[00:00:00] Bonni: Today on Episode 266 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Stephanie Bianco shares about experiential learning through Healthy Communities.

[00:00:13] Production credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

[00:00:22] Bonni: Hello, and welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches, so we can have more peace in our lives, and be even more present for our students.

Today, I welcome to the show, Stephanie Bianco, and she is brought to me by the California State University collaboration that has been formed between Teaching in Higher Ed and their organization. In this special Teaching in Higher Ed podcast series, we highlight outstanding faculty that are transforming higher education and supporting student success throughout the California State University.

The individuals you’ll hear about in this series, including Stephanie Bianco, have sought to address the equity gaps that previously existed in their courses or programs through innovative course, redesigns and creative teaching approaches.

Stephanie Bianco is the director at California State University Chico’s Center for Healthy Communities. Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science, and is a registered dietitian.

Her areas of expertise are in program and organization management, nutrition education, food insecurity prevention, and food safety training. Professor Bianco was instrumental in expanding the CalFresh Program to assist economically disadvantaged, first-generation EOP, foster youth, disabled, and housing insecure students with the CalFresh application process. This program directly impacts tens of thousands of college students across the California State University, University of California, California Community Colleges and a private university becoming a national model.

One of the primary reasons for CalFresh outreach is success statewide, is the CHC’s student internship, which you’ll hear about in this interview. Stephanie values these internship experiences, more than any information or skills obtained in a classroom, because these internships are life changing and unforgettable. Stephanie, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.

[00:02:51] Stephanie: Hi, Bonni, thank you for inviting me.

[00:02:53] Bonni: We just heard a little bit about your role. You reminded me a little bit of my role, too, because whenever someone says, “What do you do?” It’s kind of like, “Well, I do this, and then I do this.” [chuckles] I think it will be helpful for us if we hear a little bit more about how you approach this dual role of yours and how it actually helps you fulfill your mission even better.

[00:03:13] Stephanie: Right. I actually feel like I have many hats on at various times, and I have to check myself when I’m out in the Capitol building in Sacramento. I’m not sure if I’ve got my director hat on, my faculty hat. I’m in the classroom and I’ve got students who work for me, and I’m not sure am I a faculty member or am I the director. Yes, it’s kind of tricky to keep them all straight, but it’s also important to do that. I see how I have evolved from teaching in the classroom, and how it’s gone from the topics or theories within my discipline to the actual application, and how the students in the classroom are able to share those experiences and really deepen the conversations. It’s quite unique, and I’m excited to share it with you.

[00:04:06] Bonni: We have heard on recent and not so recent episodes about this epidemic of food and housing insecurity. I love the way that today’s conversation can draw upon that. I would hope that people who have been listening for a while recognize now that this is a problem. I feel like today’s conversation is really going to have a little bit of a unique approach to some of the solution. We can begin with a broad topic of experiential learning. I know we could all go find the formal definitions, but I would just love to hear your definition, Stephanie, of what is experiential learning?

[00:04:46] Stephanie: Well, as the name implies, it’s the actual experience that a student would most likely have once they graduate. It’s the experience that could include paraprofessional experience from the meetings that they have with their colleagues, to the communication skills that they develop in an organization or business, to the work and service surrounding the customers they may have, or the community members they serve. It’s the real application of what they’re learning in the classroom. It also includes, I would say, civic engagement, the act of practical political engagement, and that process, that political process. It’s unique, it’s absolutely unique because we are grant funded, many of those grants derive from bills that are passed at the national level. They can actually see the application of their vote in their community. That is basically with experiential learning is what it encompasses.

Some also use the term service learning that has more of a narrow definition, at the university level where there are certain objectives in a classroom that are applied in fieldwork, where it’s the service that they’re providing and where the learning is coming from. Again, it’s tied back to a classroom. I would say, with the center, the Center for Healthy Communities, we’re multidisciplined, we have students and faculty from every college at Chico State, as well as students from almost every discipline.

It’s not necessarily tied to a specific course, but more of an area of interest. If they are interested in public health, community outreach, any kind of community service, they’re definitely engaged in getting the experiences that they wouldn’t have in the classroom.

