ESS 511: Introduction to CE3

Laura Vogt:
Hi, my name is Laura Vogt and I’m Associate Director of Marketing and Communications in the College of Engineering and your host for The Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. Today, our guest is Julian Ledesma, the Executive Director for Centers for Educational Equity and Excellence. As you’ll hear it called CE3, as I’m obviously stumbling over all the Es that you got in there on me. Hi, Julian, and welcome to the podcast.

Julian Ledesma:
Hi, so great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Laura Vogt:
So can you tell us about yourself and your role at UC Berkeley?

Julian Ledesma:
Sure. So as you noted, I serve as Executive Director for the Center for Educational Equity and Excellence, CE3. And I’ve worked in this area of ENI for a long time. When I was a student here, back in the mid 90s, I was actually a peer at that time, a peer advisor for the Education Opportunity Program, EOP. Even after earning my bachelor’s degree here at Berkeley, I stayed connected with the EOP program. I worked in outreach, both with winter program, which I actually now is based in Berkeley and trio. And during that time I ran mentorship programs for middle school and high school students, and I recruited EOP students to do that. So I’ve had a connection with equity programs here for quite some time, and that was my connection to EOP. I actually spent some time here on campus as a Letters & Science college advisor before making my way back to EOP as an academic counselor in 2004. And I’ve been there since in terms of that area. I spent some time as a counselor, became the EOP director, and then when we put this thing called CE3 together in 2012, I began to share responsibilities among the leadership team. And then in 2017, I became the executive director.

Laura Vogt:
I imagine that because you have the experience then as a counselor, you’re also able to bring in even more of what students need to know about and how it works into their lives and how to make them successful.

Julian Ledesma:
I think it’s been, and I would say maybe not just for myself, it’s certainly been, I think what I’ve tried to do is to really develop and cultivate it as an organizational value as part of the organizational culture. So, I’m a student of Berkeley many years removed, right, in terms of my undergraduate experience, but many of our staff are alumni. And I think a lot of our staff hold the identities of either being alumni or having the identity of having gone through Berkeley or another institution as first-generation, as low-income, as undocumented, as all these different identifiers and components of identity that our programs represent. So I really think that’s what I try to cultivate in terms of that experience. Now I’m not on that frontline as I used to be seeing students one-on-one. So I really try to lift what is the… I feel that that kind of contributes to the special sauce of what might be in CE3

Laura Vogt:
And CE3 has three different broad categories that you work with. So it’s the access and opportunity, independent student, and transfer student. So can you give us an overview of what those categories mean?

Julian Ledesma:
Yeah. There’s so many different ways to slice up our programs and what they do. And I think what we try to do is to organize them in a way that had some logic that students can understand. And really, I think the other thing we should state here is that what we’re trying to do is provide opportunities or places to, I know it’s always sounds like a cliche, but to meet students where they’re at. And the point of that is to bring them in to other programs, whether it’s part of that sub cluster, the entire cluster. And ultimately the goal is to bring them into the larger campus experience, a larger campus engagement. In terms of the three areas we do, we are organized in these three areas. And again, they can be very intersectional across areas.

Julian Ledesma:
Our access and opportunity programs are focused on fresh entry students. And that’s where we have our education opportunity program, EOP, and our undocumented student program, USP. Our transfer student programs, again, I think pretty self-explanatory target students that are transfer students. And so we have our transfer students center. We have our Miller Scholars program, which is a research-based scholarship for transfer students who are low income or first gen. And then we have our SSS, Student Support Services trio program, which at Berkeley, the SSS Classic as they call it, is a transfer focus program. And then finally we have our independent student programs. Students who are primarily independent, so these are students who are current or former foster youth or orphaned, re-entry students. So these are students 25 and above, or who has had a gap in their educational journey. Our Student Veterans Center, which serves students who are veterans or military affiliated and our Student Parent Center. And we have a number of student parents here at Berkeley as well.

Laura Vogt:
And so are all students able to seek support through the CE3 programs?

Julian Ledesma:
I think one of the things that we do really well and it’s our focus and expertise is specialized services for the needs and responsibilities of these particular communities. And so with that said, I mean, I think many times we find ourselves, for a student who may not identify again with many of the different categories that I described, really leaning on our campus partners and facilitating a referral. Sometimes there we don’t have in the way of, for example, with an undocumented student, we can provide a supplemental funding to meet the gap in their aid because they’re eligible for certain types of aid versus a student who’s documented. So that’s not going to be available to every student in the same way that the services that our Cal Veterans Services Center provides in terms of walking through vets benefits and understanding how financial aid works for veterans. That’s not going to be something that’s going to apply to every student. So for those students that don’t fall into those categories, again, we have I think a warm handoff and really leverage our relationships with our partners across campus, but I think it’s also important to state that it is a huge population that we work with. Typically depending on our numbers, 12 to 13,000 undergraduates identify with one or more of our programs. We also serve several hundreds of graduate students every year as well, so it’s a sizable population.

Laura Vogt:
I really like what you said that even if something doesn’t necessarily fit into one of the programs, you’re going to find them the support that they need.

Julian Ledesma:
Yeah. Again, I think that’s our culture and we want to do that anyway. We don’t have a closed door policy. That’s another way to put it. But again, I think that what makes us special and I think leading with the equity expertise is the fact that our programs really look to leverage the strengths of the communities we serve, but also provide specialized services based on the particular needs of those particular students. Another example would be our Berkeley Hope Scholars for foster youth or orphan folks. Folks who’ve been part of foster care. There are certain particular needs. I think about times in the year, especially in the first year, where there’s no housing available. Well, a lot of folks who identify as Berkeley Hope Scholars may not have another housing choice, so we can step in to help identify a solution for those gap periods of time for housing. So again, that’s not going to apply to every single student.

Laura Vogt:
And what if students check a box from multiple programs? How would they figure out where they could go for the help that they need?

Julian Ledesma:
Well, I think that’s part of our organizational culture as well, that the reason that we are clustered or an umbrella or a network, again, whatever frame you want to put on it is we invite people to navigate our various programs. I said earlier, these programs as individual programs, serve as entry points to the larger cluster, to a larger community and hopefully to a larger campus experience. And part of that, I think you can hear me imply is we want folks to feel like they belong at Berkeley. So we typically have folks who will navigate various programs. And what I would say is I don’t think they’re looking for the same things in the different programs. For example, you may have someone who goes to vets because they’re a veteran and they want help with really navigating the benefits that are available to them. And may also be a Miller Scholar and is receiving a scholarship and support in developing a research project and gaining research experience that ultimately helps them then go on to grad school. So it’s very typical to have to have our programs compliment each other in the different things that they do.

Laura Vogt:
And I know that you did things during yield season to connect with students, but when is the good time for students to start reaching out to you?

Julian Ledesma:
I think for us, it’s really at any point. One of the things that we talk about in our tagline of transition, transform, transcend, there’s so many periods that are important for a student as they navigate their Berkeley journey. Right now for new students, we’re in that transition phase, right? We have the support of making sense of what it is going to be like to navigate Berkeley. One of the things we do a lot of in our Transfer Student Center is provide transition workshops for first semester transfer students. So it’s built in to a cohort based experience. And we know that at that moment, and that begins now, we’re past the period of identifying who our new students are going to be.

Julian Ledesma:
They can begin to engage into those services and with those individual staff now. And then when we talk transform, we really are calling to the transformative nature of a degree and a degree from Berkeley. And so really about how do you engage in every possible way with the opportunities that are here for you. And so that might be your student who’s in their second or third year, again, depending if they’re frosh entry and transfer. And then we talk about transcend. It’s really challenging folks to think beyond just what they’re doing at Berkeley. Careers, professional or graduate school. And so I think transcend happens maybe a little bit later in a student’s academic career in terms of setting them up for those opportunities post Berkeley.

Laura Vogt:
And so what’s a good way for students to start building that community or network through the CE3 programs? How do you build that network through the CE3 programs?

Julian Ledesma:
I think it happens in a lot of different ways. I think a feature of many of our programs, I would say most of our programs, is we have really strong communities of student employees, whether they’re peer academic counselors, peer advocates, peer advisors, I think they cultivate that as a group. And so there’re opportunities for folks to work for us. And that certainly is a way to do that. But I think along with our professional staff, those students staff are focused on community building events. Right now we’re just returning back to physical spaces, but that’s a big deal for us as well, to have spaces for students where it’s open, it’s inviting. They can come in and meet new peers here at Berkeley or see a familiar face. So that’s one of the ways I think we do that. And I think, again, part of it is a lot of our cohort based experiences, whether they’re transitionary expenses, we have other cohort based experiences for preparing for graduate school or other themed type experiences are also a place where we can create that cohorted community among students as well.

Laura Vogt:
And what’s the best way for students to keep up to date with maybe events or workshops or that you have going on?

Julian Ledesma:
Because we’re such a large organization in terms of individual programs, and I’ve made the mistake of trying to go down the line and talk in detail about every single program, so I want to do that. I point people to our website, CE3.berkeley.edu. From there, not just to explore that side, but then to dig into our various programs. We also partner with very closely with folks who aren’t necessarily within CE3, but have worked very closely alongside with us. I’m thinking of the Basic Needs Center. I’m thinking of our Berkeley Underground Scholars and others. And so that’s a good place to locate all the things that are available to you. Then I invite people to look at, if there’s a particular program that resonates with someone, seems like a fit or a match for their particular experience to follow up with more detail at those individual sites. And then all our programs also have a social media presence. So once you go to their sites, then you could find out how you get on a list or follow and get some of that more consistent information as well.

Laura Vogt:
And I know I can cheat and say our newsletter when things are sent to me, I put it in the newsletter every Monday. So that’s also one more reason to read the newsletter. Every chance we get to remind. So this fall, are you going to be having a presence on campus or are you doing things more virtually? Have you gotten to make those kinds of plans yet?

Julian Ledesma:
Yeah. We’re in the middle of that planning. Now we will have both. We will maintain a virtual and remote presence, but we also will be back on campus. So, for all of us, it’s been quite a 15 months of this experiment. And I think we’re trying to bring the things that we’ve learned, things that are maybe ineffective, do they add value or are they more accessible or convenient for students? So I think this fall semester probably the entire year will be a time of figuring out what makes most sense, hearing from students. What does that balance of on campus versus remote? But we do plan to have a hybrid presence for the upcoming year.

Laura Vogt:
And do the different programs have counselors where they can actually have appointments with people to have that one-on-one conversation?

Julian Ledesma:
That’s right. Every program does have economic counseling staff. And again, it really would depend on the program in terms of related to the size of the community and that sort of thing, but yes. One-on-ones will be available. And again, one of the things we did when we were completely remote was we began to offer one-on-one Zoom based cohorts, but then also virtual front desk models. So I think the proportion of how much we keep them in the hybrid environment, I think we’re still working out, but we were looking at those types of things in terms of offering accessibility.

Laura Vogt:
I know in Engineering Student Services, they’re definitely going to be offering in person and virtual appointments too. So I think that’s going to be pretty normal across campus for everyone to get used to. So you talked a little bit about other partnerships that you have with campus units. Can you tell me a little bit more about those?

Julian Ledesma:
Yeah. We work very closely with a number of folks across campus. I think we have a very natural collaboration with our partners in financial aid. So many of our students are considered low income or in economic need. So many times we work with students in helping them prepare cost of attendance, appeal, adjustment. Other times we work with them simply to understand and navigate aid and aid resources. Other times we troubleshoot and work on individual cases that might be pretty unique and we do that alongside financial aid as well. And we do have a number of programs that themselves offer financial resources, and we have to partner with financial aid to make sure that’s getting to students in the most efficient way possible. So that’s one that comes to mind. In a similar spirit in our Basic Needs Center, once upon a time, the food pantry on campus was actually in CE3, but basic needs and with the need being so great and with that organization, just having such an articulated plan towards development and meeting the needs of students, it’s just really grown in the last couple of years. And so we work really closely with basic needs and the Basic Needs Center as well.

Laura Vogt:
Do you have a defining memory of when you knew that your programs were supporting the students in the way that you wanted to see?

Julian Ledesma:
This is my 21st year of UC service. So when you ask that question, I think about a lot of things. And so there’s certainly the individual more immediate moments. I think of years ago, I guess the phrase that comes to mind is helping go to bat for students who were experiencing some challenges. Maybe we’re at the point of being asked to leave the university and helping them through those challenges, advocating on their behalf. And a short time later, a year later, they are crossing the stage at graduation with a high GPA. So those moments, I think, come to mind. What you just shared, the question you just asked.

Julian Ledesma:
But I think what’s really sitting with me right now is, just a couple weeks ago, we did an event. It was called the CE3 showcase. So this was focused on alumni, folks who may be interested in becoming more familiar with our programs our organizations, possibly help support what we do. And we’ve featured a couple of alumni who are out in the world as professionals and have been doing that for a number of years now. And I think of them because I think one of those individuals now works in her second presidential administration for the Office of Health and Human Services. She announced in our event that they were just releasing $5.5 billion of funding to help low-income families and communities across the country. And this is someone that came through our space as a student. I would like to think that we cultivated a space where the student could feel supported and affirmed and really going out and achieving the things that she’s achieved.

