Ep. 9 - Finals Week & Basic Needs

Welcome to Episode 8 of the CSUSB Advising Podcast! Fall finals are here! Want some extra tips to survive finals? Need more info about winter/spring registration? Do you know about services through Basic Needs? 

In this episode, we have:

• John Noriega - Advising and Academic Services 
• Natalie Cleary - Basic Needs 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Welcome to the CSUSB Advising Podcast. Join us as we bring you the latest advising updates at Cal State San Bernardino. Each episode is specifically made for you the CSUSB students and parents. We provide you advising tips interviews with both CSUSB campus resources and those in academic advising. Sit back and enjoy. Go Yotes. 

Star Wildes  
Hey Yoties. Welcome to our CSUSB advising podcast. We are so excited that you're joining us listening in. We have amazing guests that will be joining us to share information. Hey, Matt, how you doing?

Matt Markin  
I'm doing. If you know what I mean. I'm tired. I'm probably sure you're tired. We're at finals week now, and I know our yodes have been, probably been studying, getting their papers done, working super hard to finish strong this semester.

Star Wildes  
Absolutely, we want to encourage you make sure self care, take care of yourself, so that way you could take care of things that you need to handle, like finals week. So Matt, what's going on this episode? 

Matt Markin  
So, it's it's finals. So speaking of finals, we have John Noriega, an academic advisor who we both know and work with in advising and academic services. And he's going to give us some extra study tips. He's going to talk about the winter intersession and help us to get ready for the spring 2021, semester. So let's dive right in. 

Matt Markin  
All right, first up to go is the wonderfully talented John Noriega. John has worked at CSUSB since 2012 starting out as a program assistant for retention projects, a peer advisor in advising and academic services, intern for orientation, then as an academic services specialist in athletics, a testing coordinator in the testing center, then a transfer and graduation counselor in the Office of the Registrar, and currently back in advising and academic services as an academic advisor. John is our go to and he works on many projects and programs within the office, including the two and four year graduation pledge programs and finals week encouragement, John, welcome to the podcast.

John Noriega  
Hey. Thank you for having me.

Star Wildes  
Thanks again for joining us, John. So it's finals week this week, and I'm sure that as students are listening in, it'll be about that time they're studying hard. What advice would you give our students? And can you let us know a little bit more about what finals week encouragement is?

John Noriega  
Yeah, I mean, finals can always be a stressful time. We've all been through that experience before, even as students ourselves, ultimately, with finals, one of the tips I do want to recommend students is always having at least enough time to gather their materials, to make sure that they have everything ready to start preparing and to start studying. Ultimately, with our courses being fully online right now, one of the best things that any student can do is to combine all of their notes, their PowerPoints, all of their their their notes that they've taken over the past 15 weeks to combine everything together into one file, and that would just be like a quick reference guide for them to refer to any question that they might have that could potentially pop up on an exam or a quiz during finals week. Now definitely don't want to encourage students to just solely rely on their notes, especially when some other exams are going to be timed, but it is a good way to use all of their notes, PowerPoints, their study guides, to combine them all into one file and to use that to ultimately study for their exams. Because, quite frankly, with the exams being timed, they want to make sure that they master that information. They know it, and they'll be ready to answer that question once they see it. One other thing too is to balance out their time. When you're on the exam, you probably have, like, an hour for your exam, maybe a little bit more than that. Be mindful that if you're stuck on a question, don't spend too much timeline on it. You know, move on to the next question. You know, you don't want to get stuck on that time, and then, you know, not be able to answer some of your questions later on in your exam. You know, ultimately, those are a few tips that I think students can take away when they're on their taking their final exams. But most importantly, other than just the the knowledge and retaining that information, it's also being mindful of your own personal and mental health. So, you know, getting enough sleep eating well during that time, as you are already feeling that stress and that anxiety, you don't want to let that take away some of the time that you can have to rest, you know, before the night of an exam, or, you know, to eat well before an exam. And you know, not feel light headed or feel tired or fatigued, you know, so definitely, take care of yourself. Have that balance between, you know, your nights of sleep, eating well before an exam, staying hydrated, ultimately, too, you know, drinking a lot of water. Ultimately, taking care of yourself is one important tip that I think students can take away from from that, at least for for their final exams. Finals Week encouragement is that is an event that we always hold at least a week prior to final exams, prior to everything that has happened in the world with the pandemic, we used to have in person events where we would give out Scantrons goodies, you know, referring students to resources on campus, wishing them the best of luck on their final exams. And, you know, sharing some tips and exchanging some, you know, some information with them, because everything is now fully online and virtual, we've been able to convert some of this finals week encouragement over to an online format where we are now communicating with students via email, sharing those resources and informing them about the things that they could still take advantage of, even during finals week, but also wishing them luck on our end, here in our office, wishing them the best of luck and making sure that they are staying safe and staying well, you know, and making sure that they're going to do well on their examinations. So, you know, finals week, ultimately, we do have this event, usually in person, but right now it's being hold held virtually online due to the the pandemic.

