Erin Neumann, Interim Executive Campus Dean, Boone Campus and Ann Kiesel, Academic Achievement Center, visit about activities and services at the Boone Campus of DMACC. Kiesel talks about the HiSET (the Iowa High School Equivalency Diploma) Program offered through DMACC and also about the business of the Academic Achievement Center for all students.
Transcript
On our program today, we’re talking about things that are going on at Des Moines Area Community College, the Boone Campus of DMACC, and our Interim Executive Campus Dean. I’m getting it down right now. Yes. Erin Newman is here. Thank you. And you brought company today. I did. I’m so excited. Ann Kiesel came along today. And does, well, what, continuing it, I’m guessing, or what other things? Yes. So thank you for having me, Erin, and Jim. And I coordinate the Academic Achievement Center and the Test Center. And then I’m also English faculty. So I help college students with their essays. And then also I coordinate and teach in the Highset program. And Highset’s one of the things we’re going to visit a little bit about because it’s there folks. It’s at DMACC. So Erin, first of all, you had all the trustees came out. In October, the traditional meeting is in Boone. And we had the president along and, I guess, everything. You got to welcome everybody anyway. We did. We got to welcome everybody back to Boone. So yeah, October is typically the month of the year when the Boone Campus hosts the DMACC board and the president and everything. So that was Monday, this past Monday. And it was a successful event. Boone, there’s always great things happening there. So it’s nice to show off our facility and our activities and our people there. And they like to look around and see what’s like. This is how they keep track of what everybody’s doing, I think, is they show up and have their meetings on the individual campuses. Yeah. I think it really helps them to be in the facilities. Get some out of the metro, doesn’t it? Yeah. And to see the spaces where these things are happening that they hear reports on and see data about. Yeah. It’s really nice, I think, for them to be there. All right. So we’ve got that going, a variety of different things happening because we’re in the basically full swing of fall semester. Full swing of fall semester. We’re right at, academically, kind of at the midterm point already, which is kind of amazing to think about. Yeah. And, you know, athletic, season-wise, everything’s in full swing. So can I share some events that are coming up? Yeah. Just had a big pink out. Yeah. Just that big pink out to Mark Breast Cancer Awareness. That was on the… Was it back on the 14th, Wednesday, at last Wednesday? Yeah, Wednesday the 14th. Yeah. So a really fun event. Lots of people. That was also our student affairs night. So we had a lot of student affairs colleagues from around the DMACC district coming to cheer on the volleyball team. Okay. And that was a battle. It’s a tough year for volleyball. I mean, competition just doesn’t go away, does it? B.J. has been on before, and he talks about, you know, always our goal was to be up there by Kirkwood, and now everybody’s up here, and so it’s just matter of survival out there. Yeah. Lots of tough competition and a strong volleyball team on the DMACC side, yes. All right. All right. What other things are coming up? Yeah. On the athletic side of things, coming up this week on the 20th, so tomorrow, we have DMACC volleyball sophomore night. So that’s at 6 p.m. in the den or in the gym. And then the following week, we have a few more events. One of them includes some free admission for K-12 students and their families. That’s at our DMACC volleyball Halloween out versus Indian Hills, which is next Monday, October 26th, that’s 6, 6. So people could certainly come in costume or enjoy that. And then men’s basketball is also having a Halloween out when they’re playing kishwaki, which is Friday, October 30th at 7 o’clock. So some exciting events coming up, merging athletics and the Halloween season. So did we have some of our, I know the rain was not kind to baseball and softball teams in some of their schedules here. Are they pretty well wrapped up? Yes. I believe this week they were wrapped up. They did have a lot of shuffling of schedules to get everything done. More rain than usual, right, in the fall. So it was a lot of shit. Well, it didn’t have to water the ball fields. No. That was definitely taken care of, which was nice. Yeah. And again, a variety of different things you do. And we wanted to talk specifically about high set. A lot of people may, may not realize that, you know, it used to be 12, 15 years ago, it was called GED, you know, getting your diploma after school. It’s been changed to high set, a little more rigor in that program. And you’ve been with it for a while now. I have. So I started Jim in 2003 at the DMACC campus as a part time instructor. And at that time we were GED. And so in 2014, in connection with the federal core curriculum standards, they