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Faculty want their students to succeed, but the resources they provide aren’t always enough to help everyone.

But that won’t stop them from implementing new techniques and discussing methods to change the college environment.

The Student Success Committee announced its eleventh annual Student Success Conference at the Academic Senate Meeting on Nov. 6.

by organizing free speech balls for students to sign and organize club meetings that students are able to attend.

“All we want to do is bring awareness that this is an important issue,” Dehbozorgi said. “Usually free speech in LACCD colleges are very tiny; ours is tinier than a stamp if you put it on a map. It depends on how they enforce it.”

Students walking on the Mall stopped to read the messages on the beach ball. Some were reading “I love Trump” and “I do not support DACA” and were surprised with some of the messages that were written.

Joanna Flores, a deaf studies major, was walking out of her class and saw the beach ball and said she doesn’t agree with that the intent.

“I understand that everyone has their right to say what they want, but sometimes words could hurt people,” Flores said. “People who have confederate flags, they can do what they want, but people can get offended. Yeah, you have the right to do what you want, but they won’t feel comfortable around you.”

As students left messages on the ball, Pierce College sheriff’s deputies drove down the Mall and asked students who organized the Free Speech Ball. Deputies did not approach the club members or ask them to put the ball away.

As students walked by the Mall, many wanted to see what the beach ball was. Some passed by without asking, others stopped and were given a marker to write a message.

Communications major Peter Stfleur saw the beach ball as he was coming out of class and wanted to see what it was about.

“Free speech is important. We need to know what people want to say. Different people have different things to say, so I think it’s very important,” Stfleur said.

Stfleur said free speech is important, but he still thinks it can hurt feelings.

“What if the person who get’s their feelings hurt has something else they said that hurts someone else’s feelings, so it’s either or,” Stfleur said.

Young Americans for Liberty coordinator, Lauren Dziedzic said she wanted to make students feel comfortable about writing anything they want on the ball.

“We want to encourage them to grab a pen and write whatever they want, whatever their thoughts are, whatever they want to say, but instead write it on the free speech ball so people are encouraged to be free,” Dziedzic said.

Student Antwoine E was walking down the Mall and saw the beach ball, but he didn’t want to leave a message on the ball.

“I’m not opposed to it, but it’s freedom of speech. It’s all how you interpret it,” E said. “It’s what you care about. If you want to wear that, ‘I voted for Trump,’ I can’t say anything about that.”

Center of Student Success Director and Co-Chair of the Student Success Committee Crystal Kiekel said the conference is rooted from the Basic Skills Initiative. She said it was a “small pot of money that provided us the opportunity to focus on the needs of students who were placing below transfer level English and math.”

The Basic Skills Initiative was previously implemented to focus on students developing fundamental ESL, English, and math study and learning skills. Since then, there has also been an Equity Project that focuses on groups of students who are underserved. These two initiatives acted as stepping stones to the Student Success Conference.

“The Student Success Conference has evolved to not only strengthen those essential skills, but also to talk about issues on how to decrease equity gaps and create a culture of success and equity on this campus,” Kiekel said.

Kiekel said the Student Success Support Program is a categorical fund at the state level that focuses on strengthening the “onboarding” experience of first year college students.

Kiekel said one goal of the conference is to support students in a way that is beneficial to the start of their college careers.

“A lot of data will demonstrate that if students have a strong first year, students are much more likely to complete their studies,” Kiekel said.

Kiekel said the conference is voluntary, but has seen the numbers of participants grow since its start in 2008.

“We started with 30 people 10 years ago, and now we have 250 in attendance from the last time,” Kiekel said.

Faculty Senate Treasurer Angela Belden said the conference serves as a forum to propel students forward.

“It’s absolutely essential for faculty,” Belden said. “It’s such a good way to put the students first and get together with colleagues and discuss what we can do for our students.”

Belden said she looks forward to the upcoming conference.

“I’m super excited about the Student Success Conference,” Belden said. “I love seeing fellow faculty go. I’ve attended every year since I've been here at Pierce, and I have never once been disappointed.”

The Student Success Conference will be on Feb. 2, 2018 at Pierce College.

A second item of discussion involved College Outcomes

Coordinator Jennifer Moses. She said General Education Learning Outcomes (GELOs) should be treated and assessed as programs, also known as Program Learning Outcome for General Education (PLO-GE).

Moses said she thinks conceptual clarity is important.

“We should have a clear understanding of all the things we are suppose to assess and not have this weird ‘other’ category just to recognize that IGETC and all those other transfer programs are in fact programs,” Moses said.