5

Riverside, California

The fourth workshop in the virtual workshop series focused on creating equity within the workforce pipeline and connecting it to the green economy and the high technology, high-growth jobs of tomorrow in Riverside, California. This workshop also higlighted the importance of Riverside and the surrounding region’s logistics industry and its role in addressing workforce issues in the post-COVID-19 pandemic labor market. In introductory remarks to the workshop, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the California Community Colleges, commented that people are adapting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic and are learning how to work, shop, and interact with one another in innovative ways. Those changes create opportunities, and one goal of the day’s discussions, he said, would be to discuss today how these these changes can be beneficial to those seeking new jobs or career paths in and around the greater Riverside region.

UNDERSTANDING THE ECONOMIC AND WORKFORCE IMPACTS OF COVID-19 ON RIVERSIDE

Riverside is unique among the cities selected for the workshop series in that the city of Riverside has a lower poverty rate than the surround metropolitan area—11.5 percent versus 13.1 percent—although it does have a lower median wage than the metropolitan area as a whole, at $32,431 versus $35,713. Riverside differs, too, as do other cities in the western United States, in that its counties are significantly larger geographically, which

plays out in terms of demographic data and the ability of organizations and government to act on new programs and policies. Riverside was the first city examined by the workshop series with a predominantly Hispanic or Latinx population (Figure 5-1). Both the city and metro area are similar in terms of educational attainment to the other cities in the workshop series (Figure 5-2).

Andreason described data showing the unequal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment in Riverside and the metro area, he explained, was quite low prior to the COVID-19 pandemic—4.7 percent for the city and 4 percent for the Riverside-San Bernadino-Ontario metropolitan area—but it had risen and remained significantly higher at the time of the workshop. The unemployment numbers for the city and metro area were more closely aligned than for other cities, and Andreason said he suspected that something interesting is happening in the Riverside area. He noted that, as in the other cities, women, adults under age 35, and Blacks have fared disproportionately worse than the local workforces as a whole in terms of unemployment. The Hispanic/Latinx population, however, was slightly less affected, accounting for 37.2 percent of the workforce but only 36.1 percent of those who claimed unemployment as of September 2020 (Figure 5-3). He noted as well that during the week of September 26, 2020, nearly 700,000 more workers were on the new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program for gig workers and the self-employed than were on traditional unemployment.

In California broadly, unemployment claims by industry also illustrate an unequal effect of the pandemic, with retail trade, accomodation and food services, and healthcare showing the biggest increases in the percentage of the state’s unemployed workforce (Figure 5-4), and unemployment in the retail sector surpassing that of much of the rest of the country.¹ In total,

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¹ Unemployment claims by industry were only available by state, and not by city or metropolitan area.

unemployment in the Riverside metropolitan area is above average but similar to other inland metro areas in California, and total employment is more at risk of permanent job loss as a result of the pandemic than many areas in California and other western states. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 61 percent of the Riverside metro area’s industry employment demand is expected to be affected compared with 49.6 percent statewide, while work-at-home estimates suggest that only 24.7 percent of the region’s workers would be able to work at home compared with 28.4 percent statewide. Andreason commented that at-risk opportunity jobs—those middle-skill positions that pay above the median regional wage and do not require a bachelor’s degree—are concentrated in the retail and hospitality industries, as well as in some construction sectors.

Almost 90 percent of the Riverside metro area’s households have an internet subscription, three-quarters of the households have a high-speed connection, and just over 10 percent access the internet solely through cellular data plans, which Andreason said is better than in many metropolitan areas. Under 10 percent of all households in the area have no internet subscription, which includes nearly 28 percent of households earning less than $20,000 a year. In terms of ownership of computing devices, just over 80 percent of all households have a desktop or laptop computer and less than 10 percent have only a smartphone.

GREATER RIVERSIDE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK PRIOR TO AND DURING COVID-19

The first panel discussed investments in workforce training programs prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the affect of the pandemic on their workforce alignment and learner access. This panel also considered inequities in the workforce and how to address them. The three panelists were Kim Wilcox, chancellor of the University of California, Riverside (UCR); Toni Symonds, chief consultant to the California State Assembly’s Committee on Jobs, Economic Development, and the Economy; and Wolde-Ab Isaac,

chancellor of the Riverside Community College District (RCCD). Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Chancellor of California Community Colleges, moderated the session.

