 What I'd like to start out with is to ask you Can you talk about? What makes the community college model so special to you and why you think it's important so from my standpoint? Obviously, you know that I have grown up in this in this system, right the community college system And it's important to me. It was initially important to me because it opened doors So it the open access model is very attractive on my community college graduate I don't know if I'd be here today if it wasn't for the community college I think it continues to be an important component of higher education From the standpoint, there's still an access component, but there's a tremendous opportunity for retraining and in the world That we live in today. It is so Important that there are opportunities for people to explore new careers as older careers sort of start to shrink So I I really do think That that whole mission continues to be a value nationally. I also find that at times we are a first choice and other times We may be what I'll term and then I'll define as a last choice. So perhaps folks have gone away to college and Never completed a degree Coming back to the community college later in life for a lot of people seems like a safe new reentry point and And and what we find is a lot of our older students Appreciate the Community nature of a community college Can you talk about these Bandit opportunities for women in today's higher ed IT environments and what are the challenges still ahead as Our field the field of technology relates to women There's an equal opportunity out there. I firmly believe When we talk about What challenges still exist I remember and I think we've talked about this before My challenges in my early years of my career. I think that in some cases we still have challenges around depending on the Environment the culture of an organization women really Having opportunities to get to those leadership positions. I think we're making great inroads I think on the other hand I have to say that I see this in my own experience with my own team And my team of IT professionals is split just about 50 50, but there is much more Energy and confidence with men in wanting to Accelerate into leadership positions and with women a little bit less What I would say is less confident not less capable by any means But less confident or feeling more Obligated or obligated to sort of juggle a lot of balls around, you know, family children aging parents Spouse right cooking cleaning all of those things I Think it's harder for some women to sort of say, you know, I need I have a responsibility here But how do I also follow what my passion is? So Could you address those starting out in the in our field? Aspiring to become a leader much like yourself. What sort of advice would you give someone's starting out and Maybe weaving into that talk about some of the skills needed now Versus 15 years ago when we're building everything ourselves I mean, what are some of the skills needed or what are some of the advice you would have? for a younger generation regarding what skills are needed for The it professions of today. I mean the obvious ones are technical, right? But that doesn't get us anywhere anymore. I mean technical is not enough They are probably are still Jobs out there where you can sort of sit in your own cube or in a corner or in your home office and speak to no one But I think they're few and far between I think When I started in the field, you know, it was sort of okay fine build a registration system great Okay, so I went through a manual registration system as a student So I'm going to build that registration system based on my personal experience I think that's sort of how we developed in the, you know, 30-40 years ago. I think today it's all about first who's your customer, right? So it's the student. So there's number one. What is their expectation? What is the Current Technologies that they are very comfortable with and what are their expectations as far as how services are going to be delivered So first you need input from the folks who are going to use it And secondly, you really need to also take the lead from the experts in the field Which certainly are not the technologists any longer But they are the end end user departments and the experts in those departments So skill set I already said technical probably equally as important and maybe more so Is really the ability to build relationships with the end user community to be a strong collaborator To be a good listener. I mean, I probably have dozens of these Things that I don't think you worried about like I said 30 years ago So it really is about Delivering what people are asking for instead of dictating or telling or Putting on someone's desk. Here's here's the tool change your processes And use it now. It's more about first. What does the student want What do they expect? from a from a good quality technology delivery or implementation And secondly, how does the end user help to define what that student is Asking for and how is it going to work from a process standpoint? in in their environment and from a technology standpoint I am a firm believer that we're a support organization um, and It's more than just delivering technology. It's really about delivering technology And really working hard to understand The end user departments and the needs in the department and the needs of the folks that you're serving One of the things we we're hearing about more and more these days is is the idea of student success Working towards student success. I know you're involved in a grant With the bill and will indigates foundation. Is that correct? So so we had backed back grants from the bill and will indigates foundation and our second grant ended august 2018 Okay, so recent right, so We've talked about student success for 15 years. What's what's new? What's what's this about now when we talk about student success now in these grants and what people are working towards and talking about student success What does it mean now versus 10 years ago? So I I think 10 years ago the focus was really on I think the end focus was always the same Retention and completion always the same and for community colleges 10 years ago Our strongest focus was really around our mission, which was access I Think all of those things are still in play. I think what has changed is the center the center part of that the how to I mean what what Changes have we made in the way that we support students in their success? So over the last Six