Welcome to finals week!

June 26, 2023

Welcome to finals week! Here are 5 takes for this week: initiatives and events where I hope we can partner–in thought, spirit, or location–to advance connection and community.

(1) Puppy Therapy.

Finals can be stressful. If you are on campus, take advantage of a little puppy love therapy. Katherine Bailey of KJ’s Cafe will have puppy hugs  available today at 10am in the PSEC courtyard. Reduce your cortisol levels with some cute canine wiggles. Happiness is a warm puppy.

(2) Summer!

We are finishing up the Spring semester, but with the passing of the solstice we are officially into summer. This summer the virtual campus will be alive with activity with a modest amount of instruction on campus. At the time of this writing, we are up 10% in enrollment over last summer. And classes are much fuller. For those on campus, all three locations of KJ’s will be open for coffee, drinks, and grab and go options. And, please spread the word to our students that parking will remain FREE through summer 2024. While you are out and about this summer let’s all keep enrollment momentum moving into fall and be sure to invite potential and new students to the Enrollment Days on July 14 and July 17th in the Library Quad from 9-3 pm. There will be taco trucks!

(3) Guided Pathways Milestones.

This Wednesday I’ll be meeting with the Guided Pathways Team as the GP Plan is submitted to the State Chancellor’s Office. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Guided Pathways leadership of Hilda Fernandez, Dokesha Meacham, Natalie Latteri, Isaac Escoto, Chris Chavez, Stephanie Chan, Fatima Jinnah, Amy Leonard as well as the leadership of Dr. Laurie Scolari for moving the Guided Pathways framework forward on this campus.

(4) Zoom Protocols.

At the last MIPC shared governance meeting, we had an unpleasant reminder of the need to maintain our vigilance against Zoom bombers. As many know, and I recently learned, in response to a very disturbing 2020 Juneteenth Zoom bombing attack, the college pivoted to implement Zoom protocols. Everyone worked hard to maintain safe spaces in our online meetings and classes, and we have been quite successful in this goal. Friday's Zoom bombing, though, is an important reminder that we cannot let our guard down.

With that in mind, please take a few minutes to review the following guidelines to make sure all your meetings and classes are secure, especially if they are advertised on the website or on social media.

• Always set up your meeting with a waiting room. Do not let anyone into the meeting who is not known to you. If a person just has one ' Zoom name', keep them in the waiting room and ask them to provide proof of their identity. This could involve them texting you their phone number (which Zoom bombers don't like to do) or providing their CWID for you or a colleague to check in Banner. If someone uses a name that belongs to a celebrity, do not let them in.
• In addition to the waiting room, for larger public meetings, set up the meeting with required registration (FHDA email or CWID required, and a pass code).
• For all meetings, have someone who is the designated eyes and ears of the meeting (we did not have this on Friday and could have detected the miscreant earlier if we'd assigned someone to this role). This person runs 'the door' to check who is accessing the meeting, they monitor activity in the meeting (especially if there are 10+ attendees), and can place people in a waiting room or remove them completely, as needed. Publicly advertised meetings with 20+ attendees should ideally have two people running security.
• Set up your Zoom Security settings before the meeting. Do not allow people to rename themselves, do not allow people to share their screens (without the host's permission).

The college will schedule refresher sessions for Zoom security over the summer and into fall.

(5) Caps and Gowns!

I look forward to seeing you and our graduates at Commencement this Friday at 6 PM. I want to appreciate all those that are showing up for our students. We are still in need of volunteers. Please use this  link to volunteer for commencement.
https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/d06a618ba7444f3d91d9adc0dde0d655
Faculty that are making a last-minute choice to show up, a few extra gowns are available. First come, first served! 

Yours in service,

Dr. Kristina Whalen​

President

12345 El Monte Road Los Altos Hills, CA 94022