Getting wired for success in rural Arizona

For students in rural Arizona, having high-speed internet can mean the difference between going to college or not.

Something as simple as accessing a college application or taking a course online is often out of their reach. That places them at the back of the school bus in competing with their urban peers.

Two years ago, state officials vowed to do something about it. They applied for and received federal matching monies to start the Arizona Initiative for Broadband Education program.

Since then, construction has been completed or is underway to bring broadband to rural schools across the state. Over the next two years, the goal is to help schools provide high-speed internet to 282,000 students.

“This is going to enable distance learning. It will allow a kid to watch open heart surgery being performed at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, take a biology class from Arizona State University or an architectural design course from MI-JTED (Mountain Institute Joint Technical Education District) in Prescott,” said Arizona Department of Education E-Rate Controller Milan Eaton, whose office handles applications from schools wanting broadband.

“By providing high-speed internet, we’re opening these kids up to the world,” he said. “That’s what we need to do. That’s our responsibility.”

In addition to bridging the technology gap for students, small school districts that pay thousands of dollars a month for poor quality internet, will now pay only a few hundred dollars a month for high-speed service as good as “downtown Phoenix,” Eaton said.

Rural Arizona schools among most needy in nation

In Arizona where 135 out of 223 school districts are considered rural, high-speed connectivity is  a critical issue.

A few years ago, Arizona’s rural schools were ranked second in the nation for having the “highest needs,” according to , a 50-state report by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Rural School and Community Trust.

A lack of broadband connectivity was cited as a major factor. While enrollment by high school students in online dual enrollment classes continued to rise, rural students in Arizona were being left behind.

With the help of Gov. Doug Ducey and former Arizona Corporation Commissioner Andy Tobin, Eaton was able to secure $11 million in state funding to use for matching funding to apply for a Federal Communications Commission grant.

The return on the state’s money has been tenfold. More than $115 million in federal funding has been awarded to Arizona to bring broadband to rural schools and libraries in all 15 counties.

The high amount awarded reflects Arizona’s extreme need. Schools must meet certain poverty guidelines to receive funding.

Equipping school buses, hot box packs

Rural students in the state, many whom are Latino, low-income or first-generation students, consistently come up short when it comes to postsecondary academic attainment, according to a released last October by the nonprofit College Success Arizona.

To help bridge the technological divide for poor students, schools like Alta Vista High School, an alternative charter school in South Tucson, allow them to check out hot boxes so they can have internet at home, too.

In the Vail school district nearby, school buses that trek to outlying areas within the 425-square- mile district have long been equipped with wifi so students can study on the 45-minute rides to and from school.

Vail, that is largely a suburban district with a couple of rural pockets, was one of the first in the nation to provide one-on-one laptops for students. It later developed a comprehensive online lesson sharing program called that it sells to other districts.

Technology has been the “driving force” behind the district’s high academic success, Communications Director Darcy Mentone said. To read more about how broadband is impacting Arizona schools, go to: .

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Mesa Community College released a customized version of Emsi Career Coach, which is set to help students and future students make career and education decisions.

Emsi Career Coach is an online tool that uses Valley workforce data and a personality assessment to introduce users to fitting career ideas and lead them on a path to success in their education and their career endeavors.  

“If you’re not sure what you want to study, we really want to get people thinking about careers as maybe one of the first steps, so you can match your knowledge skills and aptitude to a good fit,” Michael Voss, Mesa Community College (MCC) Dean of Career and Technical Education, said.

Voss explained that when students plan for education and career decisions, they consider potential salary, , and the ability to grow.

When students pursue an education, they “want to make sure they get a good return on that investment,” he said.

Emsi Career Coach also takes the user’s personality and strengths into account.

“I think a lot of times people just aren’t quite sure. You wouldn’t believe how many undecided students we get that really want direction. They want to know from us, ‘What is the best bet? Maybe I’m interested in this, but what if there’s a better option?,’” Voss said.

The users can choose a 60-question assessment or a quick six-question assessment for the personality and strength portion of the test.

“Emsi Career Coach created a proprietary six question version that works pretty effectively. Time is of the essence for people, you know? They want to get to what they’re looking for right away,” Voss said.

He added, “And so, the six-question version is a nice way to not lose your audience and maybe get them tied to their career searches and then better yet matching the educational offerings that prepare them for their careers.”

Emsi Career Coach is available to MCC students, but it is unique because it is also available to future MCC students and others who are considering the school.

“The reason why this one works pretty well compared to some other ones we’ve looked at is when you use the tool, you don’t have to be a student here yet or you don’t need to create a log in,” Voss said.

He added, “So, you can get that information right away. That is a big distinguishing characteristic of Career Coach and other tools.”

