In this episode of Student Success: Built by Design, our panel of experts sits back down to continue their discussion of the third layer of Maslow’s pyramid, the psychological needs for community and belonging. Checking back in with Dr. Joel Peterson, Aurora Ayala, Andrea Stalker, Jennifer Gibb, and Jeff Johnson, who all bring industry-based perspectives on how built environments, facilities management, and inclusive design all contribute to better educational outcomes. Their discussion explores how to plan, design, and construct spaces while balancing several considerations of both helping students master skills better, and also providing them places that are safe and secure from potential natural dangers and natural disasters. They explore the milestones associated with a project, and how they might look different than you would expect. Looking in from the construction perspective the conversation looks at how to help campus buildings fit into their sense of space, using similar design, local materials, and utilizing native plants to create an authentic and ecologically-minded space. Listen in to hear how Bond Measure HH has been and continues to be instrumental in these amazing improvements.
In this episode of Student Success: Built by Design, our panel of experts sits back down to continue their discussion of the third layer of Maslow’s pyramid, the psychological needs for community and belonging. Checking back in with Dr. Joel Peterson, Aurora Ayala, Andrea Stalker, Jennifer Gibb, and Jeff Johnson, who all bring industry-based perspectives on how built environments, facilities management, and inclusive design all contribute to better educational outcomes.
Their discussion explores how to plan, design, and construct spaces while balancing several considerations of both helping students master skills better, and also providing them places that are safe and secure from potential natural dangers and natural disasters. They explore the milestones associated with a project, and how they might look different than you would expect. Looking in from the construction perspective the conversation looks at how to help campus buildings fit into their sense of space, using similar design, local materials, and utilizing native plants to create an authentic and ecologically-minded space. Listen in to hear how Bond Measure HH has been and continues to be instrumental in these amazing improvements.
The Student Success: Built by Design is a production of San Diego Community College District and is produced by University FM.
Episode Guide:
The Student Success: Built by Design is a production of San Diego Community College District and is produced by University FM.
Safety starts in the parking lot
21:15: [Aurora Ayala] It's lighting corners where there's no visibility. It's even the location of planting and furniture that we don't have any hidden areas. That's all designed with intent, right? We're making sure that everything that we do, that we're keeping our students, and just anyone that's in that area safe. When you were talking about the basketball game, I was thinking about the locker rooms and how it starts in the locker room, it starts in the parking lot, it starts in the showers when they're getting ready. It starts with our team making, and by our team, I mean on the facility side, making sure that every area that our students touch and our visitors touch is clean, it's well-maintained. The locker rooms, they're prepped before they get out there, that those areas are, are a sense of identity.
Designing spaces for pure mastery
15:29: [Dr. Joel Peterson] We also try to remove the distractions. We take away the variations of, say, wind or noise or some of these other parts. Concert halls are perfect for that. We don't have windows in those places because glass doesn't reverberate in the right kind of way, and the light changing can do things with combination of acoustics and, and other type of interior lighting. So those are just examples of how we design to help to support the mastery, the acquisition of it, the demonstration of it, and the appreciation and recognition of it, and that is what the design space, I think, really reflects. And then the added sort of icing on the cake, to Jennifer's and Aurora's point, is that once we have these things built or in the process of it, we can start reinforcing these things by bringing people in to celebrate, to feel like they belong, that they are masters of the process itself and included into that whole process.
Designing the campus haven
08:19: [Aurora Ayala] Every intent of design, every intent of maintenance is really to give the student a sense of feeling like the classroom, the open environment, the outdoor environment is their safe haven here.
[00:00:00] Jeff Johnson: Student Success: Built by Design, expanding the human potential for today's students. Welcome to Student Success: Built by Design. In this podcast, we explore the fundamental question of how the built environment impacts student success.
We will showcase specific design and build achievements of the San Diego Community College District's $3.5 billion bond Measure HH, whose goal is to further our education and student success mission by designing and constructing learning environments that don't simply host students but elevate them academically, personally, and socially. Therefore, we design with a clear purpose and build with mission.
[00:00:45] Andrea Stalker: Previously on our podcast, we defined student success as a combination of academic, professional, personal, and social success. But these successes are, in part, driven by how well the range of human needs, from basic physical needs to self-fulfillment needs, are met. So, how the environment meets or misses these human needs at all levels impacts student success.
This then can be the theoretical lens through which we examine the design and construction of San Diego CCD's Bond Project. The built environment is the foundation upon which students can be elevated academically, personally, and socially.
