MINUTES OF THE meeting

of the

ASSEMBLY Committee on Education

 

Seventy-First Session

February 21, 2001

 

 

The Committee on Educationwas called to order at 4:00 p.m., on Wednesday, February 21, 2001.  Chairman Wendell Williams presided in Room 3143 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada.  Exhibit A is the Agenda.  Exhibit B is the Guest List.  All exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

 

 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

Mr.                     Wendell Williams, Chairman

Ms.                     Bonnie Parnell, Vice Chairman

Mrs.                     Barbara Cegavske

Mrs.                     Vonne Chowning

Mr.                     Tom Collins

Mr.                     Don Gustavson

Mrs.                     Ellen Koivisto

Mr.                     Mark Manendo

Ms.                     Debbie Smith

Ms.                     Kathy Von Tobel   

     

COMMITTEE MEMBERS EXCUSED:

 

Ms.                     Sharron Angle

Mrs.                     Marcia de Braga

 

GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT:

 

None

 

STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

Susan Scholley, Committee Policy Analyst

Linda Corbett, Committee Manager

Mary Drake, Committee Secretary

 

OTHERS PRESENT:

 

Dr. Jane Nichols, Chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada

 

 

After roll call, Chairman Williams introduced Dr. Jane Nichols, Chancellor of the University and College System of Nevada (UCCSN), who presented the UCCSN’s Planning Report for 2001-2005 (Exhibit C).  Dr. Nichols explained the report was submitted to the legislature every session; it summarized upcoming academic programs and highlighted the issues and challenges the UCCSN faced.

 

Dr. Nichols stated the number one issue for UCCSN was access to education for all Nevada students.  That issue drove UCCSN’s budget and focus.  She noted 20 percent of Nevada residents 25-years or older had a bachelor’s degree, which was below both the regional western state average of 26 percent, and the national average of 24 percent.

 

Dr. Nichols further noted the number of high school graduates coming in the pipeline in the state of Nevada continued to expand.  By 2008, the number of high school graduates was expected to increase by 58 percent.  She said one of the most challenging aspects of the data, which was compiled by Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, was related to the ethnicity of the high school graduates.  Nevada high school graduates were expected to move from 72 percent white to 48 percent white by 2008.  Hispanics were the fastest growing population, and would move from 13 percent of high school graduates to 33 percent of high school graduates by the year 2008.  Dr. Nichols advised the committee that was the future for higher education in Nevada. 

 

UCCSN was extremely aware it had to find new ways to recruit and keep all students, in particular minority students.  The growth in enrollment continued to drive the budget.  From 1989 to 1999, enrollment at UCCSN institutions increased by 67 percent.  The growth rate was anticipated to continue at 6 percent per year.  That rate would not catch Nevada up in terms of national averages, but it was the growth rate necessary to serve the needs of the growing population and the growing number of high school graduates.

 

Dr. Nichols emphasized UCCSN was under tremendous pressure to provide more degree-granting institutions and to provide more professional programs and graduates.  She said the key areas for work force needs were teacher education and health-related fields, in particular nursing, dentistry, dental hygiene, pharmacist, and all allied health fields.  The demand was growing for more graduates in those arenas.

 

Dr. Nichols informed the committee that UCCSN was also under pressure to respond to the need for more degrees and programs in technology.  That need was particularly felt at the community colleges, which were being called upon to update and expand programs in terms of the production of people in the technology areas and in work force development.

 

Dr. Nichols explained in light of all these issues UCCSN was coming forward with a report highlighting such areas as the Great Basin College (GBC) four-year degree programs.  Great Basin College was expanded from a community college to offer selected four-year degrees.  This spring GBC would graduate elementary education teachers with bachelor degrees.  Dr. Nichols further noted there was a proposal before the 71^st Legislature to help fund a new state college, and the focus of that college would be on the production of teachers and health arena professionals, particularly in the field of nursing.

