CAMPUSDIGEST

Commitment President Vitelli thanks everyone for their commitment and dedication to serving our students. Page 2

Best in State What makes a great Ag instructor? Ask Darol Fishman who was selected as the state’s Outstanding Ag Teacher. Page 7

Branded Learn more about Merced College’s new logo and brand identity and how you can promote the brand. Page 4

AUGUST 2017A Merced College News Magazine Published by the Office of Institutional AdvancementVol. VII Edition 1

Growing our Brand

Merced College’s new logo represents our essential brand, best expressed in one word: ‘Grow.’ The logo and brand identity were approved by the District Board of Trustees in July and unveiled to the college community during the recent Convocation. The brand provides consistent messaging and clarity in communications. For more, see page 4.

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Welcome back for the 2017-18 aca-demic year. This is certain to be a year to remember with a renewed sense of commitment and focus on our number one priority: stu-dents.

We are launch-ing a new brand and logo, new innovative practices and services, and we will begin updating our educational and facility mas-ter plans as well as our strategic plan.

As we have for more than 50 years, we

President Vitelli

CAMPUS DIGEST AUGUST 2017

Moving Forward with a Renewed Commitment Our Job is to Engage and Support our Students in their Growth and Development

By Chris VitelliSuperintendent/President

are a college with a sustained mission to “growing our community” through educa-tion.

Every student entering our campus is seeking growth and development, whether it be through a special program or service or inside the classroom or through one of the many engaging activities at Merced College. It is our job to recognize those enrichment and growth opportunities and to proactively connect students with the re-sources they need to grow, learn, and give back to this community beyond their time at Merced College.

As a college, I ask that each of you find ways to represent and share our brand with others. I can think of no better call-ing than to nurture the growth of students in a community such as ours. Logistically, please begin to only use the new logo in all communications, including email signature

lines, publications, and letterhead. You can find all the information and resources re-garding the brand standards at www.mccd.edu/brand.

The start of the year was a success with positive feedback from many of you on this year’s Convocation and the newly intro-duced Convocation Carnival. As discussed at Convocation, some of our top priorities include building a sustainable budget, en-rollment management, security and safety, and planning for our future. Together, we’ll address these priorities and much more.

The positive energy is undeniable and I am hopeful we can build on this momen-tum to have one of our best years yet.

I’m thankful for your commitment and dedication to Merced College. Let’s con-tinue to help make this an even better place to serve students. These are exciting times. Thank you for all you do!

Welcome!

Students were welcomed to the Merced campus of Merced College on the first day of the fall semester with friendly faces, hot beverages, and donuts. Campus volunteers, including President Chris Vitelli and Trustee Ernie Ochoa, provided directions and answered questions.

Photo by Sean Lynch

CAMPUS DIGESTAUGUST 2017

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New Emergency Notification System Adopted

Merced College has launched 911Shield, a new safety app for the campus community. The College is one of the first in the state to launch a safety app with a technology that can accurately locate indi-viduals who are in distress.

“Although Merced College is a safe place, we are always looking for ways to further enhance our suite of safety servic-es.,” said Police Chief Tom Trindad.

“We’re excited about launching the 911Shield app because it provides our campus community with greater access to safety resources.”

The primary function of 911Shield is to serve as an emergency communication tool between the college community and cam-pus police. The app offers four major fea-tures — “emergency calling,” “submit a tip,” “safety check,” and the student handbook/emergency procedures.

The emergency call feature allows users to access emergency services at the push of a button. Instead of relying solely on emer-gency poles, which are fixed into place, the campus community now has the ability to signal for emergency assistance 24/7, from anywhere on and off campus, with just a push of their cell phone.

911Shield users will be immediately connected with campus police if on cam-pus. Campus police are also automatically provided a user’s location and any profile information, such as a photo and any medi-cal history that the app user chooses to share. If the user is not on campus, the app can still be used, and the caller is routed to the closest 911 call center.

The “submit a tip” feature, which may be used anonymously, allows users to send text messages, along with photos and videos, di-rectly to campus police for non-emergency situations.

The safety check feature is a peer-to-peer safety service which allows app us-ers who want additional safety to assign a group of friends to look after them during activities of higher risk, such as while jog-ging alone or walking to and from class.

The Greater Merced Chamber of Com-merce and the Merced College Emerging Leaders Institute are partnering for a round of workshops beginning September 7.

The first course in the series will be “Employee Engagement: Improve Perfor-mance, Productivity, and Retention,” based on the Gallup Organization’s extensive re-search on how to engage employees.

The initial workshop will be held Thurs-days, Sept. 7 and Sept. 14 from 8 a.m. to noon with a second class from 1–5 p.m.

An additional session will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 13 and run from 1-5 p.m.

All workshops will be held at the Mer-ced College Business Resource Center, 630 W. 19th Street.

The workshop is $23 and earns half a unit of college credit.

The Emerging Leaders Institute is for high potential employees and new manag-ers who are ready to focus on core leader-ship skills and are posed to move up in their organization. Seasoned managers would benefit from this training as well, as they will refresh themselves with current and proven leadership strategies. For more in-formation or to sign-up, call 386-6733.

Emerging Leaders Institute Kicking Off

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MC Unveils a New Logo and Strategic Brand IdentityDeveloped after a year of market re-

search, and community and college out-reach efforts, including focus group meet-ings with college staff, students, alumni, and community members in Merced and in Los Banos, the Merced College brand was unveiled during Convocation.

The effort, organized under the Office of Public Affairs, refreshes and refocuses the visual representation of the College, and provides guidelines for image-making and messaging.

During the spring semester and work-ing with a budget of $33,000, the Jeffrey Scott Agency of Fresno developed numer-ous examples of iconography designed to express the College’s internal values and the community’s positive impressions of the College.

The new logo and its variations rest on the College’s unique place in the commu-nity, giving a nod to tradition and a look forward into the future.

Retaining the main icon of the tree, the new logo is both representational and styl-ized, with the letter “M” embedded in the trunk. While there are variations of the logo — horizontal and vertical, full-color

and one-color, a consistent use of the logo will reinforce the image we want to portray to our stakeholders. A unified visual identi-ty will reinforce the College’s core identity.

Along with a redesigned logo, the Jef-frey Scott Agency has developed a brand-ing style guide. This graphic identity system is the College’s “brand bible,” offering per-missiable uses of the brand, while restrict-ing unauthorized variations. This, along with the logos will be housed under www.mccd.edu/brand.

As part of the project’s deliverables, the brand will appear on new business cards, stationary and envelopes, banners, email signature lines, and future promotional products.

Eventually, the brand will appear as a template for PowerPoint presentations and in other communications vehicles. College websites, videos, publications, both printed and digital, outreach booths and displays, and other related products will need to be designed with the same quality and stan-dards outlined in the branding guide.

A team of “brand ambassadors” has been organized and will gather during the fall semester to visit every area of the College to introduce the brand and to offer support and guidance as we implement it across the District.

If you’d like to learn more about the Merced College Brand, call the Office of Public Affairs at Ext. 6470.

Merced College’s brand is a valuable asset, as tangible as the physical environ-ment of our campuses, and as praisewor-thy as our dedicated faculty and staff.

Our brand identity is a strategic union of our core values and our com-mitment to excellence. It is the vehicle by which we effectively communicate and promote our programs and services. It is our promise to our students and the communities we serve.

By utilizing our brand consistently and through intentional design, we can more effectively foster positive relation-ships within our community, further connecting our mission to the dreams and goals of our students.

Our brand can build continuing sup-port among our alumni, those who wish to partner with us on innovative projects,

Just What is a Brand and Why is it Important to Merced College?and those who wish to provide private financial support.

Through the proper and consistent placement of the Merced College logo and its affiliated designs, we have the opportu-nity to communicate to the world mes-sages about what our College means.

Our visual identity reflects more than artistic designs and thoughtful typestyles; it speaks about our values and image. Our brand will help us to raise our profile in our local communities, strategically com-municate as one college, support donor cultivation, recruit new students and keep them connected to us after they graduate.

A brand is more than a visual marker, more than a logo, colors and fonts. It is a clear manifestation of our values and the image we’d like others to come to believe.

When expressed through our website,

publications, advertisements, promo-tional products, and videos, the brand supports our strengths and eliminates our weaknesses. It reinforces our core identity and our personality as an educa-tional leader.

When we live our values, when we share those values with our students and our community, our brand becomes a key component of our communications and marketing efforts. Our brand creates not only first impressions, but lasting and enduring impacts upon all who come in contact with it.

Finally, the promotion and protecting of the Merced College brand becomes the responsibility of all of us. Under-standing our brand and the need to present a unified visual identity is critical to its long-term success.

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Trucking Association Gifts Endowment

Photo by Robin Shepard

California Trucking Association—Central Valley Unit members Paul Aguayo from Pete’s Sport Shop in Madera and Jose Ortega from Foster Farms in Livingston present a check on behalf of its membership to President Vitelli. CTA’s Central Valley Unit made a contribution of $10,000 to endow a permanent scholarship at Merced College.

On Saturday, May 13, I had the pleasure of joining about 25 students from the Col-lege’s Geology, Science, Math & Engineer-ing, and Pre-Med clubs during a visit to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s beautiful Golden Gate Park.

The California Academy of Sciences is an aquarium, planetarium and natural his-tory museum all under one living roof. Stu-dents spent several hours within the mu-seum exploring various exhibits including a warm and humid rainforest complete with free-flying tropical butterflies and birds, a swamp exhibit featuring Claude the albino alligator, the planetarium, a hands-on coral reef experience and a dinosaur exhibit sup-plying a look back in time of life on planet earth.

Students particularly enjoyed the natu-ral history museum complete with diora-mas of African wildlife, the live penguin exhibit, and a trek through the evolutionary past of modern humans. Atop the museum is a living roof resembling rolling hills and fields which offers a home to local wildlife, while keeping the building green in more ways than one.

Students also enjoyed the Shake House Experience, which replicates the sustained tremors of San Francisco’s two biggest his-torical earthquakes. Needless to say, there was something for everyone on this outing, and despite the Bay Area traffic, everyone had a good time and would like to return next year.

Exposing science majors to a museum experience of this quality is just not possible within the local Central Valley and there-fore funds were sought through the Office of Student Equity to help support the cost of such an adventure.

Thanks to the Student Equity program, the field trip was paid for in full by Merced College with no out-of-pocket expenses for the students. Our students want to express thanks for making this experience possible.

Students Venture to SF for Science Museum Visit

Merced College teamed up with the Merced NAACP branch for a College Night event for the residents of South Merced on July 27.

NAACP President Darryl Davis said that Merced College has served the Mer-ced area for more than 50 years and has been the backbone of this community for years, and it’s one of the reasons he wanted the two organizations to team up.

“One of the things I heard when I took over as president was that the NAACP wasn’t involved enough in the commu-nity,” Davis said. “So the last few years, we’ve been focused on teaming up with like-minded organizations, such as Merced College, that understand the importance of education.

“One of the things we’re really pushing is literacy, because too many kids in this

community can’t read at the level that they should. Hopefully this is an event that the community will be interested in and will help spread that message.”

The event was open to anyone inter-ested in attending college now or in the future. The College provided snacks, infor-mation on the many programs it offers, the registration process, as well as financial aid information.

The Associated Students of Merced College (ASMC) was also in attendance, offering free game tickets to Merced Col-lege football’s home tilt with San Jose City on September 9.

Acting Dean of Student Services Raul Alcalá said “Our hope is to take Merced College out into the community and show kids, both young and old, that it’s acces-sible.”

College Night Goes on the Road to S. Merced

Article Submitted by Dr. Cary Coburn

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In his 20 years teaching at Merced College, Darol Fishman said he’s never missed one of the California Agriculture Teachers Association’s annual conferences.

The Ag community is a small, tight-knit group and the con-ference affords Fishman the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and make some new ones. As special as the event has been to Fishman, the 2017 version promised to be one he’ll never forget.

Fishman, who teaches mechanized agriculture, diesel technol-ogy and welding technology at Merced College, received the Don Wilson Memorial award as the state’s Outstanding Ag Teacher. The award is presented annually to outstanding agricultural educa-tion teachers with at least 20 years of experience for their partici-pation and leadership in civic, community, agriculture/agribusiness and professional activities.

“If you look at the list of people presented this award over the years, it’s very humbling,” Fishman said. “They hold it at our an-nual Ag Teachers Conference in San Luis Obispo. I was up on the stage and they were talking about their usual mumbo jumbo and I received a standing ovation. I was deeply touched. It brought tears

to my eyes.”Fishman was accompanied by his wife, Teresa, and sons, Daniel

and David, as well as the entire Merced College Agriculture De-partment. He just completed his 34th year of teaching and 20th at the College.

