College Council Meeting Minutes - September 15, 2025

Monday, September 15, 2025 | 1:30 – 3:00 P.M.
via Zoom

Call To Order (1:35 P.M.)

Acknowledge Quorum

Introduction of College Council Members – Anne Jarrett, Grace Willerton

  • Anne Jarrett, Chair
  • Lorraine Bowman
  • Gopinath Subramanian
  • Yu Song
  • Reanna Esparza (student representative, ABSENT)

Thanks to Citla & Peninah, faculty members last year. Welcome to new faculty, Gopinath and Lorraine, and new non-exempt staff, Yu.

See the College Council website on our UNM-LA home page for agendas, previous minutes, current members, and more.

 

Announcements (open floor):

Career Services update – Grace Willerton:

  • 4 career services providers, offering up to 8 hours per week of drop-in hours in the Career Center

  • 2 career development workshops, Resumes & Internships, in preparation for the LA Career Fair on October 2 at Fuller Lodge

  • Grace is now certified to offer 2 formal assessments: Myers Briggs Type Indicator and Strong Interest Inventory

  • Brittany and Grace are collaborating on new information for the Employment & Internships website

  • Brittany is also spearheading a new career presentation series, “A Day in the Life of”, which will bring presenters from various career fields to campus and which will be available by Zoom to off-campus students and to Los Alamos High School

Brittany Carpenter:

  • CIC has 5 participating students this fall (3 returning, 2 new), starting class tomorrow

 

Meeting Agenda Items

UNM-LA Campus Updates – Mike Holtzclaw:

  • Construction
    • has run into various challenges that are delaying its completion. We should be able to start parking in the extended, northern lot next week. Lower section of front parking lot and drive to Diamond will not open until October. Lighting, signage, and landscaping should also go up in late October new signs out at Diamond Dr. and on the wall of Building 2

    • Stucco getting replaced on Buildings 1 & 7, plus roof repairs. Mike will ask legislature for more funds to replace the roof.

    • Phase 2 (interior courtyard) may start in December or spring semester. As the interior was designed, the back parking lot was included. It is not UNM-LA property, so the design was handed off to the LA Public Schools

  • UNM-LA board: 2 have applied to run again (David Hampton and Conner Tharp); David Hanson did not. We’ll also have 2 new community members after the election.
    • Provost came to visit at the last meeting; the Board got to ask her questions

  • Title V Grant is expiring. New Title V grant application is unlikely to be granted because many federal grants like this have been halted or have lost funding.

  • Higher Education is expecting a flat budget in this coming legislative session because they will try to shore up other services and programs that have seen reduced federal funding.

  • Mike and Brent met with the LAPS Superintendent and LAHS principal to create clearer, better-aligned pathways with their career-technical programs and other meta-majors. Brent will be working closely with LAHS and UNM-LA faculty to align and/or make new programs here. We may be able to look at shared facilities for the more specific CTE programs.

New and Departing Employees – Sascha Guenter-Schlesinger:

  • New dean, Brent Pickett, started in August
  • New facilities manager, Heather Burkovitz, started in August
  • Joanne left in August
  • Audrey Marroquin left last spring
  • Russell switching to a temporary, on-call position
  • Crystal is leaving in October

Strategic Plan – Mike Holtzclaw:

  • Executive Cabinet is working through the draft recommended by the Council last May to add specific metrics and clean up language across the document. Cabinet will share their final version with the Council and UNM-LA community for comments and reflection. They will also be writing an overall narrative to accompany the goals and metrics.

  • Council is not the deciding body for finalizing this Plan, but they will get to voice feedback again before it is finalized by Executive Cabinet.

Fundraising – Karen Williams:

  • Working to raise $250,000 to secure matching funds from the federal government, related to the Title V grant.

  • Generous $60,000 donation from a previous librarian and her family

  • Another anonymous donor offering a matching challenge for up to $25,000.

  • There’s been a bit more response from the community in light of the federal funding cuts for HSIs.

  • Making sure we recognize (and reach out to) previous donors

  • With matching funds, we may have only about $25,000 left to go!

Professional Development Day Update, October 6 – Sascha Guenter-Schlesinger:

  • October 6, 9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. (breakfast before 9, maybe lunch)

  • Committee: Sascha Guenter-Schlesinger, Danielle Gonzales, & Irina Alvestad

  • Main Campus training for everyone in the morning

  • Guest lecturer for AI

  • Cross-departmental connection-building

  • Departmental groups split off in the afternoon

Online Activities Update – Kevin Rosenberger:

  • Access Pearson tool – for instructors to integrate Pearson fully into Canvas courses, to improve student access within Canvas and add automatic grading from Pearson assignments into Canvas – contact Kevin for support setting it up

  • Student resources module – part of the Retention Subcommittee – browser check; advisor contact info; links to ASC, TimelyCare, UNM-LA library, and (for faculty) to the Academic Alerts form to submit concerns to Student Services

Retention Subcommittee Update & Recruitment – Grace Willerton:

  • Last year:
    • Kevin added a module to Canvas courses for broader student-support resources, including technical assistance and mental health support. Student Services streamlined the Academic Alerts process and added a quick-reference link in the new Canvas support module. Kevin can add this module to any instructor’s current courses by request

    • Shared & discussed retention efforts from individual departments across campus, including Student Services: NSO and DCO online, calling returning students who haven’t registered, extended support and outreach for dual credit students, etc. Kevin & Student Services work-studies separately created multiple screenshot guides for Canvas, admissions processes, navigating LoboWeb, and more. They updated business cards for Kevin and the ASC, which are being distributed in Student Services & can be provided across campus by request.