[00:01:30] Jeff Johnson: Welcome back to our podcast on Student Success: Built by Design. Today, we're discussing self-esteem needs. We'll be diving deeper into the student success that we discussed in our third episode. We'll be engaging our panel on the fourth layer of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, psychological needs of confidence, mastery, and recognition through academic, artistic, and athletic endeavors.
We'll explore the design, construction, and management of the built environment and how it can impact the student experience and their success. So, we want to welcome back our panel again. Dr. Joel Peterson, San Diego Community College District vice chancellor and executive operations officer. Aurora Ayala, San Diego Community College District associate vice chancellor for facilities, risk management, and operations. Jennifer Gibb, Van Pelt Construction Services vice president, business development. Andrea Stalker, PBK Architects principal and director of higher education. And myself, Jeff Johnson, PBK Architects principal and director of design and educational planning.
So, today, wanted to talk a little bit more about some of the highlights that we had from previous episodes defining student success. We discussed personal, social, and professional aspects of each student, and we started to break down Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So, Episode Three, last time, we were talking about social needs, which is the first part of psychological needs. Talked about love, connectivity, and belonging.
So today, we're going to be talking about self-esteem needs, confidence, mastery, and recognition. So, to kick off things, I was hoping, Dr. Peterson, you could talk a little bit more, breaking down Maslow's psychological and self-esteem needs, what they are, and how it relates to some of our previous discussion on student success.
[00:03:19] Dr. Joel Peterson: Well, thank you very much, Jeff. This is an exciting topic, and certainly very rich with a lot of potential opportunities for us to get distracted with a lot of side components on it. So, we'll try to keep it focused within the designed and built space and that area of our topic. But what we're really talking about in this area, self-esteem, as you already kind of broke it down into broader categories of how people have a sense of confidence in who they are, confidence in their environment, that they have a sense of what is mastery, that they feel good about, that they know that they have domain expertise.
And the other part, though, is that the trickiness of human psychology is that it's not good enough that we know what we know, but we want other people to tell us that they know that we know, so we want that recognition. It isn't good enough that we just know that recognition inside ourselves. So, a lot of the kind of things that we look about, then, is, you know, what does it mean to be recognized? How does that recognition get manifested? How do we feel that confidence? And is that confidence of place? Is it a confidence of means? Is it a confidence of ends?
And when we talk about mastery, that it isn't maybe just a mastery of a particular domain, but it can be our mastery of our place in that domain. You know, what do I mean by that? Is let's say maybe, know, it isn't mastery of you as an athlete per se, but maybe it's mastery of a coach in the domain of athletics. So, we can know that we have confidence, not necessarily because we're absolutely good at the fundamental domain itself, but we're good at some aspect thereof. So, it's a rich environment for us to discuss, and I look forward to sharing that conversation with you all.
[00:05:04] Jeff Johnson: That's great. And as we were talking about some of these elements, we'll start to break down these into kind of smaller bites. And with that, we're talking about how architecture relates, how the built environment and some of these kind of building blocks. So, Andrea, what are some of the things that, you know, as we start to look at that built environment, what are the key elements that kind of trigger these ideas?
[00:05:25] Andrea Stalker: On a college campus specifically, we're going to look at many different types of instructional spaces to support, first and foremost, the mastery of skills in a variety of different subjects. And so, we design classrooms to support active learning, where it's not just about a teacher lecturing to a student, but a student being able to be in that classroom, participate actively with engagement with their instructor, with their peers.
So, making sure that those classroom environments are flexible, support student interaction, and really give that student ownership of that space while still allowing the instructor to impart important information and knowledge that helps with that sort of basic level information and mastery.
And then the design and development of very specific spaces that help support higher-level skills, whether that's just in general higher classes, say, like seminars and small group discussions that are help facilitating the mastery of discussion and higher reasoning, or maybe it's in very specific skill building for CTE programs or biology, or say we're in a welding lab where a student is learning a very specific skill and all of the design criteria that comes along with creating those environments, especially ones that help students feel safe.
And I think that goes back to Dr. Peterson's point about having confidence in an environment that you feel you come into it, you can be confident, and as you learn more of those skills, that your confidence grows, and now we're preparing students to go out into the workforce. So, first and foremost, it's looking at all those different types of spaces that we would see at the college environment, that's very specific to a skill building.
