Let's Talk UNLV

0:00:00
Welcome to another segment of Let's Talk UNLV. On KUNV you are with co-host Keith and Renee. Renee it was a beautiful weekend this weekend. I know you did something adventurous. Talk to me about that.

0:00:19
So my mother was here and she was visiting from Los Angeles and so we went to go see Godzilla vs. Kong. We did the massage and the pedicure and we went to Top of the World restaurant at the Strat which was pretty, pretty nice. I had a good 10-ounce filet. So all together it was a wonderful time with Bob, beautiful weather and some good outings. What about you? Okay, I gotta stop right now. Godzilla vs. King Kong. Thumbs up or thumbs down? You know, it was for her. I don't really like those monster movies, so I think I fell asleep, to be honest. And we were the only ones in the theater. It was an 8 o'clock show and just the two of us in the theater that babysits 200. But she enjoyed it, and I enjoyed taking her.

0:01:08
All right. I ended up actually, you know, taking my first trip since the pandemic. So I actually went to Phoenix for a conference. And, you know, it was great. It was a fraternal conference and we really focused on what this topic is going to be about today. And that's what I'm looking forward to, our discussion. But we really were talking about K through 20 success among disadvantaged populations and what can we do in different communities to mobilize all of our efforts to improve the circumstances of these youth who are impacted, in particular, through the pandemic. So that leads us right into our segment today. We have Dr. Laura Pritchett, who's the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. So I know there's a lot to unpack under that title. So Dr. Pritchett, welcome to the show.

0:01:51
Thank you so much for having me, Keith and Renee. It's a pleasure to join you.

0:01:55
All right, could you talk a little bit about sort of just generally what falls under the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education?

0:02:02
vice provost of undergraduate education. Sure. So, as you can imagine, undergraduate education encompasses a lot of what happens at UNLV since a pretty large portion of our student enrollment are undergraduate students. So, my office is primarily responsible for coordinating and providing central leadership for undergraduate student success initiatives, for central coordination of academic advising for undergraduates. The Office of Online Education is part of our group. We also oversee the implementation and assessment of our general education curriculum here at UNLV, and the multicultural program for STEM and health sciences lives in our office.

0:03:00
Wow, that's a robust portfolio. So talk to me about the career trajectory of someone who wants to serve as a provost. I mean, I'm, you know, on the student affairs track, but talk to me, how does someone wake up one day and say, that's the kind of career path I want to pursue?

0:03:20
Oh, well, that's an interesting question. And I think it's probably different for every person who finds themselves in this kind of a role. It certainly was not my intention when I began my academic career. I've always been very dedicated to teaching. I started out as a biology instructor at a community college. And then when I finished my PhD, I did a teaching intensive postdoctoral fellowship, which is pretty unusual for people intending to go into the professoriate, but it was something that was important to me. So, I worked at after I finished my PhD. And then I had an opportunity to come to UNLV as an assistant professor of psychology. And, you know, worked as a tenure track faculty member. I taught courses in the psychology department for several years. And then I had an opportunity to transition into administration. And it wasn't something that I necessarily knew that I wanted to do, but I became involved in the redesign of our general education program when I was a faculty member in the psychology department, developed a first year seminar for the College of Liberal Arts, and that was a really rewarding experience for me. And so when an opportunity arose for me to become the assistant director for general education, I decided to go ahead and pursue that. And at that time, I was working for the person who was then our vice provost for our Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, who's now our provost, Chris Hebe, and just learned so much from him in such a short time. And when he decided to go back to the College of Liberal Arts as their dean, I was approached and asked if I would be willing to just sort of temporarily step into the vice provost role and what was supposed to be about six months turned into a couple of years. And it's been extremely rewarding, extremely challenging. It is amazing to me every day that I'm able to fit more information about the university and how it operates into my brain. Like, there's just so much to know, so many people to meet and to learn from. And that's what's great about being an administrator at a university, that you get to work with different people every single day and learn from their perspective. And it's never boring. Yeah, that's a phenomenal journey.

0:07:44
And it's interesting, Renee and I've had similar conversations on like there is no you're you're pursuing your undergraduate, graduate doctoral work. There is no sort of, hey, I'm going to go and be a student affairs ex or senior administrator at a university. So it's great to hear that your story similarly mirrors mirrors our journey into this, where you just sort of fall into this space. And because you get passionate about it, you know, before you look up, it's six years, 15, 20 years down the road. Could you talk a little bit about so undergraduate programs is such a big portfolio. Could you talk a little bit about how what the approach has been to shape what it is today in terms of what programming falls within that space?