Working Together to Address Inequities

Wilcox proposed two topics as important for the day’s discussions. The first was the extent to which different organizations and institutions work together in the region, which he said was a real strength of the Riverside area. The second was the work going on in the “inland empire,” as the region is known colloquially, to address inequities in workforce culture. To that end, he noted that UCR was voted by U.S. News and World Report as the leading university in the country for social mobility; it ranks first in the nation in Hispanic enrollment among selective U.S. public universities according to the Urban Institute and third in the nation for the number of Hispanic students completing science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) degrees according to the National Science Foundation; and more Pell grants have been received by UCR students than in the entire Ivy League. All told, 57 percent of UCR’s undergraduates are first-generation college students, and it is among the best in the United States, according to Education Trust, in terms of graduation success for Latinx and Black students.

Riverside County, explained Wilcox, is the 10th most populous in the country and ranks fifth nationally in population growth. At the same time, it has the greatest shortage of primary care and specialist physicians in California, which is why UCR’s seven-year-old medical school is “laser focused” on equity and the diversity of its medical school classes and the ways in which it engages with its racially and ethnically diverse community.

Wilcox described four collaborations that he believes are defining for UCR:

• Growing Inland Achievement, a collaboration among educational institutions and the private sector focused on increasing the number of credentialed individuals in that region.
• Inland Economic Growth Opportunity group, another collaboration among educational and private sector groups focused on developing good jobs for the entire region.
• Riverside County Educational Cooperative, a group focused on improving the college-going culture in the region.

• University Innovation Alliance, a national coalition of public research universities committed to increasing the number and diversity of college graduates in the United States.

These collaborations, the first three of which also involve RCCD, have overlapping goals focused on how to prepare all of the citizens in the Riverside region for the jobs of today and the future. Wilcox noted that most of the institutions involved in these collaborations are under-resourced. UCR, for example, receives fewer state dollars per person than any other campus in the University of California system, evidence of the systematic, historic differences in how resources are invested in different regions of the country that still play out today.

Helping Educationally and Economically Challenged Populations

RCCD, said Isaac, serves more than 60,000 students annually, with Hispanic students accounting for almost two-thirds of that enrollment. Nearly three-quarters of the students attend part-time, more than 40 percent are first-generation, more than half are women, and 13 percent are from what he called special populations that include students with a disability, veterans, children raised in the foster care system, and adults who are or have been incarcerated. He noted that over 70 percent are of low socioeconomic status and therefore receive free tuition. During the pandemic, RCCD had 26 laboratories open in which some 2,400 students were completing their practical studies in a highly secured and safe working environment.

RCCD and the other educational institutions in the region are all deeply aware that the population they serve is both educationally and economically challenged, with one of the nation’s lowest rates of college attendance and completion. This recognition, said Isaac, is what has driven the collective and collaborative approach that the regions’ institutions are taking and that has led to strong, durable partnerships spanning the entire educational landscape, from kindergarten through the baccalaureate degree, and includes the region’s business and industry sectors. He also noted that RCCD’s workforce development program is designed to address equity, with a focus on students with a disability, those coming from economically disadvantaged families, single parents, people experiencing homelessness, youth in the foster parent system, and people who are displaced.

In 2019, Isaac’s institution’s graduation rate increased by 27 percent even though it has the fewest faculty positions per full-time-equivalent student in the state’s entire educational system and the smallest total amount of financial aid provided to its students. “It is ironic that while we are the champions of equity, we are also the victims of inequity,” said Isaacs, noting the community colleges in California produce nearly 70 percent of all middle-skilled workers. He pointed out that by 2025, the Riverside region’s secondary schools and community colleges will produce more than 80,000 students who qualify for admission to a postsecondary educational institution, requiring a significant investment in the expansion of the region’s public institutions if the region is to achieve its economic development goals.

Boosting the Demand for Jobs

Symonds noted that California entered the COVID-19 pandemic with historically low unemployment, although in certain areas of the state, including the “inland empire,” some groups of people have not benefited equitably from the economic expansion following the recession of 2008. As an example, she cited figures showing that while overall poverty in the state was trending downward, some 6.7 million Californians—including 19 percent of Black and 15 percent of Latinx individuals—lived at or below the federal poverty threshold, compared to 8.3 percent of white residents of the state. In Riverside County, 14.4 percent of Black, 12.8 percent of Latinx, and 17.9 percent of indigenous individuals, compared with 9.9 percent of whites, lived at or below the federal poverty threshold.