changed to high set. So I had a colleague of mine come up with a really good analogy to understand the difference between GED and high set. So if you think of tissues, so equivalency diploma is tissues. And then when you have puffs and Kleenex, those are name brands for tissues. So we have the name brand GED and the name brand high set. So GED is a company name that and then high set is a company name and high set stands for high school equivalency test. And in 2014, Iowa became a high set state. So everywhere in the state, we, the students take high set tests. But other states, for example, Illinois, that parts of the state might be a GED state. They might give GED testing, but then another part of the state, they might do high set. And then there’s another one in there and I’m not quite familiar with it. I think it’s called TABE. And so some states even have three companies that they deal with for equivalency test, diploma testing. Makes it a little easier to have one that we’re really focusing on. Exactly. That’s very helpful. When students come in or if you get somebody that might be interested, how do they get referred or how do they get to, because our DMAC location is the place to go locally? Exactly. And so over time, as a lot of things, it has kind of morphed into more of an online process, district-wide. And so it used to be where students would come to the campus or they’d call the campus and they would just come in and we would just start. Now there are district requirements. And so all of the online and all the enrollment process is online. However, if students walk through our door at the DMAC Boone campus or they call and get connected with me, then we can coordinate and actually do the online process right there with them on campus. A lot of times it’s through email, it’s through phone calls. We get a lot of phone calls saying, I would like to start my GED and then I explain the whole high set process. And then they say, well, how do I do that? And I’ll send them the link and they enroll. And then we start the process. It’s, well, I guess a lot of them might think of the old version, there was a lot of flexibility in it. There’s a little more rigor with high set. There is. Because once we became a high set state, there are, with high set, you can be with the high set company, but then you can have flexibility and have more of an independent kind of plan, educational plan. But high set is a managed controlled, managed enrollment state is what they call it. And that just means we require classes. Now there is some leeway in there, some wiggle room. If students come in, they enroll in the program, we put them on a pre-test. And based on how they do on those pre-tests determines whether or not they can be a high fly or fast tracker and move through the system more quickly, or they have to go into classes. And we have, and the classes are, if students sometimes get discouraged when they have to go into the classes, but it’s actually a good thing. The classes are good. I have a math instructor, Jeff Dorn, who teaches the math side of it. And then I teach the reading and the writing side of it. And they, we actually work with them on, we have some free practice tests that we work with them. We work on test taking skills. We work on motivation and goal setting in order to get them through the long process. Because you have pre-test, you have the classes, if you have to go that route, then you have the readiness test, then you have the final test. And so it’s a lot of steps in the process. And we just really focus on encouraging and motivating students to stick with it and go through the classes. We, we have five week classes here on our campus for high set. So it’s not too terribly long. And so we, we, we do our best to get them through. I guess the first part is, of course, they have made the decision that they want to go back and get their degree. They’ve all of a sudden discovered, I didn’t do it in high school or for some reason or other, I was, did not accomplish that. But I need that. If I want to go further. Exactly. And so you get to play a little bit of a counselor too. Exactly. Goal setting. A lot of times students will finish and they want to go into some workforce training academy programs like CNA, nurse aid program. And so then we pass those students off to advisors to help them get enrolled. Some actually want to go in and do credit classes. Some don’t want to continue on at a community college or DMACC. They want to go right into the working force, which is fine. So we just want to help them get through this part and get that, that recognition as a high school, having completed a high school curriculum. Exactly. And I always encourage students, you know, this is housed, it used to be housed, the high set program used to be housed under the Department of Education. But now with Governor Reynolds reorganizing of the departments and she housed it under Iowa workforce development. And so they work really well with trying to get people, you