0:08:29
Sure. So, like anything else at UNLV or really at any other university, it has evolved over time. Anybody who has been at UNLV for more than a few years that we've seen quite a bit of change in leadership over the past decade. And with that have come differences in the way our most senior executive leaders have envisioned what the provost's office should look like and how it should be organized. So that has had some influence on which thing the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education is responsible for. But also, it's really been about responding to the needs of the university. So for example, at the time that I first started working in the provost's office, we were undergoing this kind of massive general education reform that now Provost Tevey was leading at the time and that was really about preparing our students for the jobs of the future. We understood from a lot of the national research and the feedback that employers that there was a gap between what our students were learning from us and what employers expected them to know and be able to do. And that really seemed to be centered on what some people call soft skills. Things like communication, critical thinking and um, having an appreciation for working with others from diverse backgrounds. Um, and so, the university as a community decided to kind of break down our general education requirements and rebuild them from the ground up. And it was such a big undertaking and so important that we decided we needed to have some dedicated resources and some dedicated positions in the provost's office to manage that and make sure that it was built successfully and that there was someone to look after it and sustain it in the long term. So, that's one example of the way it's changed over time. Another thing that's happened is that the Office of Online Education used to be part of our Division of Educational Outreach because that was really where the demand for online programs and online courses seemed to be. It was more outward facing, more recruiting community members who maybe wanted to take courses to upskill for their job or just for personal enrichment. But as we've all seen over the past decade or so, the demand for fully online degree programs and other kinds of credentials like certificates has grown exponentially. that we needed to move that office more onto the four-credit academic side of the university and start making online programs available to all of our students.

0:12:58
And so talk to us about what needs and changes have you had, well, that you've had to make in light of COVID, and how that changed the direction of the Provost's Office and how you provide these services in light of so much uncertainty and such a diverse student body, but also trying to support faculty as they prepare the curriculum.

0:13:31
everything we've done. We have lived and breathed and slept, pivoting to adapt to pandemic conditions over the past year. And so of course one of the major components of that has been helping faculty to adjust their instruction to be able to deliver their courses remotely. And so our Office of Online Education worked really closely with the Office of Information to deliver a massive amount of training to our faculty last spring and summer. And we have the highest participation we've ever seen in any faculty development program we've ever put on. I think we had over 700 faculty participate in that summer training program. So that was a major undertaking for our staff. I could not be more proud of the way they stepped up and helped UNLV to move forward. Some of the other things that we've been involved in were developing a process for students who either tested positive for COVID or who were exposed and needed to quarantine for some short period of time and couldn't come to campus. We understood that that was probably going to be too much for the DRC to handle, the Disability Resource Center, to handle through their standard accommodation process. And so we worked with them to develop a parallel process for these sort of short-term accommodations for students. And that I think has been a huge help to students and to faculty to streamline that and make sure that students are still able to participate and stay up to date with their classes if they need to stay home. quite a bit with our academic advising community to help them develop processes where they can deliver advising remotely. That was a big learning curve. A few of our advising centers were already doing some virtual advising, but to move everybody to basically 100% virtual advising for major undertaking. So we've helped support that on one end of the spectrum with help on the technology side, just helping advisors get up to speed with WebEx and Google Meets and Jabber and all the kinds of technologies that we use to do those virtual meetings, but then also to help them figure out just logistically how to make things work and how to make sure that staff have what they need and aren't getting overwhelmed with too many appointments with students. With students, we know that the way we do meetings has changed so much that we don't have breaks in between meetings anymore. If your day is anything like mine, it's just back-to-back. Or overlapping. We're in meetings all day long. And mostly overlapping. And you have to remind yourself, I need five minutes to take a bathroom break. So that that kind of logistical help was something that we worked on with advising centers too. And now that things are starting to, we believe, turn a corner, now the challenge is helping folks to move back in the other direction. So how do we transition back to in-person instruction and in-person advising in a way that accommodates the needs of students and staff and faculty and that is comfortable for everyone involved because people vary, right, and in how comfortable they're going to be coming back to an on-campus work and learning environment.

0:18:55
So it sounds like to me it was the perfect storm, to some degree, because you had already transitioned online education under your area. And I just, I almost cringed at thinking, what could have happened had that move not occur? Is that how you see it or?

0:19:14
Oh yeah, 100%. If we had not had the support of that amazing group of folks and if they hadn't been so closely connected with the academic department on campus, I think we would have been in a world of hurt.

0:19:40
As you were just talking, I just saw this triangle just appear in my head about, you know, Office of Information Technology and online education and the Faculty Center and how many times you all had to have communication and meetings and preparation and coordination, while consistently providing the curriculum to ensure that students have the most of their experience, while at the same token, protecting students and protecting faculty. So thank you for really describing that major undertaking. So now as we switch back to having fall operations resume and more in-person classes, what's happening there?