And then there's that broader campus, those sort of outside, in-between spaces that are going to help the students in all of those other areas build skills and mastery and confidence and recognition.
[00:07:10] Jeff Johnson: That's great. And I said as we talk about student experience connected to their environment, that there's a sense of ownership, and kind of it's their domain, and where they feel that they're a part of the whole, and how it connects. And as we're talking about the student experience, Aurora, I was wondering, you know, as we're talking about some of these effects, you know, what are the major kind of tenets that, you know, build confidence in a student really taking ownership of these kind of environments?
[00:07:38] Aurora Ayala: I think I'm going to just piggyback a little bit off of what Andrea said for when design builds confidence, our students feel safe, they feel heard, they feel appreciated. When the design, in a low-maintenance way, is built elegant, it's built to give them a sense of pride that this is built for them. When the proper lighting is there, they feel like they can stay there for long hours in a safe environment. When it's properly cleaned by our custodial department, it gives them a sense that they're cared after, and they're with us for hours.
So, every intent of design, every intent of maintenance, is really to give the student a sense of feeling like the classroom, the open environment, the outdoor environment is their safe haven here.
[00:08:33] Jeff Johnson: Yeah, that's a great point. And we were talking about their experience that they're seeing themselves somewhere in this space, you know, being safe, but also that connectedness. You know, I think as we're talking about some of these things, where we can celebrate, or maybe there's elements that along the process. You know, Jennifer, as we're talking about even, like, the construction, you know, are there specific things that relate to construction as, you know, creating these kind of identity builders or celebrating specific events?
[00:09:03] Jennifer Gibb: Absolutely, Jeff. I think, in regards to the actual construction on our end to keep the students feeling safe, organized, able to study and run through their day-to-day, we have to be focused on our construction sites clean, safe, non-disruptive during actual physical construction. But then the celebratory part of construction is those groundbreakings where we can really celebrate what we're going to do, how we came to this moment.
You know, the passage of Measure HH made this project possible, and that really has a sense of pride. The students, the community, love that. And then on the back end, once we have completed the project, really just the ribbon cutting and the celebration behind that is a way that construction comes in and can help the students and community staff feel very excited and connected to what we're doing.
[00:10:08] Jeff Johnson: That makes great sense. In leading from there, I wanted to ask Aurora about, like, once the project is in place and experiencing success, what are some of the milestones, like, on campus that some of the staff can experience?
[00:10:19] Aurora Ayala: It literally just goes from the ribbon cutting, and it just continues from there. There's so many celebrations. There is the grand opening, the ribbon cutting that you typically see. But internally, we have our own, in maintenance and operations, our own milestones. It's when we finally close out. Like, we know we own the warranties. We know we own everything behind it.
So, there is that major milestone that's on the maintenance and operations side. But then there's other milestones that are not as fun, but after five years, there's a lot of warranties that end that people don't realize, and that's a milestone for us. It really could start talking about the quality of construction, quality of design. Everything's holding up.
When we have celebrations of a building that has been serving our students for over 10 years, and we have a 10-year celebration or a 20-year celebration, those are milestones that not only speak to the amount of students that have been served, but also the quality of design and construction. So, there's a lot of maintenance and operations milestones, and we always kind of tie them into warranties, a 20-year warranty for a roof and different things like that, we're thinking about.
Our students are really the one and only customer that every day that they're in the building, they're not realizing they're actually celebrating a milestone with us, because it's day to day that we maintain these buildings. So, yeah.
[00:11:44] Dr. Joel Peterson: Just following up on what Jennifer and Aurora said. If we back up just a little bit, maybe it would be helpful to... Because their points about making sure that we have a way to celebrate not only builds off of what we talked about in Episode Three about belonging and a sense of connection, but when we talk about confidence, it's also a sense of having been included, and that you had a sense of ownership and involvement.
And you might think, "Well, if the students that were around when we were doing construction, they're not the same students that are around later." But what I would suggest is that part of what we do with design is that we incorporate recognition of generations of stakeholders. You know, we'll have donor walls, we'll have founders' plaques where we recognize the board of trustees that were in place at the time.
We may recognize the student trustees that were in place, and so including them early on in the early celebrations and in the ongoing celebrations gives us an opportunity to, again, reflect that sense of you belong here, and therefore you can be confident that you are thought of and you are valued.