    • UNM rolled out new platform, Student Hub: students can schedule appointments with advisors, view transcripts & other degree-related docs, find resources, and submit requests for help

  • This year’s considerations:
    • Promote resources and events across campus

    • Increase student engagement, social media following

    • Reframe students’ (and everyone’s) perspective on using tutoring and increase the use of growth-mindset language

    • Increase students’ connection between college material and real-world / world of work, particularly through expanding experiential learning and integration of Career Services, etc.

    • Nationally, the “majority student learner” profile is changing to include more external time commitments, less preparation for college-level learning, and more barriers to student success (mental, physical, technological, etc.). The committee is looking forward to reviewing CCCSE survey data to identify our student needs and wishes better

    • Side concern: few understand and use AI in the most effective ways—students, faculty, and staff. The committee put together a list of UNM policies & reference websites, professional development resources for individual use

  • The group is recruiting new participants—anyone who would like to be part of the discussion. They particularly need more faculty. The next meeting is Tuesday, September 30, 10:00 am by Zoom. Contact Grace Willerton for more info and for the link.

  • CCCSE first round’s data has been delivered to Valida Osman to sort through and compare our student population to national trends

Complete College America – Danielle Gonzales:

  • Danielle is out sick today, Mike updated

  • Data Dive conference this past July, learning how to incorporate date into informed decisions. National conference for CCA coming later this fall, too.

  • Tech support from CCA will also include how to improve our data collection. We’ll get more technical assistance and data dashboards that are accessible by staff and faculty coming this year. Dashboards will integrate with Banner.

  • Anne will reach out to Danielle to include other topics and updates in these Minutes

Business Scholar Luncheon – Anne Jarrett:

  • Scheduled for September 18, but we’ve received low RSVPs. We found out that it conflicts with Leadership Luncheon hosted by LAMC. Worked with guest speaker (30+ years in corporate training) to reschedule our event for October 9

  • All UNM-LA faculty and staff are invited. Lunch is provided.

PTK open house – Ivette Jimenez:

  • Citla Nava-Gaxiola is the other PTK advisor; out sick today

  • This Wednesday, 11:00-12:00, inviting faculty and students to come get more information about PTK and how it can benefit them. Target audience is both current and potential PTK members. UNM-LA swag available to attendees; new inductees can get some PTK swag, too. May have new officers to announce this week, too.

Communications Working Group – Anne Jarrett:

  • This group did not meet over the summer

  • They have a good mix of staff and faculty participating, but they welcome new voices. Let Anne know if you want to be a part of this group.

  • This group looks at ideas and comments about communication issues across campus.

  • Multiple ideas have been proposed to communicate important issues and upcoming events – CCTV screens, social media, newsletter, bi-weekly events list, designated place on new website

  • Complements to Jef for his Student Services newsletter every month

  • Difficulty finding staff who can fit a newsletter into their regular job

  • Roll-out of new website is coming soon, which they hope will address some of the communication concerns previously shared

  • Grace posted a link to College Council website in the chat. This page includes a link to submit questions, comments, or other suggestions to Council and/or the Working Group.

New Website demo video from Beth Rue – Grace Willerton:

  • Beth is off today. She made a video about our new website design and its progress, which we shared in the Zoom meeting.

  • The focus of the new website will be to reach prospective students. Major sections of the website have been built using templates. Beth and Tracy are working hard to update each page with correct content, features, links, and tools from external sources (like UNM-ABQ). They will likely reach out to subject matter experts in later September to add, review, and finalize content. Beth believes the website could launch in late October.

  • The current website is still getting minor updates while the new one is being built.

  • Please contact Beth if you’d like to have the link for this video or if you’d like to discuss other questions or demonstrations.

Request by Chat for an update on Secret City Kitchen – Crystal:

  • Secret City Kitchen’s new vendor, Sr. Torta’s, is in discussions with UNM-LA now, though they will use a different name at this location. They will also likely have a menu more tailored to the student population here—college and high school. The UNM Purchasing Office is currently reviewing the contract.

 

Celebrations:

(None shared today)

 

End of Meeting Items:

Council requests for agenda items (using the online form!)

Next meeting: October 20, 2025, 1:30 - 3:00 p.m., via Zoom

  • No in-person meeting in October due to the shifting schedule of technology upgrades coming this fall. We may be able to have an in-person meeting by November.

Adjournment (2:58 p.m.)