The state legislative committee she works for has been focusing more on the demand side—that is, employers—rather than directly on workforce development during the COVID-19 pandemic. A key aspect of this has been supporting small businesses, which historically have led economies out of recession. In California, net new job growth among innovation-based businesses was the primary engine powering the state’s economic growth prior to the pandemic, and the challenge, said Symonds, is helping those small businesses pivot to meet current and future market demand. Doing that requires understanding the new skills that workers will need to compete for positions in the new, post-pandemic environment.

Symonds explained that while the state budget has undergone a dramatic reduction during the pandemic, it was still able to allocate $300 million to support K-12 technology programs and maintain funding for workforce development and adult education programs at the state’s

community colleges. The legislature also provided $5.8 million to support services related to career pathways, such as childcare programs; $20 million to support small businesses; $10 million for social entrepreneurs to support an economic development initiative to assist economically disadvantaged groups, particularly those with limited English proficiency; and $37 million for an adult re-entry grant program.

The state’s community colleges, said Symonds, have partnered with a statewide program called the California Employment Training Panel to start new health and safety courses for frontline workers and supervisors and to update virtual employer training courses. The program’s current emphasis is on short-term certificate programs that can get people into jobs immediately. Symonds also highlighted an initiative that the Western Riverside Regional Council of Government has been working on, called Innovation 2030, that is trying to break down the silos that separate resources for entrepreneurship from workforce development efforts.

Discussion

Regarding federal assistance provided during the COVID-19 pandemic, Symonds noted that the federal government’s supplemental unemployment insurance program funds are fundamental if the goal is to help small and large businesses alike survive until the pandemic is controlled and businesses are able to operate without restrictions. She would also like to see some federal support for expanding broadband internet access and providing computers for people who are economically disadvantaged.

Isaac added that investments in the state’s community colleges would be valuable. He and his colleagues have been working to shorten the time to graduation by 50 percent, which means reducing the cost per degree by half and doubling the available space for training. Any investment by the state or federal government, therefore, would be small compared to the resulting value: what community colleges would produce in terms of a middle-skilled workforce. The bottom line is that at the state and federal levels, the significance of community colleges has not been appreciated properly, said Isaac. Wilcox seconded Isaac’s wish for more funds to support community colleges and added that the federal government needs to help shore up California’s finances, which will ultimately help the state’s community colleges and universities. At the same time, he wants to see the state and its educational system have the gumption to reallocate existing money to support programs that address inequities.

REGIONAL ECOSYSTEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES

The workshop’s second panel focused on emerging workforce training programs in the Riverside region, including apprenticeships and credentialing programs. The four panelists were Leslie Trainor, deputy director of workforce development for the County of Riverside; Noel Hacegaba, deputy executive director of the Port of Long Beach; Rex Beck, professor of business administration at Norco College; and Chris Cagle, regional affairs manager for the South Bay Workforce Investment Board. Sid Voorakkara, senior vice president of Strategies 360, moderated the session.

Building a Healthy Workforce Ecosystem

Riverside County, explained Trainor, has 28 cities—Riverside, Palm Springs, and Coachella among them—and various incorporated areas encompassing 7,303 square miles, which is larger than four U.S. states. Its population is close to 2.5 million people, making it the 10th most populous county in the nation. The scale and size of the county, said Trainor, makes creating policy and administering workforce development efforts tricky. She and her colleagues see workforce development as an ecosystem in which workers and employers are interdependent entities. For the workforce system to operate optimally, both workers and employers must be “healthy,” which means that her office looks to enable a skilled and prepared workforce while simultaneously ensuring that the county’s employers are strong and resilient.

The services Trainor’s department runs are directed at three groups: job seekers, youth aged 16 to 24, and businesses. For job seekers, programs include career coaching and job-readiness workshops that include providing help with preparing resumes and conducting mock interviews. Her office can also subsidize vocational training up to $8,000 per person, and it runs three American Job Centers funded by the Department of Labor. For the county’s youth, her department offers career exploration opportunities, skills training, and educational development programs. It also runs six youth centers around the county. Youth programs, said Trainor, are funded by the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

For businesses, Trainor’s office provides a variety of support services, including on-the-job training for new and existing employees that can include subsidized pay of up to 50 percent of a new employee’s salary during the training period. Other services include recruitment, application screen-

ing, hosting job fairs, providing assistance with human resources issues, and helping employees affected by the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly shift to new positions or apply for unemployment benefits.