years at our institution. We started with in this work basically identifying What technologies we had that was would support student improvements expansions in student support services and what Technologies were missing So through the grant period we sort of filled in the Blocks, right? We filled in all the missing technologies So that's one piece of the puzzle. So that piece is in a fairly decent place Not as seamless as I think that that particular grant The Gates Foundation grant was really based around this very seamless experience with I think what people at hope would be a single tool We're still not there But some of us are still hoping that we can get there someday that there's going to be this, you know singular product But there's very good. I think I think the folks the schools that participated the universities and colleges that participated in that grant Have done a very good job interfacing a variety of different tools I think the other piece that we've learned and and where the future is going with student success is So we now have a lot of decent tools in place We also have a lot of new processes of how we Engage with students. We're also using which I have to say Six to eight years ago. We weren't doing we're doing a lot around data analytics We're really digging deep into the data instead of just looking at Here's the number of students Who have this kind of Demographic and here's how they do. We're really digging deep and trying to get To get very specific data points around Potential Situations that may occur Where students need a little nudge or a push or a um Or a piece of encouragement not knowing that every student who falls sort of in that analytics category may need all of that but just thinking that As long as they're positive and not like hey, you know You might not we think that you're going to be struggling. I mean we never Everything we write and say to our students is very intentional to be supportive And encouraging So I think that we're seeing more so I think I'm answering part of the question by saying we're seeing more communication Between the college and the student. That's much more personalized So where do I think we're going from Montgomery standpoint even though the grant is over Our group is still working So we have new areas that we're working in We're really looking at things around Um financial Before it was financial planning. We're really looking around financial need um food We have a food cover that we're hoping to increase we see We've done some things around tools that help students To understand sort of their mental wellness. I think we would like to do more in that space um we so homelessness so more of the I want to say More invisible or quiet kinds of challenges That students face that so often they don't share We we want to get more into Um providing student support services in that space The other thing that we've done very recently is We have done a lot of um research around the importance of tutoring And a community college being a commuter college. We also have a virtual campus It's not always easy when you have a tutoring center And we have a very good uh face-to-face tutoring center A lot of our folks work some of our folks literally run in Um Take their classes. They have to be home for a school bus or to go to work So They don't necessarily have that Time when the tutors are available to um To participate in a tutoring session So we've just moved to we still have our face-to-face tutoring But we've just introduced online tutoring across the college. We piloted last year It is turning out to be very um appreciative by our students, especially those students who have time constraints and can't stay on the campus. Um to um Longer than than their classes are so Another area where we're doing some Um heavy-duty focus on it's so holistic everything sounds very holistic the way Absolutely not about like just analytics and academics. It's also about how do you take care of your life? That's right. It's interesting um last question and this is kind of just a Maybe a silly question, but I'd like to hear your answer What's your favorite thing about coming to work every day and what's your least favorite thing about coming to work every day? Oh, this is it's not a silly question. It's a question and it's and it's And it's an easy one for me one. I have had a very fortunate career and I would be Not telling the truth if I said everything was always rosy um Every career I think has um Sun ups and downs just like you know, you would I do an analogy around a roller coaster You know roller coasters have ups and downs But when you get to the end if you love roller coasters, it was a great ride So I've had a great ride um, and I think why I stated earlier uh to you that I Community colleges are absolutely my passion. I love the students while Some might say oh students were different 40 years ago or 50 years ago than what they are today Yeah, but I think that's some of the excitement and I think students are only different because the world is different, right? um, but truly I come to work every day and I've stayed here as long as I've had because I've always had an opportunity to make a difference And when I say make a difference, it's not about the college. It's really making a difference all the way down to an individual student's life um, and that may sound like crazy for a vp for technology to really be that specific about touching a student, but I truly believe in I have a great team that works with me We all put our students first. I mean they're they are our top priority now The best question is what you know, what maybe don't I like to do? um And I I'd have to say Probably probably my least favorite thing to do is Uh, attend so many meetings A lot of meetings once you get up to the leadership level and if there was some way to sort of I'd love it if we could have like 15 minute meetings and then the meeting would be over and what you didn't cover in 15 minutes Oh, well, it didn't get covered and you would move on um I think it's the meetings. I you know, I understand I understand. I'm I'm not at your level, but I I have a little bit I get it Well, celeste congratulations on the award and thank you so much for talking with me You know, I have to tell you and this is with the most sincerity when I found out I don't even know if I could express it. I was so so Touched and overwhelmed and when I realized The people throughout my life who came forward and Sent letters It was overwhelming