know, career and college ready with that. But they, this is a government program, education changes. So I always tell students, and this might be part of my motivational plan with them, that they stick with it and really get through it as quickly as possible because they can change the program and drop it. You never know what? Yeah. When they’re going to change it. So how does, for some, is there a cost? How does that all work out? Well, that’s an interesting question because it’s very nice, DMACC actually has enough grant money from donors who donate funds to help offset the cost. So I always say currently, we fund the testing, no cost for the classes. There’s actually no cost for the program. We actually pay for their diploma, the cost to get their diploma ordered. And we pay for the testing fees, which is $18 a test and there are five tests. So that’s quite a hefty cost for some people. If they were, if they would have to cover that on their own, yeah. Now it’s nice though, not all of the Iowa community colleges pay for the program. DMACC is, you know, just a handful of those who do and I do know some community colleges do not help support payment of that, of the testing. People around here are fortunate they could, they can do that, very fortunate. Again that’s, it’s a program that is available. For those that are interested, now I’m not going to say we get hundreds, but you consistently we have a couple of dozen I’m guessing that are in the program at any given time. Yes, exactly. And we actually compared to the urban area, the Des Moines metro area, our classes here at Boone tend to be quite smaller because we’re smaller in population of course. And we have students on different educational plans. So it’s, it’s constantly revolving and moving in different pieces because we’ll have people in class and then the previous class, they’re working on their readiness testing. They may not meet that minimum required scores. So then we tutor them and we’re always, always doing something with students in the high set program wherever they are. So Jeff does math, you do the English part of it and stuff. Do you have other instructors that will help out every once in a while if you need them or? We do Annie Carpenter, my full-time math instructor. She does not teach the high set math, but she does tutor the math students. And then Mary Beth Hanlon, who is taught for many years science at the DMACC campus. She’s now one of my tutors in the academic achievement center and she has stepped up and will help them to get through some of the science. We need to have a little bit of science background, not a lot, but it would help to have some science-y terms explained. Yeah. Well, then I want to ask the other part of it too, because not just high set, but you did talk about the academic achievement center. So that’s for every student. It is. It is. And there, I always, when I meet with students and the student athletes, which I’ve been making my rounds, meeting with every student athlete group. And I always start out, this is a free service to you as a DMACC student. But then I joke and say, well, nothing in life is really free, right? So your tuition dollars pay for these services. So it’s to your advantage to utilize these resources. It’s another tool for you. It is. Exactly. And we can help with foundation scholarship essays. We can help with history papers, comp papers, composition papers. Okay. Lots. That’s a lot. Isn’t it? Yeah. It’s, I mean, you know, really, student opportunity driven, really is. And I’m guessing on the high set side, when she mentioned, you know, going into the workforce side, which you’ve been heavily involved with, Erin, again, it kind of couples right into some of the success in the, in the work programming that does, that we’ve got available. Yeah. And we’ve had a number of students, you mentioned CNA in particular, that’s really one that we’ve seen a release, often a very smooth transition because CNA is one of the workforce programs at the boom campus too. And so many times, yeah, students will move from one to the other. And because they’ve had that structure and support and they’ve put in a lot of work along with the team there, oftentimes, you know, CNA is a challenging program as well. But because they’ve developed those skills and high set, CNA is, is a little bit easier for them, you know, and then they can go off into the work world or start working towards nursing programs, anything like that. We just all like to have it when we have a graduation. Yes. That’s what we. The C, the, or the high set graduations every June, I think, right? Yeah. So every June, the third Thursday of every June, we have a high set graduation and we have an inspirational speaker and we have awarding of the certificates. It’s really a special evening. Erin has been helping me with that and she gives the DMAC welcome and was keynote speaker one year. One. Yeah. And then we have a punch and cookie reception afterwards. And it’s just so special for the families. Lots of