While being singled out by his peers was special enough, Fish-man’s tie to the award’s namesake made it even more sentimental.

“It’s named the Don Wilson award, because he was a very in-strumental person in our profession,” Fishman said. “What’s really kind of cool about that, is I do what I do because of my high school Ag teacher (Bill King). Well, Don Wilson was my Ag teacher’s Ag teacher out at Petaluma High School. So things have kind of come full circle.”

It was a big month for Fishman, who also participated in Iron Man Santa Rosa at the end of July.

“I have a great gig,” Fishman said. “Students pay money to come here learn some fun things and the school pays me to go out and play with big Tonka toys while teaching them. I’m so thankful in 1997 that I made the choice to come here.”

Fishman is California’s Outstanding Ag EducatorWhere else would a great teacher be? In the classroom, which is where Darol Fishman was found lecturing to his students.

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In June 2017, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness provided the BSSOT Team with valuable data on course completion and success rates for those students placed in our transfer-level English via multiple measures and those placed under normal ACCUPLACER placing.

For spring 2017, 498 students were placed via multiple measures, of which 80.60 percent completed the course and 61 percent were successful. When we compare this with those placed via normal ACC-UPLACER scores, 1,280 student were placed, of which 78.32 percent completed and 60.37 percent were successful.

We definitely have room for improve-ment in order to increase overall comple-tion and success rates for our students, but

Students Move Toward Success with Multiple Measuresthis does mean that with multiple measures we are sending more students to ENGL-01A. And they are doing just as well as students who were placed solely based on ACCUPLACER.

Such students will not have to receive basic skills courses and likely get caught in the basic skills sequence. They can now move forward with their college career. Over time, this should mean a significant increase in degree/certificate/transfer com-pletion.

To better assist our students, Merced College will use a large portion of the $1.5 million BSSOT Grant to make a new lit-eracy center possible on both the Merced and Los Banos campuses.

The ILC is a community space of peers

and mentors working together to help stu-dents become better readers, writers, and thinkers across all disciplines. We help stu-dents grow into confident capable commu-nicators.

Services include small group and indi-vidual assistance from faculty and Embed-ded Peer Mentors, laptop computers to do classwork, Internet access, charging sta-tions for cellphones/laptops, and printing services, including color.

The college community is invited to visit the ILC on Mondays through Thurs-days from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and on Fridays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Communication Building, Room 2.

Article submitted by Dean Vince Piro and Jessica Moran

Campaign Launched to Promote Career Education ProgramsSACRAMENTO — The California

Community Colleges has launched a new campaign aimed at prospective students, both high school students and adults who want to gain new skills, as well as parents, counselors, employers, and other stake-holders to promote the benefits of Califor-nia Community Colleges Career Educa-tion as an affordable, accessible pathway to a rewarding career.

The launch event, held recently at the State Capitol in Sacramento, included a press conference featuring state policymak-ers, higher education leaders including Eloy Ortiz Oakley, California Community Col-leges chancellor; Van Ton-Quinlivan, Cali-fornia Community Colleges vice chancellor of workforce and economic development Division; Jim Mayer, president and CEO of California Forward; employers, Career Education graduates and current students; as well as hands-on exhibits featuring a sampling of technology demonstrations af-filiated with today’s Career Education pro-grams including Advanced Transportation and Renewables, Public Safety, Advanced Manufacturing, Energy, Construction and Utilities, and Retail, Hospitality and Tour-ism.

“Today the California Community Col-leges launched an important effort to let all

Californians know about the robust Career Education programs we offer,” said Oakley. “Our Career Education programs are the smartest, most affordable and accessible way for Californians to acquire the hands-on, high-quality skills they need to enter exciting, new and good-paying career fields – and to pursue the California Dream. Our system is one of inclusion and opportunity, and we’d like everyone to know about all we have to offer.”

The campaign includes paid advertising for use via social and traditional media (in English and Spanish ), public relations ef-forts, multicultural outreach, local outreach events, online videos, and employer and stakeholder engagement. The campaign is broad-based, and will be rolled-out in co-ordination with California community col-lege campuses, employers and businesses.

