All right, next on the
agenda--and we're right on time--is 2022-11, uh,
2014 Bond Report and discussion of future bonds.
And Richard, I'll turn this over to you to help lead us through
this part of the agenda. Thanks.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: All right. Thank you, Nan. We've divided
this up into a few sections, but I'll kick it
off, and and we've got the PowerPoint up there. So. So
who's controlling the PowerPoint? Are you?
Okay. Okay. All right. So let's let's, we're going to go
through, first of all, and talk about in
2014, we went to the voters and asked for their support for two
different propositions in regards to
increasing the size of our campuses. And so I want to walk
through that because we're pretty much almost
at the conclusion of those projects.
And I just want to walk through that really quickly, just as a
reminder of what was included in those
propositions. So if you can go to
the next slide.
Proposition 1 was for $224 million, and basically for the
expansion of the ACC Highland Campus, which
was $150 million, uh, construction of
the new San Gabriel Campus, Phase One, and then purchase of
a future site for workforce training
specifically in southeast Travis County. And so all of those have
been completed. And on Phase, on Proposition 2, then we had a
number of things which was campus
renovations at the Rio Grande which is taking the original
building and completely gutting that and
renovating it but keeping the historical value of that
building. Also, campus renovations district
wide, addressing the issues of safety, security, and
accessibility.
And then campus expansion of the Hays Center, which was the
Public Safety Training Center, uh,
that's up and operational. Uh, campus
expansion in the Round Rock, which was a general purpose
classroom space, but in that, by doing
that, that allowed us to expand the
Nursing Program and other Allied Health Programs. And it allowed
us to build actually the second
accelerator. The first was here at
the Highland Campus. And then we had, at the Elgin Campus, the
Vet Tech and Sustainable
Agricultural Entrepreneurship Program. Total of
Proposition Number 2 was $161 million.
So if you go to the next, uh, slide, then this is pretty much
the timeline from the date of the
election in 2014, November of 2014,
through where we are today. And not only have we basically
completed those projects, but as a result
of having the dollars and the projects
done, it allowed us to do some other exciting things along the
way. So if you look on here, you'll notice
Austin PBS Groundbreaking. So because of some of the steps we
took as a result of the 2014 Bond Issue,
it allowed us to really cement that relationship with KLRU,
Austin PBS.
You'll also see on here, Army Futures Command Software
Factory. Uh, that is within the Rio
Grande campus building that we renovated.
It allowed us to cement that partnership with them. And so,
not only did we accomplish what we
told the voters we were going to do with
the money that we approved, it allowed us to expand beyond that
scope.
And so, one of, the next thing I want to show on here is a video
and I want to say thank you to Brett
and Jessica and Carrie Glaser and the
team because they did an amazing job of putting together a very
short video clip. And the way that we
visualize this will, as we move forward, we'll have a number of
these types of video clips. But this
is one that we put together just for today. And it's a, the
voiceover is
a former student of ACC. So can you play the video real quick?
Narrator: This is Central Texas and something exciting is
happening here. More than 2 million of us
call it home. We're growing, thriving.
The engine behind it all is Austin Community College. When
voters approved two bonds in 2014
asking the college to do more to keep
Austin innovating, ACC embarked on a mission to make every
dollar count.
Today, there are new campuses, facilities, and programs that
deliver on that very promise.
We broke ground on the new San Gabriel campus in Leander in
Spring 2016. Today it serves one of the
fastest growing areas in the region
and offers general education courses and ACC's renowned
Accelerator Learning Center.
Across the district, in Elgin, we established a new specialized
facilities to fuel careers in veterinary medicine and
agriculture.
Here our students are getting real world, hands-on experience
caring for animals and tending to crops
and livestock so that when they graduate, they're prepared
for the workforce ahead.
Further north, in Round Rock, we expanded our campus with a new
general education building featuring advanced classrooms
and an Accelerator. Now we can serve
even more students and grow programs in
high-demand industries like healthcare.
rOn the other end of the district, we created a learning
space like no other. The Public Safety
Training Center at Hays Campus is a
state-of-the-art First Responder Center. The Center features a
tactical indoor firing range, modular training rooms,
specialized classrooms, and a 19 acre
driving course. In central Austin, we took
what was once Austin's first shopping mall and turned it into
a learning community.
At ACC Highland, students prepare for creative careers and
jobs in Manufacturing, Culinary arts,
and Healthcare. The classrooms, studios,
and labs mirror the workforce and are transforming the
landscape of higher education putting ACC
among the top in the nation when it comes
to learning, teaching, and collaborating in our community.
ACC's Rio Grande is carrying this collaborative spirit
forward. The college started a massive
renovation project to provide critically needed
updates to the 100 year old building. From the outside, the
history stands, preserved for time. Inside is a 21st century
campus with classrooms, innovative labs, an
Accelerator, and the nation's only
Software Factory created in partnership with Army Futures
Command.
Throughout the entire district, ACC made capital improvements,
safety and security upgrades,
technology enhancements, and we've prepared for
the future with land banking in southeast Travis County for a
future workforce training center. We've
done a lot over the past seven years
to keep our community strong and provide opportunity for everyone
who calls Central Texas home. With
every dollar of support, we are building
better futures. ACC is Central Texas. It's your home, and
something exciting is here.
Dana Walker: [applause] Where is Brett? There's Brett.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Very nice, Brett. Very nice. [applause]
Dr. Richard Rhodes: You know, one of the, one of the things
that Brett and I have talked about is
taking a look at what audiences we actually
give this to. We'll probably have a couple, you know, three
or four, maybe more, different versions.
But really taking a look and and who
does it really talk to within our community as we move
forward.
Uh, the next slide is we as a college have been leading by
example. And, and I say this in a number of different ways.
First of all, everything that we're
doing--and this is important to Central Texas--building green.
So if you take a look at the projects that
we've been doing, you'll see solar panels, you'll see the
charging stations for electric cars,
recycled water systems. Even in the parking
garage, there is a recycled water reservoir underneath the
garage itself. And then you take a look
at how is it being recognized. And LEED
Certification is the recognized, recognition factor on our
projects. And we have projects that are
both platinum, gold, and silver, uh, on
these different campuses and the renovations that we've done over
the past seven years.
It has allowed us, as I said earlier, allowed us for
collaboration like no other. When we talk about the Army
Futures Command, the Software Factory, the work
that we're currently doing with Tesla,
and the grant, that ribbon cutting that we did there, the
donation of the robotics equipment that they
have given to us, uh, and allowed us
to do the renovations necessary for a fast response to their
needs at at our campus.
And then the work that we're doing with ARMA--Austin Regional
Manufacturing Association--and Ed Ladson, uh, and all of those
entities that are part of ARMA has allowed us within Phase 2 to
actually have an advanced manufacturing incubator, plus a
Career Academy in Advanced Manufacturing that draws kids
from all parts of Central Texas.
And then we have Austin PBS, KLRU, as a great partner moving
into the Highland space.
If you go to the next slide. We have also kept our pledge to
historical re- preservation. And so, you
take a look at the Rio Grande campus and
that main building that is over 100 years old now that we made a
commitment to keep the historical value of that
building. And if you go to that now, it is more, it's
probably looking a whole lot better
than it did back in 1916 when it was built. But we did more than
that,
you know. We enclosed those open patios so that that's usable
space now. And then we have something
that will happen, and because this isn't
actually televised, we're going to get an award in February, uh,
recognition of the historic preservation of the Rio Grande
Campus.
Revitalizing our communities. And you know, you really take a
look at what happened at Highland. And
what did it look like if you go back 10
years ago? You know, this was a dying mall, that graffiti was
appearing, um, misuse of buildings and facilities. And
this, and it didn't just affect that this
mall, it affected the surrounding
community. And it was like a drowning spiral. ACC has
reversed that. And we're now seeing
strong, regional growth around the campus.
It's a thriving community where people now can, they can work,
they can live, they can learn, they
can have fun. We've got parks. We've
eliminated all of that ugly asphalt parking lot, uh, and
converting that into learning space, working
space, and play space.
And producing a skilled workforce, we're committed to
that. And if you take a look at the different
renovations we've done and the increase, it's really in looking
at how do we build the workforce for
the future of Central Texas. And that's where we have to continue
to be committed, because, in
today's environment, that's where employers
are struggling, is finding the right people with the right
skill sets.
And we've proven to the community that when they invest
in us, we provide that skilled
workforce for the community.
If you go to the next slide. We are a smart investment at ACC
because we do it on budget on time. And, as
we talked about, we give more, back
more than what we promised originally, whether it's through
incubators, new grants and contracts that we've seen as a
result of
partnerships and collaboration. I mean, that's how we got the
Bioscience Incubator. That's how we got the Fashion Incubator.
