we know how many transfers are coming. That leaves us scrambling a bit for that. So advising is part of it. A second part of it is we do need some process modernization.

We've improved in this regard, but we've had definite problems in years past with transfer students coming in with incomplete transcripts, and that is absolutely brutal and a stiff arm. I don't blame that student for dropping out because they came in and they weren't able to register for the classes they needed because according to the computer, there are freshmen, they haven't had math they haven't had English. They have, but the computer doesn't know it. And the whole system of prerequisites depends on this stuff.

So the curriculum was designed intelligently and planned, but the system isn't working well with that. So we are constantly helping students with individual permits here and there, but that is only helping the squeaky wheel. The student who says, I can't get in and they don't know that they, they can ask for a permit. Those are the students I worry about because those are the students most likely to not have that network that connects them.

And that, I think connects me to the third thing, I think, which is building community among the students, building a network among the students that helps with the first two things as well. If the students have that community of knowledge where they can rely on each other to help them, they can not individually, but they can advise their fellow students. When Jimmy tells Susie that he's enrolled in psychology 582, and Susie goes, yeah, you shouldn't be enrolled in that one.

I thought that too, and I was wrong. I had to actually take 581 1st. That can help. And we have a more atomized student body than some of the other Cal states. We definitely have more atomized body than the UC's have, but there are steps we can take to create those connections.

So one of the things we've been doing in my division is creating these cohort classes, and a number of programs in my college have been doing this to help the students make those connections, because we draw students from a very wide area and a very wide set of backgrounds, and they don't necessarily make those connections with each other, but if we put them in the same class with their fellow majors, they can then build those connections going forward.

So I think if we can do those three things, and those three things aren't necessarily nice and concrete, they're all a little amorphous. I think that could really help our students find the classes they need in the times they need. And so it's growing. Advising, that's a huge part of it. The students need advising.

When we even talked about hiring enough advisors to have a 300 to one student advisor to student ratio, which is apparently the gold standard out there, I raised a fundamental logistical problem with that. At a campus of our size that would have been 13030 advisors every day. Staff advisors, we don't have parking spots for 130 more staff. We simply don't. There is no place to park them.

If we park them, we're not going to have classes because the faculty who get here after 08:00 won't have parking spots and the faculty will then take up student spots and the students will not go to class because it's filled. So we do run into physical institutional constraints in building some of this stuff.

We may have to think a lot more creatively about online advising, about other models to do it, because we are running into the physical constraints for our University mass transit to get people here with them.

If you're always having to figure out how to get from here to park, from home to parking, it becomes kind of spatial. And when students don't have that basis for interaction that you would otherwise have, you lose that and it compounds. And I'm sure we'll hear more about that from other panels. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Couldn't agree more.

Doctor Jarvis, thank you for your constructive suggestions. In response to Senator Newman's question, I would note that we talk about dropouts and data that we're lacking to understand exactly why we do have data on those who graduate. And I don't know the numbers here at Fullerton.

Your provost may know when they come up to share their testimony, but system wide, I believe that the typical units that a graduate has in the system, 120, is the, you know, what is typically required for most, 95% of the degrees. I think the unit count was over 130. So that's three or four extra classes they didn't need to take. Now, if they wanted them for their own interests or their own growth, those were wonderful things.

But if it because they took the wrong class, that's not a good thing.

And there's also a little bit that could be contributing to that, which is what I call the donut hole. A student is a part time student, up to six units. A student is a full time student after that, however, they are not a full time student, according to financial aid, until they hit 12 units. So there is a doughnut hole from seven to 11 units where it is simply very cost ineffective for a student to take nine units.

But that might be the load that works with their work schedule. And so we have a lot of students who I believe our tuition structure is really hurting, hurting them because it is actually cheaper for that student to take 66 and 6 in the summer, but we have very few offerings in the summer than it is to take 9 and 9.

And so that student who's on that three year path as a transfer, it's really hard to do that three year path as a transfer with our tuition.

Structure, which is driven by a federal policy.

Yeah, it's a combination of federal policy and our tuition policy.

I know we could talk a lot more because we appreciate this engagement. We have other folks to come and testify, but, Doctor Jarvis, thank you for your leadership on the campus and for participating in our hearing today.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for asking to hear from us.

Thank you. All right, next, I want to invite up the student body President here at Fullerton, Mason Awadala. If I'm pronouncing your name right, I don't know. But come on up here. We welcome you. We thank you for participating. I, of course, can close my eyes and remember when I was a peer of yours here in the student body.

I want to point out that she might have been you handily in that election.

I wasn't running. I wasn't running here in Fullerton. But you may be right. In any case, we thank you for your leadership here on the campus. We welcome your testimony today.

Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. Good morning, Senator Newman and Senator Glazer. My name is Mason Awadala, and I am the current student body President at California State University, Fullerton. I'm graduating in May, and I will be. And I'm majoring in communications with an emphasis in in broadcast journalism and a minor in international politics. I have had the honor of serving on the associated students incorporated organization on this campus for three years in various capacities.

Through my roles, I have learned how to organize and lead teams, write resolutions to impact and assist our students, and champion diversity, equity, and inclusion in our campus spaces. I joined ASI in the hopes of changing our campus culture for the better and have been a part of various initiatives to help improve the titan experience and center our students as a whole.

In my four years at CSUF, I have experienced several challenges alongside my fellow students, including distance learning, food insecurity, financial hardships, and mental health challenges. I'm honored to be in front of you all today to express these concerns from the student perspective while providing the impact the students have on this University.

As we are the largest CSU in the entire system and the only CSU in Orange County, it is important for our elected officials, such as yourselves, to hear about the necessity of investing in our students. Many of the students on this campus come from Low income households, are first generation students, and face numerous challenges when entering an educational institution. While there are programs to assist them, including our educational Opportunities program, or EOP, these programs need consistent funding in order to accept and assist more students.

By addressing these issues, we aim to ensure the success of all students who partake in these essential programs. CSUF also houses a diverse population of students who rely on resources within our diversity and sorry, diversity initiatives. Resource centers better known as DIRC, which has also just expanded, adding our Native American Resource center, our Women's Resource center, and the first Southwest Asian, North African or Swanna Resource center in the entire CSU system.

DIRC is proud to represent these students and provide a space for them, which is why it is paramount to properly Fund and give resources to these centers to ensure that students are set up for success when they enter these spaces. Students have also expressed many challenges with food insecurity and ASI has combated this through the founding and the expansion of our food pantry. We are proud to partner with local donors as well as grocery stores and our school's arboretum to reach our goals to assist students.

However, as the cost of living continues to rise in Orange County and demand grows larger and more investments into resources, the demand grows larger for more investments into resources, including food pantries and basic needs resource centers. These are necessary to further our work in ensuring that our students are taken care of so that they may remain successful in their own endeavors.

Mental health is also vital to student success and coming back from the pandemic as well as the current events have drawn students to seek out mental health resources more often. Currently, within our counseling and psychological services Department, known as CAHPs, students are placed on a waiting list for two to four weeks. This adds a hardship to students experience as their mental health is paramount when ensuring that students have success in their academics and their involvement on campus.

While other resources have been provided to these students, we must strive to further the resources that CAHPS receives. It is necessary for our mental health resources on campus to have the funds and everything needed to provide students with ample assistance in their path to achieving wellness. In the fall semester, I had the opportunity to attend the GI 2025 summit at San Diego State University, where I met with administrators and student leaders across the entirety of the CSU system.

At the summit, we discussed the many ways to help students with their retention and graduation rates. I had brought up and spoken about some important topics, including offering more courses, major courses in the summer and in the winter sessions, bringing in a more diverse group of faculty and staff to better reflect our diverse student population, and also increasing class options throughout the semester while also increasing our advising and ensuring that all of our students are able to see an advisor when needed.

I also want to take this time to express the importance of including the four year higher education institutions in the education savings bond which would greatly assist our students in their path to success and provide more financial success opportunities. Higher education is a privilege, but it should not have to be. All the people in this state and beyond deserve to receive an education, and the CSU system was founded on the principle of giving students a quality and affordable education for all.

As tuition and cost of living continue to go up, aspiring students find it more and more difficult to seek out a four year education. ASI continuously works with the campus to improve the student experience, and here we are proud to do so. However, it is with the assistance of our local officials that we are able to continue carrying out the necessary advocacy that we do every day on this campus and behalf of our peers.

I thank you all for your time, and I look forward to speaking with you further alongside our student leaders. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Awadalla. So you're graduating this May. Congratulations.

Did you get through in four?

Thank you.

Yes, I did.

Wow. And with all those responsibilities you have in leadership, that's perfect. Pretty amazing.

Thank you.

Congratulations on that. And certainly praise to your student government for your leadership on the food pantry. As you said, your founding partners of that effort. I know it's even gotten more challenging.

Prior to the hearing today, I had the opportunity, actually, this morning, to meet with the Director of your counseling center here at Fullerton, and she shared with me the same numbers that you shared with us today, that it could take two weeks or more to see a counselor if you're under stress and not something that's life threatening. She did mention some of the special programs that they're advancing to help that gap, but it is a significant issue, in my opinion, as well.