tears, joy, I mean, very thankful graduation. We see a lot of families show up, I guess in high set. This is somebody who has made a decision to come back and work hard and accomplish something and that whole family, yeah, I can see really turn out for that. Absolutely. That’s one of the best days of the year. I think is the high set graduation. You’ve got children there and, and yeah, sharing them on. Yes. Yeah. And of all ages. I mean, it can be all of all ages. Yeah. Absolutely. So Erin, some of the other things that are coming up, I’m guessing here we are middle of the fall semester pretty much. Yeah. We’re already looking at spring. We’re already looking at spring. So our advising team and our student services team is busy helping to registration recently started for the spring semester. One thing that is new this year for DMACC in general is that we’re offering a winter term. Other colleges often will do that and so DMACC has started that. So winter is a real short term condensed timeframe. So it’s December 22nd through January 18th. So over that holiday season, but a person, you know, if that timing was right for them could get a course done in those three weeks. They definitely have to be willing to work every day of that. Right. I know there are some holidays in there, but it is an option for people who maybe wanted to get started or wanted to finish a particular class before they launched into the spring semester. A good way to pick up some of those extra credits. Yeah. I mean, if they, if they had time to commit to it, yeah, it would be a great time to pick up, you know, several of our programs might need some different sorts of things like social sciences or humanities, things like that. So it would be an option, you know, to do that. And, but otherwise, yeah, our spring semester starts January 11th. So if someone’s thinking about maybe getting started in the spring semester with high set or with credit classes, they have ample time to take the steps they need to do to be ready for that. Okay. Winter. Winter. Yeah. I like that. I like that name. Well, it is. It’s a, yeah. You got to be committed to doing it too. Yes, you do. There’s a lot of things on campus that are going on. Yeah. I was going to mention Phi Theta Kappa, which is our national honor society, international honor society. They had their induction ceremony last Thursday, the 15th, and they had almost 40 new members. So that’s a thriving program, which is great to see. And then DMACC is recruiting their next cohort of students for honors. So December 1st is kind of the deadline for that. But so there’s an active honors program across DMACC and Boone is very active within that. And then in October 28th is our 22 push-up challenge. So that’s October 28th at 12.15 in the quarter center, and that is led by Sean Taylor, right? I think who’s spoken with you before. And that’s a really fun event to watch. The quarter center is just full of people with, you know, the same wonderful t-shirts and many people doing push-ups, and that’s of course to mark or draw attention to the number of suicides of veterans that occur each day. And last time when we had, what was it, Mark, who came with you last time? Oh, Michael. Michael. Michael, our counselor. Yeah. Michael Bress. And again, that was one of the things he talked about. Some of the challenges. Of course, I always wonder who’s going to beat the women’s softball team in push-ups. With those push-ups, it’s pretty amazing to see the dedication and strength of the people who participate in that. Yeah, they get it. They are committed. Yes, they are. And they get it done. So just some of the other things that are going on, and busy, got a lot of things happening. Busy. Lots of good things. And again, got to remember to invite people. Come on out and try the restaurant. Yeah. Come out to the cafe. Come out to the cafe. I will mention, this Friday the 23rd, we are closed because DMACC has it in service day. Okay. But that’s an exception to the rule. Basically, anytime we’re open for classes, they’re going to be open from about 7.30 to 1. They always have lunch specials. They’ve got a lot of great food. And we have more and more community members, or maybe some different groups in the community will come there and have breakfast, which is our lunch, which we’re always glad to see. You’ve got this group that they kind of rotate. They kind of make their way around to different ones, and now DMACC is a regular stop. Yeah, we’re on the rotation, I think. So we keep doing that, too. A lot of things going on. Maybe if they want to find out more about high set, or if you’re a student and want to do academic achievement, get a hold of them. Yeah. So easy to do. Get it out. Again, there’s no bad questions if you want to find out about it. Just contact the campus, and somebody will get you in contact with who you need to be. That’s right. We know who the right person is for questions. We’d love to have people ask. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you, Jim.