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Sydney: Welcome back to the podcast. This is Redlands Rundown, the official podcast of Redlands Community College, where we talk about college, career, and everything in between. Today, we have a special guest Amy Graham, director of our Trio program. She's gonna tell us a little bit about herself, about her program, and just how you got started, and we're really excited. I'm excited to be here. From you. Yay.

Thank you. So can you tell us I mean, it's back to school season. So I feel like this is the perfect time to be talking about just the different resources we have on campus. Absolutely.

Amy: Here's just one of the biggest. We serve 200 students.

Sydney: That's so crazy. And can you tell people who may not know about TRIO just a little bit about who is in TRIO, who qualifies, and what that looks like?

Amy: Absolutely. So TRIO is a federal Department of Education funded program. There's actually multiple programs that fall under the TRIO umbrella. Student Support Services has sites or has programs all across the country at colleges and universities. So, specifically, the students that qualify for student support services are first generation college students Mhmm.

Which is one of the reasons that it's so near and dear to my heart. I'm actually a first generation college student. Yeah. And looking back now, I can see how much I could have used the program Yeah. When I was in college.

Students can also qualify through income eligibility. Mhmm. So, we have some standards for that. And students with any documented disability can also be in our program. Some of our students only have one of those barriers.

Some of those some of our students have two or three. So, it just depends. Yeah.

Sydney: You touched on this a little bit, and you and I have talked about this off camera.

Trio is a very important thing to me. I am not first gen, but my dad is. Mhmm. And my best friend is also first gen.

And so I have seen the impact your program has made on students. Yes. And I'm always Even though I didn't know my dad when I, he was in college obviously, I'm always wishing like, I wish you would have had these resources. And I always wish that for my best friend too. But you talked about being a first generation student.

So can you tell us a little bit about your journey and how you became to come in this role?

Amy: Oh, absolutely. So in high school, I was a good student. Yep. I'm AB student, rarely studied. I went to college with a whole lot of false confidence that I was going to continue with little to no effort to be the same level of student I had always been.

So when I got to college, first year, not only was I taking my classes, but I was also struggling to figure out how to learn Mhmm. How to study, and how to be okay with asking for help. Yeah. I had never needed help before. I had never my my teachers previously, my counselor, none of those people had ever really needed to do much for me.

And so, being humble enough to say, I need help. Yeah. Maybe I need tutoring services, like, maybe I'm college algebra, which I desperately did. So things like that. Yeah.

But also how to use effectively used resources. College is its own animal. Higher education as a whole, we have names for things that don't necessarily make sense. Mhmm. People don't automatically know who the registrar is or the bursar.

So all of these things, I had to stumble and trip and figure out. Yeah. And they don't seem like anything that's a very big deal singularly. Right?

As just as a standalone thing, the registrar is not that big a deal. Right. But when you feel like you don't know anything, every little thing that you don't know feels like it just builds so much and it becomes overwhelming.

Sydney: I was gonna say that so overwhelming to have so many pieces. And even as someone that had family members before me, I mean, mom my mom and dad both have college degrees. My sister had had a college degree by the time I was starting. Yeah. But even knowing, okay, these people have walked through it before me.

It's still hard to ask those people for help sometimes. Absolutely. Because you're like, I don't want you to think I don't know how to do this. Like, I don't want you to think I can't handle doing And it's not a bad thing, but it is a scary thing.

Amy: It is a scary thing and it's overwhelming. And if you've always thought Mhmm. If you've always known what to do Yeah. It's hard to to admit, and it's hard to understand that it's okay to not know. My oldest daughter is currently at a another, at a university, and she did not ask me for help hardly at all Mhmm.

This last year. But this summer, she has called and asked me for help a number of times

And she has become more and more willing to ans to ask have me answer questions for her. But my mom I I thought about that the other day. My mom would have never known who to tell me to ask or what to do. She would have encouraged me to find out.

Sydney: Right.

Amy: But she wouldn't have known how to support me. And so that's that's part of what I get to do is be that support system for those students that have parents that just don't know how to help them.