And I certainly urged her and your campus leadership to look for ways to put more resources there to help close that gap. That's just not an acceptable amount of time to wait when you're stressed out, and it could lead to bad academic outcomes if not dropping out. So I'm really glad that you highlighted that, and I'm also appreciative of the contribution that you made in the graduation Initiative 2025 summit at San Diego State. I agree with all those points that you made.

Having the courses, more courses, having diverse staff that reflect the student body, and certainly the advising issue, which we also heard about from the faculty leader. The one question I have for you is, you know that while there's been great progress in the four year rate over the last eight or nine years, that the equity gap here remains serious and persistent.

Do you have any thoughts in that particular space different than what you have shared that you think could help this campus overcome that unfortunate equity gap.

Generally, with the equity gap, I would definitely say just assisting students as well with housing and ensuring that they're able to access the same courses as their peers. Our advising system and our General system of registering for classes can be like a battlefield.

And so I feel like it could be, again, with the topic that I had brought up of adding more courses and just ensuring that the students also get the resources they need could really help with closing the equity gaps and helping them out with the basic needs that they have, such as food, housing. Those contribute greatly to their success.

Let me turn to Senator Newman, if you wouldn't mind.

You touched on housing, and again, as I mentioned, I think it's really important. I'll ask kind of quickly, if you don't mind. What was your housing arrangement while you were here?

My housing year, so I moved from the Bay Area, actually, and I was able, I'm very lucky to have a family that helps me with my housing. I live in an off campus apartment, and it's a good place to live, but the cost of living is very, very high. And oftentimes my family does struggle. I have to move home after I graduate in order for me to save up and just be able to find my own place.

But I know a lot of students have been struggling with generally, like, the price of the housing on campus, and both off campus, there are cheaper apartments and cheaper options, but it's also very hard to find an apartment. I remember my first year, I came back from the pandemic, so I was, my whole first year was online, and then I had applied to live in the dorms, and I got placed in a triple, which I didn't really want for my second year of college.

So we were looking for an apartment for myself, and it was so incredibly difficult to find one. We eventually settled on one, but it wasn't an easy process, and it also was not. It just wasn't ideal because we have a lot of apartment complexes around, but a lot of students live in them. And I think that generally just checking out the prices of the housing and just really seeing what the students can need.

And we are building more housing on campus, but also paying attention to the prices of that housing and paying attention to what the students can and cannot pay in order to receive their education. We are primarily commuter campus, but I know that we want to shift away from that and that we want to create a more kind of homey space on campus, which I love and I've been very lucky to have that as an involved student.

But I really want the students to have the same exact experience that I might have had or my fellow peers have had.

And I do appreciate that. So I'm guessing you probably know of students from whom housing was challenging, who wound up not staying or wound up having real difficulties graduating on time.

And so I do appreciate that. I think it's so important. And I know that we have seen housing built recently, I think most recently, 600 something units. That is a very small share of the total need. And I would argue that over time, I think that should be an initiative at the state level to ensure that every campus has a ratio of available housing to student body that's above some threshold. It's well above what you have right now. I do want to give Senator glazing credit.

Right.

You mentioned this, the school bond. He is the author of what, SB 28, which there are two competing legislative vehicles for bonds, Senator Glazier's bond. The Senate bond includes k through 16, includes all of the three higher level institutions. And to President Alwa's point, the investments that are needed are massive, and we need to start making an investment there to include additional housing. And so appreciate your testimony today.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much. You're so impressive. You know, as I look at you and think about your journey ahead, I'll say something that is a point of pride for me. So six years ago, my current Chief of Staff was a student here at Fullerton in the student government, took an internship in the capital. And now is my chief, Sakshi Walia. And I know that her successful path is one that you will, I know, follow, too.

You're very impressive, and thank you for your leadership and for your testimony today.

Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to speak to you.

Thank you. Okay, we're going to turn next to the academic leaders here on the campus. I want to invite up Doctor Amir Dabirian. Hopefully, I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Who's the provost and the Vice President for academic affairs? And Doctor David, is it forgue Forges. Forges, who is the interim Vice President for student affairs? We had a chance to visit earlier today, too. I welcome you both, and I know you're both on the front lines of student success here on the campus.

You've heard some of our comments earlier. I know you probably have some prepared testimony, but look forward to the interchanges as we continue the conversation. With that, you want to begin?

Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Glazier. And Senator Newman. My name is Amir Dabirian and I have had the honor of serving as a provost for California State University Fullerton. Under guidance of President Alva, I co lead a student success effort together with my colleague, Vice President of student Affairs David Forges. As a University committed to transforming lives through through innovative and qualitative education, research, and creative activity, we hold the student success as our first and foremost institutional value.

Our faculty and staff adopt holistic and inclusive approach to student and academic and professional success, preparing our students to address workforce demands, community needs, and social justice challenges. We appreciate the opportunity today to share our progress toward improving student success and to affirm our goal to strengthen and deepen our work to ensure the solid foundation for every student's professional and personal success.