 

UCCSN was also looking at the expansion of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) into a satellite campus to serve the needs of the northwest portion of the city in Summerlin.  It was also developing the Redfield campus in the southern part of Reno to be a branch of University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), Western Nevada Community College (WNCC), and Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC).  UCCSN was exploring ways to deliver more courses and more degrees to students through better scheduling, better use of current facilities, and expanding night and weekend classes.

 

Dr. Nichols continued her presentation by remarking that distance education was the fastest growing sector of the higher education course offerings, with over 300 courses in 13 disciplines available statewide.  There was an on-line distance education catalog that allowed anyone in Nevada to find a course and enroll on-line.  There were more than 185 distance education courses available for high school students, which included both high school completion courses and college courses.

 

UCCSN continued its coordination efforts with K-12 to provide a seamless link for high school students to proceed to higher education through programs such as distance education and high tech centers.  Several campuses were also working on early testing for college placement for high school students.  The goal was to reduce the number of recent high school graduates enrolled in remedial college courses.  Early testing for placement provided students the opportunity to learn what course work they needed to take in high school to prevent taking remedial courses in college.

 

Dr. Nichols said UCCSN was long term in its K-16 partnership.  They were looking at coordinating their placement tests with existing tests in an effort to reduce the number of tests students took.  Other efforts included high schools on college campuses.  Both Truckee Meadows Community College and the Community College of Southern Nevada had high schools on their campus, and they were proving to be very successful programs.  The evidence supported that the program provided students, in particular those who did not do well in traditional high schools, an opportunity to finish high school and start college work at the same time.

 

Dr. Nichols continued that the issue of student transfers had been a priority for UCCSN for the past four years.  UCCSN continued work on the “2 + 2” program of study that should result in a seamless transfer for students from community colleges to the universities.  The Board of Regents’ policy stated students could begin work on a baccalaureate at a community college and should be able to complete the degree at the university in the same number of credits as if they started at a university.  Every major at UNR and UNLV must have in place a “2 + 2” so that students enrolled at the community colleges knew which courses to take to enter that major at the universities.

 

UCCSN also embarked on a program to create common course numbering among all the institutions in an effort to get courses that were essentially the same to have the same number within the discipline.  Faculty in each discipline continued to meet in small groups and iron out those places where there were difficulties in obtaining the common course number.  Dr. Nichols said one of the greatest benefits of that effort had been the dialog among the faculty from all the institutions within the system.

 

Dr. Nichols emphasized that the growth facing UCCSN demanded improvement in the higher education planning process.  UCCSN entered into a partnership with the RAND Corporation to conduct what was being called “The RAND Study.”  Input would be solicited from the community, the legislature and others about the direction higher education in Nevada needed to go.  In particular, they would focus the mission of each institution to avoid duplication of programs across the institutions.

 

Another goal of the RAND Study was to measure program quality and hold presidents accountable for student learning.  UCCSN wanted to build incentives for institutional behavior that served the needs of the state.  Out of that it hoped to create a ten-year plan to provide a framework for decisions about new programs and new institutions for the future.

 

UCCSN also partnered with the Lieutenant Governor and Governor in the Battelle Study.  That study, funded by the state, looked at development of science, engineering and technology in Nevada that would be economically beneficial to the state.  The study focused on economic development, but understood the relationships between the growth of technology in the state and the growth of excellence in institutions of higher education that both produced the research and the work force needed.  UCCSN would be using the Battelle Study for its own internal study on research and work force development.

 

Dr. Nichols underscored the importance of research within the system.  The Desert Research Institute, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of Nevada, Reno were all growing in their research endeavors.  The $140 million brought into the system in 1999 to fund research translated into about $350 million for the Nevada economy.  She emphasized the importance of building research focused on the areas of the state and communities that needed to grow high tech businesses.

 

In terms of performance indicators, Dr. Nichols stated UCCSN needed to put a focus on and reward campuses for the following:

 

• Measure and reward for quality and student learning;
• Reward for retention and completion rates, particularly for minority students;
• Reward for focus and success in research;
• Reward for focus and success in work force development.