Sydney: Yeah. So Would you say that a job like this was always kind of in your heart, or did you end up here just by circumstance and ended up being perfect?

Amy: I think it's probably a combination of both. Yeah. In undergrad Mhmm. I majored in history and thought that I wanted I always knew I wanted to be on a college campus. Mhmm.

Like, I felt like that when I got to my undergrad institution, I was like, this is fantastic. Yeah. And I can see why someone would want to be here and work here. So I majored in history and thought I was gonna be a full time history instructor. Mhmm.

And then by the time I got done with my bachelor's degree, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure that was the the route that I wanted to take. Yeah. I went into corporate and did some things, but found my way back to education not too long after that. And then I started working at a, a university, East Central in Ada, and had a fantastic set of opportunities there. And where I really did end up in support services, it was supporting transfer students and helping them transition from their two year schools to to the university. So that was great. And then I discovered that my love for education Mhmm. And my love for helping people really just went well together with student support.

So that's how I ended up there.

Sydney: Absolutely. That's awesome. And so did you whenever you became the director of TRIO Mhmm. What did that path look like for you?

Amy: So I actually started at Redlands in another trio program Mhmm. Which is called Veterans Upward Bound. We that program specifically supports military vets in helping them get prepared to come to college. It's a pre college program. So helping them to make sure their academic skills are up to speed Mhmm.

And then helping them with the process of admissions and connecting to their resources like SSS. Right. So I started there and worked in that program for a number of years, moved over to admissions and advising, which that was a great opportunity for me to understand a different side of the house than what I had always been in. Yeah. And so that was wonderful.

When the opportunity to be the director of SSS came up, I knew it was something that I wanted to do. Mhmm. I'd had enough experience in grants Mhmm. And in direct student contact that I knew that this was more of where I needed to be Yeah. To be happy and to feel like I was was giving back to the institution and to our students the way I wanted to.

Sydney: Absolutely. Know you've had some students that have gone through the program and have completed successfully and then transferred on or become employed. Can you tell us a little bit about, like, just your statistics on that?

Amy: Oh, absolutely. So our typically, we graduate or that our of our students that we have the 200. Typically, we have somewhere between 30 to 50 students that graduate each year.

That would be fall, spring, and summer total. So it's a it's great. Our retention is close to 90%. Wow. So of the students who don't graduate, who who are returning we lose very few of them. And I truly believe that is based on the efforts of building those strong relationships B\being able to see when something is going wrong, behaviors have changed, and that we can reach out to those students and help them find solutions to whatever might cause them to Yeah. Stop

Sydney: I think it's so interesting because even like as an outsider, I've gotten to witness the impact that you and your program have made on so many different students. And it is so fascinating to see because you'll be at a big student event and everyone wants to go talk to miss Amy. Everyone wants to come tell miss Amy like, yeah, hey, here's what's going on, here's what I'm worried about. I just wanted to say hi, whatever it is. And to see the safe place that you have created for these students is so incredibly cool.

Amy: Thank you.

Sydney: Yeah. I I have been in awe of it from the time that I got here, I think you know that because I used to show up at your door and be like, tell me, tell me everything, tell me more. Because it is such, While I don't have that firsthand experience, it is such a close place to me in my heart because of people in my life. And so getting to witness that impact has been special to me and has taught me different ways that I can interact and that I can make a difference.

Amy: I love that. So, thank you.

Sydney: Yeah. Of course. Can you I want to talk a little bit more like specifically about TRIO. So if someone was unfamiliar with it, how would you explain its mission just at the base of it?

Amy: The very base of this of the mission of TRIO is to support each individual student in exactly the ways that they need to be supported Mhmm. So that they can reach their goal of graduation. And hopefully, you know, their final career goal, whether that is transferring to a four year school, which is our ultimate goal Right. For all of them, but just being where they want to be successfully and whatever their success looks like.

Yeah. So every student is different in what they need as far as that support goes. Sometimes they need tutoring. Sometimes they just need a listening ear. Sometimes they need help finding financial information.