Trainor noted that the county targets industries that are projected to grow countywide in the coming years and pay a living wage without requiring a college degree, but perhaps requiring a training program of 18 months or less. These industries include healthcare, clean energy, manufacturing, construction, logistics and transportation, retail, information security, and administrative support. The distribution of industries varies across the county; for example, the eastern part of the county will need employees for crop production, while the western part will need employees in architectural and engineering services, advertising and public relations, legal services, insurance-related services, and wholesale services for various materials.

Improving Supply Chains to Benefit Workforce Development

The Port of Long Beach, which lies just west of Riverside County, is the second busiest U.S. port, generating about 51,000 jobs in the city of Long Beach, nearly 600,000 jobs across southern California, and some $5 billion annually in tax revenues. Hacegaba noted that the nation’s ports generate $5.4 trillion in total economic activity, or 26 percent of the nation’s economy. Workforce development, said Hacegaba, has always been important to his industry.

Hacegaba noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered some longer-lasting changes that will affect workforce development. For example, the doubling of e-commerce has ramifications for last-mile logistics and the type and number of jobs required to support that change. The peaks and changes in cargo demand has heightened the need to leverage technology to help inject visibility and predictability into the supply chain, which will generate more jobs requiring technology skills and opportunities for employees to add additional skills to their resumes. In addition, the wave of baby boomer retirements among port workers will require training a new workforce in the relatively near future.

He also expects that as the nation comes out of the pandemic, it will need new operating paradigms aimed at making supply chains more efficient, resilient, predictable, and reliable. At the same time, he said, there will continue to be a growing emphasis on emissions reductions, which require new technologies and employees with the skills to operate and maintain those technologies.

Supporting the Logistics Industry

While the Port of Long Beach is not in Riverside County, it is close enough to make the region around Riverside one of the largest logistics hubs in the United States, explained Beck. He noted that Norco College, one of the region’s community colleges, offers apprenticeships, internships, and short-term non-credit classes and certificate programs to support that industry. In fact, Norco College offers a unique certificate program and full degree program in logistics management of the type that is normally taught as part of a master’s degree program. Over the past 18 years, this program has awarded over 330 certificates and degrees in logistics management. The lesson here, he said, is if there is an industry that at first glance seems as if it requires graduate degrees or upper-division coursework, consider how that might be done at the community college level instead. The one challenge with this is that upper division courses taught at a community college may not transfer to a four-year institution.

Beck said that given his institution’s focus on getting people back into the workforce and providing additional training for those who need new skills, the college only offers courses in the evening or online to make it easier for workers to attend classes. Norco College is also developing something Beck called a degree completion program that will enable someone with training in diesel mechanics to gain course credits based on their experience and the courses they took to get their certificate and then complete the courses they need to then enter an engineering program at a four-year institution.

Creating Opportunities for On-the-Job Training

Cagle discussed pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs that the South Bay Workforce Investment Board is running in neighboring Los Angeles County. The program is driven by employers’ workforce needs, with a focus on the aerospace and bioscience industries. What makes the Aero-Flex and Bio-Flex programs unique, he explained, is that each employer can tailor coursework to fit the specific occupations for which it needs employees. The pre-apprenticeship program lasts 60 to 90 days and includes three tracks: work-readiness training, industry-specific training, and work-based learning or on-the-job training that includes a small stipend. The latter two tracks can be done virtually.

The Bio-Flex program, said Cagle, provides training for production and manufacturing technician, maintenance technician, quality control

analyst, and, most recently, lyophilization maintenance technician. The Aero-Flex program trains people for jobs as an aerospace engineer, computer numerical control machine operator, industrial machine system technician, industrial engineering technician, and aerospace electronics technician.