 

In regard to the Millennium Scholarship Program, Dr. Nichols confirmed it had proven to be an enormous benefit to UCCSN.  The gain had not been financial, but rather the culture of the institutions had changed.  Students who could go to college out of state chose to attend college in Nevada and, hopefully, would graduate and stay and work in Nevada.  It also meant that many students who would not have thought about going to college were now attending.  Dr. Nichols felt the Millennium Scholarship Program would change Nevada, and UCCSN would be tracking the data.  Some of the data compiled to date was as follows: 

 

• 12,953 Nevada high school students graduated in spring of 2000;
• 55 percent of those were eligible for the millennium scholarship (7,184 students);
• UCCSN enrolled 4,268 of those 7,184 students in the fall of 2000;

• 80 percent of the scholars came out of Washoe and Clark Counties;
• 20 percent came out of the rural areas;
• 60 percent were female;
• 27 percent were minority.

 

Dr. Nichols said UCCSN anticipated seeing more of those millennium scholarship recipients since the scholarship eligibility ran for eight years. 

She said the millennium scholars’ minority representation of 27 percent reflected the same number of minority high school students (28 percent).  One group of underrepresented minority students was African-Americans, representing only 5 percent of the scholars.  Eight percent of high school graduates in Nevada were African-American.

 

Dr. Nichols noted 29 percent of the millennium scholars were enrolled in at least one remedial course, and that mirrored closely the overall percent of recent high school graduates placed in remedial college courses.  At the universities, 77 percent of the millennium scholars retained their eligibility at the end of the fall term.  Of those, 96 percent reenrolled in the spring of 2001.  Of the 654 students at the universities who lost their eligibility by falling below a 2.0 average or dropping out, 64 percent continued to be enrolled in spring semester at their own expense.  Dr. Nichols felt that was a very encouraging number, and those students would bring their grade point averages back up and be reinstated as millennium scholars.

 

At the community college level, 83 percent of the millennium scholars retained their eligibility at the end of the fall term.  Of those, 87 percent reenrolled in the spring.  Of the students who lost eligibility at the community colleges, 50 percent reenrolled.

 

Dr. Nichols informed the committee that the Millennium Scholarship Program had impacted full-time enrollment.  Nevada had a particular pattern of part-time students, which was 65 percent for all undergraduate students, compared to a national average of 52 percent.  Dr. Nichols pointed out that the Millennium Scholarship Program required full-time enrollment at the universities, which should have a strong impact on the retention and success of students in getting their degrees.  More of the millennium scholars in the community colleges chose to be full-time, probably because the students had the resources and a time limit to complete their education.

 

Dr. Nichols said the UCCSN would emphatically state the Millennium Scholarship Program had made a difference.  UCCSN was enrolling students who would not have attended college otherwise. 

 

In regard to other available financial aid, Dr. Nichols advised the committee that one of the provisions of the Millennium Scholarship Program bill required UCCSN to look at its other financial aid and find ways to direct that aid to students who might not receive the millennium scholarship.  Over the past two years, UCCSN reviewed other sources of financial aid, and the result was a change in its policy.  Dr. Nichols first provided the committee an overview of college costs.  The average cost of full-time attendance at the university for a student living away from home was $13,000; at the community college the cost was $10,500.  In 1998-99, UCCSN distributed $129,000,533 in financial aid to students.  Of that amount, 62 percent was federal aid, 19 percent state aid, 11 percent institutional, and 8 percent privately funded scholarships.  Forty-eight percent of financial assistance was in the form of loans.  On a national average, undergraduates left college owing about $10,000 in loans, with community college students owing about $5,000.  UCCSN wanted to reduce the reliance on loans.  UCCSN also provided 21 percent of its assistance in on-campus employment, 17 percent in grants, 4 percent in grants-in-aid, and 10 percent in scholarships.