So, you know, clearly other things that we put in place in a designed environment that reflect and help to amplify the sense of self-esteem, sense of confidence, the ability to feel like they have mastery. One is mastery of finding their way, having solid and explicit wayfinding. You know, all of us have been... You know, when you don't know where you're going, you know, and you feel dumb about asking somebody, it just saps your confidence. Doesn't matter who you are, you know?
So, and then the sense of place, the specific identity upon arrival, that again, that the architectural design that we might have. You know, if you're at a very modern, forward-looking institution, having architecture that reflects that tells you right off the bat. You look at, like, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and you see their chapel, and it looks like a bunch of, you know, aircraft getting ready to take off and fly through the sky type of thing, or you have some of these places that are more about the environment, and many of them use materials that are more natural, that type of thing.
And to Aurora's point, that cleanliness, that tells somebody that you are important. We care enough. I mean, we've all been there in, say, a hotel room when you walked in, and you kind of give it the white glove test, and you're like, "I guess they don't value me as a customer." And to Aurora's point, you know, "our students are our customers," quote, unquote, but, you know, so are our staff, so are the faculty. And if you know you're valued, then you start to value others around you as well.
You know, and then the final thing of, you know, confidence is also if you have pride in who and what you are. Again, that if you have the emblems of who you are, if you have the colors that represent so it reflects back on your identity, that says, "You know what? I'm proud to be a student at this institution that has this type of history, and I'm now the latest generation of it." We reflect those kind of things.
And then finally, maybe if we talk about some of that mastery part, it's really that, to Andrea's point, that we create environments that support that type of mastery. If we ask people to do welding in a swimming pool, they're not going to show mastery on welding, you know, or running in a swimming pool, or that you're going to go swimming on a track.
Obviously, we create the environment, and we try to remove the distractions that would take away from being able to either acquire mastery or to demonstrate it or to appreciate it. So, stadiums are designed to be able to not only demonstrate it, but to participate and acknowledge it, and to provide that recognition, but we also try to remove the distractions.
We take away the variations of, say, wind or noise or some of these other parts. Concert halls are perfect for that. We don't have windows in those places because glass doesn't reverberate in the right kind of way, and the light changing can do things with combination of acoustics and other type of interior lighting.
So, those are just examples of how we design to help to support the mastery, the acquisition of it, the demonstration of it, and the appreciation and recognition of it, and that is what the design space, I think, really reflects. And then the added sort of icing on the cake, to Jennifer's and Aurora's point, is that once we have these things built or in the process of it, we can start reinforcing these things by bringing people in to celebrate, to feel like they belong, that they are masters of the process itself, and included into that whole process.
[00:16:21] Jeff Johnson: That's really well put. And as you put all these details together, you start to see that this identity is reflected in who they are based on their aspect of the environment. And being able to celebrate, they do like these checkpoints where, "Hey, are we on target? Is it as successful as we thought?" It's almost kind of commissioning as you walk through it.
Dr. Peterson, you were talking about some of the project types. You know, as we dig deeper into mining some of these efforts, you know, we dig into kind of arts and athletics, even academics of housing. How does some of those aspects, you know, what are some of the elements that are really key that we want to make sure that we include or they're being included in the design process?
[00:17:01] Dr. Joel Peterson: That's a really good point. And, you know, again, it goes to not only what the mastery is, but then when we talk to who the audience is, what we know is that there's different kind of mastery, sometimes dependent upon, say, you know, first-year students versus third-year students. Many institutions will have a requirement that first-year students live in dormitories, and those dormitories are going to be designed and programmed for the needs and the greater potential needs and differing needs that first-year students may have.
There may be facilities that we've designed in to have upper-class students be resident assistants that are mentors, that help to give a greater sense of self-esteem and confidence for those first-year students, partly because they're with everyone else who's just as nascent into the college environment. But where maybe third- and fourth-year students are going to value, you know, privacy over space or socialization.
So, oftentimes you'll have smaller bedrooms, but more private, that type of element. What we can see is that in places like student housing, we look at who the residents are going to be, and we try to make sure that we design to maximize the uplifting of a sense of confidence, a sense of self-esteem, the sense of mastery, because you want to be certainly the master of your own domain, where you feel most private.
So, those are key things that I think, you know, someone like Andrea probably has better thoughts than me on what the design spaces do for kind of segregating out and identifying who the user groups would actually be.