[00:06:55] Bonni: Would you share a bit about any examples or an example that comes to mind when you think about a student having really an awakening around civic engagement. A time when you saw someone just say, “Oh, my gosh,” that this voting process that either they had participated in or never had participated in, actually matters and our civic engagement matters because of the way that you approach the learning there.

[00:07:25] Stephanie: Sure. One of my classes is an advanced management class, in nutrition. I focus a lot on the school food service programs, the meal programs, National School breakfast and lunch programs. Many of the students don’t realize where the funding comes from until they get into the class. Some of the students might be from conservative households where a free or reduced meal or even receiving CalFresh, or SNAP, as it’s called on the national level, is considered welfare or a handout. They have that going into the class, not recognizing that this law, or this bill that’s been approved, is impacting the lives of children who would otherwise go hungry.

Until we actually have the conversation in the classroom, and until they see the trickle down or the allocation of those dollars from the bill, it doesn’t really sink in. I have seen students firsthand, who you can just see it in their face, when you talk about the stories in the classrooms where kids are coming to school early in the morning, and they didn’t even have dinner the night before. When they hear that they recognize, “Well, this is not the fault of the child. Thank goodness, we have these funds.” Then, we talk about it in terms of the application at the center, where we’re going into these the K through 12 classrooms, the low-income schools, where we’re providing nutrition education. They’re seeing firsthand with these kids, the high need that they have, and the chance of them succeeding in life is pretty dismal, if they’re not getting this kind of support.

One student, in particular, came up to me, she was one from a very conservative family, and was not quite sure about even doing an internship with us at the center because we were funded primarily through USDA and the Farm Bill. After the class, she just said that she had wished she had known about this sooner, and wish she had had more time and would have had the experiences here to see it and would have probably voted differently if she had known. It’s just interesting that a lifetime political affiliation or I would even say that type of social pressure on students until they’re 18, 20 years old, can be jarred, that process can be jarred just after one class, and the experiences that they have here at the center. It’s a quite powerful thing, and it gives me great joy.

[00:10:19] Bonni: You have a couple programs to share with us about before we really get to the ways in which they facilitate learning, would you share with us about basic needs and CalFresh programs?

[00:10:31] Stephanie: Sure, if I can, I’d like to just explain how the center functions. I believe the Center for Healthy Communities is one of the largest centers in the CSUs. We started off really small with my colleague, Dr. Cindy Wolff, she started with one small grant through USDA funding. Then, by the time I got here in 2006, that small pot turned into, I believe, $2-$2.5 million for this one project, serving the far north in these communities. With that grant, it’s folded in full-time benefited staff, students, staff, and interns. The interns are the driving force, essentially behind the work that we do. Those interns then become proficient in these areas, they then become leaders and train their peers as paid student staff.

In fact, many of those paid students, staff are working here full-time in benefited positions because they end up loving it. Where we went from two interns, we now have 50 interns each semester, where we had two paid staff, we’re now at 80 staff and 50 interns or 130 individuals every semester. It’s a huge system. It’s an organization that really supports the academic mission of the university, in terms of folding in grad students and grad research. We have faculty from other disciplines that come in and work with us on many of these grants in contracts.

As we started with the one large contract, we tried to diversify our funding portfolio. We have applied and we continue to apply for 20 grants and contracts a year. We have about 20 to 30 different grants and contracts within the center. I would say right now, at this moment, our largest grant contract is through the USDA and California Department of Social Services with our CalFresh Outreach prime contract.

The Center for Healthy Communities is one of five prime contractors in the state. We have been a prime contractor since 2006. However, at that time, we were really focusing on our low-income communities in our surrounding area in the north state. It was only until our budget became quite tight and we decided to really hone in on some of our students that were close by, not necessarily knowing at the time that the students were in such high need. It was a coincidence that at that same year, I would say around 2011, that we really started seeing the high need and the research started to come out about the rates of food insecurity among our students, especially in California, by far the poorest state in the nation when you account for cost of living.

These students were just low hanging fruit as we call them because they were in our backyard here. We couldn’t believe the numbers. When we were communicating with the state, they said, “Wow, this is something you should be duplicating on the other campuses.” Essentially with CalFresh outreach, we’re really helping those students apply for CalFresh and actually complete the verification process and the interview process over that 30-day window so that then they can be determined eligible and receive those CalFresh dollars in their pockets for food. That’s how that started.