Matt Markin  
And recently, an email was sent out about the grade policy changes for the fall 2020, semester. So our current semester that we're ending real soon now, we've had questions from students that might be a little bit confused with what this grade policy is and what options they actually have to choose from. Can you talk more about that? 

John Noriega  
Yeah. So with the grading policy, it was to a surprise, I know we offered this opportunity for grading policies back in spring. Now we're offering it again in the fall. Students will ultimately have the option or the power, to select whichever grading scale they prefer to have for their classes, and they could do that all through their my coyote portal up until December 5, I want to say, because after the fifth, they're going to need to request permission to change that. But ultimately, a student can go into my coyote and select one of three options. They can select the regular graded grading basis, which is any grade between an A through D minus, keeping in mind that no student will be issued an F grade, the F grades will be converted to no credits. Therefore no credit won't carry any grade point value to your GPA and the other the second option could be anything between an A through C or no credit, or the student can opt in for a credit or no credit, credit, and no credit just basically means a pass or fail. You either pass the course you might have gotten like a C minus or better, and you didn't want the C minus on there, so you opted in for a credit instead, or if you did not pass the class with a C minus, or better, you got a d a d minus that would automatically go into a no credit grade, just with the grading policy. We do highly advise students to just check with an advisor to make sure that the grading scale that they would rather choose wouldn't affect them down the line with like, graduate school, with, you know, certificate programs, because those are things that they want to be mindful of, especially if they do require a specific grade for a program, those are the things that we would be extra careful with. But if a student is doing pretty well in their classes, they're not really stressing so much about their grades or doing okay, then I personally would still recommend that they keep the Grady, the regular graded option for now, without having to, you know, worry about the credit or no credit policy.

Matt Markin  
And so, I mean, this is being posted during finals week, so the deadline for students actually go in and make that change has passed, but students can still possibly petition, right?

John Noriega  
They can. So they're actually going to go into my coyote and click on their student center. They'll be able to go where the menu is on academics, there will be an option that says permission request change grading scale, and once they go in there, they will be able to submit a petition to change the grading scale. Even after the deadline, that petition will go directly to the Office of the Registrar for approval, and that will allow the registrar to process that change of grade, whether the student wishes to go from a graded basis to a credit or no credit, or revert back to that if they switched it from credit no credit back to a letter grade. So students will still be given that option to still submit that petition, even after the deadline.

Matt Markin  
And if students have questions about which option should I choose, who could they go to to get help with that?

John Noriega  
Yeah, and that's going to be a very good thing that they do check in with someone before they do submit that request. Definitely their academic advisor would be the go to for that. They can definitely visit their my coyote center to see who their advisor is. There's a box that will indicate who their program advisor is, and if they want to set up an appointment with their advisor, the contact information will be available on there as well, but we do encourage them to still see an advisor, to speak with an advisor before they make that change on the grading scale basis.