That's how we got the Advanced
Manufacturing Incubator. Is through
partnerships and looking for the right grant opportunities and
those that want to be investment
partners with us.
So I'm going to stop there with that. That's just an overview of
2014. And the next session we're going to get into is to talk
about,
we're going to need to, to go forward. It's been recommended
by the Regional Advisory Committees
that we move forward with another GO
Bond election. In doing so we need to provide you with the
information on what what is the timing? What
are the key election dates that would
occur during that period of time? And so to do this section,
I'm going to turn it over to Dr.
Molly Beth Malcolm.
Dr. Molly Beth Malcolm: Thank you, Dr. Rhodes. I'm not going
to go through each one of these
because it is in your packet. But, beginning
with the first thing, which is pretty key on the election
dates.
If, after we all the things that we've done, yes, our RACs have,
have encouraged this, and we'll go
back and be working with them
some more,
but the last day that the Board of Trustees could call an
election would be August 22. Now you can
call it anytime before then, but that's
the last date. And the other dates are about registering to
vote and voting and then Election Day is
November 8th.
The next sections, next page, on Community Activities Draft
Timeline,
is probably what we really need to look at. I don't know who's
turning the page, can somebody--? Okay.
In February, because that's, that's where we are, we would
engage the RAC membership and brief them
more on this. Now they already know,
we've already had, you know, they came to the Board, but
meeting with the full RACs and briefing them
on that, then engaging with community
leaders on what our long term capital needs are. We'd poll all
of you and community members and
senior leaders about memberships and
organizations to start looking at when we can do presentations
throughout the area, and then developing and preparing other
materials for public meetings working with Brett's team. Yes,
ma'am. Were you raising your hand?
Dr. Nan McRaven: Yes, Molly Beth. Thanks. And I appreciate
all of this information going forward. I
guess from, in, in my mind, there's a step
before all of this. And that step, and maybe it's, throughout
your stuff, but the step before me,
just as one board member, being willing
to move forward, I really want to digest the projects that
we're talking about, what we're
looking at. And so I do believe, before even
engaging the RAC, RAC, maybe, because they've given us some
suggestions, in my mind, our next step is for this Board of
Trustees to review those in depth. And
then, um, and then also hear from the
administration if there are other things that we need to be
considering in addition to that. So, for me, if we're even
thinking about this year, that needs to happen
in February, and then and then we would
move forward with the items that you're identifying. And maybe
you have what I'm talking about in
this, but I don't want to go to the RAC
till I personally am on board with actually wanting to co-, to
to have a bond election. And, and I do
as one member, I do. I'm not sure
whether it's this year or next year. But I do want to look at
the projects and make sure I feel
comfortable with what we're proposing.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: And that's, that's going to be a part of
this presentation is kind
of an overview of-- Dr. Nan McRaven:
Which presentation? Dr. Richard Rhodes:
--what some of the-- Dr. Nan McRaven: Today, or?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Today, today. Yeah, to start that
conversation.
Dr. Molly Beth Malcolm: So the. Yeah, so this was, this part's
really more, y'all oversee it and look, and then see if that's
what you want to do. The part I'm
talking about is just the timeline if we
move.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Once, once we decide, what you're saying is
if,
if, if and when and once we decide, then this is how we
would move forward?
Dr. Molly Beth Malcolm: Yes. Dr. Nan McRaven: Okay.
Dr. Molly Beth Malcolm: Yeah. And like I said, I'm not going
to go through every one of those,
because you can read them as well as I can.
But it's just showing you it'd be a lot of community engagement
with trustees going out and speaking
and senior members and everything. And
then mapping out all the different forums that we would
have. Then you move into March, April, May, we
continue to engage in the community.
And we develop whatever we need to for faculty and staff to let
them know about, here's the rules, if
you're going to get involved, you
got to do it on your own time, not using school resources,
things like that. And then you go to June,
July, and August, we continue with the
community engagement and holding the meetings. And then, um,
again, the, August 22, is the last day to
put the bond on there. September and
October and November for community forums around the
district, kind of like we do when somebody is
looking to be annexed, in, we want to do the
same thing in this bond election. And then continuing to
present to everybody and having tabling. We
also included then on page 15, 16
through 18, these were what the propositions were last time,
just to remind you how we did that. And
then the page 19 shows you what the vote
came in for.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Okay, the the third part of this
presentation then is, you know, if we are go to
the voters and, uh, and ask for dollars,
then, uh, what is the how much could we have in a bond
election, and not raise taxes, and the way that we
structure, the sale of those bonds.
And so I've asked Neil, to put that together for you.
Neil Vickers: Thank you. And so on page 20 of your, uh, booklet,
we have a table prepared that
hopefully looks a little familiar. It's the
same table we had last summer when we were looking at the Tax
Maintenance Bond program. And the question becomes, kind of
going down the path you were just going,
uh, Chair McRaven, is, you know, what
are we talking about if we talked about a bond election?
So the, the first question we've kind of asked is, well, what
would be the, so financially speaking,
what would be kind of the scale, um,
in terms of sizing that we would look at? What could we basically
afford? And one of the things that we looked at is looking at
our existing tax rate, and if we
wanted to structure the the bonds so there
would be no increase on our tax rate going forward, which is
kind of a very nice kind of statement and
goal to have, how much could we issue?
And so what you'll see on here, is kind of a strategy. There's a
lot of assumptions that go in here,
right, where the this is the beginning of
the discussion. But what it shows is, is that based off of
conservative assumptions in in tax base growth, you know, that
we've seen for for many years here, we
would be able to, we would have a
capacity of around $800 million in bonds that could be supported
by our current, current
one-and-a-half-cent Debt Service Tax Rate.
Now, is a reminder, you know, we'll have that election, when
we're approved, let's say for 800
million, we wouldn't go out the next day and
issue all 800 million, because we're not going to go spend it
that next day. So you would ladder this
out over time and that allows you to
then take advantage of the continued growth of the tax base
to to basically increase the capacity
of that debt. So this actually would
show that we would actually, can issue debt in at least four
traunches over four to six years. This shows a five year
scenario. But with that, I'm just giving you a
general sense of the type of dollars
we could be talking about, um, and stay within our current one
and a half cent debt service tax rate.
And then I just reminded us that the, as
you saw a while ago, we were 386 million in 2014. That's actually
kind of a testament to the growth of Austin that we could
actually, for the same tax rate that we were
supporting $400 million in debt, we
could actually today go out and issue almost double that, at
that same tax rate.
Dr. Nan McRaven: And what you're saying is because the real
estate values have increased that--
Neil Vickers: Gro-, well, so values, but also just growth
[inaudible] property, so growth, all along,
absolutely.
And so the the next slide is really just a graphical
representation of that. If we can go to the, uh,
so on page 21, of your--yeah, there you
go. So this is, again, just showing our current, because of
that growth, if we issued no debt, our tax
rate would actually continue to decline
each year. No harm in that. But if we wanted to capture that
capacity as we grow, we would, about
every year or so, we would issue another
traunch of debt, that would push that tax rate back up to what's
shown--here is the green line, which is the one and a half
cents. And so you can see what would happen if
we don't, or if we do part of it, and
not all. But ultimately, this is just showing the timeline by
which we would issue debt, to
basically keep that tax rate as level as
possible at one and a half cents, as opposed to what
otherwise would happen, um, if we
issued no debt at all.
I'm gonna take a pause right there and see if there's any
questions, because I'm going to shift gears
a little bit to actually the list of
projects.
Dr. Nan McRaven: I do have a question. I would like to know,
in 2014, what our enrollment was,
um, what our enrollment was in 2014,
what it is today, 2022, and then a projection of what it might be
in five years from now. Only
because, you know, usually communities
understand if you need more buildings, more programs, more
whatever, if you are increasing enrollment. Um, it's a little
harder sell if it's because you are
bringing on new and more complex [inaudible] programs. So, I
would like to understand the enrollment.
Neil Vickers: Yes, absolutely. And I think between where I'm
about to go,
and then what, uh, Monique is going to pick up right after
me--
Dr. Nan McRaven: Okay. Neil Vickers: --I think is
starting to try to build the story around
exactly where you're going.
Okay, so on the next page in your book, page 24.
Dana Walker: I, I have-- Neil Vickers: Oh, I'm sorry.
Questions?