 

Nevada Student Access Dollars was a source of funding provided by the state and partially funded by student fees that UCCSN had now directed to be need-based.  There was $5.9 million available in aid.  The Regents Award Program, totaling $1.3 million, would also be 90 percent need-based.  Both the Nevada Student Access Dollars and the Regents Award Program were controlled by UCCSN policy; the UCCSN felt it appropriate to move the Regents Award Program up to 90 percent need-based in light of the Millennium Scholarship Program.

 

Dr. Nichols concluded her remarks by saying the commitment of UCCSN and the Board of Regents remained the same:  to provide an excellent education for all students, to build an excellent research program that also met the needs of the state, and to step forward to meet the needs of the state in those areas it could.

 

Mrs. Chowning commented that the outreach to minority students and the needs-based financing were both programs the legislature had requested for years.  She asked Dr. Nichols what the most current statistics were on Nevada’s post-secondary education students.  The 1998 data referenced in the report noted Nevada was the lowest in the nation at 37 percent enrollment.  She asked if that data was still valid.

 

Dr. Nichols said the 1998 data cited in the report was the most recent.  UCCSN did believe the Millennium Scholarship Program would improve that number.  The number cited also included students who went out of state to college, so UCCSN had to wait for the national data to pick up the out of state student data.

 

Mrs. Chowning asked if the rewards presented to the various institutions for retention and graduation of the students covered areas such as associate degrees, computers, automotive mechanics and other similar types of fields.

 

Dr. Nichols confirmed they did.  Those programs were created both for the universities and the community colleges appropriate to their goals, mission, and programs.

 

Mrs. Chowning commented the legislature constantly heard from businesses that Nevada did not have the work force needed in areas such as technology and automotive mechanics.  She asked Dr. Nichols if the tech centers were effective in high school students deciding to go to college.

 

Dr. Nichols said UCCSN had a study underway of its high tech centers to look at not only that issue but also a number of other issues.  UCCSN felt the tech centers had been successful in building the partnership between high school teachers and community colleges.  She commented not as many high school students were taking college courses at the tech centers, and the centers had not been used as much as expected in the evenings by adults.  Each institution with tech centers was looking at the reasons for that data and proposing models that might accelerate the use.  Dr. Nichols said the focus of the tech centers might need to improve in relation to specific programs.

 

Ms. Von Tobel applauded UCCSN’s efforts to change class coding, which should help students transferring from community colleges to universities.  She asked how remedial classes were determined.

 

Dr. Nichols said remedial was considered courses below the 100 level, such as English 1A or 1B, Math 98, or courses at those levels.  She said the biggest predictor of remedial course placement in college was the courses students took in high school.  She indicated high school students who took what were formerly referred to as “college prep” courses would less likely be placed in remedial courses.

 

Ms. Von Tobel asked when UCCSN developed the feasibility study for the new state college in Henderson, if it considered what was accomplished by the Great Basin Community College four-year degree program in teacher education.  Could that also be included at one of the campuses as an alternative?

 

Dr. Nichols said for a number of years a proposal had been on the table to consider selected four-year programs at the Community College of Southern Nevada (CCSN) as an alternative to creating a new state college.  Costs were ultimately the determining factor.  She cited as an example Great Basin Community College, which now had a different accreditation level because it was a baccalaureate institution.  That accreditation level increased the operating costs in such areas as libraries and student services.

 

Ms. Von Tobel commented she had done substitute teaching at Foothill High School, which was a high tech center, and said she was very impressed with the maturity of the students participating in the college credit course programs.  She felt the program at that campus was well utilized.

 

Ms. Parnell mentioned two areas for which she received many calls were the transfer of credits and scheduling, particularly scheduling in the education field.  She said many northern Nevada students who went into teaching attended the Sierra Nevada College because of the user-friendly scheduling process.  She also mentioned she had recently received a number of phone calls suggesting the community colleges in particular develop a curriculum to study alternative sources of energy, such as geothermal.

 

Dr. Nichols said that was an excellent idea.  UCCSN had a very strong research program in that area, particularly at Desert Rock Institute, and at both of the universities.  She said UCCSN could look at some type of partnering in that area.