Right now, we went from our campus and our sister at Butte community college campus, working with them to then reaching out to the Chancellor’s Office within the CSU system. They were a huge support. Dr. Sabrina Sanders was instrumental in helping us communicate with the other 22 campuses, CSU campuses to see if they wanted to be on this contract with us.

Sure enough, that first contract period, we were able to recruit nine other CSU campuses. That first two-year contract that we had with the Higher Ed system was with 10 CSUs. For those of you who are familiar with grants and contracts and our proposal process, sometimes you have a very short window of time. We did, I think we were given like four weeks. It was quite challenging to work with different offices of sponsored projects and research foundations, as you can imagine, but the team here at CSU Chico in our center are amazing. That’s one thing I will say is I’m really good at hiring. [chuckles] They are just an amazing team. I’m so privileged to work with all of them. They have been instrumental.

We went from 10 CSU campuses to our new 2019 through 2021, three-year contract with the state. We have a whopping 44 campuses impacted with this contract so it’s huge. We’re very excited that we’re able to model what we’ve done at Chico State across the state on these other campuses. I would say the prime reason we can do this is because of this internship model that we have.

[00:16:21] Bonni: You’re bringing a perfect segue for me because I was thinking about– First of all, I had no idea. Even though I prepared for this interview, I don’t think anything could have prepared me for how massive this is. Congratulations, that’s really exciting to think about this impact.

I wanted to have us take a step back and a step over, because so many people listening won’t be responsible at all for anything related to basic needs or CalFresh in their communities, but most people listening to this podcast, either already have internship programs, or certainly would have the capacity to launch one if they don’t already have one. What are some of the things that you’ve learned along the way about internships? I suspect based on what you just said, probably some of that will be around hiring of interns and then training them? What are some of the lessons learned there?

[00:17:07] Stephanie: In fact, we actually have a training module, starting your own internship module with all of the resources we use that are available on our website. I’ll definitely provide that resource to you so you can share with the listeners. Just like with any hiring process, there are steps that need to take place. I would suggest that if they don’t have an internship model going, you can start and very small with just two or three students just to get your feet wet but it does start with a recruitment, an application, working with your human resource department, making sure that they’re aware that you’re doing that in terms of risk management.

I will say the best way to start is really through a course, a supervision-lead course. Many programs in college campuses already have these established in their course catalog, whether it be through social work, or they have field work placements, it can be nursing and community health or public health nursing. In my nutrition department, we have placements and community nutrition, health and community services, many that already exist.

Basically, what you’re doing is you’re signing up those students within that class, they are then expected to complete those units, which equate to so many hours. For example, three units would equate to 135 hours over a given semester. Then, there’s either a pass, no pass or credit, no credit expectation. Once you sign up a student, you would have learning objectives or internship objectives. We also have mid semester evaluations and then final performance evaluations at the end. With that internship model and with funding, you can also build in the opportunity for a paid student staff position.

We have a policy that once you get through either to 90-hour internships or one 135-hour internships, you qualify for a paid position. Then they would have an opportunity to actually apply and provide their resume and have an actual interview. It really helps them in terms of future job applications and employment, as well as giving them the experience out in the field.

You’re right, and that is a way to get started. Again, we don’t reinvent the wheel. Please, utilize the resources we have, including these online resources, fill in forms and such.

[00:19:48] Bonni: It is hard to get as good at hiring as you are without making some mistakes along the way. What’s a mistake that you made that we could learn from and perhaps avoid it ourselves?

[00:19:59] Stephanie: Well, I would say not having an internship and just hiring someone would be a mistake. Because regardless of their expertise or knowledge in the field, if they don’t have the skills, being on time, their email communication, their verbal communication, if you can’t rely on them, if they can’t work independently, these are all characteristics that you need with a new hire.

[00:20:26] Bonni: In this case, you’re distinguishing hiring them after they’ve had these internships, so the internship ends up being more of a filtering process and then you’re not having to rely as heavily then on the resume. Of course, you still are, but you have greater evidence of what would make them successful or not in the role just by them being in that internship program and getting to demonstrate the character and the discipline and the other emotional intelligence, et cetera.