Dana Walker: I have a question. I think when, um, based on what
Nan just said too, I'm curious to
see those who are in-district and out of
district, because I think, I know it was, it's been COVID,
but our in-district dropped. And then,
you know, just to make sure I'm understanding the rate, what
you're showing is the rate is the same, but
to an individual, the overall, like just the amount of dollars
that they would be paying would go up,
because the housing values went up, right?
Am I understanding that correctly?
Neil Vickers: Yeah, that's correct. So, I mean, obviously,
it's different for particular
scenarios within a homeowner. But generally
speaking, there's a difference between between saying, we're
not increasing the tax rate is
different than saying that we're not
increasing taxes, right? And so a individual homeowner's tax
bill,
very well could and, in fact, in these scenarios likely would
still increase because of the increase
in their appraised values of their
home. Now, the reason I'm kind of conditioning that a little
bit is
our tax base growth comes from two components. One is increased
values,
which could lead to higher bills, even with the same rate.
But we also get a significant increase in
tax base from just new properties. Um,
and so, um, obviously, we'll continue to probably do deeper
dives on this as we have further
conversations. But in general, you're absolutely right that
homeowners or businesses could see
increased taxes, even though we're not increasing the tax
rate.
Dr. Nan McRaven: That, that's a good distinction, though, Neil
and worth repeating, is that there's
increased growth, meaning increased buildings,
increased commercial, increased houses. So it's not just that
that burden will be held by the same
group of people population. Neil Vickers: Yeah. And and and
then when we think about both how we want
to message it, but also how we want to manage our tax rate,
we're getting into those distinctions
of which type of growth do we want to
capture and leverage the most? And it will have a different
impact,
that decision, on the individual tax payer And so, but those all
then have a corresponding impact on
our capacity to issue the debt, right?
So, I can do 800 million if we keep the rate the same. If we
say we only want to capture, let's say, new
property growth, but not really capture all of the new value
growth, you know, then the number's not 800
million anymore, you know, it's, you know, 500 million. And those
are scenarios that at some point,
we'll be prepared, you know, to, you know,
to calculate for the trustees, depending on how we, how this
plays
out.
Great, good. Was there any other? I don't have a great view
of the--
[inaudible]
Okay, so on the next page, kind of shifting gears a little bit,
about now, you know, what would we be
looking at in types of projects. So
this is great. So the good news is, even, let, let's say we're
started talking about a November '22,
that sounds pretty fast. The good news
is, is that we've already done a lot of the work that we would
need to do
to be ready for a bond program, right? So the Board, as you're
very aware, and have been very
supportive of, we've already gone through and
updated all of our Facilities Master Plan, we have an updated
Academic Master Plan.
This next slide was something that was included in the
Facilities Master Plan. And I think of it
as a little bit of a crosswalk between
the Academic Master Plan and the Facilities Master Plan. So what
this this grid is, is doing, it's
identifying any programs--and these
are almost all workforce programs--that were identified
as kind of high priority or need
new, more capacity in the Academic Master
Plan, that have a facility's impact. So these aren't your,
your kind of your Gen Ed, we just need more
classrooms. These were the more specialized spaces. And so the
the park color in in purple is highlighting both at campus and
by region, uh, where, in the short run,
we should be trying to either add or expand those types of
spaces. And there's other stuff in here and
I, we can, you can talk about it, but I
just wanted to point this out to you. But we already have this in
hand. And this then helps inform what are those high priority,
both programs and types of spaces,
and which campuses or regions would they
fall in, that would help us form a bond package and then start to
build that story around it, which
you're about to get a preview of that.
So taking one step further, and that's a two-page document.
Taking kind of this, this kind of
capacity number of about 800. And here it
says $815 million, what would we do with 815 million? The Master
Plan identified short range of list
of projects. It was a five to 10 year
list of projects. It totaled about $1.3 billion in there in
that, uh,
that's what's in our printed Master Plan that's online. Now,
some of that's being accomplished by the
Tax Maintenance Bonds, the 85 million.
And, you know, we were able to document all of that. But some
of it was also stuff that, you know,
they were showing from a master planning
things that you you know, could do or might do. But that doesn't
mean that we would do all of those
right now with this package. So the the
administration kind of took that, we filtered that out. We
took out things, there was a lot of stuff
in there about like parking and other
stuff. And we kind of, you know, whittled this down a little bit,
and came up with a list of potential
projects at potential campuses that
would total $815 million. And that's what you're going to see
here on the next few slides. We've also
included in here, just a real brief, some of
this needs to be fleshed out. To be perfectly honest, some of
this
actually will, we'll need to do some some work on, but we did
provide a little, just a real brief kind
of synopsis of the type of of either
construction or program that we could put at each of these
locations for that amount of money. Again,
this is the very beginning, right,
of this conversation. You know, more to come. And so I don't
really have anything particular hi-
highlight in here, except you'll see that it does
cover 10 of our potentially 13 current locations at ACC. So
it's it, it covers kind of all the
regions. There's a similar kind of
amount of dollars kind of flying, you know, floating
around. And so we think it's a good kind of
well-rounded package, at least, and
again, it's a starting spot. I don't know, Dr. Rhodes, if you
wanted to add anything but I'm about to
hand it to, you know, to Monique, that's
going to start to lay out, lay out the vision for this as well.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Uh, some of the things that we wanted to
make sure that we looked at in this, um,
and and as Neil said, we're matching up
the Academic Master Plan with the Facilities Master Plan, as
we may, so they're married in this. But
what we looked at, and this comes out of
the Regional Advisory Committees too is, such as--Let's take
Nursing in the Allied Health Sciences. Um,
you know, we have great presence in the
north and the central but none whatsoever in the south. And so,
how do we how do we take that to the
south? Another example is, you know,
if you look back five, six years ago, advanced manufacturing was
not the fastest growing part of the
employment base here. It is today.
Dr. Nan McRaven: It is.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Uh, it is robust. It is up and going. We
don't have the, we don't have the
spaces to train, uh, in advanced manufacturing. If you take a
look at IT, we have may-, we've got to put
that in every one of our regional sectors. And we're not
there either.
And we don't have that presence in the south. And so if you, if
you take a look at the allocation of
the dollars, you're really taken about a
bi-, and talking about a big investment in the southern
region of our service area.
Dr. Nan McRaven: But, I think what you just identified is we
have
programmatic things that need to be addressed across across the
district. And then we have each site where we would address some
things. So that makes total sense. And
it does make sense because we've got
two sites in the south, uh, Pinnacle and our new southeast--
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Right. Dr. Nan McRaven: --site that
will be need to be built and renovated.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Right. Dr. Nan McRaven: So that's why
the heavy lifting on this. Dr. Richard Rhodes:
Yes, exactly.
Dr. Nan McRaven: So, what's next then?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: So if there's any questions on this--
Dana Walker: I just wanted to add--
Dr. Richard Rhodes: --thus far--yes?
Dana Walker: I wanted to add that in the south, we were also
looking at nursing, increasing--
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Yes.
Dr. Nan McRaven: That's true.
Dana Walker: --the nursing. Dr. Richard Rhodes: Absolutely.
Dr. Nan McRaven: All of all of that makes it a heavy, heavier
in the south. Yes. So questions then,
uh, I see Gigi's hand up and Stephanie. So
Gigi, you, you can start. Then we'll go around, get the rest of
you to chime in. And this is just
the first discussion, again [audio cuts
out] Gigi Edwards Bryant: Yes, thank
you for that report. And I wanted to,
and I wanted to note also that this is our first discussion
after we have taken a look at the master
plans on our own and together. But,
one of my questions was, there was some conversation about
repurposing some of these buildings and not
needing so much space as, because we
are more virtual than we were before and in this presentation
where does that fall? Those conversations?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: So the the repurposing is what is contained
within that. And so that that's a part of it. But also one of
the things that Neil mentioned, too,
is the Tax Maintenance Notes. Because
you cannot use Tax Maintenance Notes for new construction but
you can use it for renovation. And, and so
that, you know, the $80+ million that we
did in Tax Maintenance Notes allowed us to start moving on
the renovation of existing facilities. And so
what we're primarily putting into this is
new construction. Because we can't do that with tax
maintenance notes. Dr. Nan McRaven: But I think
Gigi's question, if I may Gigi, is I think
the voters are going to ask us,"Gosh, we've moved to hybrid,
if not virtual, why do you need so
much new construction?" Um, and enrollment should also help me
understand what that messaging is
going to be about. So I think that's, you know, what we've
been talking about. Do we need as
much new construction given that we are
in a hybrid mode? Not that we won't go back to more in-person,
no doubt about it, but but that's what we
need to address. Dr. Richard Rhodes: Right. And,
and I think what we're seeing is that we
are going to be moving back to more face-to-face. And probably
it's going to be somewhere in the
middle of where we were pre-pandemic and
where we are today. And, and so but taking a look at that and
making sure that we're addressing what
happened during the pandemic which
is direct-to-college enrollments, those who graduated
from high school and did not go on to higher
education at all, we've got to recapture that. That stop out
year, that for the last two years, I
believe is going to end. And it's going to end through great
collaboration and great partnerships, and bringing those
students back into the table. And as we do that, and because
of the types of programs that industry is
asking for us, to deliver the skilled
trades for, takes this type of long ran- of this type of plan
with this GO Bond Election.