Star Wildes  
Thank you for that information, John. So winter intersession, that is during the winter break. Of course, can you please provide some information if students are not registered for winter intercession, can they still registered? We all know that students have a max of four units that they can take during winter intersession. That is, it is only 15 days. So can you let us know if students can still register?

John Noriega  
Yeah, so winter intersession registration began on November 9. So starting at midnight on November 9, students were able to go in and register for winter intercession. Going back to what you mentioned, the maximum amount of units is four units. So ultimately, this is only going to be one class that a student can take. A few students have inquired about that is why the limit of the four units? And that is because winter intercession is a very fast paced term, so it's a three week instruction term with one week of finals. So you know, taking more than one class would probably be a little too much, but the one class that they would be able to enroll in would only be either three to four units. The winter intercession does begin on December 18. That's going to be the first day of winter classes and the last day to add classes over my coyote would be December 17. So in case of a student wishes to add a class for winter intercession, they will require instruction, or, sorry, the signature of the instructor and the signature of the department chair, starting on December 18. So if a student is still trying to look into like, you know, classes for the winter intersession, there is a very limited amount of sections that are still open for that session. Most of them are mostly like GES or some courses in the major, but students could still technically add those classes up until the 17th of December.

Matt Markin  
And then, aside from winter, there's also spring semester that'll be starting in January, and students have also been registering for the Spring term classes. Now some students might have been registering and found that some of the classes were already full or might have a wait list option. How does the Wait List option actually work?

John Noriega  
Yeah, good question. So usually, the student can see if the class is wait listed if they uncheck the box in my coyote that says Show Open Classes Only. That tends to be a detail that students tend to oversee when they're searching for classes, because it's defaulted to show only open classes. So if you are looking for classes and you are trying to figure out whether a class is wait listed or not, please be sure to uncheck the box that says Show Open Classes Only. That will bring up the list of all of the classes that are currently open closed but also wait listed. If you do happen to see a class that is wait listed, you'll usually see a yellow clock icon that says wait listed on there. And if you're interested in wait listing for a class, all you have to do is select the course, and then on the next screen, there will be a check box that says, check if class is full or wait list if class is full. Once you do that, you check the box, move to the next page, put it in your shopping cart, continue with the enrollment process. By the time that you enroll into the wait list, it will give you a position number that says you know you're in position number five, position number four on the wait list. The wait list is an automated process, so you basically depending on the available seats in the class, if a seat happens to open up, you're going to move up on that wait list, and it happens overnight. So you don't actually have to keep checking all the time to see if you're in the class or not to enroll, because the system will automatically enroll you into the class upon availability. The one thing I do recommend is that you double check prerequisites to make sure that you've met the prerequisites for the class, and that you also double check for the amount of units that you're enrolled in, because if you are enrolled in 18 units already, you try to add the class, or the system tries to add the course that's wait listed, you're going to get an error message that says. You are not able to register because of the amount of units that you have on your class schedule. And then the third thing is to double check to make sure that the course that you're trying to enroll in that is wait listed doesn't conflict with any of your other classes on your schedule, because that tends to be an issue that could happen that it won't enroll you unless you know you know, have any time conflicts, the wait list will be open up until the first day of classes. You're able to go ahead and and still remain on the wait list up until the first day of classes. Now, if for whatever reason, you are unable to get into the class by the first day of classes, there is that additional process that a student can go through, which is the permission requests, and the student can submit a petition to add through that that's also available in your Student Center, and it's called permission request, enrollment request, and then you'll be able to submit that. It will send the request over to the instructor and Department Chair of the class for approval, and if they approve, you would be added into the course as well.

Star Wildes  
And John, if students have any advising related questions, who would they be able to contact? Can you provide that information for our listeners?