[00:18:34] Andrea Stalker: Well, so we know you guys have many performing arts projects that are currently in design or even in construction, whether they're renovations or new buildings. And that particular projects, as supported by Measure HH, really give your students a variety of ways to master skills and not just, say, acting skills, but learning of stagecraft or lighting design or all the sort of other pieces that go along with that.
And then, that recognition of those skills as you invite the community in. And I think that goes back into our previous episodes that talk about social needs and belonging. And so now you're establishing community, and that community is recognizing the skills of your students, and the very specific spaces that you need to do that on a campus, particularly performing arts, is unique, right?
To your point, you're not going to do that at the athletics field or in these other locations. And so, finding the right place on campus and providing that very specific functionality is important to this student's sense of self-esteem, both confidence, and recognition.
[00:19:34] Jeff Johnson: I think that really builds in that identity, "This is my place." You know, this is where it could be just an exhibit, like in art, you know, that, "Hey, that's my painting in this space," and there's a connectedness to their peers, the identity that is theirs being displayed, and they're honored. So, I think that idea of customizing, you know. And we even talk about with athletics, that this connection with the audience, you know, and then you're in a space where it's an arena, and this is your kind of domain. I think there's a lot of great things that come into that.
[00:20:08] Dr. Joel Peterson: I think we've seen, you know, a lot of, say, you know, basketball arenas, for example, where you can see all the NCAA champion, you know, things or finalists or, you know, those kinds of things, which lets not only the athletes that are out there feel connected and feel like they have a sense of confidence from a long tradition, but then the audience as well, that they are part of a winning tradition of excellence.
But part of this confidence part, I think we should never forget, that it still builds, even though we're talking about this fourth level of Maslow's, that it goes back to something that Aurora mentioned in her first comments that, you know, this thing about safety never quite goes away, that, you know, making sure that we minimize uncertainty and fear.
And I think, Aurora, you talked about things like lighting, but maybe you can share a few little more thoughts on that because that, again, is something that without it, we're never going to be able to reach that self-esteem and confidence and belonging.
[00:21:03] Aurora Ayala: I'm thinking of some of the projects that we've worked on and are working on, we're, what we're doing, and all the hours of planning, with the student, the staff, the faculty, our visitors, everyone in mind, and it's lighting, it's corners where there's no visibility. It's even the location of planting and furniture that we don't have any hidden areas. That's all designed with intent, right?
We're making sure that everything that we do, that we're keeping our students and just anyone that's in that area safe. When you were talking about the basketball game, I was thinking about the locker rooms and how it starts in the locker room, it starts in the parking lot, it starts in the showers when they're getting ready.
It starts with our team making, and by our team, I mean on the facility side, making sure that every area that our students touch and our visitors touch is clean, it's well-maintained. The locker rooms, they're prepped before they get out there, that those areas are a sense of identity. I've seen their T-shirts hung up on the walls there, a little bit more intimate area, and those are their common areas, and by their, I mean our students, our teams.
Even from the ergonomics side, we have our locker rooms that are ADA compliant. We serve a large community with different mobility limitations, and when we design with every student in mind, it makes them feel seen, heard, safe, welcomed, they belong. So, yeah, I love that we brought up the locker rooms.
[00:22:44] Dr. Joel Peterson: Yeah. When you talk about the team, your facilities team. I mean, part of what you're responsible for is things like event setup and breakdown. And again, if we don't design spaces that can support the usability of those things, I think of the mastery or self-confidence that, say, a magician would have if they have to be in a space where they don't have the mechanisms to do the magic trick because it isn't set up to have the kind of setup and so forth for that event.
So, we do look at those kinds of components. But I would really like to hear from Jennifer, if I might, just to put it to you. Jennifer, as you look across, maybe you could share sort of all the projects that you're aware of that we're doing at Measure HH. But it feels like when I talk back, you know, to Aurora's point about some of the base layers of Maslow's, the construction side, it feels like, how do you communicate with people, too, so that they know as we go through all these things that...
You know, because how it's not just design, but that people know that you are building, you know, to a certain code that people can know that if an earthquake happens, they're going to be okay. That feels like that's right in your bailiwick there.
[00:23:57] Jennifer Gibb: Absolutely. There's many times that a project comes out throughout the design-build process, we're working with the staff, the community, having engagements where you're communicating out the process. So, let's say if it's a historical renovation, how are you going to get that up to code and meet Field Act requirements?
We walk through that, make sure that the community understands, you know, we're not just slapping paint on an old building, that this building, yes, at the time it was designed, at the time it was occupied and built, it was within the code then, and now that we're renovating it, we're bringing it up to current code today.