[00:20:53] Stephanie: It’s so interesting too, Bonni, because I have had, gosh, hundreds and hundreds of students who have worked here at the center with me who I’ve also taught, or who have also been a point of discussion among faculty who might be students who are struggling and need support. It will surprise me when I say, “Wow, this student is absolutely amazing at the center, and might not be the strongest student, but you can rely on them and the maturity and I would hire them in a second.”

It’s nice for those students that actually don’t do that well, taking tests or have trouble getting their work done in the classroom can also have other skill sets that would otherwise be lost by faculty, so I can share that with them. It’s more of a well-rounded picture of the student when they’re also working here at the center.

[00:21:50] Bonni: What are the other aspects involving experiential learning that we haven’t explored? We’ve looked at internship, but that is a component but is there other aspects of experiential learning you want to draw out from?

[00:22:03] Stephanie: Most of the contracts that we have are intervention activities out in the field. Those all require planning, they all require communication with the sites. They require organization and travel. We really try to encourage the students to look at the budgets that they’re dealing with so they can be cost-effective with those dollars. They can understand the restrictions of a state or federal funder with what can be spent. They’re learning the ins and out of these soft dollars that they would otherwise not get, I think, from the classroom.

That kind of experiential learning and even the professors teaching wouldn’t necessarily have that experience to draw from and they bring that into the classroom. I’ve had faculty say, “Wow, these students they are making the conversations happen in the classroom.” They will talk about, let’s say, ways to encourage better eating habits or improved health behaviors and there’s kind of these wrote suggestions in textbooks, but the reality of the low-income population will come to mind to that student who’s actually out there and go, “Oh. That’s not going to happen, or that’s not real, or they’re not going to be cooking at home because they have two jobs.” Things of that nature. Experiential learning in terms of just the reality of the population served.

[00:23:39] Bonni: Part of what I hear you saying through your story, or at least I’m projecting this on to you, is helping them to think a little bit about measuring success. There are so many ways we can approach this, but what have you seen them learn about what success looks like as they’re going out into the field?

[00:23:57] Stephanie: Well, we talk a lot about the purpose of why they’re going out. I’m very proud of the program managers here at the center because they really emphasize the quality of the work we’re doing and the impact we’re making. They do share that with their students, staff, and interns. Going in is the expectation for the student, that is something they need to look at.

Whether it’s anecdotal evidence, qualitative information coming back, I think they recognize that we are evaluating it in one way or another, they’re almost always some sort of evaluation tool that accompanies what they’re doing. If they are doing their six-week cooking session, there’s an evaluation piece built in, they’re asking questions to the participants of, “Is this realistic for you? Is this something you would do? Is there something you don’t like?”

We’re hoping that that is something they take with them when they leave, and that it’s not just a matter of checking a box, when they get to their first job, professional job, but that they’re looking at the impact they’re having, and always questioning why they’re doing what they’re doing.

The other aspect of what we do, that we’re very proud of is our work environment. We pride ourselves on family first. We pride ourselves on health first of our staff and our interns. We recognize that not everyone has a great day every day and we really try to support each other and communicate. We hope that that then will trickle down to them and the jobs, their future jobs, and they have that expectation for their jobs. I’ve had a lot of experiences prior to working here, and I learned more from those bad experiences than anything and we don’t want that to happen here. We want our students to learn the value of a positive work environment. That’s another aspect of experiential learning they’re getting.

Some of us say that we’re setting them up for failure because we are so supportive here. I disagree. I think it’s an ideal work environment and that we should encourage students to desire that and want that. We also help them with things you might not think of, in terms of getting a raise in a promotion. It used to be that at the center, the vast majority of our staff were women. As you can imagine, with that comes low pay, low rates of promotion, because of that gender gap or the inequity. We really are working hard to help change that just on our own here.

We really encourage all of our staff to look at their productivity, and look at what they want and where they want to go, and how are they going to get there. It’s a lot broader than just working in our communities. It really is a big picture, paraprofessional experiences that they’re getting.

