Pando Days Update: Marcela Oliva, LATTC

This is part of an ongoing series of blog posts following up on the real-world, community-based work being initiated through Pando Days. We sat down with Marcela Oliva, award-winning professor from Los Angeles Trade-Technical College (LATTC). Marcela has participated in Pando Days since the very beginning, producing amazing projects each season. We spent some time to discuss the status of her many Pando Days projects as they continue into the real world, the value of project-based learning, and where community college can fit into all of this.

Pando: Hello Marcela, it is always a pleasure to talk to you. Not only have you been participating in Pando Days since the very start, you also have done a plethora of other amazing work. I know you have seemingly countless honors and awards, but the one that stands out to me is the AIA (American Institute of Architecture) Educator of the year. I’m really glad to be sitting down with you.

Marcela Oliva: Oh, it is fabulous to talk with you! I truly don’t think I would be where I am and where I am going without Pando. Pando forces me to be focused and focus on very high quality deliverables – for both my own and my students’ work. You offer a certain credibility and professionalism that, frankly, community colleges and community college instructors rarely get. For me, that is super important. Now, I have borrowed from the Pando playbook and have as standard practice for all my courses and studios to have video presentations and a portfolio of work – all inspired by Pando Days. 

It’s always fabulous what you and your students do. By the way, I know you are participating in Pando Days 2024/’25 – any hints at the type of project you will be doing or ideas you have brewing?

Well, to be honest, I have so many projects going on (many of them still continuing Pando Days projects!) that I am still mulling over which one to focus on this season. But, as you know, all of my projects at Pando have addressed urban interventions. So, that will still definitely be a theme.

Can you just define real quick what exactly is an urban intervention?

In short, an urban intervention is something that can be very small in size but very impactful in an urban environment.

So, this would be like shade structures.

Exactly. And what is most important is that urban interventions are based on the concept of basic human rights – the idea that every person has the right to shelter, the right to health, the right to feel safe, the right to move, the right to green spaces, the right to healthy water, healthy air, healthy soil, etc.

For many of my students and our community at LATTC, these are real issues.  So having the opportunity to work alongside them on real issues in the Pando Days environment is so inspiring. So inspiring. And, others notice this work too. I do not want to speak too soon. But, many grant opportunities are on the horizon.

And you think your participation in Pando Days has helped further this momentum?

Totally. At this point, I just have such a large quantity of project portfolios that have all come together. It is so exciting.

I want to return to something you mentioned earlier about community colleges. Not enough people really know too much about the community college system. Yet the idea of Pando Days connecting education to the community goes to the heart of what community colleges are all about. Pando Days asks that students work on real projects with real partners to implement real sustainability goals.  

The whole idea of Pando Days is that your projects are real. Even at large universities, having non-theoretical projects is fairly groundbreaking. And then to expect that the best of those projects will go on to live in the world long after class time is over is rarer still, if not completely unique in higher ed. At the community college level, to have these experiences is just unheard of.

Interesting.

And, I try to keep things special for my students in many ways. You know, Pando aside, I do things in higher education that are very radical. 

One, I don’t have prerequisites for my classes. I can have a PhD student visiting from China and a South Central kid who just finished high school in the same classroom.

How does that work out?

Well, I get criticized a lot. But, in my mind, when you are focusing on projects it actually sort of eliminates the problems that one would normally face with that sort of classroom set up. 

Everybody cares about the project. And, projects have different problems that are all at different ability levels that need solving. So, when we are working on projects, I ask students to find the task to do for the project that is at their appropriate level.

Also, many tools and skills in the trade are highly scalable. Maybe, the PhD student utilizes a tool at a highly advanced level but, even then, they need some help from me as the professor. Maybe, the freshman uses just the basic features of that tool – but it’s in any case the same tool. 

In short, using diverse project-based challenges is my secret sauce. We match the skill to the required standard and objective of the class to fulfill the project outcome.

It reminds me of a business environment. Everyone is working towards the same company goals but at different levels. Entry-level workers due basic tasks and senior level deal with more advanced ones. But, they are still all working side-by-side together on an overarching project goal – the “project” in this case being the company.

Exactly.

It often requires that students have a higher degree of independence in terms of communicating what they are doing and why. Projects require that students find the problem, solve it, and then report back. 

I tell my students all the time that in industry, you need to be able to communicate: “I did this. I worked on that. I produced x, y, or z. I need help here.” You need to be able to not only define how to best spend your time but also have to be able to accurately share how you did.

Project-based education does that. So it’s a direct way to develop job skills.  

It’s a really amazing way of teaching. It is also very Pando. You are teaching independence but also interdependence. 

Exactly!, I think the Pando education model is part of a paradigm shift in education. 

Traditionally, you spend four, five, six years or more learning how to solve certain problems. But, the world is moving so fast and oftentimes the problems you were trained on are already outdated when you graduate. I am not saying to completely delete this old way of teaching, but I am saying that we need to start training differently. Students should be presented a problem and then learn the skills that problem-solving requires. 

Needing a skill drives you to learn it and absorb the relevant knowledge in a way theory does not. This is the best way to engage students and is another part of my “secret sauce”

Again, this seems like it would help the transition from university to employment. I know that typically making that transition happen is the role of the internship. But, I remember in college asking myself, “The idea of an unpaid internship is great and all. But, how can I afford to work for free a whole summer?” I know that at community colleges, lots of students similarly do not have the means of taking on such financial burdens. That can be a real detriment to them after graduating. But the project-model actually builds social equity – because students get more “work-esque” experience through the classroom itself. But do you see it that way – project-based learning as a social equity measure?

Yes, you hit the nail on the head. I have worked with some marginalized students who, just like you said, couldn’t afford not to be paid for a whole summer. Then, when they graduate, they have a harder time finding work because they have not had any appropriate experience. Well, how are they going to get experience? So, I always include some real  work-training.

This is one of the beautiful things about Pando Days. Not only does it offer project-based experiences but makes a professional environment and even professional connections a fundamental part of their coursework, putting students in contact with the “real world” as a necessary part of their studies. 

Speaking of connections, how important to you is the diverse educational environment that Pando Days creates? I’m thinking about how it is that in Pando Days you can have schools like Pepperdine, a private institution on the Malibu coast, working alongside UCLA, a top-tier research institute, working alongside LA Trade Tech, a downtown community college. 

I think many people still believe community college students are second class. We just got second place in a national competition, and I believe some of the judges felt they could not let a community college win.

That is what I love about Pando. It gets rid of that stigma. I remember that last awards event, a few students (from a bigger university) marveled at the work my students had done. They thought doing such work at the community college level simply did not happen! I cannot blame them. They just didn’t know. And you don’t know what you don’t know. 

Pando has helped a lot to start that conversation and, at least in LA, put community colleges on the map a bit more and helped remove whatever stigma one might feel.

That makes sense. LA County is so unbelievably large and diverse. It can feel like two (if not multiple) different worlds existing at the same time. I mean, it can be quite uncomfortable.

There are multiple worlds in Los Angeles. And, yes, many people never see how “the other side” lives or goes about their days. It’s a real problem. 

That is why it is so important that Pando is breaking down a lot of these barriers. I don’t see anybody else doing what Pando is doing. 

That is why it is so complicated and challenging. But, it also is incredibly interesting to watch unfold.

Marcela, thank you for your time. And, thank you for all the work you do.

Of course, I am PANDO!