February 14th, 2024 TCC The Collegian by TCC Collegian

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Wednesday, February 14, 2024 – Volume 37 • Issue 15

@tccthecollegian • collegian.tccd.edu

CHILD CARE

TCC’s Children’s Center hosts hat tea party

Rama Ajlouni/The Collegian

Children at the NE Childcare Center getting ready for their tea and cookies party while wearing their different hats. The kids were able to celebrate with their families.

Parents, children enjoy day of decorative fun, treats for participants OLLA MOKHTAR

campus editor olla.mokhtar@my.tccd.edu

Tea, cookies and hats were all on display for TCC’s Children Center Annual High Hat Tea Party on NE. At the beginning of the semester, every child has the ability to choose a topic to learn about. And on Feb. 9 it was hats and tea. The Children’s Center is open to the public on a waitlist process but it is also where many students, faculty and staff take their children to. For TCC police officer Donald E. Whiteside, seeing his child Dawson playing and running around the classroom was gratifying. “The interactions with the parents and the kids and seeing how they’re happy,” he said. “This is

what we all want.” Whether it be a lunch or a playground playdate Josh Mauldin, father of two-year-old Luc said the value of it is more than just having a tea party. “It’s more of just an effort that the teachers and the administration put into organizing something for the parents,” he said. “So it could be a tea party, it could be lunch, it could be a playground play day, it doesn’t matter what the event is, the fact is that they’re making an effort to do it and to organize it. That’s the value” Not only that, Mauldin said he feels inviting the parents benefits the children as well. “It’s just nice to see that first hand,” he said. “The biggest thing is just getting parents here, letting kids see their parents show up and

support them in an event. For all the kids, it just kind of makes the kids feel more supported like ‘Oh, there’s a school event and all of our parents are showing up,’” he said. Erica Flynn, mother of four year old Emery said that the reason why she brought her daughter to the facility was because she thought it was developmentally appropriate for her “I think the kids’ anticipation,” she said. “It’s just such a build up for them when they show up and their parents are here and they get to spend time with them. It’s a good bonding time.” The structure, the teachers and how attentive they were with the children is what attracted former student and former intern Millie Afeame to bring her four year old daughter to the facility.

...it doesn’t matter what the event is, the fact is that they’re making an effort...

Josh Mauldin Parent

Afeame said that while she always hears about her daughter’s friends, with the tea party she had an excuse to finally meet them. “What I experienced as an intern here, I would want everyone to experience. Every parent to have piece of mind when their child is

here,” she said. Child Center Teacher Erielle Casayuran teaches three and four year olds and said the tea party’s goal was to have families involved with their children. Casayuran explained that it is right around valentine’s day when they teach about kindness. She explained the tea party was an opportunity for the parents to learn more about what teachers plan on doing in the classroom next. “Like what are we doing next in the semester, what are we learning and how’s so and so doing. It’s more in depth with them.” She hopes that if the families and children took anything away from the event it would be that they are a community and like to be with the families and children, welcoming them into their children’s space.

ADVISING

New model for advising streamlines process As part of enrollment and retainment measures, students will be assigned an adviser until completion, a measure not implemented until recently. NE Vice President of Student Affairs Terese Craig explained that the goal for the college was to achieve pre-pandemic community and workforce numbers. One of the observed issues came from appointments and the individual’s situation. Where students once had to make an appointment and meet with a counselor, Craig said the investment of new counselors on campus to be assigned helps avoid a game of “Telephone” when having to re-tell a student’s academic plan to each new counselor. “Part of what we saw was that by the time a student was actually ready to register – and really should be seeing an adviser – they were

really confused, because they were given to anywhere from six to eight different advisers along the steps of the process,” she said. Because the college follows the National Academic Advising Association’s three goals and eight principles, Craig said the focus was understanding what a reasonable caseload looks like per adviser. Provost Shelly Pearson said that under the “One College” model, though TCC has many campuses, the main goal is to make the student experience the same across the board. This includes support, services and advising. “You don’t want to have one direction on one campus and then go to another campus and it’s a different direction, especially in advising but even in academics,” she said. “We need to approach our general operations consistently.” Since the COVID-19 pandemic that caused a deep slope in enrollment for higher education institutions, according to Pearson, TCC is beginning to experience a jump in

numbers, with around a four to five percent increase per semester. “We are coming out of this recovery period, and I’m very excited about that because we have a trajectory, our goal is 50,000 students by 2025,” she said. “Right now, we’re hovering in the neighborhood of 45,000.” She noted that the growth is good, but it is important to focus on planned growth. That is why with the implementation of assigned advising for students, there is a more stable structure. “We need to make sure that that student is not just an accounted number. We’re making sure that the students are progressing and actually finishing and completing their work,” she said. Completion can be defined as anything from graduation, certification or transfer. Craig explained that the roles of the advisers have been clearly defined between success coaches, enrollment coaches and assigned advisers, or career advisers. This

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HOPE SMITH

editor-in-chief hope.smith393@my.tccd.edu

Alex Hoben/The Collegian

NW Academic advisers Sarah DeVries and Hector Montalvo host a table in NW01 to help students find their assigned adviser. made it easier to identify the needs of the student during application for general questions and onboarding, and then afterwards with an assigned adviser for their larger goals and plans. Right now, she said advisers are being assigned a 350-450 stu-

dent caseload which varies depending on the campus. “We know every relationship is different, every student’s experience and needs are different,” she said. “But the access to a person who’s there for them shouldn’t feel different.”

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