Calton is the largest University in the California system, serving a vast and diverse population in Southern California, especially in Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. In fall of 2023, we enrolled nearly 42,000 students, accounting for 9% of enrollment for entire CSU system. Upholding the critical role of higher education in transforming lives, Cal State has always committed to expanding access to higher education for our learners, especially students from underserved communities.

Over the last decades, we welcome nearly 32 more students into University classroom which reflect an increase of 8.44% increase in enrollment. Our student population not only grew in size but also expanding diversity. Over the past 10 years, we increased the number of black and African American students by 25% and number of Hispanic and Latinx students by 58%.

Hispanic and Latinx students are now our biggest student group in term of race ethnicity, accounting for 52% of our local total student population, earning us as a Hispanic serving institution. HSI our success an effort and impact on fostering the success of Hispanic and Latinx students are recognized as a national level with a seal of excellencia, bringing students to our University is just the first step to support them towards lifelong success.

Faculty staff at Calsa Floridian collectively strive to provide high quality curricular and co curricular experiences to meet the diverse students learning and development needs. We aim not only to ensure that our students graduate with impactful learning experiences, but also are supported with comprehensive services and resources for holiest growth throughout their college journey. Our efforts have paid off since the launch of Graduation 2025 to the CSU system wide initiative to increase graduation rate and eliminate the equity gap in degree completion and meet California workforce needs.

California State Fullerton four year graduation rate has increased 74% from 22% to 38.2% and six year graduation has improved 11% from 62.3 to 69.2%. Both graduation rates are well above the CSU average, the rank and rank among the top institution when compared with national peers. Increases in graduation rate are not isolated to select a few but is spread across students in all majors and colleges. We not only focus on overall student success but also take a nice approach to ensure the students of all backgrounds.

While graduation rate for students of all diverse background improved over the past years, the increase for black and African American students is still relatively small. As such, we have recently hired an Executive Director for black student academic success for specifically address the issues and closing equity gap for these students. We continue to improve upon our success while our graduation rate continues to increase.

The equity gap remains stubborn both in terms of difference between a student with underrepresented and non underrepresented background and between students who are not Pell grant eligible and Pell grant eligible students. We made significant progress narrowing the gap to 2% point difference in 2020, but the pandemic unfortunately widened them again. Taking a data driven approach, we are implementing targeted and tier strategy to meet the different needs of our students and diverse student groups.

For example, that has been embraced by our campus is a focus on triple opportunity. Students who came from underrepresented background are the first in their family to attend college and also Pell grant recipient. These students are groups that tend to be most benefit and customize wrap around support for their success. Shared governance is also a corner of how we foster student success at CALSA.

Flirting with a robust academic Senate and compressed set of University policy statements that guarding all aspects of academic operation, we closely worked with faculty to ensure curricular matters on campus are driven by the very people who deliver them faculty. As an example of recent Assembly Bill 928, also known as Student Transfer Achievement Reform act, prompted changes to General education pattern in CSU.

This new pattern called Cal Getze creates a singular lower division GE pattern for the CSU, the UC's and California community colleges and this paved a smooth and clear transfer pathway for a significant portion of our students who are transfers. CalgetC helps broaden access, reduce transfer barriers, and support student equity and success toward four year, four year old degree. The implementation of Cal Getze and our campus was addressed proactively, forming a faculty led special task force since last summer to prepare for GE pattern changes.

The FAA task force is working diligently in close the collaboration with academics and a GE Committee and University Administration to ensure that these changes are integrated into our curriculum with the greatest curriculum quality. Calsa Fulton recently launched the 20242025 strategy Plan Fullerton Forward student success remains forefront of this plan with a student and academic success and engagement and well belonging as the first two goals.

Multidimensional strategies are laid out to continue our effort to expand access to our educational offering, provide innovative learning experience, enhanced comprehensive academic support, foster student engagement, improve student mental and health and physical wellness, and meet the student financial and basic needs.

Examples of these efforts currently underway including revamping academy advising structure and dedicated college student success team improved California promise to improve the support of who seek in finishing four years a strengthening process to assist students in exploring different majors and minors expanding supplemental instruction to ensure student success in challenging gatekeeper courses targeted program to ensure students are supported appropriately in a different point of their educational journey such as early start that help a student meet their math and English requirements, summer bridge to support the freshman and sophomore transition and a transfer summit to help transfer gets Head Start in a research internship and various scholarly programs.

Earlier in sharing our progress on our students, I mentioned California promise as of the key strategies that have been undertaking support of a student graduation. I'm thrilled to share more about this initiative today because its importance and core of educational advancement in California. California promise helps make higher education dream come true for many students across our states, aiming to ensure they not only attend the college but complete them on time.