And that story, we often share it. You know, every time we go into buildings, "Why are you doing structural renovations to this space? We've been having students and staff in here for years." Well, again, at the time it was built and designed, it was with the code standard, and now, as part of the process, we're getting it up to current code.
So, we have to have that conversation. You have to put that out there. We have many messaging tools that we use, whether they're infographics or, like I said, community meetings, site staff and meetings, making sure people are hearing and understanding the current ways and/or requirements we are need to meet. Schools are the second safest buildings in the state of California, right? Hospitals being number one. So, it's really important and critical that we're able to share the building practices and why we're doing that. So, that's a great question.
[00:25:35] Jeff Johnson: That's awesome because, you know, that identity and connection to the community, feeling safe that this is theirs, they're part of the process, and then feeling safe. You know, as we get into the application of, you know, kind of the architecture, we get into some of the details of, you know, how does it connect? You know, is there identity or this kind of branding? Sometimes it's relating to the materials. Andrea, what are some of the detailed elements as we start to look at the refinement of the architecture and how it relates to that identity?
[00:26:04] Andrea Stalker: I would actually say step back first and say, how does that building fit into the sense of place, right? Each campus has its own unique context and, with that context and sense of place, history, culture, that's what you want the students to take pride in. And so, before we even get into the detailing of it, we want to ensure that the building honors that sense of place and builds upon that sense of place, right? So that...
And I think students have a sense of pride when they go to a higher education institute that reflects or feels like a higher education institute, and that gives them a sense of, like, "I've accomplished something. I am accomplishing something." And then when we get into the details of it to reinforce that, one of the things we've been hearing a lot from students recently is where they can see themselves reflected in the success of others, right?
So, and how we can do that in design is provide space for branding and graphics or maybe even murals that highlight alums, you know, from the college that say, "This is what they've gone on to do. And, by the way, they're a lot like you, and they did these things, and they became masters and went out and got recognition, and now we're recognizing them. And you could do that too," right?
And so, I think it's super important that architecture as a building as a whole responds to that sense of place. It feels like it belongs. And then when we get down into the details of it, that it helps students have a sense of belonging because they can see themselves reflected in it, and doing that by holding space for art and mural and graphics, and really the storytelling behind it.
[00:27:31] Jeff Johnson: Yeah, you started to talk about ideas like legacy, you know, where you have alumni, they come back because they have these memories, these rich experiences where they want to bring their kids. Like, "Hey, you know, I had this, and I remember that." So, this all kind of ties into a really kind of a great big picture experience.
[00:27:50] Dr. Joel Peterson: What I love what architects and engineers and the construction industry is so good at doing, often, to that location and place identity is how you're able to source, like, you know, reflective local materials. You know, stone or brick or, you know, various kinds of elements that reflect what is local to the kind of components.
So, you know, you don't have something that seems like it's so out of place because a log cabin in the middle of downtown Manhattan, not so much. You know, just like, or having a high-rise that you would find on, you know, Billionaire's Square at Times Square out in the middle of, you know, someplace in Nebraska.
But I have always been fascinated by how, you know, the teams are so adroit at that, and then the construction people can take almost any of these kind of building materials and adapt to it and, again, do it in such a way that it's safe and constructive and maintainability, so that it's also lasting. So, I've always been fascinated with that, and just my hats off to the AEC community for doing that so well.
[00:28:53] Andrea Stalker: And by using those local materials, we're having a better sustainable impact, right? Because now we're not spending all this energy on transporting materials from very far away that are inappropriate for our climate and environment. And so, that then furthers, you know, San Diego CCD's sustainability goals, right? And so, all of that is working together.
[00:29:12] Dr. Joel Peterson: Yeah. For instance, we have a standard where we try to do at least 80% native plants in all of our design because the important thing there was, there was a time when people only focused on sustainability, so you wanted drought-tolerant if you're in a dry area, that sort of thing. But we paid less attention to the fact that they were native.
What we realized was that these secondary effects of where the fauna couldn't thrive, that certain types of insects, yes, but this is not a native cactus, and so they couldn't do their home inside, you know, the kind of plants that they used to, and then the birds didn't have then the insects that they would need to eat on. So, you know, it's exactly that.
We do try to make sure that we look at that harmony with the locality and local environment. And I would suggest that that is part of that honoring the students themselves and the place that they're in, and that it gives them, again, a greater sense of self-esteem, that they know that they are in an environment that isn't negatively impacting the broader environment that they care about.
