Episode 8 - STICHES

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hello, I am Brian Stewart Kendall campus President and welcome to Kendall Speaks. Today, Kendall speaks with our stitches team, Dr. Sean McLean, project director for Stitches in the Department of Life Science, Health and Wellness, back for a second stint with us and with him is Ms. Ann St. Fleur Grant Student Activities Coordinator with our Stitches Grants. Thank you both for being here with us. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Thank you for having us. [00:00:30] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you. [00:00:31] Speaker A: Well, let's start with hearing a little bit about both of you. Sean, why don't you start by telling a little bit about yourself. Besides, you're a great cowboy fan, which I love. But tell a little bit about your path here to Miami Dade College Kendall campus, if you would. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Well now, as a seasoned pro on the podcast being my second time, I'm happy to be back actually, because we're here to promote something special. But in terms of my journey to Kendall, I actually started off at Padron campus as a part time coordinator way back when I was in banking for a long time and I got laid off when the bank transition occurred. But luckily I got an opportunity at the Padron campus and I was a part time activity coordinator over there and became assistant to the chair of World Languages here. Kendall went over to FIU for a little bit, came back over here to Kendall. This is where I've been since. And I'm very, very, I think I said it last time and now I'm gonna reiterate this point. I feel like this is home. Like I feel like Miami Dade College. It's a close family. FIU was great, but it's very, it's almost like in silos in a way. But great working atmosphere nonetheless. But I feel Miami Dade College comes together as a family at most of our events. In my education, I was luckily able to be pushed into getting my doctorate. Somebody kind of swayed me to do it. I thought I was done after my master's, but luckily I did pursue it and I did my dissertation and two year community college outcomes based funding and those and the retention and graduation rates there. So very happy about how at the end of the day I could say like my career kind of came together full circle. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Well, Dr. McLean, I have a similar story. There's always those people that push you to do things that maybe you didn't want to do at that time. And so we're glad you're here at the Kendall campus and you make great contributions and you're all over the campus. So today we're talking about, I know something that's very, very close to your heart. So thanks for being here. Anne, tell us a little bit about your journey and your background here, if you would. [00:02:29] Speaker C: Okay, so my academic background, I started off at Miami Dade College North Campus. And then afterwards I went to Florida International University where I got my bachelor's in psychology. And then I later went on to Nova Southeastern University Fins up the other fans where I got my master's in college student affairs. As far as my journey to Kendall, I started off at Kendall as a general advisor where I would advise students from first time in college students as well as non traditional students. And then after that I went on to, I transitioned to being a pre college advisor where I did a lot of recruiting for Miami College. So I would go out to the high schools and I would promote everything mdc, I would table, I would do classroom presentations, orientation and so on and so forth. And then later on I transitioned to being with Stitches as the activity coordinator. [00:03:23] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. Well, you have experience at several institutions and several critical roles here at the college, so welcome and we're glad you're here at the Kendall campus. [00:03:31] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:03:31] Speaker A: Sean, tell us a little bit about your work in STEM education and then maybe lead that into the Stitches grant, if you don't mind. [00:03:38] Speaker B: I worked very, very briefly with some of the sciences departments when I was here. In World Languages, I got to work when the assistant, the chair, I got to get to know some of the chairs and I got to know Dr. Vieira and Dr. Patterson very well to do. Individuals very outside of work, very both kind. [00:03:55] Speaker A: Gentlemen, you're so right. Our last podcast is just with those two gentlemen and so we're amazed and blessed to have them. [00:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. They've been a staple of the campus. But when I was at fiu, I was looking for opportunities to continue my career and I saw this grant and I thought, health sciences, that's something that's never going to go away, so only going to get stronger. It's something that's going to be. I always thought that health sciences and computer infrastructure and technology are two things that are just going to be as consistent as ever when it comes to the, to the labor force. So I decided it would be a good opportunity to try to work with health sciences students. And when I got to read a little bit more about the grant and before I got my first interview, there's like, oh, familiarize yourself with the grant and you started looking at some of the rates, some of the STEM rates for these students