 

Mr. Collins asked Dr. Nichols if his understanding was correct that UNLV foundation monies would not be used to build the Henderson campus.  Dr. Nichols confirmed that was correct.  Mr. Collins asked what affect the Henderson campus would have on the availability of resources for the other campuses such as the Cheyenne campus.  He said he received many comments from his constituents in the northwest area who expressed concerns about the shifting of funds away from that area.

 

Dr. Nichols said the Cheyenne campus had grown in enrollment, and there were plans for new programs there.  In terms of the cost for the Henderson state college, Dr. Nichols stated she could not confirm whether or not the funds that may go to the Henderson campus would have gone to other campuses.  She said in the long term, the cost of educating a student at that type of institution versus a doctoral-research institution was less.  The long-term plan was to find ways to graduate more students at a cost UCCSN could afford.

 

Mrs. Smith said she wanted to commend UCCSN on the relationship the community colleges had with the various apprentice programs.  She said it was a great opportunity to reach out to the community. 

 

Dr. Nichols confirmed there was a clear commitment to the apprenticeship programs.  Students received the credit they deserved for the work they performed; it also developed their interested in college.

 

Ms. Von Tobel asked if the pharmacy school recently approved at UNLV would be put back into the budget.  She also asked if there was any discussion about increasing the salary of adjuncts.

 

Dr. Nichols explained the pharmacy school was a joint program among UNR, UNLV, and the community colleges.  There was some grant money potentially coming for that program, along with some private dollars.  If state funding was not approved this legislative session, she indicated it was unlikely the program would get off the ground in the next biennium.

 

In regard to the adjunct faculty issue, Dr. Nichols explained the UCCSN needed better data in terms of the adjuncts’ reliance on their teaching income.  A task force would be created to study adjunct faculty salaries and policies related to benefits.  That was an issue all campuses were trying to address, and in the next biennium budget there should be a recommended salary increase targeted to the needs of adjunct and part-time faculty.

 

Ms. Von Tobel asked if the Board of Regent’s priority list ranked the Henderson state college a higher priority than the pharmacy school.

 

Dr. Nichols explained the budget was put together in four parts according to the Governor’s instructions.  These parts included:  a base budget, caseload growth and enrollment increase, new programs, and one-shot dollars.  The money for the state college was one-shot dollars and ranked No.10 on the list of priorities.  It was also listed in the caseload growth since in the second year of the biennium it would be funded as student enrollment.

 

Mrs. Chowning noted Dr. Crowley, former UNR president, was in the audience and she thanked him for all his years of service to the university system.

 

Mrs. Cegavske said she wanted to state for the record she had two children in the university system, and one was a recipient of the millennium scholarship.  She asked if UCCSN had any waiting lists of any kind for classes and programs.

 

Dr. Nichols confirmed there were waiting lists for such programs as the nursing program at UNR and the dental hygiene program.  These programs could not accommodate the number of qualified persons who wished to participate.

 

Mrs. Cegavske asked if the committee could have a copy of those programs with waiting lists.

 

Mrs. Koivisto said the recommendation for the pharmacy school came from the Legislative Health Care Committee.  The committee had heard testimony about possible federal funding that the Washington delegation could access.  Was that the grant money Dr. Nichols referred to, or had that been looked at?

 

Dr. Nichols explained she did not know the source of federal money that had been sought, although it might be the same.

 

Mrs. Cegavske noted she was providing each committee member a copy of a status report by the Education Commission of the States (ECS) entitled Building on Progress:  How Ready Are States To Implement President Bush’s Education Plan?  She also had available for interested committee members another publication by ECS entitled Early Learning – Improving Results for Young Children.   

 

Chairman Williams also noted Mrs. Koivisto provided the committee members a copy of a letter, which the committee could discuss at the February 26 meeting.  There being no other business before the committee, Chairman Williams adjourned the meeting at 5:00 p.m.

 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

 

 

 

Mary Drake

Committee Secretary

 

 

APPROVED BY:

 

 

 

                       

Assemblyman Wendell Williams, Chairman

 

 

DATE: