Powering sustainability across California community colleges

8:13PM Apr 7, 2025

Speakers:

Dave Karlsgodt

Jillian Buckholz

Carla Grandy

Holly Bailey-Hofmann

David Liebman

Keywords:

California Community Colleges

climate fellows

sustainability goals

community engagement

curriculum development

workforce development

resiliency and adaptation

decarbonization

climate action

student engagement

faculty support

regional training

climate literacy

clean energy jobs

community benefits plans.

Welcome to the campus energy and sustainability podcast. In each episode, we talk with leading campus professionals, thought leaders, engineers and innovators addressing the unique challenges and opportunities facing higher ed and corporate campuses. Our discussions will range from energy conservation and efficiency to planning and finance, from building science to social science, from energy systems to food systems, we hope you're ready to learn share and ultimately accelerate your institution towards solutions. I'm your host, Dave Karlsgodt. I'm a Director of Energy and Sustainability at Brailsford and Dunlavy.

We can help to identify what are the regional gaps and the statewide gaps, and fill in those blanks so that we're operating more as a statewide system to meet the clean energy workforce needs, as opposed to just individual colleges creating their individual programs.

Anytime a college's campus is being used for educational purposes is just a win for facilities.

And so that leads me to my answer, which is, one barrier, one obstacle for a lot of folks beyond time, is fear, right? Like, I don't know enough, or maybe I'll give the wrong information, or what climate stuff should I involve? Or whatever? Right?

In this episode, I hand over the microphone to my friend and colleague Jillian Buchholz. Longtime listeners may remember Gillian as a guest in Episode 21 in this episode, she's in the role of guest host to explore the California Community College Chancellor's climate Fellows Program. Unlike most fellowship programs, which are typically focused on early career professionals, this innovative program provides release time for seasoned staff and faculty within the community college system to advance sustainability goals across the system. You'll hear from three of this year's five fellows, Carla Grande, David Liebman and Holly Bailey Hoffman, as they each share their unique roles and goals for the program, they discuss engagement, curriculum, workforce, development, data and metrics and much, much more. I hope you enjoy this episode, recorded March of 2025

so Hey everyone, thank you so much for coming today. Carla, Holly and David, I'm really excited to have all three of you on the podcast. I'm excited to lead this discussion too. I first learned about the California Community Colleges Chancellor's climate Fellows program when we were all at the c3 converge conference earlier this year, our late 2024 as part of the California Community Colleges Climate Summit. And you know, you go to these events and you learn about different programs that are inspiring, but what was really unique to me about this program was to see something around sustainability and higher education that was focused on internal talent, and it really went beyond emissions reduction through campus operations to address the climate crisis. A lot of the work that we tend to do is mitigation related, which is really important, but seeing a program that went beyond that to include different areas of the different campuses and different areas of emphasis, I thought was really cool, and we're going to dive into what those are today. I also really appreciate, as a sustainability officer in higher education, when you learn about a program that's expansive and impactful as well as replicable. I'm delighted to chat with the three of you, the original cohort of this group, as well. It's really cool to get on the ground floor of this in the early stages, before we jump into questions. I think it would be helpful to meet everyone. So Carla, why don't we start with you?

Thank you. Yes. Hi. I'm Carla Grande. I'm the Lead climate Fellow at the Chancellor's office, I was most recently at the College of San Mateo as the Vice President of Instruction, and I've been in the community college system for almost 20 years now. So started out as faculty and then served as a dean of stem and then Vice President of Instruction. So I'm really excited to be working at the state level now with the Chancellor's climate Fellows program.

Great. Let's hear from Holly.

Hi there. I'm Holly Bailey Hoffman. I'm an English faculty at West Los Angeles College, and I've served in a bunch of leadership roles, including Guided Pathways lead and center president, all kinds of different things. And now I'll be serving as the curriculum climate fellow.

Great to have you here, David.

It's great to be here. My name is David Liebman, and I'm currently the Chancellor's climate fellow focusing on facilities in my normal day job. I'm the energy and sustainability manager for the Sonoma County Junior College District, and excited to be filling a statewide role to support sustainability within facilities.

Awesome. Delight to have you all here. Thanks again. So this fellowship program is unique. I think it's unique because of the focus on internal talent and the expansion outside of just focusing on operations when it comes to emissions reduction, sustainability and addressing climate change. I'd love to hear from the three of you about why you think this program is unique. So Carla, let's start with you

Sure. So just to give a little bit of background on the California Community College system, we're the largest system of higher education in the country. We have 116 colleges, 73 districts, and over 2.1 million students. So we're a very large system, and we have a large geographic reach, and we're situated within communities. Those communities are diverse as the state of California is diverse, and so the colleges are really embedded within those communities. We know the communities that we serve. And so I think one of the things that's really unique about this program is that the folks who are participating in it have all worked within the California Community Colleges. And so we know the students, we know the system, and we know the communities that we serve. And so rather than bringing in people from the outside and having them look at it and try to build something it's really focusing on internal talents and people who are already doing this climate action and sustainability work within their own colleges, and giving them an opportunity to grow that at the state level. And I think that that is one of the things that's really exciting about the program.

Holly David, anything you'd like to share?

Yeah, I'll just add that I love that we have different aspects of this project. So we've got someone on facilities and someone in curriculum and student engagement, and someone looking at workforce development and someone looking at community engagement. So we're all connected. All of our projects are tangential to the other fellows projects, but we're all unified around the Chancellor's vision, 2030, climate goals. So I think that's cool, because a lot of times you're in a more isolated project and you're not connected to the other aspects of the grander, more systemic project.

Yeah, and Jillian, I'll just add too. I think the other big value I see in this fellowship really focusing on internal talent is that it's taking folks who understand the internal complexity of whether it's like curriculum development or workforce development or funding for facilities, and how that works in the California Community College system, to build on what Carla said California community colleges are really unique in the sense that it's actually a shared local government state entity, and that's because every single community college district gets a certain proportion of local property tax, which is why they have a locally elected Board, which is their board of trustees, but also get a majority of funding from the state. And so they really are this, like shared community, quasi state, quasi local government entity, which creates a very much a lot of complexity in that local government, state relationship. And so that has been something that's just to even just learn how those processes work, is a number of years in itself, and so we're able to get a lot done by internally picking up people who already have a strong understanding of all of those funding mechanisms and processes.

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. If you are outside of the California Community College System, or even the state of California listening to this, you might understand the complexities of being in a higher education institution, but Carla, like you said, this is the largest higher education system in the state, maybe even the world, depending on how you're counting the schools, so the complexities can be great. So to have that expertise inside really is such a value in the program, versus having a fellowship program where you're asking people to apply from outside, pros and cons of both, I'm sure, but knowing those complexities, I agree with you must be a real benefit in the system. And also what you were sharing, Carla, about the impact you can have at the state level to really make some influence is key there too. So the fellowship has five distinct areas of focus, community engagement, student engagement, curriculum, workforce and campus facilities. I'd be interested in hearing from each of you What attracted you to apply specifically in your focus area. And maybe we can start with Holly, move the data, and then Carla, if there's anything you'd like to add. So I actually indicated interest in both the community engagement and the curriculum. We all have various talents, right? But I didn't realize that they had something more specific in mind for community engagement. And we ended up getting the perfect fellow for that, someone who's actually worked with community groups in the community. And so I'm a better fit, ultimately, for curriculum, because as a faculty member, I've designed courses, I know how to archive them and adapt them and create them and and then all of the processes involved in just developing curriculum working with other faculty. I'm in a nine college district, so it's hardest in our district to get curriculum stuff done, but I also have a knowledge.

How things work at the state level with the as triple C, or the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, as a former Senate President and as just as an English faculty who might have attended there in years past, I understand sort of the politics of meeting with your area group, your caucus, and bringing resolutions to the floor, and all the different factors involved whenever we're going to be creating curriculum, or in the case perhaps of this project, maybe advocating, say, for some specific climate curriculum. So I have that experience, and also I just like course development. One of the reasons I got interested in this, and sort of involved in this, is because I was already theming some of my English classes around climate change, climate action, that kind of thing.

Yeah. And then kind of my area and focused of facilities, I was really interested in just beginning to have a larger impact, and also very interested in how system wide we can really begin to understand where the California Community College system is as a whole, and so I really kind of jumped on this opportunity because I wanted to really support the creation of infrastructure for the California Community Colleges and understanding metrics around sustainability, how to measure success, and how we can begin to see where we are at a system wide level. But right as of now, I could not tell you what our system wide greenhouse gas emissions is as a whole, and so just as a starting place, right, beginning to understand each of the individual colleges data, apples to apples, and then aggregate it up to see the system impact is really something I'm passionate about, and one of my goals, And then I'll just share I have a very strong interest and really supporting resiliency and adaptation. I think with the work I'm seeing in the field, in being in Sonoma County, we are past the point of just mitigation, and so there is a need for understanding how the California Community College system, system wide, can begin to adapt to our changing climate, to create climate resiliency centers, especially with how geographically located we are throughout the state of California, I'm very interested in how we can begin to understand resiliency and adaptation, from the construction of our new buildings to looking at projects on a renovation, modernization base to really adapt to our changing climate.

David, I'm glad that you brought up resiliency and adaptation in operation space. The work that we do at B and D, around planning in those areas, I'm seeing grow more and more from looking at greenhouse gas emissions, calculating them, and then figuring out how to eliminate them, and moving into decarbonization is important. We should do that work. But then how do we adapt? How do we build resiliency into the solutions in our planning? And how do we do that, not only on our campuses, but in conjunction with the larger communities where we're located. And I really do see this type of work moving in that direction, and to hear the importance of it inside the California Community College system, where you're really educating the workforce of the state, and embedding that into the things that people are taking away from the curriculum, but also the spaces they're learning in, I think is so critical in the work that we do. Holly, I'm delighted to hear that you're an English professor. You don't always hear that people that are studying English are making the connection to sustainability in their curriculum or engaging in sustainability. Sometimes it's in the sciences primarily. So I think that's really cool that you're coming from this liberal arts background to make those connections. Carla, in addition to David and Holly and you, we do have two other fellows. Would love to hear about your desire to join the program and your focus area as well. But in addition to that, can you tell us about the two other fellows that aren't on the podcast today?

Sure I'll share my role in the work a little bit. My discipline expertise is in earth science. So I was Earth Science faculty, geology, oceanography, environmental science for many years, and then I got into administration because I was really interested in how can we as a system, like as a college, incorporate sustainability in make it more of a part of our curriculum, make it more a part of our operations. And so I got into administration at the college level with an interest in doing that, and then when this opportunity became available at the State, I was really excited about being able to do that at the state level. And you know, we talked about there's 2.1 million students in the community college system, and our students are really the ones who are disproportionately impacted by climate change. So when you look at the demographics of our student population, two thirds are low income. 75% are bipoc. And so they are impact. By climate change already, and I feel that we as a system have an imperative to educate and to prepare those students for the clean energy clean economy jobs at the future. And so the role that I'm playing in the climate Fellows is in the workforce development side. So looking at what are the gaps that exist right now? What are the jobs? We've been having a lot of conversations with state agencies and with legislative committees to talk about what are the workforce needs, and then trying to connect that to the colleges that already have programs or that have programs in automotive that could easily be adapted to, like an EV program looking at other clean energy sources. And so that is kind of the role that I'm playing within the climate fellows. And in addition, we have Tanya Huff, who was not able to join us today, but she is leading the student climate fellows work. She's life science faculty at Riverside City College, and she's done a lot of work with the students at her college who really advocated and were very successful within their college, in their district, and getting more sustainable facilities and options on campus. And so that was kind of a grassroots student led initiative. And so she's building that student climate Fellows program now, which is we're just on the cusp of sending out the email to announce it this week, so that's very exciting. And then our other climate fellow is Norma Rojas Mora. She is a vice chancellor, Associate Vice Chancellor at Kern Community College District, and she's focusing on community engagement. She works closely with community based organizations in the current district, and they have been supporting organizations with creating community benefits plans. And so she was working on a toolkit for how to support colleges and college districts to enter into community benefits plans, to act as a fiscal agent for either municipalities or community based organizations. And since we don't know right now what's happening with community benefits plans at the federal level, anyway, she is transitioning that to focus on, how can we support colleges to work with community based organizations around climate action so organizations that are trying to do climate action projects in their communities, what can the colleges do to support that work, either financially or from a like staffing perspective or providing guidance? So those are the other two folks who are working as part of our team.

I love that you're in your first year, and you're already expanding the program to include a new fellow. That's great to hear and Carla, based on what you're saying, not only are these positions quite diverse, are the fellowship topic areas quite diverse, you're also all in different geographical areas of the state. Can you talk about if there was intentionality there just happen to work out that way.

There is intentionality there. You know, as we were saying that the state is diverse, and there are different regions have different needs, and so one of the goals was to have folks who represent different parts of the state who can bring those perspectives together. So yeah, we have David knight in Northern California, Holly and Tanya in Southern California, and Norma in the Central Valley. And then we are going to be recruiting another cohort of climate fellows to begin next fall, and hope to get somebody from the far north, etc, even a little bit further geographic distribution.

Great promotion if you're listening to this now, get ready for the announcement to apply. I just think it is so insightful that you're getting off of your campuses and going into other spaces to expand the work. Not only are you educating the workforce of the state and serve the communities that you're in, but I really think in order to grow sustainability as a field of practice, but also to implement the different programs that are necessary than what we're experiencing with the climate crisis, that we have to get off our campuses and outside of our cylinders of excellence and engage the community in this work, and also highlight the work that they're doing out there as well, and make those connections. So it's really cool to see the student engagement and community engagement piece of the fellowship program. So let's transition to talking about goals. We all love goals and planning work, and I'm sure as fellows, you all have personal goals, but also goals you have to meet for your different positions. Let's hear from you on what your goals are for this two year fellowship. What do you want to achieve, but also, what do you hope to leave for the next fellow and David, let's start with you. We'll move to Holly and then go to Carla.

Yeah. So there are many goals and many dreams. I'll say, I'll start with a number of big projects and goals that we're working on. First is a landscape analysis. So. one of the things that we needed to just understand as a team was, where are all the 116 California community colleges with respect to accomplishing sustainability? What's motivating them? Is it state law? Is it local ordinances, city and county goals? Are we seeing a rural or urban divide of resources and how colleges are accomplishing sustainability goals. So myself, as well as a team of climate Corps Fellows that work with us have been interviewing and researching all the single community colleges in order to really understand where we are as a system. And so that's a very big project that's been ongoing to establish a baseline, and we've been finding really amazing work that our colleges were already doing. I'll say, in addition, we are working on system wide metrics and the nitty gritty of how do colleges submit data annually or every three years, related to our new Board of Governors climate action and sustainability goals. So looking at, how do you submit water data, waste data, energy data, what format, where do you submit it to? How do we compare our colleges apples to apples with respect to square footage or full time equivalent, staff and students? That's big lift. We're really trying to establish that so we can begin to understand our collective impact as a system. And then lastly, a lot of the work I've been doing is around I mentioned resiliency and adaptation. So we're working very much on trying to understand community colleges roles as climate resiliency centers, both in micro grid development across the state. Tool kits around micro grid resiliency frameworks that actually provide architects and engineers with detailed specifications on how to take adaptation data and actually apply it to building design and construction. There's a very big lag in the industry right now with that, as well as, how do we begin to talk about resiliency, not only from a facilities master planning perspective, but then understanding how it impacts educational master plans. Do academic calendar years now have to include smoke days? Do student service plans need to include emergency funds? What's going on with it in Los Angeles, a number of community colleges have emergency funds that they're giving funding out to students, right? So really, resiliency and adaptation is touching every single modality of a college, and so we're trying to understand a framework and some concrete tools that our colleges can use to plan for the future and what's occurring now. Can you share a little bit about the metrics, how you're trying to have consistent reporting throughout the system, so you can compare as evenly as possible what you're finding and whether or not you think your approach is replicable to other institutions, whether they're large systems or a single institution. I'm curious if you have any pro tips that could be helpful for our audience. Yeah, you know, I I can't say much because we're right, we're we're building the plane right now. What I will say is we're very much interested in using existing processes and technology. So there is a system wide database of all of our space inventory across the California Community College system and colleges already have to certify and validate their square footage in their space inventory every single year. That is the same portal, kind of platform where colleges submit requests for funding, for new construction, for maintenance funding as well as submitting annual energy data. And so we're not going to create a new system if there's an existing platform that folks are used to, that are already submitting data, right? The goal is that we should use that existing platform. And I will say also, we are doing a lot of checks with fellow sustainability officers, fellow facilities officers, to really, you know, when it comes to for example, like collecting food data to understand the college's impact related to food. We don't want colleges digging through their accounting department to find all those invoices, right? Like, we only want you to get the data if you have a Enterprise Resource platform where you can easily export data from an electronic format. So it's really trying to understand system wide, where our colleges are, and then replicate existing processes for data to be submitted. And that's the only way we can really begin to understand things on a system wide level, with a system that's as complex as ours.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Have there been key champions that maybe you didn't anticipate working with so closely, or really have been a driver in helping you achieve your goals of this fellowship?

I mean, I am fully supported by my fellow like sustainability champions and sustainability officers across the system. Fellow facilities officers are excited with the work that we're doing, and I'm very much propped up by a number of awesome faculty members who are just really excited that there's a push to help support a lot of the curriculum integration they've already been doing across the state, but then also a lot of talk about campus as a living lab, and that helps facilities. Anytime a college's campus is being used for educational purposes, it's just a win for facilities, especially because the feeling of facilities is that we're just behind the scenes keeping everything running. It's nice when you see something getting used and you get some great validation for the work that's being done.

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you mentioning the climate Corps Fellow Program as well. I really enjoyed working with climate Corps Fellows when I was on a campus too. It's a really remarkable program and a great way to get recent graduates experience, but also get some solid work done by dedicated human

Yeah, I just shout out to our climate Corps Fellows. So Nathan, Amanda Celeste and Josh, they are doing the huge legwork of reaching out and researching and interviewing all the different colleges. We couldn't do as much work that we've been able to get done without them.

Absolutely. Holly, let's hear from you about your goals, and as David put it, your dreams in this program now and for the next fellow that will come after you.

Well, my project is really to create baseline data similar to what David talked about in terms of what faculty at the 116 community colleges are doing in the way of climate curriculum. Now, of course, like you said, you expect to see climate change and climate action content in the sciences, your environmental studies class, maybe geography and geology and that sort of thing. But what we're looking for, and this is the needle in the haystack work, are the classes like mine that I describe that might integrate climate change or climate action into non science classes, and there might be integration into science classes like anatomy and physio or sort of the not usual suspects of science classes, right? So we're looking for integration of climate content in curriculum across the subjects. Because ultimately, in the world we're living in, every course has become a climate course, and every job will become a climate job, in the sense that every domain exists on our planet and will be affected in some way by the changing climate. So of course, we need that scientific knowledge that our science majors will know how to seek out for us in their science jobs. But we also need folks who know how to communicate, who understand marking and graphic design, we need folks who understand Law and Public Policy. And of course, climate justice is a very big aspect of climate change, like we need to listen to our indigenous sisters and brothers in terms of stewardship of our environment. And so there's just so many different subjects that touch on climate action, and it's my job to try and find folks that are doing this work, like David said, We know people are doing it, but we just haven't had a system wide collection of that data. And the other thing about community colleges is that we're all really busy. No matter who you are on campus, right whether you're faculty or a student or an administrator, whoever you are, you're really busy, and you don't have a lot of time to check your email and get an email from Holly the climate fellow, saying, Hey, can you talk to me? Right? But my hope is that I can at least create a baseline. I'm hoping to create a heat map, right? That sort of shows the fruit of my data collection. Ultimately, though, I'd also like to get us started in some sort of intersegmental conversation. We know that there's intersegmental conversation going on between the CSUs and the UCS but to date, the community colleges have not been included in that. I think part of that is because four year schools are more sort of the research institutions typically, right? And they're not really sure what we're doing, and they don't have time to ask us, and we don't have time to tell them. So one of my dreams, really, because I think it is a bit of a dream, is to at least get folks talking to each other, or maybe even just to know, hey, we exist, and here's what we're working on. And wouldn't it be fantastic if we could create a seamless climate literacy experience, not just from the community college to the four years, but from the K 12 all the way up, because we know the K 12 are doing the work too. So that's my dream, is to, once I get this information, sort of get everyone in this huge room the size of California and and sort of codify what we're doing so that we're not duplicating effort.

Yeah, absolutely could not agree with you more. I mean, knowing that a lot of the students go to the CSUs and the UCS so why not create continuity in the curriculum or these other fellowship focus areas so that they're getting equally. Experiences, or growing their knowledge and experience as they advance throughout school, and then once they go into the workforce, into leadership positions in our communities of California, I think that's absolutely critical, and I wish you the best of luck, and I hope to see the fruits of your labor. I also want to mention that I think that critical, holistic thinking from students in higher education, really learning that skill set is so important, and I appreciate what you said about your intentional integration across the curriculum for sustainability, regardless of discipline, regardless of major, everyone being able to have some understanding and knowledge of these critical areas we live in a rapidly changing world, and to be able to address those issues and feel confident that you have a strong understanding and ability to address those issues, I think, is really important. Sometimes addressing academics, changing academics can be hard. There can be a lot of barriers. Have you experienced a lot of barriers? How are you navigating those? Or, if you haven't been experiencing barriers, can you talk about maybe, how other institutions are looking to address changes in the curriculum that might be having trouble? Could get around those?

Sure. First, I'll just respond. Something you said reminded me of something I want to say, which is that a lot of the jobs that folks will have say even 10 years from now, certainly 20 years from now, don't exist yet, right? So we know that students are going to need skills such as flexible thinking and creative problem solving and all that sort of thing. And so I feel like as faculty, as we look at adapting our own curriculum, which takes a lot of us outside of our comfort zone, we can model that kind of adaptive spirit for our students. And I tell faculty when we do workshops, this is from my work prior to being a climate fellow, but in the LA CCD, when we do workshops for faculty to quote, unquote, climatize their curriculum. I talk about how this is an opportunity to be transparent about the discomfort and about what effort is involved in stepping outside one's area of subject expertise and thinking differently about the curriculum. And so that leads me to my answer, which is one barrier, one obstacle for a lot of folks beyond time, is fear, essentially, right? Like, well, I don't know enough, or maybe I'll give the wrong information. Or, like, well, what climate stuff should I involve? Or whatever, right? So there's a lot of fear. I don't know that folks would necessarily use that word, but I think that's the core of it, right? And so we try to address that, and ultimately, in year two. So I'm I'm in my first year of my fellowship, and in year two, besides the intersegmental work, we hope to be giving not just webinars, but also offer regional training sessions in which we can help faculty name and then address and sort of work through these barriers by looking at what other faculty in the state have already done, not just in the community college system, but also in the other segments, like K 12 and the four years. Like, we've got so much curriculum already in Canvas shells that's available to folks, and a lot of times, all you need to do is see what someone else has done, and then suddenly the ideas just pour in. Like, Oh, I could do that with such and such reading or such and such assignment and faculty get so energized by seeing what their colleagues have been doing and that sort of that just releases the dopamine and, you know, cancels out the discomfort, right? And then suddenly we're evolving, which is the whole thing. And that's what we can mirror for students and show them that, you know, yeah, we had some moments of discomfort too, but it can be done. You can change and you can grow, and that's going to be the way forward for all of us.

Absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate that, Carla. Let's hear from you about your dreams and goals, and maybe you can share a little bit about the two fellows that couldn't join us today as well, even though they're just getting started,

Sure. So I guess, from my perspective, my goals for the workforce components of the project, as Holly said, We don't know exactly what the jobs are going to be 10 to 20 years from now, and so one of the things that I'm really interested in is cataloging transferable skills, particularly as we're talking about transitioning workers from like a fossil fuel based economy to a clean energy economy. What are the skills that are needed for that? And how can we help to prepare students for whatever those jobs are going to look like? And it's estimated that 75% of the Clean Energy job to the future will not require a four year degree, and so community colleges are really ideally situated to support that transition. I think one of the other things we talked about, we have 116 colleges and 73 districts. They all operate kind of independently at this point in time, and so they talk to each other through regional consortiums and have to sign off on each other's workforce programs as they're created. But I'm really hoping that through this work and being able to look at it from a system wide perspective, we can help to identify what are the regional gaps in the statewide gaps, and fill in those blanks so that we're operating more as a statewide system to meet the clean energy workforce needs, as opposed to just individual colleges creating their individual programs. So I guess really just hoping to bring it all together from a systems perspective, to be able to look at the needs of the state, as opposed to just of the individual entities. So that's kind of my hopes and dreams on the workforce side from the big picture lead climate fellow side. I think it's really that when people think about climate action or think about workforce development for the green and blue economy, they think about California community colleges, like you said, 2.1 million students. So we have a responsibility to prepare them for those jobs of the future. And I think right now, I don't know that people necessarily, when they think about workforce development or or climate education, they're not necessarily thinking about the California Community Colleges, but because we touch so many students, because we educate so many students, it's really important that we are playing that role. And I want to give a shout out to our chancellor, Sonia Christian. She's been in her role for about a year and a half now, and she's the first state chancellor who has really said, okay, the California Community Colleges have a responsibility to lead in climate action, and kind of identified these four, now, five main areas that we're focusing on. And so I think when this cohort of Fellows is done, I really hope that people will see that and see the role that the community colleges can and do play in terms of the work that Tanya and Norma are doing. I think from Tanya's perspective and the student climate fellows, the goal is that students will really be empowered to lead that climate action work at the state level. And we've been very intentional to say that we're not going to tell them what they're working on, because we really want them to tell us what they think they need. And so we really want that effort to be student driven. And so whether it's looking at policies or whether it's looking at facilities, we want to give them the opportunity to lead, to tell us what they need, and then also to get that experience and be able to advocate for themselves. On the community engagement side, most colleges don't have a person who is focused on community outreach and community engagement, and I think that that's one of the reasons why Norma is such a great fit for that role, because that is her position within the current district, and so she has a lot of really great experience working with different types of organizations, so from energy companies to small nonprofits, to municipalities that are so small they're not able to enter into their fiscal agreements. So she really has a breadth of knowledge, and I think the rest of us can learn a lot just from that experience and from the things that she's done in her day job to engage with these organizations, and I think that she's going to be able to transfer that really nicely to climate action work and creating a tool kit for other colleges to be able to replicate

I feel like a common theme I've heard from all of you is really this base lining in the first year of the program, or the first Two years of the program, like figuring out, what are we doing? How are we doing it? Where the gaps? How can we improve? It's some consistency which is so important, I think in sustainability work in general, you know, figuring out where you're at so you can focus on where you should go. Also, the communication piece seems to be a thread throughout the five fellows too, you know, making sure you're conducting the analysis so you have the numbers, but also communicating out what you're finding, and talking to other people and engaging them in the process as well. Even though you're leading as the fellow in this position, it really is a lot of communication with other people on your campus, throughout the system and even out into the community, which I don't know if that was intentional, of how these positions would work, but you're building such a great foundation and really bringing a lot of people into the work, where sometimes these more research focused fellowships don't do that as much. They're focused on a single topic for a single person. So I think that's a unique factor too. I'm also so glad to hear about leadership support at the top. It is critical in order to be successful, to ensure that you really have that support and that trust, to be able to move ideas into action. As we like to say, a lot of B and D, another critical thing that I'm hearing from all of you, which is exciting, because it makes me think you're really advancing sustainability work, decarbonization work, these community connections and advancements in the curriculum and with students, is that you have a connection to the state, you know, the legislative process where decisions are being made around higher education, or where funding is going to have that direct line, and to have the baselining and communication work that you're doing really impact at the state level is is really critical. So I commend all of you, and it's exciting to to think about it. I look forward to you achieving your dreams and goals these next two years. Gonna transition a little bit into thinking about emissions reduction and moving beyond that. We've talked a little bit about that throughout our discussion today, and Carla, I'm going to direct this one at you. But can you tell me why the California Community Colleges wanted to be expansive and in decarbonization work in this fellowship program, think outside of just mitigation work, just calculating emissions. And I ask that question because sometimes in order to fund work, you have to prove impact, and that can be really hard when it comes to curriculum or workforce or community engagement. So maybe you can talk a little bit about the decision making around the five fellow areas.

Yes, so a me, carbonization component is definitely important, and we are focused on that. But I think as an institution of higher education, we have a greater potential impact in educating students about climate change, the impacts of climate change, the role that they play in that, and how they can contribute either positively or negatively to it. And I will say that the decisions around the four or five areas kind of happened before all of us were on board, but I wouldn't change them, because I think that they are important. And again, like we have a huge footprint. We have 25,000 acres of land, 6000 buildings, I think, and so there is a big physical footprint. We have work to do there in terms of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. But when you think about the number of students who we have and the decisions they're going to be making in terms of purchasing, in terms of voting, in terms of the food that they eat, etc. There's a much greater long term impact that can be had by educating them about climate change and the role that they play in it.

Yeah, thank you for that. And I completely agree the decarbonization piece is extremely important. It's really exciting to see a program that includes that and thinks beyond the campus walls into the community and and also in the other areas that you're focusing on as well. So besides this program, talk to me about what else is happening in the California Community Colleges. How are the California Community Colleges advancing climate action in other areas. And Carla, let's start with you, and then we can go to Holly and David if you want to add anything else.

We are working right now having conversations with the legislature, with different assembly members and senators from across the state, also with the state agencies around the work that we're doing, so trying to get the word out about that, and also about the role that colleges can play. So particularly around the greenhouse gas reduction funds, we've been having a lot of conversations about projects that the colleges have already put in place, like micro grids or other decarbonization projects, and the potential projects that we have that we would be able to quickly move forward, that we're ready to move forward, and kind of the impacts that we could have there. Yeah, in terms of other things that are happening, we're still working on our landscape analysis, so we will definitely have more to share when that's complete.

Yeah, something to look forward to? Definitely.

I'll jump in and say that there's a number of things I've come across in my initial research, all kinds of cool programs that faculty have created. It's not all explicitly curriculum related, but all of it tracks back to curriculum at some point, I would argue. And so we just have lots of cool certificates, not always a degree, but like certificates of achievement, and we have some local degrees, and then we have degrees for transfer that are focused on things like conservation or Native American studies or ecological restoration, particularly in Southern California, we have a lot of programs that involve like aquaculture. And climate like, literally, climate based, like stuff that is outside. And then we can put our hands on. One thing that the chancellor's office is working on now is completing an MOU with the California Center for Climate change education at West Los Angeles College. And so together, they're going to be exploring more opportunities in terms of getting students into internships and so forth, where they can practice some of these skills that we're talking about that will be needed in the blue economy and green economy jobs. The chancellor's office is really just pushing forward, looking for every outlet, every area, to advance this climate action. You know, Carla's talked about workforce, but we're also doing things with dual enrollment, things we've always been doing, right? But then it'll be easier to get those folks onto our moving train even earlier than when they officially get to our colleges as matriculated students, right? So all kinds of exciting stuff is happening. And Tanya, if she was here, would tell you about some of the student clubs through colleges throughout the state, cool things students have done. I know there's something at Santa Rosa Junior College, where David works, called a climate night that they have every year where students research pending climate related legislation. It's basically like a research poster fair, and that was online for a while during COVID But I believe is back in person. So they present their research to their campus community, and of course, the greater community is invited. And then students who can make it all go together to Sacramento and talk to lobbyists and legislators and so forth. So they're really learning the action of climate action, right? And they're getting to practice that before we release them into the big, wide world. So it's it's exciting to see the support that we're getting so that we can just expand efforts that are already blooming.

Absolutely. David, do you want to add anything?

Yeah, I think some of the really big conversations that Carla Holly and I and Tanya and Norma have been having is also just a conversation about where do the California Community Colleges sit with respect to climate action right within the state of California? And one of the things that we've actually been kind of reminding folks and telling our own colleagues is that we've actually been leaders in sustainability forever, like we are these anchor institutions that essentially help build community wealth, we are providing high quality education at a low cost for some of the most vulnerable folks within our communities. Almost every single college has a food pantry and basic needs program our students have collectively pitched in to pay transportation fees to help fellow students take transit subsidized to zero cost. And so community colleges have really been very trusted institutions in the community. And so the landscape analysis and the work that we've been doing is really just validating the role of California community colleges and the work that's already been done so that said a tremendous amount of work is going on around equity and basic needs for our students. California community colleges are predominantly commuter schools with a majority of their emissions coming from transportation from single occupancy vehicles, but understanding the housing crisis, California Community Colleges have stepped up and are actually building student housing. And this isn't like semester semester housing. This is students living on campus as long as they're a full time student. There is no like leave during intercession. This is housing for foster youth, veterans, EOPS, right? First generation students. And so our California community college students, I mentioned a lot of our students are paying transportation fees, oh, a certain dollar per credit. They are helping subsidize our greenhouse gas emissions across the state by taking transit. And so there's a tremendous amount of work that colleges are doing around transit, around transportation. I'll shout out Butte Glen community college district runs their own bus system that's funded by student transportation fee, and they're a very rural community and serve two counties, and they're providing a bus service for their students to get to campus, right is just a lot of colleges and our more urban environments have subsidized transit passes, and so I think a lot of the work we're seeing around climate action community colleges have already been doing around equity, and we're very interested in helping support a lot of work around transportation and and all of us in the state of California know that We have a little bit of a car addiction problem, both in the amount of dollars we spend on freeway infrastructure, but then also where our greenhouse gas emissions are as a state, we'll have to have some deep conversations around that as a society in the future.

Sounds like a future podcast topic, bringing it back. Back to the importance of taking care of each other as humans and building community, meeting those needs, so that people have space to learn and grow in academics, but also then into the communities where they're graduating from school and, you know, getting jobs and building families and moving on from there. I guess I want to say that the California Community Colleges leaning into supporting the communities there within understanding those needs for food insecurity, housing insecurity, transportation is so critical in this work to create that foundation where people's basic needs are met so they can have the space to learn more about the disciplines are interested in and the connections with sustainability and climate action within that. And I feel like that's a unique part of the California Community College system. What sets them apart? What sets all of you apart in the system, apart from, you know, the CSUs and the UCS is really that community component, and learning the connection to climate action that way is is really inspirational. So keep going. You're all doing really great work. I think we're coming up on the end of our time here, so I'm going to move us into a little bit of a lightning round. I have a final question for all of you, maybe Carla, we'll start with you move to Holly and David. Really looking for your pro tips here. What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a replicable program, similar to the fellowship program on their campus or community college system or just college system?

My biggest pieces of advice two fold, which they go together, would be to find your champions, the people who are already doing the work and who are really excited about it, and then to build capacity for them to be able to do it. So within our systems, a faculty member teaches five classes per semester, so it's hard for them to do something else on top of that, but if you can free up one of those classes, give them a little bit of space and time, then they can take that energy and turn it into something amazing. And I think that that's what we're doing with this fellowship that each of us have been reassigned from our in part from our day jobs to be able to do this work. And so I think giving us that capacity has allowed us to to do a lot of good work.

Yeah, so I don't know if I necessarily have a pro tip, but I'll just say, find out what others are doing at your college or in your community where you live, like what, what other community events are underway already, whether it's like a clothing swap or a community kitchen for sharing resources or recipes like, just talk to people about this. You'd be surprised how many people want to be involved, and one of the ways we can combat climate anxiety is by doing things in community.

I'll just share that, finding the champions, elevating them and then giving them a certain level of trust and independence, to almost step outside of the existing system and see where things are and then report back with what they find provides that really nice mirror and expertise to begin to have the conversation of where folks can go to the next level.

I'm hearing support people so they have more capacity to do this work, take action, because that is inspiring for other people. It makes you feel like you're doing something instead of being concerned that something is happening to you, engage others and also share what you're finding, so everybody can rise up together. Thank you so much, all three of you. I really appreciate you taking the time sharing your thoughts, your dreams and your insights today, any final words you'd like to leave with our listeners or resources you'd like to share before we close out.

I will jump in and read you a quote from some student feedback I had after my CLI fi class last summer. The students said this course really changed how I think about climate change. Instead of seeing it as a problem that's too big to solve, I started to see it as a chance for creativity and positive change that was really heartwarming and exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing,

and I'll share that. We're going to be doing a series of webinars that will be highlighting the work that each of the fellows are doing and spotlighting the good work that's already happening at each of the colleges, and so look for those that's an opportunity to find out more about what's happening at the individual colleges around climate action and sustainability.

Awesome. Thanks again, everyone and to all you listeners out there, thank you.

That's it for this episode. Thanks to Claudia Ahawo and Trevor jolly for their production assistance. Our theme music under the radar comes courtesy of geo Washington-wright and the studio big band. You can find us online at Campus energy podcast.com, we're also now on blue sky at energypodcast. Dot bsky, dot social. Follow, us on LinkedIn by searching for campus energy and sustainability podcast. If you enjoyed this show, please tell a friend or drop a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, thanks for listening. You.