at this campus. It was fairly alarming and Being confident of my abilities to work with students, I thought this is a good opportunity to kind of showcase what a grant can do in terms of turning student paths around and improving those pass rates. So that's kind of what attracted me to this grant and working in the STEM field overall. [00:05:02] Speaker A: And tell us a little bit about the overview of the stitches grant and the goals of the grant, if you don't mind. [00:05:08] Speaker C: Okay. So our grad is centered on improving the passing rate of students at the Kendall campus that are part of the health science program. And we do that with helping them and pairing them with tutors for chemistry 1033, as well as some math components as well with our grant. [00:05:26] Speaker A: I'm just curious, what are the most popular majors you see? Are there any that stick out in your mind? [00:05:31] Speaker C: Nursing. [00:05:31] Speaker A: Nursing, yeah. Yeah. How would I not guess that? [00:05:34] Speaker B: Well, being that you're from medical campus. Right. But yeah. And there is also vet tech is fairly popular. Dental hygiene is popular. Respiratory care services. I remember we had something a couple of years ago and they were saying like right after Covid in 2022, it's like you go jump into respiratory care. You're almost immediately going to start with students say banking because it's a. It's such. Was such an in demand field. And I'm sure if something like that occurs again, it's just going to get stronger and stronger and stronger. So nursing by far is the most popular in terms of the pathways and, and some of the other ones. We have a couple students here and there. [00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah. When I would speak to our HSC students when I was at medical, half the class would be nursing and then you'd have sonography and all the other programs. And what's kind of amazing is a lot of the students don't really ever make it to nursing because sometimes they get to a point and say, oh, you know what, maybe bedside is not where I need to be. But respiratory care, to your point, was a really popular. And Covid with everything that was going on. Most people don't know this, but we had 17 ventilators at medical at the height of COVID We loaned to Jackson because they were in such supply. And when we came back from COVID that major just zoomed, you know, way up there. And also on a side note, I was visiting the interim president a few weeks ago about what would he think about doing of health fair out here where we'd bring every program here and do it around real building two. Like we do so many events. He goes, I'd love to Bring them out here. So kind of off questions here, but that might be something we think about doing. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Well, it's funny say that because we already started brainstorming that with Xavier Valdez, which Xavier is amazing, by the way. I had to make sure to shout him out. But we already started thinking because there's a day in the life of the nurse. But we want to do. Oh, there's Health Science Week. [00:07:16] Speaker C: Science Week, Yes. [00:07:17] Speaker B: So Health Science Week in March. So we wanted to do something then where not only are we not just focusing on nursing, it's just a health sciences overall where we were going to work with the idea center to Annabel, I think her name is, and we wanted to just not only show, hey, you, you could be a nurse, you could do this, you could actually open up your own pract, you could be an entrepreneur, because she could do it from the business side and do like a business workshop. So we wanted to do a full week of like different events that would conclude in us taking them down for their second trip to the medical campus field trip. Because our medical campus field trip is coming up for fall November 15th. [00:07:53] Speaker C: Yes. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that would be a good thing we could do and kind of highlight to the year. You know, we're, we're, we can get. [00:07:59] Speaker B: All campuses involved in that, really. Because it's a great idea. [00:08:01] Speaker A: Bus them over here. Well, we'll talk more about that. Um, let's go back to the kinds of. And we were kind of on this question and either of you can take this one, but talk about the kinds of workshops and programs and hands on experiences you try to give access to our students. [00:08:16] Speaker B: Well, going back to the, to the field trip, I think that's a big one. I think what you said about some students realizing that bedside care may not be their thing. We take them. We take. We usually average anywhere from 18 to 25 students in that range. And we take them down once a semester. Our scholars, we basically require our scholars to go. And then other students who are doing our. That team learning programming will go down too. And they get to see everything live. And it's always, we always have pictures and it's a really cool thing. I think you were there one time where we took a group of students. Yes. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:46] Speaker B: But besides that, we do, we offer them cpr. We offer mental health first aid for our students to bolster their portfolio when they're trying to get into nursing. We do financial literacy workshops, we do leadership workshops, we do student success workshops. Am I missing anything else? [00:09:02] Speaker C: Yes. Test anxiety workshops. We do that as well. [00:09:04] Speaker A: Okay, that's important. [00:09:06] Speaker C: Study skills workshop. [00:09:07] Speaker B: Student growth. Mindset. [00:09:08] Speaker C: Mindset. [00:09:09] Speaker B: So we do. We try. We. We try the workshops. Workshops. Workshops, for sure. [00:09:14] Speaker A: Both of your discussions just gave me an idea. Yesterday we had our access fair around the campus. We had a lot going on yesterday on campus, but there was a gentleman that approached me that does CPR training and various other trainings. And I don't know if we do that with. With your students, but that might be something we. We do. Okay. [00:09:31] Speaker B: We. We do it through CIOL with they. We work with them. And in our center, we have the mannequins and we have. So we actually. We do it for scholars. We basically, again, require for our scholars as part of their scholarship. Everybody. And, you know, we also let our potential nursing students be a part of it to help them, too. [00:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. That's great. Talk a little bit about how you collaborate with faculty and other academic departments at the Kendall campus and around the college, too. [00:09:58] Speaker C: So one of the ways that we collaborate with faculty is one, I often do the open houses with Premit. I do a lot of the orientation as well, like where I present about our program. I work with learning resources in regards to a lot of our workshops, like the study skills workshops, Test anxiety, that was all learning resources. So they help us out with that. Regarding the CPR that's done with continuing education. So we pair with them and then we do the medical campus tour that we do as well across town, where we go to. We take the students from here, the Kendall campus, to the medical campus, and we have them tour the facilities as well. So we do a lot of those with our students as well. [00:10:35] Speaker B: I mean, we work with student life. We work with. Yes. Student services. We work a lot with CIOL to do. To do some of our workshops in terms of. We push. We help push the air and technology workshops because that definitely will help their. Their teaching pedagogens as well. Oh, yeah. We work with life sciences, physical sciences. We work with math a lot. So we try to make sure that everybody. We worked with Homestead recently in terms of trying to get the Idea Center. We worked with Wolfson before we work with Padrone. So we definitely try to make sure that we make a presence, but we're also doing it the right way in terms of getting everybody involved and making sure that it's mutually beneficial for all parties. [00:11:15] Speaker A: And I know we have amazing faculty that also support what you guys do, too. Any of those you want to give a shout out? [00:11:21] Speaker B: Yes, Professor Mayou Professor Julia Diaz Consol, Professor Lawrence Mayhew, Professor Marta Grecochea Pappas, Professor Flavio Wald, Professor Maria Sendon, all definitely have worked very closely with the grant in terms of making sure that we're pushing our objectives and hitting some of these milestones. [00:11:39] Speaker A: And for our audience, those were genuine responses. Those weren't written down. Those are at the top of their heads, so you can tell how important those faculty are. Talk a little bit about how we measure the success of the program, Sean. How do we make sure our students are where they need to be when they leave you? [00:11:54] Speaker B: So we firstly, the starting point of measuring the success of the program is the pass rates for that filter class for Chemistry, for Health Sciences. We want to make sure that they're leaving there. We're trying to get the pass rates up over 60%, which for that class would be a miracle. But we're nipping at the heels. We've been between 55 and 59 for a bit. So just those pass rates alone in that class from the faculty themselves have told us that's been a godsend, the way you've turned that around. But in terms of when they leave there, we've had looked at some other numbers in terms of the increase of the amount of students that are attending Medical campus from the Kendall campus, which I have this huge chart and data table, but 2021, or that's going 2019 to 2020 and so on and so forth, it was a little lower. We were able to double those rates in 2022 and 2023. And also there we look at how many students are staying at Miami Dade College as opposed to going to the fius or the. Or the private universities. The private university rates have also decreased and Medical Campus has increased. To us, I mean, correlation doesn't mean causality, but to us that means that we're doing something right in terms of keeping our own students and making sure that their pass rates are increasing so they don't. They don't drop out of Miami Dade and go into a private university, which may do them a disservice. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but we want to keep them here where our credit hours are low in cost. So that's how we measure our success. Our retention rates have increased. The amount of students, the scholars, the scholarships we've given out each year have increased. We've been able to hit all our goals as per statistical data. But we just see what we're actually doing with students is being very impactful. [00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I want to reiterate what you said about tuition and helping our students stay out of debt. You know, when you, when you get them in some of those schools, the tuition is so ridiculous. One of the things that we pride ourselves on, Miami Dade College, is less than 2% of our students graduate with any kind of debt. And so not anyone can say that. And so I appreciate what you said about some of those schools that can take advantage of our students. Ann, talk a little bit about this. How the STITCHES grant promotes diversity because we, Miami Dade is such a diverse institution, maybe one of the most diverse anywhere. Talk about how you work with diversity and support those students. [00:14:12] Speaker C: And so keeping in line with Miami Dade College, we're naturally diverse anyways. We award to our Hispanic as well as black students the most associate's degrees regardless. And so students already seeing that and knowing that about mdc, I think that helps them to understand how diverse we are. And they're seeing faculty and staff from all backgrounds at all levels, and as their professors, they're seeing them in the stem, they're seeing them as the IT person, they're seeing them all around. And so I think that helps the students that they see themselves in, faculty and staff as they go along. Miami Dade College. And so I think that whether or not we have the STITCHES program or we have a STEM program, I think that students coming to mdc, period, seeing the diversity, gives them hope to actually apply to any type of major that we offer. [00:14:59] Speaker A: Very, very good. [00:15:08] Speaker D: Whoa. What just happened? [00:15:10] Speaker E: Wait a minute. Executive Producer PAUL I think we just came to life. [00:15:14] Speaker D: So let me get this straight. Producer Alex we're not just names credited at the end of Kendall Speaks anymore. [00:15:20] Speaker E: Apparently not. [00:15:21] Speaker D: Well, we must have some purpose to serve now that we're in human form. It looks like maybe you have something to say. [00:15:28] Speaker E: Producer Alex Funny you say that. Executive Producer PAUL now that I've gained consciousness, I must use this opportunity to tell our listeners about Arts and Letters. [00:15:37] Speaker D: Oh, yes, we have to tell everybody about Arts and Letters. A two day celebration of the arts happening right here at Kendall campus. [00:15:45] Speaker E: That's right, Executive Producer Paul and it's taking place on March 18th and 19th. [00:15:51] Speaker D: And join us for music dancing parties. You guys will love it. Oh, no. Producer ALEX now that we've served our purpose, what happens to us? Oh, no, we're fading. [00:16:05] Speaker E: No. [00:16:12] Speaker A: You know, one of the reasons we're here are students. And I'm sure you guys have a lot of success stories. So if each of you maybe tell a story or two that you know Touches your hearts about some of our students and go right ahead and you get to go first. [00:16:24] Speaker C: I have a success story. And her name is, he said Echeveria, I think is the last name. And so she started off as one of our scholars. When Glitches originally started, she was one of the very first few scholars. And she went through the entire program where she did the peer led team learning program. And then after that, what we offer our students, who's part, who are scholars, we offered them the opportunity to work with us as tutors. And so she decided to work as a tutor, which was, which was her very first job ever. And so she worked with us as a tutor. And I noticed that because in the beginning she was very shy, very much to herself, but she started developing and becoming more confident, becoming more vocal with us, with the team. And then she went on to becoming a tutor. And then after that she applied to our nursing program, got accepted to our nursing program and I believe it was also the scholarship program as well. She got that with Baptist, I believe it was. She went on to becoming like the very, at the very top of the honors program within the medical program that they have there. And so now I believe she took the nclex, she passed it and she came back to us like I would say maybe two months ago and said, you know what, I think I want to be a doctor now. So she's just, you know, soaring right now and I'm very proud of her. [00:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an awesome story. [00:17:35] Speaker B: I'm going to go another way with this one. I'm going to talk about Michael. Michael was a kid that came, how do you say, bright eyed and bushy tail to our department. And he was trying to talk to chemistry. And I said, well, what chemistry are you taking? 1033? And I said, well, we have this scholarship. So, you know, he was very happy at that day. And Michael is a kid who fought very hard and he was studying every day and we all pushed for him and we all pulled for him. Unfortunately, he took his tease twice and he did not make the cut for the medical campus. He was off by like two points or something. He came to me crying because he couldn't, he wasn't going to make the medical campus. And I said, look, Michael, do the medical assisting program for a year. Trust me, do the medical assisting program for a year and then you'll get into the accelerated nurse bridge program after a year. And he said, no, no, you don't understand. My parents see me as a failure. And you know he's crying. I said, do you want me to speak to your parents? I will explain to them exactly what's going on. He passed the class with a C. He did everything he needed to do. He was a scholar even. He just, he's