[00:27:07] Bonni: It is so fun to hear about all these different experiences that you’re having that I’m seeing such interrelated things and you write about this so much in terms of the internships and then how they serve the community, but then they’re part of the community too so all these interwoven, interdependencies and it’s really, really, really fun to hear. I know we need to move on to the recommendation segment, but I feel tempted to ask you, is there any story you wanted to tell or any big thing you wanted to get across before we do that and shift gears a little bit?

[00:27:37] Stephanie: Well, I did want to mention something about the basic needs initiative within the CSU system and within the other Higher Ed systems. The reality of basic needs really hits home for me as a faculty member when we hear that students aren’t doing as well as the demographic exchange in our campuses, we see these declines and we want to say, it’s the student, or we need to change the way in which we teach and we focus on the pedagogy and all aspects of teaching.

I just want to remind everyone that it doesn’t matter how well we teach if the students aren’t there, by not having their basic needs met, they are working additional hours outside of the classroom, they’re working late hours, they’re not coming to class at all. They’re not doing their homework, because they can’t. If they are in class, they might be sleeping. If they’re hungry, they’re not going to be as present mentally as they should be. The gratification I feel for doing this work surrounding basic needs is quite profound, because it’s not only helping them get money in their pockets for food, but it’s also allowing them to work less outside of the classroom and to come to class and have more of an opportunity to catch up and to be there for the classrooms.

I just wanted to reiterate that the work we’re doing, it comes full circle because here you have students helping other students meet their basic needs. They’re eliminating the stigma when they’re sitting peer to peer at a desk working on that application together. They’re like, “Yes, I didn’t have to sell my car. I didn’t have to take that other job.” Or, “I was able to spend more time cooking.” All of these things are happening with having CalFresh Outreach and the pantries on our campus for the additional food that they need.

I just want to remind everyone that we really do need to consider their basic needs. Financial aid is not covering their basic needs, it’s covering their tuition and their fees. We know there’s a huge gap when it comes to housing and food. As a reminder, we see this firsthand and we’re really doing a lot of research right now on the impact of these social services on student success variables, like ours in the classroom, or attendance in the classroom, or doing their actual assignments, not just looking at graduation rates and GPA, although those are important long term, we really do need to look at the day to day, week by week impact that basic needs are having on their success.

[00:30:38] Bonni: Yes, otherwise it’s just too much of lagging indicators and you can’t always be behind in terms of responding. That’s wonderful.

[00:30:46] Stephanie: Thanks. I appreciate you letting me squeeze that in there.

[00:30:49] Bonni: Oh, I’m so glad that you did. I just loved how there were so many themes that you just were able to go back to because I was thinking about many of those things too in terms of coming full circle and reducing the stigma. That’s wonderful. This is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations. I did warn you in advance, mine’s a little long, but I got so inspired by this.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Catherine and I think it’s Savini, S-A-V-I-N-I. She wrote an article called, “Are You Being Rigorous or Just Intolerant?” I had actually been asked a similar question. I write an advice column once a month for EdSurge. Someone had asked me a similar question about, “Am I being too hard on these students?” Just really struggling with where to land and she said it so much more eloquently than I did. I wanted to share a couple of things that she was talking about.

She was talking about, how do you decide too rigorous or just intolerant? She said, one of the things for her that’s been really helpful is that she’s learned how to push past those initial flashes of frustration when something happens in the classroom. I’m reading some of her words here. I’m quoting her. “Thanks to fresh data on the mental health of college students and to recent research on teaching.”

She brings up Peter Senge. He’s a really big thinker in systems thinking. He writes about something called The Ladder of Inference. This goes back to my master’s level and doctoral-level studies. There are five levels of this ladder of inference. The first one is we observe a person’s behavior. Then we select data from what we observe. This is going to sound like a lot of research processes many of us go through. Then we interpret that data through the lens of previous experience. Then we make assumptions. Then we draw conclusions about that person.

She talks about how quickly we go up and down that ladder of inference, and that that speed causes us to unconsciously draw conclusions that are based on scant data. Again, I’m quoting her here. “To make matters worse, once we’ve drawn our conclusions, we only entertained data that confirms them. If a student is late, we might assume he doesn’t respect our time. Every time he’s late, our judgment gets confirmed, but if we gather more data, we might discover that the latecomer has OCD, and struggles just to get out of the house. Of course, the student could just be inconsiderate or a slacker, but we don’t know unless we seek out more information.”