But the basis of it is how does the student need to be supported to get them over whatever barriers are in place for them Yeah. To reach that goal that they have.

Sydney: Yeah. I feel like you have been just like a walking testimony of seeing needs and meeting them. And Macy and I talked about this a couple episodes back about that's kind of our goal at Redlands is how can I help you specifically, the student in front of me succeed? Absolutely. What can I do to break this barrier even if it is just specifically for you? And I I've seen you over and over over again make that connection and break down that barrier. So that's been really special. As far as new students, what would you say are some of the biggest challenges they face? And how does TRIO kind of help with those?

Amy: I think one of the biggest challenges is it's one of the things that I told you that I faced, which is being willing to ask for help. Yeah. Being willing to say, don't know, or I need some some resources. Just being vulnerable enough Yeah. To be honest with themselves and with other people.

Whether that I mean, that could be multiple reasons. That could be that they've never had to ask for help before, like I didn't. Mhmm. It could be that they've had to ask for help over and over, and they've not received anything meaningful.

So what's the So, really, I think it's that they don't ask for help Mhmm. And they don't engage early enough. Mhmm. So we oftentimes find that our students aren't logging in the first week of class, whether it's because they don't know how or because they don't think it's important. Right.

They always make it up later. So the engagement, both in the classroom and then with the resources that they need. And they just they don't know what they don't know.

Sydney: Mhmm.

Amy: And so, yeah, probably what the biggest one is.

Sydney: And you guys kind of fill that gap and Yes. Give them those tools to realize it's okay to ask for help. And also, this is a safe place for you to ask for help.

Amy: Every chance we get, that's what we're telling them is like, if you don't know, if you have a question, if you have a concern, if you think it might be a problem, and you don't even know how to say what it might be, you need to come sit in my at my desk, sit in that chair

Sydney: Mhmm.

Amy: And let's talk about this and let's figure it out. It's easier to fix a problem in the beginning than it is if you let it fester and grow into something bigger.

Sydney: Absolutely. So do you have any like of your favorite stories of a student that you could share that maybe shows a little bit about how much that student benefited from Trio? And I know you probably have so many different ones. And you can share more than one?

Amy: Of course, I was gonna say we could it could be here for hours. I was gonna we're gonna do that. Yeah. I always I have a few students.

A couple of them who have graduated and moved on were sitting down in my office right before I came up here. They were excited to tell me that they had were enrolled in the their next university and that they were finding resources. They had both applied for the TRIO program at their university, and and so they're getting connected. So those both of those students had their own sets of struggles, and the fact that both of them are going to be at OU Mhmm. At such a large institution, is really exciting for them.

Neither of them probably would have been successful or as successful Mhmm. If they had went to that institution first. Mhmm. Redlands was definitely an opportunity for them to learn and grow.

Specifically, one of them was one of my work studies for a year and a half. And he was specifically my work study because he needed he needed accountability. His problem or his struggle, I guess, and his barrier was more that he didn't have the time management and to be able to consistently do his work.

And so his he was missing a lot of assignments which was causing him to not be successful. So by working in my office, I was able to check-in with him on a more regular basis. I think he felt some ownership and accountability into Trio and felt like he really had to step up his game as a student.

And he did fantastic after that. And so that is one. Probably one of the ones that I'm most proud of since I've been at Redlands is a student who came to us. And one of the very first things that the young man said was he was telling his backstory of where what high school had been like for him. And he said that he had been in he had had accommodations his whole high school career, and that he'd went to a very small small high school.

And he said, really, basically, all I did was, like, dust off chalkboard erasers for my teachers. Nobody seemed to believe in me, and he's like, I promise you I'm smart. And he I could tell that that statement and him saying that meant there was so much hurt behind that young man had to take our developmental classes. He took them the summer before he officially started at Redlands, and he finished both of them in, like, six weeks. It's an eight week class in the summer.

It's really sixteen weeks. He was amazing. He did great. But I thought, oh, summer, maybe he had just been really excited.

And sometimes in the fall, they fall off. It's longer. It's all the things. The next semester, he he thought he didn't really know what he wanted to do. He was kind of just not sure.

