President's Office
After a summer hiatus, the 12345 is back. This newsletter is a playful take on our unique address. Each week, I'll share 5 items of interest.
1. Supporting Cultures of Growth - Opening Day 2024
Opening Day will center the question: how can we strengthen cultures of growth? An
important aspect of that growth is tied to stretching our individual understanding
of a growth mindset into team dynamics and organizational culture. The Professional Learning Committee
has been scheduling workshop sessions based on employee feedback and featured sessions
will launch a year of inquiry into processes that move reflective practices further away from atomization and into an integrated model. Put more simply, we need
to provide the very best educational experience and will achieve that through engaged
conversations to identify student needs, remove barriers, and take action. This focus
is inspired by the academic senate resolution on continuous improvement of teaching and learning.
Speaking of inspiration, we will be joined by esteemed scholar Dr. Mary C. Murphy, a Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University and Director
of the Summer Institute on Diversity at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral
Sciences at Stanford University. Dr. Murphy, a protege of Carol Dweck, has built on
Dweck’s work in interesting ways. Her current scholarly work will center our joint
resolve for systemizing a “sustained and unified approach” to all of the processes
of continued improvement, such as SLOs, RSI, equity, program review and curriculum
updates.
Flex Day and Opening Day schedules and workshop descriptions coming soon!
2. Good enrollment news
Fall Enrollment Days served over 550 students in late July, assisting new and continuing
students through the registration process to class enrollment. A hearty THANK YOU
to our student services teams and counselors who gave attendees an orientation, education
plan, financial aid support, a schedule, and fed them too! After the events, enrollment
dashboards show a fall quarter over quarter growth in the double digits. We are tempering
our excitement since some fraud remediation is ongoing. Still, the Vice Chancellor
of Technology reports disenrolled fraudulent students are very quickly replaced on
rosters with “real” students. It will be weeks before we have the type of clean data
to allow us to confidently report the full extent of enrollment growth, but we are
seeing growth.
We are also able to support impacted enrollment with some additional sections thanks
to the $3.2 million of district money the Chancellor asked to be set aside for strategic
enrollment management efforts. We are using our portion judiciously, but are already
opening sections in multiple modalities where there is clear student demand.
3. Update Emergency Contact.
As we gear up for the fall Quarter, consider making sure that your emergency contact information has been updated. I updated mine by going to My Portal → FHDA Banner →SSB Banner 9 → and visiting the personal information tab:
4. Kudos to Faculty Supporting Faculty and other staff awesomeness
We are officially in summer break, but many on campus are working diligently to successfully launch a new academic year. I’d like to send my appreciation to the Faculty Supporting Faculty, all of whom are stepping up and forward to champion the launch of training related to important elements of effective online teaching & learning:
- Allison Meezan
- Kimberly Escamilla
- Dolores Davison
- Jordana Griffiths
- Amber La Piana
- Sally Baldwin
- Amy Shidler
A thousand thanks to Lené Whitley-Putz, Helen Graves and Paula Schales for their leadership.
Additionally, hats off to Mona Rawal, who was selected as an EPIC Fellow for Global Studies at Stanford University.
Finally, flowers arrived for Ben Kaupp in the form of a Congressional Recognition by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo! Ben's mission
driven and inclusive work with Tools for Transition to Work impresses everyone. The
TTW folks were featured in this recent feature article in the Los Altos Town Crier.
5. Football Tailgate
Meet the Football families, enjoy some sliders, and watch the Owls match up against Sierra College on September 28. Tailgate at 5 pm in student lot 1 (near main entrance to stadium); Game at 6 PM.
Yours in service,
Kristina