John Noriega  
Yeah, if a student still has any questions, they are still unsure of who to reach or who to contact. I know, especially right now with, you know, everything being online, it's kind of part of come in contact with somebody, if it's even by phone or in person, the student can reach out to our advising email or general advising email at advising@csusb.edu and we have our amazing team that is checking, you know, Monday through Friday, checking those emails, answering them in a timely manner, and rest assured that they'll be able to get back to you on any general questions that you may have, or refer you to the appropriate office that will be able to provide that answer for you.

Matt Markin  
Well, John, we've reached the end of the interview. Thank you so much for joining us and Yoties, hopefully you got a lot of great information out of this. Some some wonderful tips about finals week to still prep for it as you're finishing up those finals. Some information about the grade policy changes, as well as the winter intersession and as well as spring semester starting. John, thanks again. Thank you so much.

Star Wildes  
Thank you so much, John, for that information. Best to your audience, best on your final study, hard and make sure you get some rest. So up next, we have Natalie Cleary from student affairs, and she will be covering a lot of information that you may need to know about basic skills. So here you go. Enjoy.

Star Wildes  
Hey, Yoties, and welcome. Oh, my goodness. We are getting to finals week, and we are we're almost done with this term, so I wanted to introduce our next amazing guest here that we have with us for this episode, Natalie Cleary. So Natalie has been our basic needs coordinator for the past year, beginning September 19, and she has been with the university for going on 20 years. She has been in capacities, in positions within student affairs, beginning at the Student Services with disabilities and working her way up. So we wanted to welcome Natalie Cleary, welcome Natalie, and thank you so much for your time and being able to join us here for our CSUSB advising podcast. How are you doing today? 

Natalie Cleary  
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Well,

Matt Markin  
Natalie, thank you so much for joining us, and we'll jump right into our questions. And the first one is, what is basic needs? And when did this service become available to students?

Natalie Cleary  
So basic needs really focuses on four different areas. It focuses on food insecurity, housing security, financial wellness and financial security, as well as just general wellness for students, CSUSB has had, in some part, a basic needs program to help assist students, especially with food insecurity, since about 2015 under the Office of Community Engagement, where the original kind of food pantry opened on campus, but we have really evolved over the last five years to expand those services to include all of those areas of basic needs, so including housing, that financial wellness piece, and then working with the health center on physical and mental wellness for students and and really it's an initiative that sees system wide. So all the campuses in the CSU have a basic needs area, and it's supported by the Chancellor's office as an initiative for all student students within the CSU.

Star Wildes  
This is really cool, and thank you so much for sharing that. Natalie, you are the first, right, the first basic needs. Coordinator, and I know this is CS us see why CSU wide. So can you tell us how students can take advantage of these services for your department?

Natalie Cleary  
Yeah, I am the first basic needs coordinator. So super excited to be the first person in this position to really build the program. As I said, CSUSB has had a food pantry in some capacity since 2015 and then we got the overshad den, which was really a designated space with support from the overshad family and students. That's really one of our premier services. But in order to really grow and expand the program, we needed somebody to be in charge of it, really, and so that's really where my position came in, and in developing more ways for students to access services and provide there's been a lot of research done within the CSU since 2016 and really what it's showing the numbers are are so indicative of what our students are going through, system wide, statewide in California, especially because of the cost of living and and really that's that about 40% of all students in the CSU, 37% for CSUSB, identify as food insecure. And it's not just about how much food students have. It's about the quality of food too, not just the quantity. So not just do you have food, enough food to eat, but are you eating food that's healthy and nutritious for you, or are you making decisions to compromise those things because you can afford, maybe to buy the fruits and vegetables and fresh products that you would like that are more healthy and that are going to lend itself to you being a healthier person and able to grab put that energy into studying and graduating?

Matt Markin  
Yeah, definitely. And I guess a follow up to that is, do students have to become eligible in order to take advantage of the basic needs service? 