The heart of Calvin promise lies the commitment to providing students with clear an achievable roadmap to graduation and offer a structured pathway for students to achieve their undergraduate degree in four years if they inc for incoming freshmen or to graduate in two years for community college and transfers. The program goes beyond more acceleration student educational journey.

It also scaffolds students towards success through academic support such as priority registration, dedicated advising and both to critical to ensure that the students not only have will throughout their plan, but timely graduation but also guided throughout their journey to make this possible. The goal of design of California prize aligned perfectly with the top priority that calculator focused on student success.

Additionally, the program focused on Low income Pel eligible students and first generation college students and students from historically communities work in concert with University core commitment of meeting the needs of all learners and evaluating the success of our students of all background through inclusive, equitable and innovative technology experiences. At Calsa Fortune, we tailored our California promise with 35 major for a first time freshman and 68 majors for transfer students.

The majors spread over six colleges and meet the needs of students for multiple disciplines ranging from the art and humanities to natural science and mathematics. In 20212022 and 20222023 academic year alone, Cal State Fullerton served 1000 students in California Promise and our program, including Fullerton, finished our own version of California Promise which opened to all students and guided them through to take the needed number of type of courses to graduate them on time.

Many of these students are from Low income families, underrepresented community and first generation college students who may not be able to finish undergraduate journey in four years without the support of California promise. For students with four year graduation rate is 93% which is 2.4 times the University average. California promise is not only merely about number is compressing support network with priority course registration, dedicated advising, personalized guidance, and close monitoring of student engagement and performance.

Our students information and learning management systems was provided as a wrap around a scaffold environment to ensure every student's success. But don't take our word for it. We routinely ask students about their experiences in the program so we continue to improve it. Here's what our freshman participants said this program had helped me increase my organizational skills and keep me motivated to choose classes accordingly.

It also is very the way it encouraged me to talk to counselors if they had any question rather than just struggling and being confused on my own. It's extremely helpful having ability to enroll earlier so I can get my classes I need to finish and I need to finish my bachelor degree in a timely matter. Similarly, California promised transfer students said the program has helped me immensely.

Being required to speak to an advisor regarding my coursework has brought communication on which courses are necessary and unnecessary for graduation. Additionally, having prior registration allowed me to complete my bachelor's degree as expected to graduate earlier to expect. This is what student success means and California promise for Cal State Florson, the steps to succeed are clear at our institution. We identify, we invite and we guide and we support as we look forward the future.

We do not stop at the positive impact of individual student success stories. We use the past success to inspire to continue to improve our program, intensify our support and expand our reach. To fulfill the promise of not only the college graduation for lifetime success for all of our students, I would like to close by sharing University's vision. California State University will serve as a model public University that cultivates leaders who drives innovation, systematic change and collective well being in local and global communities.

These future leaders are students. Now all of us, Cal Sanford and all of the faculty staff recognize the critical importance to ensure their holiest success and embrace responsibility with unwavering commitment. Thank you for your time and look forward to your questions.

Thank you. Thank you, Doctor Dabirian, for that great testimony. I don't know. Doctor Forges, are you here to answer questions or you had testimony of your own?

I have some as well.

Okay, then. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Thank you, Senator Newman. It's great to have you here. Thank you for the opportunity to share with you how the division of Student affairs continues to do intentional work in partnership with academic affairs to support our students as they progress toward graduation. I'm David Forges. I'm the current Vice President for student affairs here at Cal State Fullerton. And if you ask me today, what are the biggest impediments to student success?

I would say student wellness, college pathways, the middle class scholarships, and the most recent changes around FAFSA. In all of these areas, we are a work in progress and we are continuing to evaluate and reevaluate how we respond to these impediments. Cal State Fullerton, as provost Avery and shared, serves over 41,000 students. It's incredible to walk the promenade and experience the bustle of this campus. And in the past couple of years, we have endeavored to provide and foster a sense of belonging for our students.

The sense of belonging is critical to student success, and the student affairs division is committed to providing holistic care through programs and resources that will help students navigate the campus and find their community. But as the Committee is aware, the long term effects of the pandemic are very real, not just here at Cal State Fullerton, but at universities nationwide.

In response, we have doubled our mental wellness peer educator positions, hired more counselors and a case manager to meet student demand, and as a result, outreach to students at prevention education events has increased by 475%. We've seen an 85% increase in usage of the wellness room. The need and demand for wellness programs are substantial and it is our priority to ensure adequate resources are available. We created care specialists to increase support for our faculty, staff and students and our three care specialists.