Sure. The next semester, he took a he took general quantitative reasoning. I talked him into that. I said, let's get that out of the way. You've got your math skills up.

Let's just get that done. And he's like, oh, okay. I'll do it. He made an a in it, and he was really excited.

But his a in that and his a in English did not come easy. He actually has a couple of forms of dyslexia. So dysgraphia and dyscalculia. And so he truly struggled.

And as I worked with this student, what I realized is that his high school just didn't know how to appropriately provide accommodations for him so that he could be challenged but still be successful. Right. We have a we have two content specialists that work in my program Mhmm. That also teach our developmental classes. So Barbara Cox is our professor who teaches our English prep, And she also happens to have a really strong background in as a reading specialist and as someone who can help with, like, study skills and helping them build those types of things.

She dug in, and she worked well, they worked together. He worked with her every week for that sixteen weeks to get that a in that English class because trying to figure out the best solutions for him to be able to be successful with his with his barriers. Math, he didn't need as much help. He kinda had it figured out, and I'm not sure how because he definitely has his Calcula, but he he was good.

His spring semester, he asked to take college algebra, and I was like, don't need college algebra. Like, there's no reason.

Sydney: Right.

Amy: He's like, no. I wanna take it. I wanna take it because I wanna know I can do it.

Sydney: Oh, wow.

Amy: And he got in in that class. This young man ended up taking trig and calculus, and he graduated from Redlands with a four point o. And he moved on to a regional institution where he is majoring in engineering. He's fabulous.

Sydney: I was gonna say that, it gives me chills because it is I'm like literally sitting here like, oh my god. It's just so much proof of not just the work that you put in but the care that your program provides for students. And that looks at students as an individual. And, not as a number, not as a group, not as a statistic, but says, okay, this is you sitting in front of me. Here's what we need to do.

Amy: Absolutely.

Sydney: And, that's just so special. And you guys also serve students that come from out of state a lot of the time that are coming from, like, Chicago, New York, different different areas.

Amy: As long as they're a US resident, US citizen, then we can serve them. And we do we do have a lot of out of state, so we have different levels of education. And, you know, there's there's just every high school's different. Right. And every student that walks out of every high school's different and what they bring to the table from an academic standpoint.

Yes. So, some are really struggling with the content and the lack of knowledge of And some just really struggle with being able to have the skills to learn.

Sydney: Yeah. So. Absolutely. It is definitely, like you said earlier, it's a different beast. And I think even as someone who came from a family that had gone to college, it was still a transition coming into college.

And so you think about it, if you didn't have that experience, if you didn't have someone that you could turn to and say, how do I get this access code? Because those are Access codes. I can't get me started on an access code. And that's one of those things that maybe alone, it wouldn't be that bad. But combine it with not knowing what the bursar is, combine it with not knowing what the registrar is, how do I enroll in classes, what classes do I even take? Yes. And also trying to understand like, can I trust this person that I don't know to lead me in the right direction?

Amy: Yes. Absolutely. That's very scary.

Sydney: So we are going into the fall semester.

It's coming up. We talked a little bit about just different things that you guys have coming. And I would love to talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But what advice would you give to someone who's coming in and is nervous about starting this new semester?

Amy: Take a deep breath. Go to your classes.

Go to your classes. Classes are not optional. You should be in every class that is in session.

So go to your classes. Engage with your resources. Engage with your instructors. Engage with other students. Talk to them about if if you're not brave enough to come and ask me a question or to ask your instructor, ask one of your fellow classmates. Don't always trust that they know what they're talking about either because they're probably also new, and they probably don't know.

But maybe they do. Maybe they figured it out. Right. And hopefully, they're brave enough to say, oh, I don't know. Let's go ask together.

Right. But I would really just say, find someone you trust and go ask them questions. And be vulnerable and just say, I don't know this.

Sydney: Yeah. Absolutely.

Sydney: Do you think there's a way as faculty and staff that we can better partner to support TRIO and their efforts?

