By Greg Hardesty, contributing writer

Life may be like a box of chocolates.

So, too, is data, says Nga Pham, executive director of District Research, Planning and Institutional Effectiveness at Rancho Santiago Community College District.

“You never know what you’re going to get until you bite into it,” Pham said.

As far as data crunching goes, Pham has been chewing on information for the RSCCD for nearly 35 years — the last 24 years as head of the RPIE office.

She started with the community college district nearly 40 years ago when she was a student at Santa Ana College. While there, she worked part time as a financial aid adviser for incoming students.

Back then, the district’s second college — Santiago Canyon College — was just the two-building Orange satellite campus of Santa Ana College. SCC became an independently accredited college in January 2000.

Evolving needs

Pham’s long history with the district makes her the ideal go-to person for faculty, administrators, and others who need to stay on top of economic and societal trends — both locally and throughout the region.

A key goal is to keep offering the most ideal mix of courses. Things Pham and her team look at include high school enrollment, employment trends, housing income, and much more.

Pham and her staff members, working with directors of research at the district’s two colleges, also are involved in producing accountability reports to make sure the district remains in compliance with state regulations.

The groups meet monthly to assess what data is needed and how it should be used.

The work of Pham and her colleagues is necessary for the district to fulfill its mission to provide quality educational programs and services that address the needs of the district’s diverse students and communities —stakeholders whose needs always are evolving.

“Data is complicated — not just quantitative data, but information in general,” Pham said. “That’s why it’s so critical to sift through all the data and share it with everyone to help them make their best, most informed decisions.”

Student to administrator

Pham and several of her relatives in Vietnam immigrated to the United States when she was 7, after Saigon fell in April 1975.

After deciding that an initial planned career in medicine wasn’t for her, she enrolled in general education classes at Santa Ana College.

She became interested in business and ended up majoring in finance.

Pham then transferred to Cal State Fullerton in 1987 and graduated two years later with a degree in business administration.

By this time, she had been working at the college district part time for a few years.

In January 1990, after a short stint in the banking industry, Pham started working full time in the RSCCD research department.

Four years later, she earned a master’s degree in public administration from Cal State Fullerton

Pulling the numbers

Pham has been promoted through every position in the RSCCD research department all the way to the top, where she designs, conducts, and coordinates course and program evaluations and develops templates for faculty and staff to use, among her other duties.

Say, for example, a faculty member wants to track students who were enrolled in a class to see how they have progressed through community college.

Pham and her colleagues can pull the numbers.

“One of the goals of our office,” she said, “is to help administrators get their questions answered. We can build a visual dashboard of data for deans and faculty to analyze.”

Many community college students juggle work and even their own families. Some drop out of classes only to return. Many come from challenging backgrounds with limited financial and other resources.

Pham and her team can, for example, examine data to see which students return to Santa Ana College or Santiago Canyon College and how they do.

One interesting fact: Research shows if a student takes English and math in his or her first year, they are more likely to be successful.

“They have more focus,” Pham said. “If they don’t have a focus, it’s hard. If we just let them ‘hang out’ in college, they’re not going to be successful. Community college is such a big journey with so many opportunities.”

Long-term plan

Pham’s department is nearing completion of an eight-year roadmap for the district to make sure courses and subjects offered align with the RSCCD’s goals and with those of the state.

For example, artificial intelligence and STEM classes are gaining in popularity, Pham says. Even manufacturing is making a comeback.

Pham loves the variety of her job.

“We come in every day with something in mind to finish, but we rarely do because data requests come to us all the time,” she said. “But the variety of what we do is what keeps our job interesting. I think data is fun. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been involved in it for so long.”

Pham knows her work is vital to RSCCD’s mission.

“I really do believe what my team and I do here impacts students’ outcomes,” she said.