Neil Vickers: And I'll just, I'll just add a little bit to
that. And then, and I definitely don't
want to steal Monique's thunder, because I
really think this is where she's going to focus on is, is setting
that vision of--we're talking about something different than
the general purpose classrooms that just
support Gen Ed. If you kind of will-, kind
of went in and kind of tallied up in here, you will find that
the vast majority of the dollars in this
800 million are for, are for the workforce programs, right, that
have, that they are going to be in-person, they always will be.
They're high capac--I mean, I'm sorry, we're over capacity here.
They're high growth. So when you talk about the health sciences,
the applied tech, and all that that's
listed in here, which is where the bulk of these dollars are
going, I think the vision is, is that
even though we are going to have to make
that case of, why can't you just do all of this digitally, but
the programs that we would be
focusing here and the bulk of the dollars are
for those programs that need specialized facilities. They are
still and will continue to be primarily in-person. And so we
have to figure out how to frame that
right, that message.
Dr. Nan McRaven: [inaudible] the health sciences that the
southeast new campus and we we want to
support the Pinnacle Campus because of the
growth out there. Neil Vickers: Yeah, if we talk
about the advanced manufacturing, the
skilled trades, the health sciences, we still need the
physical spaces to support those. Those are also
the high demand programs here. And this
package is heavily weighted, you know, towards that. So hopefully
that helps with that. Dr. Richard Rhodes: IT and
cybersecurity takes a different type
of, it's not general-purpose classrooms anymore for that.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Right. And I see Sean's hand. Sean?
Sean Hassan: Yeah, this sort of picks up, I think, from the
point that Neil was just making. I
think what would be helpful for me is to,
is, and I know, Dr. Rhodes, you mentioned that the Academic
Master Plan, and, and, and this, the
Facilities Master Plan are sort of
married or maybe they're courting each other and we'll
see if there's a marriage in the works. It'd be
helpful to see, uh, specifically for
like, the examples that Neil gave. Here's where the Nursing
Program capacity is. And with these
additional investments, here's the
number of students, we would then be serving as a result of
these investments that we've made in,
you know, in these physical facilities
over this period of time. I think seeing that, the the
actual number of students that will be served
through these investments, and when
that's going to take place, I think would be helpful as we as
we look at these various potential, you
know, space space investments. I think
similarly, you know, if we look at Advanced Manufacturing, if we
can see what our current capacity
is, like you said, Dr. Rhodes, this may
not have been something that was high demand, you know, in 2014,
it is now. We know that these
projects take some time as well once the
funds are approved by the voters. What does that look
like, um, in terms of growth? If we're
serving x number of students in Advanced
Manufacturing, under our current facility constraints, at the end
of
'25, at the end of 2030, whatever that case is, how many
more students will we serve as a result?
So I think that to me, particularly in the in these
high demand fields,
which we know require lab space, other sorts of physical
facilities, we get that part of it, but it's
good to see what the growth would
look like as a result. And in fact, for me, and I said this to
to Nan as well, it'd be great to see even
one more layer, which is that here the
number of jobs that are that the community needs. And and so as a
result of this investment that we're making, we will have, you
know, made this sort of dent in the overall
community's needs. And that way we
can go out to the community and say, you know, God, we're gonna
need 1,000 new nurses being churned
out every year to meet our 10 year
projections. ACC is stepping up and through these investments,
addressing 50% of that need, 80% of that need. So I think--
Dr. Nan McRaven: And I think the
provost-- Sean Hassan: [inaudible]
Dr. Nan McRaven: I think the provost is gonna address some of
these things for us, hopefully.
And, um Stephanie-- Sean Hassan: I do want piggyback
on that. Yeah, Nan, just sorry, one
thing. I know, I went long on that point, but I just, it just
seemed like, it's critical. I think the
second is, Nan, last month, you came
back from a meeting and and spoke at length about wraparound
services. I think it's something that we've
talked about now, um, for some years. I saw a mention of a of
the, I believe the medical facility at
one of the campuses. It would be great to see sort of a similar
logic, um, in the, in the explanation: What's our current
capacity around wraparound? And would this bond contribute to
space
opening up and being dedicated for certain wraparound services?
What would that space look like? What
sort of services would we anticipate
being able to to, um--
Dr. Nan McRaven: Great comments. Stephanie, we'll let let you go,
and then we'll turn it over to the
provost for some comments.
Stephanie Gharakhanian: Yeah, and I'll be really, I'll try to
keep things tight. So I think big
picture. I'm very excited about this. As I was thinking about
the sorts of things that I would want to
be part of our narrative as we are going out into the community
and and really selling the need for this
project to our voter base, a couple
of things come to mind to me. One connects to the question
that I heard Gigi ask, which is really
being able to articulate why we need
more space or a different space in an educational environment
that's
becoming increasingly virtual. And I think part of that's been
answered by mentioning that most of these
funds are going to support programs
that simply cannot be taught in a virtual environment, because
it's about hands-on training. I think
the second thing I would really want to
be able to articulate convincingly is how this ties to
our goals around equity. And some of that can be
connected to the sorts of educational programs that this
will help us offer, the geographic
regions that are currently underserved, that this bond will
help us service better, etc. And that ties to the student success
question and wraparound services. And just on the same
line with what Sean was saying, like, how can
we make sure that we're talking about
student success in the context of this bond? And is there a way
in which these dollars can be
leveraged to do even more to support student
success and wraparound services? I thought of similarly like a
hub or something like that and if that
was on the horizon for students? And
then, lastly, like how do we really see this project being a
solution to the challenges that we know our
community is facing now and that we
expect to only increase without intervention in the next 10, 20
years. And that also connects back of course, to the master
Workforce Development Plan. And I, I
really was impressed that it does seem
like, like an intense intention had been taken to connecting
some of these projects to those key
industries from the get go. So those
are just some things I wanted to mention.
I will also just say, now, that it will be very important to me
that some of the the workplace
standards that we've implemented for other
projects since 2014 are incorporated as part of this
bond. I think it's our, our fiduciary duty and or
fiscal responsibility to voters to
do that. And to me, that will need to include some sort of
on-site
monitoring component. I think that we saw on the other bond
through the work that we did that, which
that did happen on these projects. And it
was really that sort of independent monitoring that was
on-site talking to construction workers who were
on our projects that we identified when
those wage violations were occurring, so that we could
correct them. And that is going to be a
really important item for me in this
process. And I think it will be important to a lot of our voting
base as well. So I just wanted to set that expectation out
front as
well.
Dr. Nan McRaven: If we could, Dr. Rhodes, do you want to
turn-- Dr. Richard Rhodes: Okay.
Dr. Nan McRaven: --turn it over to Dr. Umphreys?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Yeah. And before as I do, then, this
section, I
wanted to be kind of a reimagination vision session and
get feedback from
from the board members and talk about how the economy is
changing so rapidly, uh, and how what the
workforce is looking like. And so,
with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Monique Umphrey.
Dr. Monique Umphrey: Thank you, Chancellor Rhodes, Chair McRaven
and our other distinguished
trustees. Thank you for this opportunity to
share the vision around the programming that we see will
help to continue to position ACC as a
leader in innovation, excellence, and
equity. As we share the thoughts today, our goal is to make it
really clear, evidently clear that ACC
will be the center for innovation. And
all of these efforts are designed in a way to produce,
uh, the skilled workforce for Austin today and
tomorrow.
So we will cover three areas: the establishment of an
Entrepreneurial
Development Center, which we'll refer to as the EDC, the Macy's
reimagined effort, and then the potential for mixed use
development.
So we'll go to the next slide.
So, um, I'm sure you all have heard about, uh, small business
incubators and their prevalence of them in
Austin. And what we don't want to do
is flood Austin with something where, you know, the market is
flooded, we're not adding new value. The way we will
distinguish the ACC
Entrepreneurial Development Center, our EDC, is we will be
able to leverage the traditional
guidance that's provided in an incubator, the
technical guidance, the small, your business development plans,
all of the traditional things that are
offered in an EDC. But what will make ACC's EDC different and
innovative is that we are leveraging
the strengths that we already have. We will be leveraging the
strengths of our students. So creating an
applied learning opportunity for our
students to apply the skills that they have to assist the
small business owners.
So another great thing about this EDC and our programming
efforts, all of them, the consistent theme is
equity. And also, uh, it's tied in,
Neil mentioned earlier, our Academic Master Plan and our
Facilities Masters Plan. What we're doing
here is tying all of those things in
along with our QEP. So in our QEP, we we are intentionally
focused on building digital fluency and
digital equity. So the reason this is so
paramount is we know that Austin is known as one of the largest
emerging tech hubs. And that's great.
That's why our our city is thriving and
growing and so many people are moving here. However, we are
also quite aware, if you hear the
city leaders and thought leaders
speak,
Austin does not want to become Silicon Valley 2.0. We want to
be Austin 2.0. We've had a stable
economy and we want to continue to
grow that. We want ACC to be a part of that by leveraging
"techquity." That's what our QEP leaders have
used. So we're combining digital fluency with digital equity for
"techquity." So techquity is weaved
all through our areas and our efforts. The reason why this is
so critical is we're tying
everything, Dr. Rhodes has already mentioned,
our focus on producing the skilled workforce, and
increasing the numbers of people that we
produce for the workforce.
When we're talking about the messages that we share, uh, for
this effort, the reason why this is
so critical, is because a 1/3 of the
jobs that were posted last year, I'm sorry, 80% of the jobs that
were posted last year required a tech
component. However, only 1/3 of our
American citizens have the necessary tech skills. Now,
that's great if you're in that small percentage
that's really confident with their
technical skills. But what we have found in research and with
our prior grants is that, even when we
train people for certain programs, they
are afraid to apply for jobs when it is explicit about the
tech skills that they need. And what we have
learned from this, and is this is
embedded in our Q, QEP is that we have to build tech skills and
build their confidence. It's not
enough just to have tech skills. That's the
difference between tech literacy, understanding, and
tech fluency.
Once you build those tech skills, and you're able to flex
and pivot and adjust and adapt to
different environments, that gives you that
digital fluency that's needed in today's innovation economy,
which is what we have here in Austin.
That's why we have Google, Apple, Facebook,
Tesla moving here. Because they want that skilled workforce. So
this is why in our QEP, we are so
intentional about techquity. And this is embedded throughout all
of the efforts here in our programming
efforts.
So understanding that, again, leveraging what we have, as we
build on the Accelerators that we
have, throughout our footprints on our
campuses, we're able to be intentional about building
techquity, helping our students have the confidence in their
technical skills, but also the other
nuance is we realize it can't just be
technical skills. It's the the nexus of the technical skills
and the critical thinking. So combining
our liberal arts courses with our
technology courses in a way that positions our students, not just
for the jobs of today, but for the
jobs of tomorrow. And by doing that,
think about all of the students, not just our computer science
and IT students, but all of our
students across the board will have those
tech skills. Think about those students coming to this EDC and
being able to partner with a small business owner that has an
idea. It could be the next Kendra Scott,
you know, and creating, how many more
Kendra Scott's can we produce here in Austin by having them in
this EDC? This is that stickiness
that we talk about, having that space where
people can come together for innovation and creativity. And
so, by creating that space, and and
that's the differentiator, giving
our students that applied learning opportunity, and
providing those small business owners with the
opportunity to scale up their businesses. It might be someone
who has an idea about a food truck, but
they don't understand digital transformation. By having the
technical guidance from our EDC, and the applied learning
opportunities for our students, and the small
business owners, we've got the recipe to really explode growth
with entrepreneurial growth here in
Austin. So that's our focus for our EDCs.
We can go to the next slide.
Another focus area that we want to really hone in on with our
EDC is the gig economy. Everybody's
heard about the Great Resignation. You've
heard about people leaving. But one thing people don't realize
is,
lately, we've been hearing about the Silver Tsunami that has
partially fueled the Great Resignation.
But another big part is people that are
leaving, and that resigned, most people would assume,
traditionally, historically, five years ago, if
someone resigned for their job, from
their job, or they were thinking about resigning, they would go
to Indeed, which is the largest
platform for traditional jobs. What
we're finding is people are not going to Indeed. They're going
to the gig economy.
So, this slide shows you the growth in people. On the left,
you have the numbers in the traditional
workforce. On the right, you have
the numbers in the gig economy, and how it's growing. Now,
what's significant about this is the
demographics. 53% of the people in
the gig economy are between 18 and 22. 26% of the people in the
gig economy are over 55. Most people
don't think about that. But this is
a way for us to capture--We talked about enrollment, and how
will our message be different with this
bond? This is a way for us to capture our
nonconsumption market, people who don't traditionally see
themselves as ACC students, by offering
micro-credentials and badges and workshops to say, "So you're
thinking about becoming a gig economy worker? Do you know the
impact to your taxes? Have you thought about what it means to
be a 1099 employee?" And using, leveraging the strengths that we
already have with our business faculty to create those
micro-credentials. And again, with
our EDC, providing that technical assistance to either
small business owners or those that are
thinking about transitioning. What we've also found about the
gig economy is it's bifurcated. In the
bottom we have the low wage gig economy workers. If you think
about those the ride sharing platforms
and delivering groceries, uh, the
average wage, it ranges from $33 to $100 an hour in the low end.
So, uh,
what we, well, that's the $33 is, uh, high. But what we have
found is there are a lot of people that
are currently in the gig economy that're
looking to jump to that next stage, but they can't do it
without the digital skills. When I mentioned
the jobs that require digital skills,
what we have found is 80% of the people that don't have digital
skills are stuck in low wage jobs. And so, by having our
techquity focus, leveraging our
accelerators, providing all of our students that
come with the opportunity to build their technical skills,
they can transition from the low part of
the gig economy to the top tier, which
is the IT skills, the, what we historically knew as
freelancers.
Dr. Nan McRaven: I have a great example for you, exactly what
you're talking about. A young woman,
26, across the street nanny during the
day, dog walker, you know, one of the mobile platforms. And,
and of course, I'm trying to get her to
go back to ACC. Needless to say, it's
one student at a time, one student at a time. And, and, you
know, gosh, she doesn't she know if she has
time. She doesn't know where she's
going to get the money or whatever. But she is going to be
stuck right there until she can understand
and figure out how does she move now to
getting a micro-credential. And I was trying to talk her through
some of that. But you're absolutely
right. She goes, "Well, gosh, I'm
old at 26. You know, I'm too old to go back to school." I was, I
mentioned to her, I went back to school in my mid 50s. Okay, come
on now. You can go back at 26. But
anyway, I think this is, this is really great infor- information
that you're providing us. And this is so
true in terms of this gig economy. We just think they're
gonna make it on their own, and they're gonna
keep gigging around, you know, but at
some point, they'll have to figure out how they get some
credentials so that they can move up that wage
level.
Dr. Monique Umphrey: Well, this is part of that conversation
about-- Stephanie Gharakhanian: Can I-?
Dr. Monique Umphrey: --who do we want to be? And who do we want
to become?
Dr. Nan McRaven: Sure. Stephanie Gharakhanian: Sorry,
this is Stephanie. I just, I, I do not
dispute that there, that the gig economy is growing. But I think
it's important for folks to also
understand that a lot of people view
that growth as a very problematic trend in our
workforce, and specifically a lot of partners
that I think would be really important to
be validators for us of a bond are very, very concerned about
the trend towards gig work. Again, I'm not
disputing that it is a trend. But
gig workers, as you've mentioned, they have less job
security, they had fewer actual rights on the
job, because they can't benefit from the
rights that come from being an employee versus being an
independent contractor. And, apart from
that, they they have a hard time actually,
of course, like getting full time work. And so I, I, I think
I would just approach this piece with an
incr-, an immense amount of, of caution, and I'm happy to meet
offline to discuss this more. But I
I think that a lot of important stakeholders would actually be,
could be quite concerned about ACC viewing itself as helping to
promote
a transition to the gig economy. And so I just I wanted to raise
that concern.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Again, I'm not sure we're promoting the
transition to the gig economy, I think we
might be recognizing that there is a gig
economy. And, as I was mentioning, trying to convince
perhaps some of those gig workers, that they do
need credentials, they do need degrees,
they do need to move to where they've got, as you would say,
some,
perhaps some stability and all in terms of whether it's income
or benefits or whatever else. So I
don't know that we're promoting it.