Natalie Cleary  
So. no students, the only thing a student has to do to receive services and basic needs is to come to the department or reach out to our department, we ask students to identify themselves by their coyote ID number. So just with many other offices on campus, we ask that they check in using their coyote ID number. But our food pantry located here in San Bernardino and in Palm Desert, because we also have a food pantry at the Palm Desert campus. Now the students just have to show they don't have to show their income to qualify. They just need to come in and provide their student ID number. Emergency housing gets a little bit more complicated, because that's going to be based on specific situations. For example, we currently have emergency housing available on San Bernardino campus. So that's a challenge for students at Palm Desert, because it's located at San Bernardino, but also if a student has a family, so we may have to work through alternatives. So most services are free and available to all students, but sometimes, depending on individual circumstances, we have to assess whether or not what service is appropriate, like, for example, with the emergency housing we also have a basic needs grant program, and so that may vary based on the student situation. You know what's what grants they would qualify for. We have multiple different grant programs as well, but in general, all of our services are open to all students.

Star Wildes  
That is awesome. And thank you so much for sharing that. I know our next question was going to be how students could take advantage of the resources. You mentioned, basic needs. But it seems like you know basic needs, meaning not just food insecurities, financial. Can you expand a little about that? I know you had mentioned it already, housing, financial, so students just reaching out to you, are there any other services that's tied to basic needs that you that your office provides students?

Natalie Cleary  
Sure. So taking a little breakdown. So we cover food insecurity, and that's done in a multi multiple ways. So one of those is our food pantries on both campuses. The second would be we participate in what's called the swipe out hunger program. So that program really is working with our dining services. So Yotie Eats to make sure that students who want meals in the coyote Commons can get access to those and that's a, you know, a small application that students do to indicate they would like to participate in the program. And we allot them so many meals in the coyote Commons for them to use. And it's a really cool program, because it's give a meal and get a meal. So students who have meal plans, or faculty and staff, for example, that have meal plans, can actually donate to the program in their recirculate their unused, if you will, Meal Swipes in the coyote Commons. We also provide grocery gift cards to students who may have like dietary issues, or families with young children, for example, that need special diets because of medical reasons that we won't be able to accommodate in our food pantry. So we work through that issue with students right now during covid, students that don't have. Transportation to maybe come to campus, we've been sending out small gift cards to local grocery stores for them as well, so that we can still assist with them being able to secure some food items. So those are kind of the ways that we we work with food insecurity, and the last piece of that is our Cal Fresh outreach program. So for students who have long term food insecurity issues and need consistent help and may qualify for county benefits of Cal Fresh, we're able to help students walk through that process. And so those are all our services under food insecure, or food insecurity, if you will, then we have our housing insecurity program, and that really centers around students who are displaced or homeless. And so I really work in conjunction with Jesse Juarez, who is our campus homeless student liaison, and he's our care case manager through the care department. And so him and I work with and do a full assessment of a student who presents, either we get a referral because a student has indicated they're homeless, let's say, from a faculty staff or other staff member of the campus community. And then they actually, once we kind of assess where their situations at, we determine is emergency housing on campus, a good placement for them. Do we need to assist? We've assisted students with hotel stays during displacement or times of homelessness. We work with also community agencies. So, you know, is there a community agency that we may be able to link this student up with? You know, there are lots of programs for homeless veterans, for domestic violence situations, if they were displaced for that reason. You know, although it's very, very individualized when we're talking about housing, then through our financial wellness program, we have grant programs so students, through our website can apply for our basic needs grant. So an example of that would be, let's say a student has an unpaid medical bill that they don't have insurance, or they have a dental bill because they don't have dental insurance and needed to get dental work done. You know, that type of an expected expense, we they would be able to apply for a mini grant, really, that covers basic needs to help with some of those costs, because we know that right if students are facing food insecurity, housing financial insecurity, the stress of that impacts academic success, and that's really the basis of our program. And so, you know, our emergency grants are available to students through an application based process, and we have a review committee that reviews requests and determines, based on the need, the amount to allocate for students, but that could also go towards a student who maybe needs help with first months rent or deposit. You know, you have to do first and last month's rents when you're trying to get a new place. That that might be the case, or a transportation issue, we had students who received the grant this year because they were in a car accident and needed to pay their deductible, and you know, it was outside of what they can normally do. And normally when non covid, they're coming to campus, so they need their car. And so we know that that makes a difference. And then with wellness, we partner with, again, the health center, Counseling Center and CARE team to make sure that our the students are are well and have access to medical, medical, mental health, counseling services, community resources and referrals. That we do a lot of community referrals as well with our partners. 