0:20:22
What kind of preparation and plans are being made there? Sure, so you know one of the primary challenges is figuring out the kind of Tetris game, for lack of a better description, of how do we how do we get more in-person courses scheduled because we know that there's a desire among many of our students to get back to in-person instruction, and our faculty as well. How do we get those courses scheduled on campus and still comply with whatever public health guidelines and social distancing guidelines exist six months in the future, right? Because we, you know, we have to open up the schedule for students to register well in advance, but we don't know what the world will look like in August. So we have to do our best to make our best guess. We have to accommodate accommodate the faculty's comfort level with coming back to in-person instruction. We have to think about things like if you're teaching in-person, but you still have to wear a mask, how is that going to work? Help faculty to figure out solutions. One of the things that we're piloting for next fall that I think has the potential to be sort of a permanent fixture in the way we teach at UNLV or at least some of our courses is something that we call rebel flex. So, we've been able to invest some of the federal funding that UNLD has received to address the impacts on the institution of the pandemic in some special equipment for several of our classrooms that allows instructors to teach in person to students who are actually sitting in the room with them, as well as live stream the course to students who are remote. And at the same time, we can provide a student worker course assistant to help the instructor manage the classroom technology, monitor the chat from the students who are remote, and allow those students to engage in the classroom discussion or in any interactive activities that the instructor conducts during the class. accommodate the needs of students with, you know, different health concerns, for example, or just different life responsibilities and priorities, who may or may not be able to come to campus. So we're going to be running a small pilot cohort of those kinds of classes in the fall, and we're excited to see how it works out, what we can learn from it, and sort of iteratively improve that process moving forward.

0:24:16
And if you couldn't tell, Renee and I, we're looking at each other trying to jump in and get in front of the other on questions, so our time has gone by so fast. We'll get you out of here on this final question. Could you talk a little bit about what are your sort of greatest, what are you most proud of that we've been able to accomplish under undergraduate programs, under your leadership, and what are some of the outcomes that we've achieved

0:24:58
over the past few years. And those are the result of really everybody, every day, adjusting the way they do their thoughtful and really applying what they've learned through faculty development. But at the end of the day, what has happened is our first year retention rate for new freshmen has increased to a record high level, and our four and six year graduation rates have increased to record high levels over the past few years. And we know that because of the work of every faculty member, every staff member, and because our students are really dedicated. So I'm really proud of the work the university has done there. And as we look forward, some of the things that we're excited about are continuing to build out our advising resources for undergraduate students. Our goal is to get to a ratio of which is considered sort of a national best practice. So we're well on our way to that and looking forward to continuing to add more advising capacity. Also, we're really excited about building out peer mentoring across the university. Most of our colleges over the past two years have started peer mentoring programs. We also have peer mentoring that occurs in many of our administrative units across the campus. And we're looking to add even more mentors, even more opportunities for students to help other students be successful.

0:27:12
Dr. Pridden, thank you so much for taking time from your back-to-back-to-back schedules and meeting schedule and to join us and just share some of the wonderful things that are underway in the undergraduate programs for UNRV. Renee, what are some of your takeaways from this session?

0:27:28
Well, I'm excited to hear about the RebelFlex program. I think it's a great investment and a great way to utilize those dollars. I'm curious to see how that's going to play out. I teach a course and actually we're interested in that pilot to see how that would work, because in my first year of teaching here, it was all online. And so I wonder how the delivery would have been in a master's doctoral level course to have both the opportunity to stream, but also be in person. But again, I'm just most impressed with how all this has come together in light of COVID, but even how in a short time, the whole portfolio for Dr. Pritchett has just changed, and for the better, it sounds like. So I look forward to seeing all the things that's going to unfold. We didn't get a chance to talk about it, but I know Dr. Pritchett is working on the top tier student achievement. She's also working on the MSI Student Success Summit. So there's some other things in the goody bag that's going to come out from her area.

0:28:31
Did I hear you say we need to try to clone Laurel?

0:28:34
I think so. I think so. I think so.

0:28:38
And I know –

0:28:39
If you could make a taller version, that would be great.

0:28:42
How much taller do you need? Give us a number.

0:28:47
Not a lot, maybe like four inches.

0:28:50
Okay.

0:28:51
Just so I could reach stuff on the top shelf. That'd be great.

0:28:54
See, Laura, you take me back to the show I like to watch, the Big Bang Theory. I don't know if you watch it, but Bernadette, that's one of the things that she's always talking about, the hype. But, you know, one of my takeaways – well, I had a lot of takeaways, but one that really resonated is just, you know, understanding how complex it is at a university to make some of these structural changes. And I'm very appreciative of how Laura laid things out and how there's this intentional coordination and cooperation among many players and how they're able to do that and remain nimble and adaptable to the ever-changing needs of the students and all the others that are impacted at the university. And I was very pleased to hear some of the upcoming efforts to really push to get us to the standards with the advising, the student ratio. And then also just roll out the peer mentor. And I think those are two areas that can really help continue to move the needle positively, as Laurel mentioned, in terms of our retention rates and four or five and six year completion rates from undergraduate programs. So, Laurel, thank you again for joining us. And I think that's a wrap for us today. Thank you so much for having me.

0:30:04
Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. For my co-host Keith, I'm Renee. Tune in next week Wednesday at 12 on KUNV 91.5 For my co-host Keith, I'm Renee. Tune in next week Wednesday at 12 on KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More. That's a wrap.

Transcribed with Cockatoo