I think we're trying to help address it. Hopefully, that's
what we're doing. But thank you for that
red flag. And yes, Dr. Umphries, did you
want to answer that? Stephanie Gharakhanian: I just,
I think I would just ask that, I, I
would like to think of our--How do I want to say this? And of
course, I know this is an initial--
Dr. Nan McRaven: Right, it is. Stephanie Gharakhanian:
--brainstorming session. I really hope that part of
what ACC views its role as is trying to increase pathways to
gainful employment, where the sort of
security and benefits and wages are,
you know, are at a higher level? Dr. Nan McRaven: Yeah,
absolutely. That was sort of my example that I
was trying to make is I worried about this young woman, you
know, holding three, four jobs down,
actually, just so she could make a
living, working all these gigs, if you will. So thank you for
that. And
I'll let--
Sean Hassan: I think, Nan, I think that's that's where, you
know, as we go and and source data as follow
up from this conversation, that's
what's a little not clear to me. Again, I know this is a
generative session at this stage, is like
if we're framing this and I think this
might be what Stephanie's saying as well, it's not sitting well
with me either. It's just what I don't
understand is so what's the value
add we're hoping to to contribute? If this is the
trajectory, Nan, like you said, we may we may not be
able to reverse, at ACC, where the larger
economy is going. What are we equipping these individuals
with? Is it micro-credentials? Are we
giving them ways to avoid the gig economy?
Are we giving them ways to become entrepreneurs? It sounds
like there's that. I just I'm not
quite following what our role would be,
uh, with respect to our students for the gig economy.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Perfect. We'll let the provost, perhaps,
finish. And that might be helpful. It was
my, I'm sorry, I interrupted on that.
But we'll let her finish. Thanks.
Dr. Monique Umphrey: [inaudible] Sorry about that. Thank you for
the comments. I'm especially
sensitive to the perceptions and how we
communicate these things. The way that I see our value add is
this is upskilling. This is helping to
upskill our residents, our fellow
citizens. This is empowering them. Our goal is to help
empower people.
And and from an equity lens, we need to make sure, there are
some people that are more vulnerable than
others. And we are empowering them
with the scho- with the skills and the credentials that they
need to move up and earn higher wages.
We're not advocating this job or that job
or the gig economy. We're just being aware of the facts and the
trends
and supporting our fellow citizens so that they can be
empowered and that they can gain pathways to
higher wages. So that's, that's the
overall value proposition here. So I was just saying,
recognizing that in the EDC and providing pathways
for higher wages, with an equity in
mind, and intentionality around building those pathways and
micro-credentials.
And we'll go ahead to the next slide. And that's more, we've
really talked about this point.
We can go ahead to the next slide, which is reimagining that
space where Macy's is. Was there a
question?
Nora Comstock: Yes, the slide says equipping professionals to
transition to the gig economy. So maybe it's from the gig
economy?
Dr. Monique Umphrey: Well, well, let me say this. I understand
that some people may not be comfortable
with the gig economy. But there are a lot
of people, we need to recognize the people in the Great
Resignation that left traditional jobs and have
no desire to come back to traditional
jobs. It's flexibility. And I'm not a proponent of either one,
I'm just trying to share awareness about
the trends and what the data is showing.
So I'll fix the slide. And this is not for general pu-, was more
for brainstorming here. But I want,
I want us to see our value proposition
as equipping and empowering our students and fellow residents
that
have not, don't know how to get out of dead end pathways. That's
that's the main, uh, task.
Stephanie Gharakhanian: I, no, and I appreciate that. I I just
so,
because I know that we don't know each other really well, but
also just in my professional life,
I've done a lot of work with gig workers
around the gig economy, which is why I'm especially sensitive to
this. And I am happy to be a thought
partner to work with you-- Dr. Monique Umphrey: I would
appreciate [inaudible] Stephanie Gharakhanian: --or, or
whomever to make sure that as we are
communicating this to different audiences, we are, we're just
being a little bit more precise, and
making sure that we say what we mean
in a way that will not give some folks the wrong idea. So I'm
happy to be a helper in that regard.
Dr. Nan McRaven: I'm sure, I'm sure we will take you up, and
the provost will take you up on that. Thank
you for that offer. Great.
Dr. Monique Umphrey: And so with the Macy's Reimagine, what we're
looking to do is leverage the physical
proximity with our Accelerators, the
EDC, our Advanced Manufacturing Incubators, our Fashion
Incubators,
leveraging all of those spaces to provide our students with as
many applied learning opportunities
as possible, again, with techquity in
mind, and understanding the skills that are needed for our
students to compete in today's innovation
economy.
And then we'll go ahead to the next slide. Our our goal for
this space is highlighting ACC as the
epicenter for innovation with techquity is our
core tenet. We want to be intentional about creating
spaces for intentional collaboration
and workshops, uh, to promote pathways
for people for higher wages, for more fulfilling careers, and to
help them empower themselves. And our
overall goal is to be a partner for
building the sustainable Austin that we all want to live, work,
and play in. What, uh, one underlying
thing here was learning from the best
practices and the lessons learned from the valley and what
not to do. We want to make sure that the
growth in Austin is inclusive. And so
that's why leveraging the techquity by design to help fuel
these things.
Okay, um. Just another point, another data point. Uh, what
we've seen from the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics is that by 2030, we're
having a occupational growth of over 15% for AI careers and
automation-enabled careers. So the need for techequity and
digital fluency is not going away, it's
going to increase. One of the things
that was stated was that the ability to gain new knowledge
will be valued higher than the knowledge that
people already have. So teaching our
students how to acclimate to changing situations, new
information, and being able to learn on the fly is going to be
one of the most critical components of them
being able to have a family-sustaining, a career that
supports a family-sustaining wage.
And we'll go to the next slide.
Sean Hassan: So Dr. Umphrey, just in terms of how you're
imagining that,
like this space that we're talking about, because I, of
course, I think you're, the substance of what
you're saying, at least resonates with some
of us. I worked in the Bay Area in East Palo Alto. And we'd work
with young people who, you know,
sadly, we would watch the Facebook bus
drive by, and we would tell our kids, we don't want to watch
this bus drive by, we want to be on
the bus going to Facebook and Indeed and
having those sorts of jobs. So, so we work in those spaces. An-,
are you-, is this, are you imagining
that this space is about exposure?
You just mentioned AI? Is it about, um, you know, is it, is
there an emphasis on entrepreneurship? Is
it an emphasis on? I think you mentioned digital literacy, what
would be the, what would be the kind
of the main purpose of these sorts of investments in this
space that we're, that we're considering?
Dr. Monique Umphrey: So if you think about our Accelerators and
the space that we already have, how can we
equip the students with the digital
skills that they need for today's economy? And then, when
you think about the different incubators
that we already have, continuing to grow
and leverage that growth and exposure, and with a focus on
entrepreneurial efforts. Leveraging the strengths of our
students and giving them a safe space to test
those new skills. It also empowers
the small business owners and it empowers the students. They can
walk away with a digital portfolio
that will help them to secure a new job
or a new opportunity after they leave us. That's how we're
envisioning this space.
Sean Hassan: Thank you.
Stephanie Gharakhanian: And, I'm, I'm sorry, if I missed it,
but is there a goal for which campus
this would be housed at yet? Just as if
we're thinking about the plan as a whole or are we not at that
point?
Dr. Monique Umphrey: So the techquity is part of our QEP so
that's for all of our students. But one of the things that we're
looking at with this bond, it
included--as Neil had referred to earlier--the
technical infrastructure that's needed to do all these things,
the growth in allied health careers.
We know we need to expand the opportunities for all of those
professional development opportunities for our students.
So we have to provide the labs necessary for Allied Health, the
technical infrastructure, as we look
at creating more high flex classes. Someone mentioned the
growth in
online and virtual. Some of our students, quite a few of our
students have indicated that they would like the flexibility
for high flex classrooms, meaning if the
class is meeting at 10 o'clock, having the flexibility to
sometimes meet in person, sometimes log in
from home. Providing the technical infrastructure to be
able to do that, that's all a part of this
that helps prepare our students for the
environment that already exists in many of the work
environments, but helping us to create that
environment where we can facilitate
that.
Dr. Nan McRaven: So more classrooms--
Stephanie Gharakhanian: I understand--
Dr. Nan McRaven: --provided with technology and being able to be
hybrid classrooms.
Stephanie Gharakhanian: I understood that part of the
proposals was an actual center, like a physical
center. Did I misunderstand? Dr. Monique Umphrey: Yes, the--
Stephanie Gharakhanian: An Entrepreneur Development Center?
And where would that be?