Cagle described how his organization, with employer direction, developed Aerospace 101, a free course for anyone who wants to get an idea about what working in the aerospace industry would be like. He and his colleagues are also developing a youth apprenticeship program to allow high school seniors to get a part-time job, continue in a full apprenticeship program after graduation, and attend community college to get a certificate or two-year degree in an applicable field. Together with local employers, the investment board uses apprenticeships as a strategy for workforce and pipeline development that can take a high school student and, over the course of four years, guide them through an apprenticeship program, community college degree, and bachelor’s degree, with the student being employed by a company throughout the process. This type of hybrid experience not only provides technical training, but enables companies to give students experience in the business side of the company’s operations. The Department of Labor recently awarded Cagle’s organization and partner West LA College with funds to put 5,000 workers into pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship roles in advanced manufacturing for the aerospace and bioscience industries. Cagle’s organization has secured funding to provide participants in its programs with a laptop computer, and the organization is working with the South Bay Council of Governments to build a new broadband network that will connect all 15 cities in the area and offer much less expensive broadband connections to the public.

HIGHER EDUCATION’S ROLE IN ECONOMIC MOBILITY

The day’s final session explored current and future efforts by institutions of higher education to support local workforce development, with particular attention to increasing the diversity of the STEMM workforce pipeline. This session also discussed technology transfer and the growth and expansion of entrepreneurship. The three panelists were Jeannie Kim, vice chancellor of educational services for RCCD; Rodolfo Torres, vice chancellor for research and economic development at UCR; and Byron Ford, associate dean for pre-clerkship medical education at the UCR School of Medicine. Van Freeman, director for future workforce development and strategy at the Aerospace Industries Association, moderated the session.

Kim noted that RCCD experienced a 13.8 percent full-time equivalent decline in enrollment, or nearly 5,200 students, for the fall 2020 semester, with declines in enrollment of both Black and white students. While the enrollment of Black and white women declined, however, enrollment of women increased overall. Data from a survey conducted not long after the pandemic began found that 31 percent of the 4,500 RCCD students surveyed were laid off, were furloughed, or had reduced hours, and over half of the students found it difficult to concentrate on school while trying to learn at home. Nearly four in 10 students had no prior experience with online courses, and almost half said they preferred face-to-face learning. At the same time, the effect of COVID-19 on the community has been severe, with over 192,000 jobs lost in the Riverside region by April 2020.

Kim said that according to the Future of Jobs Report 2020 from the World Economic Forum (WEF, 2020), the time spent on work by humans and machines will be equal by 2025, and in-demand skills for humans will include critical thinking, problem solving, and active learning. That report also projected that 40 percent of all jobs are expected to change as a result of automation, requiring retraining or up-training on the job. “A global pandemic has given us an opportunity to pause and examine what we really need to be doing differently to not only address having machines as coworkers, but also address the systemic and institutionalized systems of racism that have historically plagued our country,” said Kim.

RCCD’s response has been to use the framework of guided pathways into careers to re-engineer its systems, processes, and practices so that its students are always in the center of education. This means actively developing clear pathways with on and off ramps so that students can seamlessly travel the road to economic mobility via stackable certificates and degrees. One pathway, for example, merges cyber defense and entrepreneurship to cross-train students for business ownership and expand their ability to make business cyber security more effective using artificial intelligence. RCCD has also started programs leading to certificates and degrees in entrepreneurship, data science and analytics, and the gig economy. It has also established an apprenticeship network, a user-focused, navigable apprenticeship system serving the Riverside region’s businesses and students.

Kim’s recommendations included increasing funding for the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technical Education program that targets community colleges, for Department of Education funds administered under Title III Part F for STEMM programs, and for Department of Education Title V for rebuilding the infrastructure needed to close equity

gaps. She also recommended investing in the nation’s digital infrastructure and making broadband internet universal, particularly in low-income communities with low rates of college attainment, and implementing workforce incentives that make it worthwhile for both students and employers to invest in retraining and up-training. Finally, she recommended creating stackable and portable degrees similar to the European Union’s Bologna Process and its Erasmus-plus program that would allow students to take credits earned to any U.S. institution of higher education.

Increasing the Participation of Women in Entrepreneurship

Torres highlighted how inclusion, social mobility, diversity, and equity are hallmark features at UCR, including in STEMM-related fields, and he predicted that his institution’s most innovative contributions to the regional economy are likely to emerge from the interplay of the university’s historical strengths in research and education with the pressing need to address challenges posed by population growth and environmental sustainability. All told, UCR has invested $475 million in STEMM-related research, including $3.5 million in a life science incubator complete with wet lab facilities, and various testbed facilities for product and technology validation and for conducting environmental impact research.