the only person who didn't pass. But the reason why I bring him up is because he fought hard and he's now in the assisting program that just started in the fall. And he promised me that he was going to finish the one year and get into nursing. And I told him, you're going to be backtrack one year, but you're going to be able to still get into nursing. He, he even brought me a bottle of whiskey. And he said, this is for everything that you did because you've stayed on top. You know, you kept, you checked in on me, you asked me, you pushed me, and you did a lot of things that. I almost decided to go into a private university. And I looked at how much it cost and I realized that the cost structure was going to be so much higher. And I. And he still got financial aid for what he's doing for the one year. So I told him, when you get accepted into nursing program, I'll drink a sip of the whiskey. Until then, I'm not touching the bottle. [00:19:16] Speaker A: There you go. That's good motivation. Well, those are great stories. And you know, I think that's. A lot of people don't realize that the medical campus has programs like medical assisting and central sterile processing, lpn, cna. There's a lot of those entry level programs that students can start in. And one of the biggest things that I think students need to know is if they can just get a job at one of our health systems. There's a tuition reimbursement plan that after 90 days they can then pursue that RN degree or whatever they want to do. So those are great stories. Tell me a little bit about what advice you would give students. You've seen a lot of these students be successful. What if one of our listeners was wanting to be in healthcare? What advice would you give them? What are some of the tips you've learned? [00:19:57] Speaker C: I would definitely say go for it. Don't be afraid of the nursing program or STEM engineering, anything like that. Absolutely, go for it. And also do your absolute best to try to get ahead of everyone. Like MDC has so many resources to offer. Stitches is an amazing program. We have so many students who rant and rave about our program. They rant and rave about pltl. It's an amazing program, but we also have other tutoring programs. We have the math lab. We have the learning resources. So we have all these resources for our students to be able to use. And so I would say, like, go for it and get all the help that you see that you think you may need. If it's available, get the help that you need so that you'll be able to be successful in the program. [00:20:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say early intervention. Even if you come out of high school and you've been somewhat successful in your STEM classes, that would definitely get out of head. That's why one of the things that we offer in the STITCHES program is the bridge Academy, the summer academy, to make sure that they take the Alex math assessment and see where they're at with their math, how much help they need as part of their scholarship programming. So for students who are somewhat on the cusp of whether or not they're confident with their STEM classes, they definitely need to brush up on that. Dr. Patterson, I have him come into my SLS class because he always tells students for every STEM class you take, whether it's chemistry, math, whatever it is, you need to study three hours a day, seven hours a week. So he says, so if you have one class that's 21 hours a week, you need to study for a STEM class. To some students, it comes naturally, but for stem, I definitely would. The suggestion, my recommendation is brush up on your studies, pay attention in class, do what you need to do. Seek out the extra help, seek out tutoring, stay there, ask extra questions. Understand every possible scenario for any question that a teacher may ask. Visit your teachers. Make sure that you see where their head is at in terms of how you're doing in your class. You need all the intervention you could get, but as Ann said, anybody could do it if you put the work in. [00:21:51] Speaker A: Yeah, you mentioned math. The two things that faculty at the medical campus talk about that students are, I'd say weekend, are math and anatomy and physiology, especially in nursing. And it's well known that students that come from the Kendall campus have the highest rate of success in the program. So kudos to you guys. This is a dangerous question to ask, but I'm asking anyway. Are there equipment? Are there needs that you need in your lab? I know you have a great location in the science building from the math lab, and as you mentioned, is not too far away. Do you have everything you need? [00:22:22] Speaker B: Well, as we're closing out the grant, we're trying to do a needs assessment also. For. For what. What? I think instructors, but there's a specific instructor. I'm not going to name him. Every time I see him, he says, hey, what's going on with all the additional lenses you're supposed to get? I'm trying to tell him Those lenses are 30$500 each. It's not a drop in the bucket to get. He wants it for like a whole class. But he's, he's a really nice person. He always jokes with me. But that's 18 lenses you would need between 18 and 24. [00:22:48] Speaker A: You're talking about the HoloLens. [00:22:49] Speaker B: Yeah, we have seven. So what ends up happening is Meta Quest is going to create the Hollow Human programming by the end of this year. So we're going to see what we can do with that. But I think that instructors