Julian Ledesma:
And so that comes to mind. And the other speaker in that event, very similarly is doing amazing work on behalf, advocating for youth and youth impacted by the legal system. He himself formerly incarcerated and now a brilliant attorney. So that comes to mind. And what comes to mind, I think in sharing these examples is sometimes the impact isn’t immediate. You don’t see it immediately. Sometimes because many times we are working with students who are working through some things there’s so many… A phrase that we throw around a lot is we understand what happens outside the classroom impacts what happens inside the classroom. So things happen, life happens and we’re in the midst of that. So sometimes it takes being two or three, five, 10 years removed to really say, Hey, if we played a role in making that process more smooth, more efficient, or just giving a little bit of a nudge or even a pat on the back on those journeys, that does feel good.

Laura Vogt:
And so our podcast is specifically for our incoming engineering students, the freshmen and transfers. I know that a lot of them tend to come in high of their class and then they’ll go into a class and hit first blip that doesn’t quite go the way that they wanted to go. What would you say to help them get over that blip and know that they’re where they’re supposed to be?

Julian Ledesma:
One of the things that’s coming up and for me right now is… So years ago, I mentioned I was an L&S college adviser. Back in the day when orientation was called CalSO and I used to do a college presentation. My partner at that time in doing these presentations was Mary How, so I’m thinking of her. Thinking of you, Mary. Love you, Mary. And I remember as part of our presentation one of the things I would say to new students sitting in the audience was congratulations. And Mary used to talk about higher, faster, further. You’ve done that to get here and that got you here. And that’s great. And I used to build off of that to say, you will all have been the all-stars. And I used to use the sports analogy. All stars of your high schools.

Julian Ledesma:
You are now at the all star game. That does not mean you will not be successful, but as the environment is changed, as the expectations in terms of the rigor and just the demands again, inside the classroom, outside the classroom, are different are elevated, there’s a period of adjustment. So it does not mean you will not be successful. It does not mean you are no longer an all-star. It just means the game has changed and you need to make those adjustments. And I think the resources are here in our unit and in others to help you make those adjustments. And so that’s what I would say to folks is I think when folks get in trouble is trying to continue to do what they used to do, what got them here or trying to do it by themselves on an island. So again, just understanding that these resources are here for a reason. Adjustments are typical, are necessary. The game has changed. You’re in the big end. This is the major leagues, right, at UC Berkeley. So, that’s probably what I would say to folks.

Laura Vogt:
And engineering student services is such a fan of the CE3 and what you do for our students. So I know that if anyone has a question and they’re not sure what to do, they can definitely ask their ESS advisors. They would be more than helpful to try to figure out where they need to go if you’re not able to find it directly through CE3. And the website is CE3.berkeley.edu?

Julian Ledesma:
That is correct.

Laura Vogt:
Is there anything else that you want to add today that we haven’t touched on?

Julian Ledesma:
Not really. I mean, I really enjoyed the conversation. Actually, you know what, I will say one more thing. I think when we talk about particularly for new students and what they could possibly find in terms of community and support and CE3, our Education Opportunity Program. And again, to be considered EOP, you’re either a first-generation college student, a student in economic need, or low income student or a historically underrepresented student. EOP also has an EOP STEM community. So they do a lot of programming, getting familiar with STEM industries and mentorship, student to student mentorship. And alongside of EOP STEM, we’ve actually just launched last year, a federal trio, a new SS STEM grant. And so similarly, students who are pursuing STEM fields, if they qualify, if they’re first generation, low income from the field of criteria can also be part of that program. So those are two opportunities for folks who meet that criteria, who are obviously pursuing STEM fields that they can get involved with among the many other things that are available in CE3.

Laura Vogt:
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on today.

Julian Ledesma:
No problem. It was my pleasure. Thank you so much. We love ESS as a partner and again, we have I think a long history of partnership. And again, we’re a collective, a team across campus. There are so many different resources, so many different staff, but I think again, we do different things all in service of students. So thank you for having me.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you. And I just want to make sure that the students understand that the first step in all of this is to visit the website or ask your engineering advisor. The resources are there for you. So thank you everyone for tuning in today to The Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. And I look forward to podcasting with you next week.