Amy: Actually, we are so lucky Yeah. As a TRIO program here at Redlands that we have so much support and buy in from our faculty and staff and administration. There are other programs across the country that it makes me so sad that they don't have that. Yeah. Sometimes I go to conferences and other meetings, and people are complaining, and I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna put my head down and be quiet because I don't want to brag. But I have great support here. Honestly, for, like, a new faculty member and somebody that's new that's a new staff member, I would just say to come see us. Talk to us.

We would love to tell you all of the ways that we are happy to help. If you have an idea of whether it's for an individual student or a group of students, if you have an idea of something you want to do and you want to test it out with a smaller group, I'm always happy to do that. I have this dream of, at some point, maybe having, like, small study groups set up for all of our science classes because those are a beast for students, and they just don't know they're going to be such a challenge.

So in my mind, we have, like, this set curriculum where a student would feel comfortable coming in and leading these student led study sessions for all of those Oh. All of those those classes. I'm happy to do that and work with somebody on all of that. If somebody has an idea I would love to hear it.

Because I think there's so many great ideas out there, and there's so many challenges that we need to tackle.

Sydney: That science comment made me laugh because I absolutely knew how terrible science classes were gonna be. And I was like, whatever I have to do to not be more than two of them, that is what that is what I will do. You talked about different ideas. Do you have some exciting events coming up for TRIO students this fall?

Amy: We do. So our first number of events, we actually just finalized our fall plans this morning. So we have our the second week of class, we will have our annual bingo night. That is a great opportunity for all of our trio students returning and new to get together, play a low stakes game, and be silly.

We feed them. We actually have a a person who I will tell you about in a second Yeah. Who he owns a company called Simple Money. Mhmm. He has been kind enough to sponsor our dinner for the Naya, so he's gonna feed our kiddos, and then they get to come and play games.

The wonderful thing, back to all of the support from faculty and staff on campus, Each year, we have asked our faculty and staff to consider donating a meal of some sort as a prize for our students. Often, students are fully dependent on financial aid or heavily dependent on it. And financial aid disbursements don't come in until about week six. So we've got about six weeks where these students are in their apartments, and they may or may not have a good a decent amount of money to buy food.

So as a college student, free food is always great. And if it has some aspect of something they can recreate or even if it just fills their belly. So our faculty and staff have come in and done a great job of donating. It has been wonderful.

Most years, we have between forty and fifty students Mhmm. Who come to bingo night, and no one has left without a prize. Wow. So our faculty and staff are amazing to support us. That's why when you asked that a minute ago, was like, oh, no.

We've all got support.

Sydney: And I did not know that was gonna be your answer, but I was so glad it was.

Amy: Yes. It's fabulous. So we also have simple money. So MJ Pittman is coming September, and he talks to our students.

A big portion of what we are required to do by the Department of Ed is make sure that our students have good financial knowledge and financial literacy and that they leave here with as little debt as possible. That is our goal. Yeah. So MJ comes in and talks to them about budgeting, about money mindset, which is oftentimes a big portion of why people overspend or don't think don't think in a healthy way about money, and it has a lot to do with their families and how they've always experienced money. So that is really impactful.

We have another lady. Her name is Raquel Mhmm. Who comes in in October. I had to think about that. Sorry.

Sydney: You have a lot of things.

Amy: In October, we will have Raquel. Raquel comes in and chats with our students about how to successfully search for, write for, and interview for scholarships. And she spends about 3 and a half, 4 hours with our students.

They actually write a first version of the essay. So when they leave this this seminar That we have her do,

they actually walk away with a version of this essay so that they can successfully submit for these scholarships.

Sydney: What a wonderful thing.

Amy: So it's awesome. Yeah. We also have some more less academic, more fun things. We'll do pumpkin carving in October. We'll decorate Christmas ornaments and that type of thing too.

Sydney: It really is. I mean, when you walk into the trio room, it honestly feels like it's a big family. Yeah. It's just I mean, I don't think I've ever gone in there and there not been a student or five at least.

Hanging out and they're even in the summertime. Yeah. When they don't have to be here.