Dr. Monique Umphrey: That is-- Stephanie Gharakhanian:
Or do we not know yet? Dr. Monique Umphrey: No, that's
in that space where Macy's currently
is. We're looking to reimagine that.
Stephanie Gharakhanian: Okay, so is, or I wasn't clear in the
presentation that we received, if all of the items that were
listed are all part of the Macy's, the
existing Macy's space. Is...
Dr. Nan McRaven: Well, some of it is, part of--the center is
yes. But
again, a lot of this, I think, translates--
Stephanie Gharakhanian: It's just about instruction
and--yeah, and--I--that's--like, it's
academic goals that are
connected.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Yeah.
Stephanie Gharakhanian: I got that. Okay. Thank you.
Dr. Monique Umphrey: And so, the last part of the vision was
thinking about mixed use development. So
from that perspective, this is not a
traditional academic construction project by any
means. But with this,
this gives us the opportunity to envision how we want to be a
part of the solution. I've talked about
some of the challenges of rapid growth
that's not inclusive. We, from the time I moved to Austin, the
very first night on the news, I heard
about the lack of affordable housing
here in Houston. I think those stories are on almost every
night. I hear about different issues. So
this gives us a way to think differently
about our construction efforts. With a mixed use development, we
have the opportunity to leverage the
growth as we see our EDC growing and our
entrepreneurial efforts growing, we could promote the graduates
of our entrepreneurial programs, and
give them space on the first level, which
could be retail and shopping and food, different retail
opportunities. We could promote our recent graduates from the
EDC and give them an opportunity like
first dibs at that retail space. The
second level could be a flex space, in terms of classrooms,
conference areas. Uh, we, we've talked
about having the ability for larger
gatherings as we bring together industry partners. Let's say we
wanted to have, uh, be a catalyst for economic
development here in Austin and bring together
leaders, executives from different tech
companies, or leaders from, executives from different health
care companies. We could bring them there in that space on the
second level. The third level and up
could be residential spaces for students.
Yeah, well, most definitely. So focusing on things like
micro-apartments, and regular apartments, having a mixture of
the residential levels, from a best
practices perspective that helps to
create the best living environment.
Dr. Nan McRaven: And again, this is all tied to the Macy's space
at this point. We're talking
about Macy's. No?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Get a broader vision--
Dr. Nan McRaven: Okay?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: --and we have a number of campuses where
we've got land. And so this wouldn't be a
part of the bond, of the GO Bond election. But this is kind of
looking out to the future and saying, "Okay, what have we
learned from Highland, uh, that works?" And
so there are aspects of Highland that we could take to, such as
San Gabriel--
Dr. Nan McRaven: And why wouldn't this be part of the
bond initiative?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Part of it is beca-, some of this is going
to be mixed use. So we're really
talking about public-private partnership.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Okay.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: --development [inaudible]
Dr. Nan McRaven: Are you saying that student housing, affordable
student housing could be a
public-private partnership and that we could
envision that at different locations?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Yes. Yes.
Dr. Nan McRaven: I'm sure there'll be some questions about
that. All right, uh, uh, Gigi?
Gigi Edwards Bryant: Thank you, Chair McRaven. I agree that I
have some questions about that. But
I'm gonna wait because I have a lot of
questions about that. But one of my questions about this center
is, how does this correspond with the
Make It Center? I believe we have heard
some of the same innovative ideas in the Make It Center that
we're hearing about this center even
though I'm thinking that maybe for
this center, these are credit hours as opposed to community
engagement hours. Is that the difference?
And then my other question is how, um,
how big is center, square footage-wise?
Dr. Nan McRaven: Thanks for the--
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Uh..
Dr. Nan McRaven: Go ahead, Dr. Rhodes.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: No. I was just gonna ask, are you talking
about the Macy's Re-reimagined? Okay,
so the Macy's Reimagined-- Gigi Edwards Bryant: Yes, when
you talk about the Macy's
Reimagined
Center Project and then you're talking about the Make It
Movement
Project Center, space wise, how much space are we dedicating to
this
Entrepreneurs Center minus the housing component that we're
talking about? And I thought that I
heard some of the same ideas as far as job
readiness and things like that, as we heard with the Make It
Center. So I'm just tried to figure out is
it one's credit and one's community, or
what's the difference?
Shasta Buchanan: Trustee Bryant, this the Shasta. For the Make It
Center, it's really about helping students whether they
are direct from high school or whether they
are adu-, returning adults have more
hands-on experience with different kinds of careers. So
having that upfront in the process, we spent
a lot of time thinking about the application process and saying
choose your major, but students don't understand what major are
they choosing if we haven't put in front
of them how to really have some hands on experience. We talk
about Advanced Manufacturing but we
still understand that some students,
including direct from high school and adults, don't quite
understand what Advanced Manufacturing is.
So we want to put them in a hands-on
environment to be able to do that and we can change that. So
they'll be able to experience that all
the way from K-12 and returning adults,
which is a little bit different than what Dr. Umphrey is sharing
in terms of the the Reimagine space at
Macy's. So this is more a hands-on
experience to allow students to understand, what am I choosing
in terms of my career as I begin
that process of applying to college?
Gigi Edwards Bryant: Okay, so I heard you say that this, at the
Make It Center would be a preliminary
step to what we're talking about with the Macy's space. Is that
what I heard? This is more of an introduction to what we do at
ACC, hands-on learning. And I guess I'm
under the impression that we do that all the time. We do
hands-on learning, and we prepare for our
transition from high school into college. Maybe it's it, maybe
it's a conversation offline, I'm just, is
there an order to it? Or what do you telling me?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Yeah. So let me interject for just a minute.
And so when we--
Dr. Nan McRaven: And you guys are going to have to speak up.
We are having a little hard time
hearing everyone. If you'll pull your mics a
little closer.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: So so on--If you look on page 26, I think,
yeah, 26.
Central Region, the Highland. 150 million is really talking
about primarily the Macy's or
replacement of the Macy's, depending on what we
do there. And for that, we're talking about expansion of
Advanced Manufacturing. Because what, all
we have right now is a very small space
in Phase 2 of Highland. But it's also talking about what Dr.
Umphrey was talking about is the
implementation of an
entrepreneurship incubator. And so that is bringing small
business in, much like we're doing, you know,
with, currently, with Fashion and
with Biosciences, but really going full blast with incubation
for small business. Uh, and opening up an
entrepreneurship center to do that.
And so that one, that does not include the housing that we
talked about. This, this is just one
center on Manufacturing incubator, um,
Entrepreneurship. Now, the last part that Dr. Umphrey was
talking about,
is more visionary. What could we look at at other campuses to
help us do a couple of things? One is
meet the needs of industry, business and
industry in those parts of the community, but also create a
space
for, um, living spaces for students? And how can you
combine the two together through something that
would be public-public pri-
partnership or a public-private partnership?
Gigi Edwards Bryant: I understand, and I know you, you
and your administration have put a lot of
thought into how we develop, what we
develop, and how it all ties together, right. But lately,
we're getting a lot of new things on
board. And I just want to make sure
that when we talk about 10,000 square feet of learning here,
and
and another square footage here, that how it all ties together
along our different regions to make it
useful for what we're talking about.
Especially if we're going out and asking for bond money and
people to support us, I would like to just
have a better understanding of all
the new online stuff and how it all ties together.
Dr. Nan McRaven: So I'm going to let Nora, Nora, did you have
some comments? Okay.
What I want to do is give us a time check and say that this is
really an overview and what I'm going to
ask for next, uh, again, Dr. Umphrey,
are you are you finished with--? Okay, I'm going to ask for sort
of the next steps. And what I assume
some of the next steps are going to be, we're going to take
these, this package that we've been
presented tonight, we're going to take it site
by site, we're going to take it across sites like this. And so I
would guess that we would start, at our February 1st meeting or
are we going to start at the following
meeting? We've already got the agenda there. So I haven't had a
chance to look at it but we really
need to roll down this stuff pretty quickly if we are at all
thinking about this coming fall. And so
Dr. Rhodes, if I can turn to you to
conclude this agenda item, and then tell us how we move
forward. Dr. Richard Rhodes: Sure. Sure.
Now we, and the intent of this was
really to give you a broad brush overview of what we're thinking
about and looking at, get your feedback, get your questions,
and then come back at the
February work session.
Dr. Nan McRaven: The work session? Okay.
Dr. Richard Rhodes: Yeah. Which is February 23rd? Something like
that.
21st. Dr. Nan McRaven: 23rd?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: 21st?
Dr. Nan McRaven: Okay, so, so so we won't get any sort of
presentation till February 21st?