Their primary focus is to support student well being, promote academic success, and enrich the Titan experience. They provide non clinical case management to students, consult with faculty and staff on student distress and well being concerns, and respond to referrals and facilitate trainings and presentations. Our counseling and psychological services offers a variety of free, confidential mental health services for students. All services are paid for by student health fees and all actively enrolled students are eligible for services.

You've heard a bit today about our basic needs services, which is a major component of ensuring students are set up for success. Our basic needs center receives over 2800 visits and we hired additional staff to meet the continued increase in basic needs requests and recently launched a Basic Needs ambassador program for students, faculty and staff. Due to increased demand and visitations.

The campus food pantry was also moved to a bigger and more welcoming space in the Titan State Student Union and through the basic needs services, temporary housing is provided for up to three weeks in an on campus apartment while students secures long term stable housing. This also includes meals and temporary parking for the placement duration. The pathway to college success begins before students even step foot onto our campus, which is why our Center for educational Partnerships is critical to recruitment, retention and degree completion.

CEP develops partnerships and initiatives that target high need communities with the purpose of ensuring all students have the opportunity to pursue a post secondary education regardless of systemic economic or social barriers.

We have inter segmental partnership with nine school districts and community colleges and utilize federal grant programs such as gear up, upward bound and educational talent search to engage and serve underrepresented students from Low income backgrounds, preparing them for college during the fall 2023 application cycle, 3208 students enrolled at Cal State Fullerton from partnership schools, 58% of whom were Latinx, and from 2021 to 2023, while enrollment from partnership districts increased 8%, Latinx student enrollment from these schools increased at much more at 45%.

As a Hispanic serving institution and seal of excellency at campus, intentionally intentionality of enrolling and serving our Latin excellence students is important. As you may know, the transfer pathway can be difficult to navigate and manage and it is our goal through these inter segmental partnerships to simplify the process for prospective students. Affordability, accessibility and equality do go hand in hand and access to financial aid is absolutely critical to student success.

I'm happy to report that our financial aid office has successfully launched over 27,000 provisional financial aid awards for the 2024 to 2025 school year and we have distributed over $23.4 million in middle class scholarships to 16,530 students for spring 2024, which is an increase of $6.7 million over the prior year serving 1500 more students. Cal State Fullerton is also opening a titan hub as well as a scholarship office to ease the transition for students to provide additional support along their journey.

An ongoing challenge I would like to put on the Committee's radar is the ongoing challenges we are facing with the new middle class scholarship 2.0 legislation. Mc's 2.0 changed the awarding order and made Mc's a last payer. Where any other source of financial aid directly reduces or eliminates Mc's demoralizing pursuit and development of scholarship to support students financially. Institutional scholarships are not part of self help so directly reduces or eliminates Mc's awards. Mc's should no longer be a last payer to avoid further scholarship displacement.

Institutional scholarships should be included in the self help component as at this time, only private scholarships and emergency aid are self help. Currently, universities and students are continuing to struggle to complete and process their FAFSA applications in a timely manner. The federal delays have turned a six month awarding process into a six week one.

Some of the students who were heavily impacted were mixed status families, meaning these students were us citizens or equivalent, but their parents weren't documented and because of the new application process, these parents had no way of verifying their identities and therefore could not have submitted the required information on the application. To date, there are significant issues that have not been resolved by the Department of Education for mixed status families.

To support our students, we created our first ever funding your education at Cal State Fullerton FAFSA CADAA completion event, inviting students and families to help complete their financial aid application, as well as hosting 60 financial aid workshops. Since opening of the application, we delayed our annual financial aid documentation submission deadline from April 26 to May 31 and together with the CSU system, delayed the priority application deadline from April 2 to May 2 for state aid consideration.

To conclude, I just want to reemphasize that we are all part of the Titan community at Cal State Fullerton, and it is our ultimate goal not only to create a learning environment of equity and inclusivity, but cultivate leaders who will drive systemic change. And it is our job as part of this transformational institution to provide the resources and support systems that will help set a foundation of success for current and future students.

It is a privilege each day to serve our students and to help them on their path. Thank you again, Chairman Glazer and Senator Newman for being here today.

Thank you very much, Doctor. We're just appreciate hearing the you have the big picture of student life, not just the academics that you shared with us. And I know we've talked already offline about the counseling challenges, and I'm glad to hear of the progress you've made in the space and I hope that you'll continue to work.

On that as we go forward. I wanted to ask Doctor Dabirian a few questions. In your testimony, you talked about the success of the California Promise Program or Finish in Four. And if I heard you right, you said that the students that have been enrolled in that program have a two and a half times better graduation rate than those who are not. I'm really happy to hear that.