[00:30:14] Jeff Johnson: Yeah, these are great points of, like, really customizing and being intentional about design and its impacts. I was wondering, you know, I think for maybe, Dr. Peterson, some of the different projects that we're planning and how they kind of relate and connect to Measure HH, and some of these things as we kind of take these ideas home, and how they relate to people who might be interested.
[00:30:35] Dr. Joel Peterson: Well, what's fantastic about Measure HH is that it is so varied because it is such a large program. $3.5 billion worth of projects that we have, and the majority of that is already underway because we want to make sure that we are maximizing the time value of money for the taxpayers and try to bring as much to fruition in the shortest amount of time consistent with sustainability, consistent with safety, and with safe construction.
But we have... As an example, we have four different performing arts projects underway. One is a historic renovation, our education cultural complex, which, you know, built kind of in the early '70s and was reflecting a time and a place in American history that focused on a lot of the civil rights movement, and we had many iconic figures that played historic roles in that place.
And so, we're choosing materials that continue to reflect the original materials and to be consistent with it, rather than having sort of a Frankenstein approach of something that just doesn't fit just because it happens to be modern. But then we also have, like, a straight renovation that is looking at an existing performing arts facility, that we want to just go ahead and really modernize and expand.
We're not trying to change it a whole lot, and we want the look and feel to be very similar, but we just want it to be more functional and more inclusive to the community that can do things. For instance, at City College, where we are going to take the current intent and just expand it out and bring it closer to the community.
But then we have a brand-new construction at Miramar College in performing arts, where they haven't had this program. But what we know is that to be meeting the demand, the growing demand that there is in the student population and families for community colleges to be a cost-effective transitional path towards a four-year institution. That if you don't have a full-on program, including performing arts, including humanities, that those students are not going to be able to transfer from a two-year program to a four-year.
So, having this brand-new capability is absolutely crucial to the program and to the confidence and self-esteem that students are going to have, "I'm going to a two-year that is going to really prepare me well to any four-year that I will have the opportunity to go to." And then at our Mesa College, we are renovating not just the performing arts, but we're actually combining it with some of our other facilities, our administrative buildings.
We can do some innovative things with space utilization such that we can bring these disparate functions together in a harmonious way, but that meets all the needs. So, to me, it's just fascinating that we're able to have such a variety of facilities, including athletic complexes, including science buildings, where we're looking at how we can showcase, recognize, reinforce the kind of mastery, competence, and the ability for us to be able to recognize that through so many mechanisms that we design into these spaces.
[00:33:39] Jeff Johnson: This has been a great conversation. I can tell the passion that all of you have for the student experience and the difference it's going to make. And some of the closing ideas, you know, this idea of mastery, you know, what are students kind of taking away? So, Dr. Peterson, I know you talked a lot about this. What's their takeaway in this idea of mastery?
[00:33:58] Dr. Joel Peterson: My biggest takeaway is that my sense is that our students, once they graduate, whether it's from a degree program or whether it's a certificate or a career or technical one, they come away knowing that they have met a standard. And I can just see when I attend our graduations, the sense of confidence versus when you go in the fall when you have a lot of first-year students starting, and you can see the trepidation on people's faces.
And that transformation, we had a past board of trustees who always called the springtime when graduation was coming, smile season, and you can just see it, and that's just absolutely fulfilling. You can see and feel that sense of mastery and sense of self-esteem, and confidence.
[00:34:37] Jeff Johnson: This is great. I really appreciate everybody being here for this event. This is a great discussion as we're talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So, in our next session, we're going to be talking about self-actualization needs, potential growth experience. This is at the highest level for Maslow, representing the realization of one's full potential, their personal growth, and peak experiences.
So excited about our next conversation that we're going to have, and I just wanted to thank everyone for joining us. And, yeah, this all leads to student success. Thanks for joining us, and remember, student success is built by design.
Thanks for joining our podcast, Student Success: Built by Design. This series is brought to you by the San Diego Community College District and its Measure HH bond program, whose goal is to further its education and student success mission. We'll see you next time.
Measure HH is a $3.5 billion voter-approved capital improvement bond program at the San Diego Community College District, transforming its 10 campuses, which are housed in four separate colleges, that collectively enroll 90,000 students annually. Measure HH will impact nearly 1 million students in its first 10 years.