really do like the augmented reality. Professor Sandon absolutely loves it that the students, whenever they put it on, they're always, oh, yeah, look, you could see this and you could do that. So I think that extra engagement in terms of our needs would probably be a way to get faculty to maybe switch up their curriculum in terms of being able to additionally increase the engagement of students. And maybe some more lenses, but not the HoloLens request, because those are way more inexpensive. [00:23:30] Speaker A: Right, right, right. I know we're looking at that in the Dean's office. We're talking about HoloLens, how faculty can use those. So tell me, guys, about STEM Day. I know that's an important day coming up. Tell me a little bit about what we're going to do for that day. [00:23:44] Speaker C: So STEM Day is one of our most exciting, exciting events here at the Kendall campus. Hosted by Stitches, it will be taking place this year, November 7, 2024, from 8:30 to about 1:00pm and what we do is that we bus high school students like our feeder schools, we bust them to the. The Kendall campus, and we promote our STEM programs. So we'll have Baptist here, we'll have Medical campus here, we'll have fiu, we'll have Tabling from a lot of our STEM departments here on campus. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Student Services, Resources and Tech will be there. Oh, Academic affairs departments for sure of our own. And they're going to be promoting things to students too. So aside from from being health sciences heavy, we are also going to be promoting the STEM departments. [00:24:27] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:24:28] Speaker A: And where do we have it on campus? Where do we host it? [00:24:30] Speaker C: It will be in building two, Breezeway Building. That's where the expo is happening for every. Like the college students as well as our high school students will be able to participate in The Expo, but we have, like, a small presentation that will be taking place in 6120 as well. [00:24:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:44] Speaker C: For our students, we also have Heel to Heal coming as well. [00:24:47] Speaker A: Tell us what Heal to Heal is. [00:24:49] Speaker C: Heal to Heal. They are the. [00:24:52] Speaker B: Oh, they are the support dogs. [00:24:54] Speaker A: Support dog. [00:24:57] Speaker C: Exactly. Emotional. Exactly. [00:24:58] Speaker B: So we'll have their. They were there last year, and they're very, very popular, and people love them. We'll have the. For the high school students that we're going to bring in, it's going to be between 250 and 300 approximately. We work with CTE, the Center for Technical Education, and we couldn't leave this podcast without saying thank you a lot to Angela Miller. She's always helped us. And Magali. Her last name escapes me, but Magali and Angela Miller are very, very helpful to our program in terms of getting those high schools over, high school students over to us. And we will have food that they will have, pizza and breadsticks. So that will be good for people who will be around campus. And this is not only for high school students. These are also for students of our cottage or any campus that are just wondering where their future may take them. And they have many options there. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Well, I'm so glad you shared that with us. You know, the dogs are a great thing. I've done that during finals week to help calm people's nerves. And again, remind us the date is November. [00:25:51] Speaker C: November 7th. [00:25:52] Speaker A: November 7th. All right. So keep that day on your calendar. So thank you for that. [00:25:55] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:25:56] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:25:56] Speaker A: Well, we appreciate you being here on Kendall Speaks. We like to end our broadcast with turning the microphone around. And so we started this with our first podcast with our students. So any question you'd like to ask me? [00:26:09] Speaker B: So how has your transition from medical to Kendall been in terms of the way. The way your. Your mindset has to be? So when you're a medical campus, you have to boost, I don't know, increase nursing students or increase the pass rates in this specific program. How. How has your mindset changed as you got in the Kendall in terms of what your. Your objectives are? [00:26:27] Speaker A: You know, that's a wonderful question. One of the biggest challenges of medical, you know, we graduate a little over 800 nurses a year, which is one of the largest programs in the country. And in health science, we have 30 programs that all have graduations and pinning. And right when you get to April and you get to celebrate and have all those students and do all the pinnings, you got to turn and recruit for another class. And with nursing, you do it twice a year. So I think that's the hardest thing is you want to celebrate this group of students that are now on their way to being nurses, and you got to turn around and create a whole new class of them. And so that's one of the frustrating things. Not frustrating, but one of the challenges. The other thing about nursing, that. That in my six years over the program is we have six pathways of nursing. When I was in Texas, we didn't have six pathways. And what I'm proud about Miami Dade College is we do that so we can meet all the different students. You were talking about your