The tool’s availability to those who are considering MCC helps future students gain a better idea of the education path they want to take so they can reach career goals.

“We really want to establish that connection with that person so once they’ve made the first step in the journey, we can help them with the rest of that. And, we can have that high-touch conversation,” Voss said.

Emsi Career Coach piques interest, and MCC helps the students take it to the next step. Voss explained that future or current students can request more information, meet with faculty and visit the campus so they can figure out their next steps.

“I think people need connection and sense of assurity to validate their thinking or validate some ideas off of [others] so they don’t start just taking courses and then realize, ‘Ugh, I had no idea this is what it was going to be,’” he said.

Emsi Career Coach can also serve as a helpful tool for transitioning military service members as it can match their current work with civilian jobs, Voss explained.

The MCC-customized Emsi Career Coach can be found .

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) has granted Phoenix College nearly $1.5 million to support integrating research, mentoring and industry collaborations to improve STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) recruitment and retention among minority students at the college. The grant comes as part of the first round of grants from the NSF’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions program, also known as the HSI program.

“The National Science Foundation has a strong commitment to promoting the health, prosperity and welfare of the nation by broadening participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” said Dr. Talitha Washington, co-lead program director of the NSF HSI program.

Phoenix College had to meet a rigorous set of merit requirements to be chosen for the competitive HSI grant.

“All proposals for HSI funding go through NSF’s gold-standard merit review process that identifies which projects to support,” Washington said. “That process considers both the technical aspects of a proposed project and its potential to contribute more broadly to advancing NSF’s mission.”

Phoenix College is part of the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD), one of the largest community college systems in the United States. Out of a total of 10 campuses, all of which are regionally-accredited, six are now designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), and more will follow.

“What is really great about our colleges is that we serve a large percentage of Hispanic students, and many of them are first-generation college students,” said Robin Cotter, professor of biosciences at Phoenix College and one of the primary project team members who authored the NSF grant proposal.

Maricopa Community College faculty used their free time to form the grant proposal in the hope that they might introduce their students to more research opportunities that will better prepare them for the workforce, Cotter said.

“Many of us come from research backgrounds, and we know that helping our students make connections with industry and university partners is key to their success as they move along that pathway toward their career,” Cotter said. “So we decided to take our free time — we weren’t paid to do this — and we worked together to develop this application. It included faculty from biology, psychology, math, geology, physics; and we all worked together to develop this proposal that then competed at the national level.”

This is the first time this particular grant has been offered by the NSF to HSIs nationwide. Among the applicants were community colleges and universities, including Research I (R1) Universities — highly competitive research institutions. The grant will fund Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) for students at Phoenix College, and the program is expected to impact more than 3,000 community college students.

The MCCCD schools have teaching laboratories but no independent research labs, inadvertently withholding vital opportunities from students hoping to find careers in STEM fields. The CURE model inserts research directly into community college coursework.

“We decided that since we couldn’t give our students independent research opportunities, we were going to embed it into our curriculum,” Cotter said. “And nationwide, they’re telling us that embedding practical applications of knowledge is the best way to teach students and prepare them.”

Phoenix College is already partnering with local businesses and governments to create opportunities for students to build practical skills. At the request of industry leaders, the college is making workforce training a core part of its curriculum, putting students in touch with industry partners within the first two years of their academic careers.

“I’m really excited to say that we’re partnering with the City of Surprise and their water treatment plant,” Cotter said. “We’re going to identify ways that we can look for micro-plastics and other pollutants in our water system, and then we’re going to have the students work on ways of removing them in order to improve water quality across the region.”

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is another partner. Students who work with the USDA will look at the impact of environmental factors, including pesticides, on the survival of crop pollinators such as honeybees.

“The honeybee population is important to the agricultural community here in Arizona and nationwide,” Cotter said. “So we’re going to be working with the USDA, based out of Tucson, and the students will be studying what actually impacts honeybee health and how this can be resolved so that we can maintain these pollinators that are necessary for our agricultural community.”

One of the NSF’s goals is to gain a better understanding of how to enhance undergraduate STEM education at HSIs, Washington said.

“The HSI program seeks to increase the number of STEM undergraduate students, who ultimately will become STEM professionals,” Washington said. “It seeks to increase retention and graduation rates for STEM students at HSIs and to increase the number of STEM educators and students at HSIs that have little or no prior NSF funding.”

Phoenix College received the NSF grant as the result of faculty-driven collaboration between all 10 MCCCD campuses, Cotter said.

“We recognize the need to train our students for the workforce, and that it’s really built on community partnerships, and we encourage anybody who wants to be involved to reach out to us,” Cotter said.

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