This final paragraph that I’ll share of hers really strikes a chord with me because it’s something I have exactly encountered. She says, again, I’m quoting, “I decided to take the information-seeking route. ‘Tell me about the earbuds,’ I asked one day. The story of this 18-year-old struggles emerged. He had been in multiple car accidents. He’s on pain medication, but he’s having trouble sleeping and staying focused. The background noise of the music helps him concentrate. People with ADHD confirm this. They need something in the background to crystallize their attention on the foreground.”

Her article just over and over again kept bringing up situations I’ve encountered and how I’ve gone up that ladder of inference. I literally just took the headphones. The headphones on the ears, disrespectful, bored, disengaged, not interested in anything that we’re doing here. I can tell you, I’ve been wrong more times than I’ve been right. [laughs] I really think that my recommendation today, go read this article, think about this ladder of inference. Try to slow it down.

We can’t avoid that our first thought might be, “Oh, this could be disrespectful,” but to slow ourselves down, and attempt to gather more data and stop trying to gather it to just only to support our own perspective. If you do that, you’ll just be so surprised. At least I have been so surprised. What I can learn about my students and almost every time what I learned is just about myself. I need to slow down and recognize I don’t have the full story here. When in doubt, we trust our students first.

You may find out that some of them really do mean to be disrespectful, but for the most part, the stories are so more complicated than that. Thank you for allowing me to do a longer recommendation, Stephanie, than I normally do. This one really struck a chord with me. Stephanie, I know you have something to recommend for us today too.

[00:35:23] Stephanie: Well, it seems silly when I think about it. I was ill a couple of weeks ago and had some downtime, by no choice of my own. I went to Netflix like some of us do and I stumbled upon Madman, which is a quite old series. I will say that it was very entertaining. The reason I mentioned it is because I have been struggling quite a bit with the concept of gender inequity in my courses and even here at the center. I’m struggling with the pay gap.

I feel sometimes alone in my conversations. When I was watching Madman, I was like, “This is exactly the narrative that I want people to hear in terms of what women have gone through in the workplace and in the home as just a reminder to reach out to some of our younger generations and if they haven’t seen it, to point out or distinguish the way women were treated.”

That was quite true. Just from hearing stories from family, I’m recommending it because if anyone else is struggling with that, or communicating what women have gone through what they go through, I really recommend that series because it was a great way I feel for me to recommend that to other young women, and to appreciate their mothers and grandmothers and what they’ve gone through to get us where we’re at.

[00:37:00] Bonni: [laughs] Absolutely.

[00:37:02] Stephanie: I know it seems silly, but just something that’s been on my mind lately at work. It built up that fire again in me.

[00:37:11] Bonni: Well, I don’t think it’s silly at all. I think it was a wonderful, wonderful show. What a reminder of how far we’ve come and how much further we have to go because this is– there are some aspects of it that still linger without being quite as evident, but then when we look at ourselves 20, 30, 40 years from now, what will we be thinking then? It’s a marvelous show too, great acting. Yes.

Stephanie, I just wanted to say thank you for being a guest on today’s Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m grateful to California State University for connecting us and specifically, Sabrina has been so instrumental in that and thank you for investing your time in this community today.

[00:37:46] Stephanie: Thank you. I appreciate it very much and I look forward to listening to more of your podcast.

[music]

[00:37:56] Bonni: Thanks once again to Stephanie Bianco for joining me on today’s episode of Teaching in Higher Ed, for giving us all this inspiration about how we can engage our students through experiential learning and internships, and really just informing us more about the basic needs on our campuses and in our communities. Thanks to all of you for listening.

If you would like to receive the show notes from each episode, some of the great links that Stephanie shared with us today, you’re going to want to be subscribed to the weekly update and you can subscribe at teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive a free eBook with 19 EdTech Essentials that helped me in my teaching in technology. You’ll also receive each week an article written by me about teaching or productivity along with those show notes. Thanks so much for listening. I’ll see you next time.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are sponsored and created by GoTranscript (as of 7/1/2019). The verbiage will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.