student who was going through a program. He'll be in the transition program because he's transitioning from another program. And so his time in nursing will be shorter. But with those six different pathways, we have accelerated. We have part time. We have the BSN program. It's very cyclic. You know, some years this program is off the charts, and then this one is really low. Well, the next semester, it's the other way around. So it's always a constant. How do we market, how do we find the students? You know, And I think in terms of a transition here, my heart is always going to be at Medical, but my heart is always now at Kendall. Because what we're doing on this campus is what I've done for most of my career, working in academic setting. But I can kind of have my feet in both worlds. We can help support Medical by getting those students who maybe lose their way and they don't do well in A and P, and all of a sudden they, oh, I can't be a nurse. Well, that's not true. We see so many students at Medical, and even here, you know, in their mind, they don't know what they could be until they actually got that opportunity. The other thing I have to say, what I love about this Kendall campus is at Medical, you get to see the students who have already taken their basics. They're in a program. They know this is where I want to be. And I love that part of the fact that they know what the end of the road is. But here we get students who really don't know where they want to be. We're still molding that clay. And I miss the academic part of that, where we see them struggling math a little bit, and we get the light turned on, and they go in a science lab and get to hold models and understand where that goes. So I miss the medical campus. But I'm very happy at Kendall because of all the opportunities we have to help students. And you want to put me on the spot or are you good with questions? [00:28:48] Speaker C: I do have a question, but it has nothing to do with this, Sean, because I noticed that during the convocation, you referenced a lot. You referenced Disney a lot. And I wanted to know, like, what sparked your passion for Disney so much. [00:29:03] Speaker A: I love that question. So when I was in Texas, I opened one campus as the dean of math, science, and Texas technology. And then we created Downtown campus, very similar to, I guess, the Wolfson campus. And I remember my son was a select soccer player, and we were in San Antonio playing soccer, and I was going to be the vice president of the campus, the chief academic officer. I thought, you know, I want to start a campus differently. And my president was an English teacher, and I'm a math teacher. So we were kind of the ying and the yang of things. And so I went to this conference and my wife gave me this book to read called Inside the Magic Kingdom. I read it in, like, one afternoon when my son got the ball. I'd stopped reading, but I just fell in love with the book. And it talked about Disney and it talked about the seven keys that made Disney successful. So when we opened the True river campus, we had three tenants. Everybody we hired, I gave that book to. Every faculty member had to present a learning community that they want to teach with. So if you were a biology teacher, you had to teach with another discipline, maybe an English teacher or history teacher, and then a service learning project. What service learning would your students do? Well, all three of those were a great project. But the Disney book became the most important part of our campus. We were the most customer service friendly, much like Disney is. And I even had superintendents in Fort Worth, Dallas area who had their whole group of teachers reading. And I used to speak about it a little bit. And then I came to the medical campus, and in my bio, you see the Disney book in there. And about maybe three or four months onto the job, my leadership team goes, hey, we want to know what this Disney book's all about. Kind of like the question you just asked me, Ann. [00:30:33] Speaker C: And. [00:30:34] Speaker A: And I said, well, guys, I've been waiting for you to ask that, but far be it from a Texan to bring a Disney book to Florida. And so I got them all a book. They read the book and they said, we love this idea, and we want everybody that we hire. So everybody I hired at Medical for six years, we gave that book to. And so to me, it just talks about how important the student is. They're not our customer. They're our. They're why we're here. They're more than our customer. And so that book just kind of became in my DNA. And I still have a few copies if you want one to read. [00:31:04] Speaker C: Sure, absolutely. [00:31:05] Speaker A: But it was a fun process, and I think it helps make a systemic difference to people because people want to help students, but a lot of times they don't know how. And that book really talks about how Disney's successful doing it. Well, thank you both for being here today. This has been a wonderful podcast. I want to thank our head writer, Christine Saenz, her stand in today. Milena Paul Klein, our executive producer, and Alex Bellow, our producer. Thank you all for being here today. Thank you both for being here and talking about this important program. And you guys can't see it, but I am wearing my stitches shirt today, proudly. Proudly. And we look forward to having another conversation in the future. So thank you for listening to Kendall Speaks. And goodbye for now. [00:31:55] Speaker C: Sa.