So that has always been really cool. I have some rapid fire questions.

Amy: Oh, okay.

Sydney: So what is one piece of advice you would give your college self?

Amy: Ask for help. Go to class. Check your email. Not do I didn't consistently do either.

Check your email.

Yes. That was good. I didn't always do all both of those things and my transcript could my transcript's great, but it's could have been better. Yeah.

So there you go. Yeah. Perfect.

Sydney: Yeah. What is one word you would use to describe Trio?

Amy: Empowering.

Sydney: That's awesome. A book or show you've been recommending lately?

Amy: Oh, I've got a few. Oh, yeah? Okay. Books on Tyranny. If you haven't read it, it's short and it's good.

And then a little more fun, but not fun in a woohoo way, is Before the Coffee Turns Cold. Okay. It's a really interesting book on imagining that you could go back in time to a specific time and have a connection with someone that you would like to change what that connection looked like. And it's really more about, like, society and relationships and how how different the same person that we could perceive this interaction friendly.

And so it's it's interesting. It's good. On shows, The Bear, if you haven't seen it.

Sydney: It's fantastic.

Amy: So good. I'm I actually am gonna beginning to go to Chicago in September, and I'm so excited to go to Mr. Beef. It's getting great. My high school daughter talked me into watching We Were Liars.

Sydney: Oh, yes. Okay. My mom was just asking about this the other day.

Amy: Mhmm. It's it's a high schoolish coming of age thing, but it has a really good twist to it. Yeah. And I didn't know if I loved it all the way through, but I got to the end and I was like, oh, that was good.

Okay. So I accept defeat. And then reservation dogs. It's it's a little bit older. But if you've not seen that, it is definitely one. If you're from Oklahoma it's one to be proud of. It is written, produced, acted, everything in Oklahoma. And it is fantastic.

Sydney: Well, you heard it here first. Amy Graham's picks of what we should look at. So what is one small habit that leads to big results?

Amy: Regular planning and organization.

Sydney: I've got sticky notes. I've got a notebook everywhere for that reason.

Amy: Absolutely. Planners. Use your planner. Look at your planner all the time.

Sydney: Put a note on your calendar.

Amy: Yes. I sometimes will get paralysis from being overwhelmed and just sitting like I'm like,

oh, well, I'll just do something else given I don't know what to do here. And I know when I put down in a plan what I need to be doing, even if it's just a checklist. It's fantastic. Sometimes I do something. I'll squirrel and add do something that wasn't on my list.

I'm like, oh, I need to put that on there and check it off too because that feels good.

Sydney: Yes. I do that all the time. And I think that's so important because I am very much that person that puts things off for so long because I think it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard. I don't have time to do it.

I do it. It was never that bad. It's not hard. And I get to check it off my to do list.

One last one. What is one mistake students make early on?

Amy: Not engaging. Not engaging in their classes, not checking their email, not not engaging with the resources that they have. They they feel like they can be independent or they don't need help. Or they're just simply not they don't go to class.

That type of thing.

Sydney: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that wraps up what I wanna talk to you about. Is there anything else you want to add or

Amy: No. I just wanted to say thank you so much for having me and letting me highlight Trio. I'm always happy to talk about it. It's one of the things that I love most in life. And so I'm always happy to answer questions and tell people about it.

Sydney: I would like to ask you, if someone wanted to get involved or learn more about TRIO, how would they do that?

Amy: So if you're on campus and you want to come to my office, we are in 120. You can see me. You can see Erica Dags. Either one of us can help you at any time in person. And you can also go to our website. Our application is on there if you go to the Redlands website and search for Trio SSS, it goes to a website that tells you about our services and what we do, and then our application's there and our contact information.

Sydney: Okay. So, awesome. Well, I'm so glad you guys tuned in and that you got to learn a little bit more from my friend Amy about Trio and how you can get involved. And, I'm hopeful that you'll come back for our next episode. We will get to do a student success story or a spotlight.

And, we're just really looking forward to doing a little bit more of this. But, if you have any questions or ideas, let us know. Thanks, guys.