Torres noted that half of all start-up companies have no women on their leadership teams and only one in four has a woman among the founders. His institution is addressing this through programs offered as part of its regional small business development center, which is available to all students and faculty at UCR and the region’s entrepreneurs. One example is the Women Talk Tech conference that UCR sponsors. UCR’s Launchpad program features women founders and social entrepreneurs in its speaker series as well as its Social Innovation Path initiative designed to diversify the pipeline of student entrepreneurs. In response to the dramatic shift to online commerce triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, UCR now offers courses to help small businesses transition to the online marketplace.

Increasing Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce

As the new associate dean for pre-clerkship medical education, Ford has been working with leadership at the UCR School of Medicine to increase the diversity of California’s medical workforce. Out of 299 medical students, 26 percent are Latinx, 7 percent are Black, 31 percent are

Asian, 16 percent are white, 8 percent are of two or more races; 53 percent are women. Since the medical school opened in 2013, nearly 80 percent of the graduates have stayed in California, and 30 percent have remained in the “inland empire.” Ford’s institution has also worked to increase the diversity of its biomedical science graduate students, and as of September 2020, 23 percent of the program’s students were Latinx, 23 percent were Asian, 7 percent were Black, 34 percent were white, and 2 percent were Native American, Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. Over 60 percent of the students were women.

Ford highlighted the Riverside Bridges to Baccalaureate program, a collaboration between the medical school and Riverside City College designed to provide students of color at Riverside City College with a pathway to research-oriented careers in STEMM. The program’s goal is to bolster the ability of students to transfer from a community college into a four-year degree program, and its success so far has prompted Ford to work with Kim to expand the program to all schools in the RCCD. Another program designed to increase the diversity of the biomedical research workforce is a partnership between the University of California system and historically Black colleges and universities.

Despite these successes, said Ford, there are challenges to increasing the diversity of the STEMM workforce. To start, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to trigger budget cuts that will affect the programs he discussed. On a larger scale, Ford recognized the need for increased local and regional support for these diversity programs, as well as for prioritizing health equity and social justice and addressing systemic bias and racism in institutions of higher education.

Discussion

When asked how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected established workforce training programs beyond potential budget cuts, Ford said the medical program has adjusted well, with students participating in some small classroom settings to fulfill their clinical training. Graduate programs have also adjusted their in-person activities to keep students safe while enabling them to continue their laboratory work. The pipeline program, which provides students with a summer stipend on which they depend for their livelihoods, moved completely online. Torres added that his institution has also adjusted its laboratory-based programs to keep lab occupancy at a safe level, and its programs for entrepreneurs have moved completely online.

His institution’s annual small business technology transfer conference was attended virtually by more than 500 individuals.

At RCCD, all 40,000 students attending its three colleges were transitioned to online instruction over 72 hours, which Kim said created difficulties for many of its students who lacked a computing device other than a cell phone, or lacked a broadband connection. External funding, however, allowed RCCD to distribute thousands of computers to its students and set up parking lot wireless internet systems.

Regarding new programs developed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kim said that RCCD was well situated as far as programs being offered, and it has embarked on several short-term certificate programs designed to provide new skills to the many students and workforce members in the Riverside area who had been working in service industries. Torres said the same about UCR and noted that the pandemic is likely to have changed the way higher education is conducted in general going forward. Ford said the pandemic has accelerated some of the programs that were already in the works, including a redesign of the curriculum to include interactive learning and smaller class sizes. There has also been an 80 percent increase in the number of faculty who are participating in faculty development programs.

Kim said she would recommend increasing the nation’s investment in addressing the digital divide and that the National Science Foundation should increase its funding for advanced technical education that builds middle-skill jobs for high-demand occupations. She would also like to see more equitable investment in higher education, particularly through mechanisms that focus on the STEMM workforce and STEMM infrastructure. Ford seconded the need to make investments in higher education more equitable.

CLOSING REMARKS

Isaac concluded the workshop with a brief summary of the key points he heard throughout the day. The first message that came through clearly was the recognition that expanding and strengthening the STEMM workforce has value for meaningful economic development. It was also clear that the role of collaborative problem solving can maximize resources, reduce duplication of efforts, and increase system efficiencies that will be increasingly important for surviving a near-term funding situation that is likely to be strained. He also noted the emphasis placed by the day’s speakers on addressing inequities and the effects of racism and social injustice that

so many students experience. For Isaac, this adherence to equity issues will help ensure the success of the programs discussed during the day and increase economic and social mobility among Californians in underrepresented groups.