Matt Markin  
So with that, you know, we're we're recording this, interview, and it's going to be posted during finals week. Are these services going to be available in between the fall semester ending and the spring spring semester starting?

Natalie Cleary  
Yeah, we will continue to work at out of the food pantry. The both pantries will be open so in San Bernardino, that's in faculty office building, 237 so we're in little faculty office building next start a little library. Most students don't know that. They always ask where that building is, because there's not classes in it. And so we will continue to be open. We're currently open three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, for Open Pantry hours, and that information is available on our basic needs website, but we will continue to be open through up until December 23 and then we'll take the break that the university does when the university is closed, and then we'll be back serving students again in January during the intercession and obviously spring term.

Star Wildes  
That is awesome. And thank you so much for sharing that. So Natalie, if I know that you guys are on social media, let's say, if a student would like to contact your office, what's the best way to do so I know that you use via your social media, you have live sessions. What? Let's say it would like to contact you regarding your the resources, how? What's the best way that they can help you? 

Natalie Cleary  
Yeah, so there's a there's a couple of different ways. One is to follow us on social media. We're very active on Instagram, and it's just CSUSB Basic Needs is our social media media handle, and we always post up to date information, and we do a lot of Instagram lives, as you indicated, on our programs and services. So that's a great way. The other way is to email our department. We have an email that is basicneeds@csusb.edu and that goes to myself as well as some of our lead students in our team, so that we can try and get back to as many students as quickly as possible, and then they can always reach out to me. I'm in the campus directory. Natalie Cleary, you can look at my information. I have my phone forwarded right now to my cell phone, so a lot of students catch me off guard, even sometimes when they call after hours. So you know, we want to make sure that we're we're accessible to students even while we're during this virtual environment. So you know, reach out via email to me at basicneeds@csusb.edu, or follow us on social media. Just a final thought that a lot of students struggle with whether or not to ask for help in this area, that there's always a stigma around basic needs, and maybe if they're struggling with housing or food, they don't want to tell anybody. And we run into a lot of students. I sometimes, when I meet with students that they I ask them about their housing, and they're like, Well, I mean, I'm not homeless. I'm like, Well, where do you send your mail? And they're like, Well, I really don't have an address. I kind of stay with my friend. We call it couch surfing, right? I stay with my friends a couple days here, and then, you know, a family member a couple days here, and you know that that's great. Students are being resourceful. But is that the best environment to be successful in when you're kind of in this unstable, not sure where you're going to stay every night? And so really, just again, coming back to that area that these services were intended to help students, because we know that this is an issue, not only at CSUSB, but statewide with college students. It's expensive in California, especially in, you know, urban areas like Los Angeles area, San Francisco, San Diego area, and so a lot of students are struggling with this. So if we can get the message out there that you're not the only one and we are here to help you. There's no judgment or stigma around that service. You know, 37% of students are facing food insecurity. That means, you know, one in three are and so you are definitely not alone in that struggle. And don't, you know, hesitate to take advantage of these services.

Star Wildes  
That is amazing, and thank you so much again. Natalie yodi, I hope that you have the information that you need for basic needs. If you have any questions, please reach out to Natalie and her team. And again, Natalie, thank you so much for joining us. 

Star Wildes  
Thank you so much, Natalie. Make sure that you do follow basic needs their social media handle. Natalie just provided you with their information of how to connect with them and again so Yoties, thank you again for tuning in with us this fall semester. As you know, this is our last episode for this term. We hope that you get to join us next month, January, as we begin our new series and new episodes for the spring 2021 we hope that you are well. Take care, Yoties.