And it comes from some very small enhancements that they get. Registration priority and some academic advising help with their commitment to take the unit requires - unit load that's required. But when I look at the numbers, there's two points to ask you about. So when I look at the numbers here at Fullerton, for those in the program, it's much, much lower than other institutions of even smaller enrollment. So I show for example, that Fullerton has about 2200 students participating over the last few years.

Long Beach, with a much smaller student body has 7400, almost three times as many students participating. Sac State with substantially fewer students, has almost a five x level of participation in their Finish In Four program than here. When I went to your website to - my staff actually went to your website to find the Finish In Four program. It took them six clicks on your website to find that program.

On the other hand, I was pleased as I was walking through your campus today to see the signage that said about the Finish In Four program, that there is some visibility of it. But when I talk to students both here and across the state, they want to finish, they want to get through, but many of them don't even know about the program being available. Can you speak to the - I guess it's the marketing efforts that you've gone through to make sure students are aware so they could participate in it.

Absolutely. If you followed my testimony, I talked about what Fullerton Forward, one of the items was really trying to revamp California Promise. So our goal is to - looking at the success of California Promise, we want to start early. So this year we start marketing at our Experience Day, which is when they come in to sign up for our campus. So we are starting early. We also moving the website to Academic Advising Center. So right now is on the Registrar.

So we're trying to make sure it's easier for a student to find it because of part of the advising. We are also making it more predominant on advisors to be able to offer California Promise and Finish in Four. So we are doing a lot of marketing moving that forward. We understand the numbers are not, as you know, need to be. And our challenge is now changing that whole marketing strategy to make sure students know early. When they don't know early on, they come in after they take their first semester, you will not be able to get into the program as easily as you're starting at the first year.

Right. Indeed. And in your testimony, you talked about the work that you've done to increase diversity in your enrollment. It's very impressive. And I know that's a part of progress in this space as well. And you also mentioned some of the additional hires that you've done in terms of helping with some of these underrepresented groups. And certainly my praise, our praise for that focus in individual communities and how you can have them feel connected with your campus so that they are able to get to completion.

My last question is really the blind spot that I've seen here and elsewhere in the state, which is that, and we celebrate almost 12,000, I think, students graduating here at Fullerton in a few weeks. But at the same time, we have thousands of students that are dropping out of Fullerton every year.

And the blind spot on data as to why and how we can focus in on those challenges is something that I spoke with Doctor Jarvis from the academic Senate about earlier, and he raises some challenges in that space. But I hope that it's a place that, that you don't have blind spots so you know, and you can respond more directly to those issues.

Absolutely. This is really critical to us. So what I want you to know is we, at the University, take very seriously, this whole notion of dropout. So we are looking at innovative ways to actually move forward with this. When we ask students the same questions, same answers that Doctor Jarvis said comes out, financials, family issues, and so forth. So what we are trying to do at Fullerton, which is taking a different innovative approach from the day one.

So let me explain a couple of things that we have done. We have over 7,000 freshmen came in this fall. Approximately 260 of them did not register for a spring semester. Those are the freshmen. So we created, now we're working with the community colleges, creating a program called Flexible Transfer Pathways that we are May 4, actually, you know, a week from now, we inviting all the students to come into the campus that did not register. We're looking at what we can do to help them.

Either two things, either continue their journey back to our campus in fall, what we can do for them. Having financial aid advisors, having academic advisors kind of a wraparound service, make sure why they wrapped out and they come in on campus. We also are partnering with the community colleges so they can do a dual enrollment with the community college because the cost of that, especially giving them California Promise, is going to be a lot less.

So Santa Ana College and us are partnering together right now for fall semester on this pilot group of students that they're promising us the low tuition and a wraparound in a community college so their students will go to community colleges and take courses at lower cost and do a dual enrollment between us and them so we don't have to reapply on the campus again. They can come right back up and continue where they left off.

That's a great program that you're starting. So much praise for doing that.

And there's two other programs that I wanted to. One is we're calling it Bring Back Titans. So we are calling the students to be able to bring them back to the campus. And the Bring Back Titans are - we are also having another program along with it called Second Start. I don't know if you heard about the Second Start program at CSU that piloted this year.

We're bringing back students that were on academic notice or academic probation, that they left the campus disqualified, and we're giving them second start by resetting their GPA. They get the same courses back, but they resetting their GPA to do a second start. They can finish their program. Otherwise they could unable to finish their program. So Second Start, Bring Back Titans and Flexible Transfer Pathways. We're looking at those. One more changes that we have done our students when they stop out.

Our stop out policy used to be one semester. That means that if you stop out one semester, then you have to reapply to come back to University. We have increased that to two years. So for two years, we are going to do campaign with them to either bring them through community colleges back to our campus or bring them on campus without reapplying on campus, which is a barrier for our students.

Wow, those are great programs. Thank you for your leadership in that space. Let me turn over to Senator Newman if he has follow up questions.