Dr. Richard Rhodes: That's our ne-, yeah, that would be our
next opportunity.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Okay, well, given the timeframe, and, and
the list of things we were supposed to be
doing in February, I don't think we're
going to be meeting any of those. I think, again, this
internal discussion is going to take a
while if we're not starting that back up
till February 21, or 23rd. Um, 21st. So, and I can't imagine we
will resolve anything at that
meeting, either. I mean, we'll have some good
discussion, but I don't know that we'll resolve things. So,
um, I'm thoughtful about this timeframe.
That's all. That's my only point.
Okay, so again, we've got six more minutes or so here. Let me
take just
a few if, if, if I may, either questions or comments that you
might have so the administration can
prepare properly for that February
21st meeting. And I'll start with Stephanie, and then I'll go
to a Hassan, and Gigi, and Dana, and
then just a comment or two, if, if you
will, to help give direction. Thanks.
Stephanie Gharakhanian: So, a couple of things. I think what
I'm hearing now and understanding is that
you guys are thinking about stickiness,
campus stickiness, which makes a lot of sense to me. So thank you
for that clarification. A couple of
questions that I just have. Why is
the Advanced Manufacturing focus at Highland versus other
campuses? Do we think that our student base
for those programs are around that
campus? Just I'd be curious to know a little bit more about
that decision. And if it's just
because the space is there. I, so that was
just one thing that was on my. For me, I wasn't sure if the
Entrepreneurial Center was focused on IT, like, startups in
particular.
So maybe some clarity there would be helpful. And then, with
respect to the affordable housing idea, I
you know, this is something that's
really important to me, I really have been kind of pushing ACC,
to lean into the affordable housing
space. When I hear private mixed use, however, I worry that
wouldn't really allow us to do that work
either at the scale or to provide the sort of deep
affordability that I think the sort of folks that I
had imagined these initiatives would
serve would be able to access. And so I know that that is
something that would have to be worked
out. But when we're thinking about public
private partnerships, I think I'd always assumed that that
would probably more be in partnership
with like an affordable housing nonprofit, so that we could
really provide that scale and deep
affordability. So I just would like to keep those things in
mind as thinking about these ideas
continues. Dr. Nan McRaven: Great. Thank
you. And if the administration will just
take notes here. We're not expecting a response at this
point. Hassan?
Sean Hassan: I, Nan, you're talking to me?
Dr. Nan McRaven: I am. I am. Yeah.
Sean Hassan: Oh, okay. So Dr. Rhodes, just building on what I
said earlier. And I think this is
kind of related to what Gigi said, it's
feeling a little piecemeal right now. And I think if if if it
could feel like here's the puzzle. If
you're telling us hey, there's $10,000 or 10,000 square feet,
for an entrepreneurship center, how do
we know that that 10,000 square feet isn't better used for
Nursing space?
I'm having a hard time understanding the ROI on these
individual kind of pockets of efforts. The numbers,
how many people we reach, why
entrepreneurship versus--I understand the larger meta
trends in society and in our economy
around entrepreneurship, around the gig
economy, I get that part of it. I think it's a layer down or a
couple of layers down, which is we're
making this investment for this particular reason. If it's
manufacturing, are we literally teaching people how to work in
assembly line, or is it something
else? I'm I'm having a hard time getting my head around, kind of
the layer below the top line. Why
these individual decisions and what the
numbers are that we're planning on reaching in terms of students
and what the ROI is that we see. So
I think something that ties this together, all these individual
pieces, not just with each other,
but what we already have, by way of accelerators and incubators
and all that good stuff would be helpful
for us to make sense of this for, at
least for me.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Any other trustee, Hassan, any other
questions or any other--
Sean Hassan: No, I think that's kind of the big--
Dr. Nan McRaven: Trustee Bryant, do you have any other questions
or directions for the
administration?
Gigi Edwards Bryant: No, I think my comments, um--
Dr. Nan McRaven: Okay.
Gigi Edwards Bryant: Okay, I don't need to say anything else.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Okay. Trustee
Walker?
Dana Walker: Yes, sorry. I've had to be quiet for a little
bit. But I
second, pretty much what everybody said, especially with
Sean is saying about understanding the ROI. I'm
still having trouble piecing that
together. And then, um, one of the things that we talked about
with Neil, I would be curious to see
what it would look like if we didn't
raise the amount of money that we were taxing individuals who
are currently here like not on new
properties, what that would mean for
a bond amount that we could ask for. And then one other
question, I have too, is if we're expanding in
all these areas, and knowing, at least
right now, that a lot of teachers aren't sticking with
teaching, they're retiring, or they're
just leaving, like, are we confident that
we can actually hire the right teachers and the right faculty,
the right staff to help run these
programs? And then I guess the last
one, strategically, I think, I'm curious to know if our strategy
here is more like let's build this
stuff, and then bring in some of the
community partners, like if you build it, they'll come? Or have
we've been having those conversations and we know
there's interest there? So I'm curious
to know how we're approaching this
strategy too.
Dr. Nan McRaven: All right. Trustee Comstock?
Nora Comstock: Okay, I'm really excited. Thing number one. I
like the plans. I like what I see.
And I see a lot of the connections. I
don't have the ROI, but I see the connections. Grave concern:
childcare. We haven't talked about childcare. And that is a
space or spaces that we need at the
various campuses. And I'd kind of like a
better notion of what we're thinking about that possibility.
Because, especially with single moms,
though, there are many single dads out there
as well, single parent, it's really challenging to get us
into school.
So we've really got to pay attention to this. And of
course, tied to that there's all the other wraparound
services that we--and we've talked
about them. But I'd kind of like to see a better understanding of
the plan and how that's accessed.
Then I'm extremely, extremely concerned about enrollment. If I
look at the numbers, it's largely Hispanic, a lot of
growth in the Hispanic market right now, we
are not accessing the Hispanic market, I
hate to tell you this, but the numbers are not enrolling. And
if they are, they're not
succeeding. So this is absolutely something that we
have got to figure out. Because if we don't, the numbers of
Hispanic individuals, and lots of others,
that are not able to succeed, we're
not going to be able to sustain this. So enrollment numbers
become critical for us. Um, I get the
vision. I see how the pieces fit together. But I'm not sure how
it exactly serves the community and
that's what I need to know.
I also know that there is, you know, we said 10,000 individuals
that the Travis County Master Plan was supposed to get in,
we're not getting them in. You know that
as well as I do, all of you know
that.
They're still out there. And people say to me, "Well, I can't
find them. You know, we can't find them.
We're offering all these programs." Excuse
me, they're in housing developments. They're getting
welfare payments. They're going to the blood bank
in order to get financing. What do you
mean you can't find them? And they go to church and they go
lots of places. I know where they are.
If I know where they are, then we need to
go there. And we need to make sure that they understand what
the opportunity is and then to get
in. And more importantly, we need to
offer the services, the courses where they live. If Tesla is out
in Del Valle, why are we offering
an English language course at Highland?
The individuals that need those courses live in Del Valle. We're
offering the courses online. We're offering them at Highland.
It makes no sense to me. So I'm having a
little bit of trouble with that. So
if we could kind of answer some of those questions and it leads
into
into the bond and about what we're trying to do. I believe in
ACC. We are, we are it. We are at the
center of everything that needs to happen
for Central Texas to reach, to improve the lives of many, many
individuals. But we really have got to get down to that level of
successful people who have been excluded so far from the success
of our community. And I just
absolutely feel if we don't do that, we won't
be able to do the rest.
Dr. Nan McRaven: Just a few comments for me. I think you've,
you guys have put a lot of effort into
actually thinking through each of
the campuses and how things need to go across campuses. So I
very, very much appreciate this. One of the
things, though, I would say is, and
I know, at one point, we were looking at 1.3 million or
something around that natu- number, or
that's how much it all added up to. And
just because we can do $815 million, doesn't mean that's
what we necessarily should do. So I
would say to you, I I just want to be sure
that we we don't go with an $815 million package just because we
can.
We want to make sure that the projects are there, and the need
is there so that we can adequately
explain that to the community. And,
and maybe we don't do everything right now. Maybe, you know, it's
some some of that money now. And, you know, in a few more
years, we go back for the rest of it. But,
but um, but I hear you in terms of not
wanting to leave too much on the
table.
So, anyway, thank you. It was a great start to this discussion.
And we'll look forward to February
21st for the next round. Thanks to
everybody. All right.
Do we want to take a five-minute break? Okay.
We're going to take a 5, not a 30, minute, which is my fault
and I apologize to all of you. But,
but we are going to take a five minute
break at 2:36pm. And we will be back in at 2:41pm or something
like that. See you in about five minutes. Thanks.