Just briefly, and I know we're going to get to public comment. And thank you both for your testimony today. I am struck by Senator Glazer, touched on it, by, you know, one of the challenges is finding the information about California Promise on the website. But I think there's a broader problem. It's kind of ironic. I think when I went to college, it was all paper. Everything was paper. And I can't remember how I did it. But I did it. But there's this irony that it should be easier in the kind of digital era, and yet it's not. We're sort of drowning in data. Go ahead.

Senator Newman. Most students do a search, usually don't go through clicks to get to the particular places. They usually do a search. If you do a CSUF California Promise, that's the top of this.

Therein lies the challenge. Right? It's making students, your students aware of this program. So the search would be, how do I get through faster? How is it cheaper?

So we also looking at advising Senator Newman. So we're looking at how at the beginning. So first we want to market the California Promise to them so they know California Promise exists. Then we want to make sure that they will be able to easy to get into it and move forward.

Yeah. And, you know, and part of it is the culture, right. The culture of the University. If people feel supported, if they know where they have resources. To Miss Ottawalla's point, you know, you're way more likely to move through those gates. So there's kind of a holistic effort that's now I just want to touch on one thing. On the middle class scholarship. Your points are well taken. And this is something that I'm going to take up next year.

That was certainly not the intention, at least I hope it wasn't, because it is actually undermined in many cases, students ability to actually aggregate enough scholarships to make their education possible. So thank you for bringing that up. And let me also say just thank you to Senator Glazer as we move into public comments. This will be, I think, when we look back, one of your legacy achievements as a Member. And you've been working on this virtually the whole time you've been a Member of the State Senate. It wouldn't happen without you. And the statistics do prove that it is eminently valuable. Right.

It's working. And so we all need to continue to build on that legacy because it can have a huge difference in the lives of students and not just the speed at which they receive their degrees, but the quality of their educational experience is they move toward that degree. So thank you.

Thank you, Senator Newman. The state Cal Promise Program actually expires next year. There's legislation to extend it. Thank you for your, Senator Newman, for your support. Got through your Committee just this past month. So we appreciate that. And, of course, hearing the statistics about two and a half time improvement and graduation for those in it is a pretty compelling testimony. So to both of you, thank you for participating in our conversation today for your testimony, for your leadership in this space.

I know you're here at Cal State Fullerton because you love the mission of this University and the impact it has on people's lives and communities. Vibrancy. So we so appreciate your leadership. Thank you for being a part of our conversation today. And that leads us to the last thing on our agenda, which is public testimony. Public comment. We provide that at every Senate hearing that we do. I know we have folks here that have been listening attentively, and we would welcome anything you would like to say. Give everyone a minute if they want. Anyone have anything they want to share with us before we finish up. Okay. Everyone's happy. All right.

We've solved the problems. This is awesome.

Well, let me end first by thanking Senator Newman for your great partnership and leadership and excellence in advancing the important mission of our universities in the Senate. We've had the chance to work together, and it's five plus years now, so. And I've really appreciated the partnership with you and your community has, I know, has great pride in your leadership here in the Senate. Let me say thank you to Doctor Alva for your hosting of us here at Fullerton. It's fun for me to come back on a campus. It's a lot more fun to have hearings here on a campus than in the Capitol. Josh, I don't know if you agree.

We should do this on a more regular basis. Right.

We should, indeed. I know that programs and hearings like this don't happen without our wonderful audio visual support from the caucus. So those folks in the back, thank you for your help in broadcasting this hearing to those that are not here. Let me thank on my staff, Shoshana Levy, wherever she is, for her great work, and Sakshi Walia, my Chief and Titan alumni, for convincing us to come back here to Fullerton. What a great choice. And for the staff that Doctor Alva's staff, all your folks that have helped us do this hearing. Well, thank you all for.

If I could, I just want to salute my two Titans who are here, Scott Doe and Nathan Bass. Also Titans, so. Couldn't do it without them.

All right, well, the work continues after this hearing. If there's others who want to share thoughts or comments, we welcome that testimony. We heard some constructive suggestions that might affect things we do on a state basis, and certainly Senator Newman, as Chair of the Education Committee, is a great person to communicate with it. So with that, I want to thank those who are watching, who are listening, who are here in the hearing room for participating this work is important.

And I think, as Senator Newman mentioned earlier, every year that goes by where we're not making progress is a failure for some. And unfortunately, it's for many students who have seen the higher education ladder and have got a rung in their hands and have slipped out of it. And it has, we think about them a lot in terms of making sure that we are making good choices on the state level. And I know here on the campus level to make sure they can get that hand back on that rung, which we know is so important in their lives. So thank you all for participating in this. This hearing is adjourned.