Although California is experienc-ing impressive economic growth, there is a widening gap between what employers need to continue that growth and what the state’s labor pool currently offers. The California Community Colleges launched this campaign because Career Education programs and apprenticeships provide im-portant pathways for adults to boost their skills and for high school students to learn new skills for rewarding careers.

“Both adults and high school students hesitate to pursue higher education to gain new skills and refresh existing ones because they worry about student debt,” said Van Ton-Quinlivan. “Career education offers a great pathway to increase earnings and make a living wage without that type of debt burden.”

California’s community colleges offer more than 200 Career Education programs in fields such as advanced manufacturing, information and communication technolo-gies/digital media, health, global trade and logistics, life sciences/biotech, agriculture, water/environment technologies and many more.

The median salary of a worker with an associate degree in a vocational career is $66,600 five years after completion (as compared to $38,500 for those with non-vocational associate degrees). According to the California Community Colleges Salary Surfer website (cccco.salarysurfer.edu), graduates with an Aeronautical and Aviation Technology degree could earn an annual salary of $76,187 five years after graduation; Biotechnology and Biomedical Technology graduates could earn $59,603.

California community colleges are the largest provider of workforce training in the nation.

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Kathy Buckley had the audience in stitches.

For the better part of an hour, the hearing-impaired comedian elicited waves of laughter throughout the Merced Col-lege Theater. But funny as Buckley was, it was her heartwarming and occasionally wrenching stories about the teachers who had such an impact on her life that truly resonated with the audience.

It was a firm reminder that the op-portunity to forever positively influence a student’s life occurs daily for the College’s faculty and staff and is something to ap-preciate and aspire toward in the coming school year. Buckley’s performance was the highlight of an entertaining and nicely paced Convocation.

“I think the speaker was amazing,” Career/Transfer Center Assistant Deidra Brinson said. “She was motivational and

Convocation Speaker Sets Tone for 2017-18 school yearinspirational. She got us to think and look outside the box and not just be happy with what we have, but to go explore and do other things.

“I just think the Convocation in general was very enjoyable. Everything that was put together, with me being a new employee, left me really inspired. I was able to kind of mingle and meet a bunch of other em-ployees that I didn’t know. I really enjoyed myself.”

President Vitelli kept things light from the onset, but still was able to get a lot of important information out about the com-ing year. Vitelli announced the goals for the coming year and unveiled the College’s new logo and branding campaign.

In addition, the staff got to celebrate some of its peers as Tomasia Drummond was named the Manager of the Year, Elena Altamirano won Classified Professional of

the Year and David Seymour took home Faculty of the Year.

“It was one of the best Convocations I’ve been a part of,” Executive Assistant to the President Stacey Hicks said. “Kathy Buck-ley was a great speaker. Her message was a great combination of comedy and getting a good strong message across to all of us. I think on a daily basis we kind of forget what we do in our everyday jobs really does impact students. So I think it was a good reminder that what may be mundane to us, can really have an effect on each student.

“Convocation was shortened by an hour and I think everybody appreciated that. The information given was concise, but impor-tant for people to hear. It was a good, broad message and then everyone was given time for their area meetings to kind of drill it down even more.”

Stacey Hicks had no idea what to ex-pect.

The last time a post-Convocation gath-ering had been held was in 2009 and this was the first such event to be offered to Merced College staff and their families for free.

Hicks admitted she hoped about 300 people would attend the Convocation Car-nival. Those who helped put the event on met that goal, and then some, as well over 400 people turned out over the course of the three-hour event to celebrate the start of a new school year.

“We had no idea how many would come, so it was a wonderful surprise to see that many people attend,” Hicks said. “There were all kinds of families and kids. Getting to see everyone mingle and talk to each other on a different level than we do during work hours was great.

“The turnout and response that we re-ceived greatly exceeded our expectations.”

Those putting on the event had hoped to make it a family affair, and the families turned out in droves.

Never-ending lines of kids could be seen at the inflatable water slide, balloon

artist, as well as the cotton candy and shaved ice stations. The dunk tank was also a popular attraction as President Vitel-li and the Merced College Board of Trustees good na-turedly took turns getting dunked.

The Tri-Tipery provided deli-cious tri-tip and pulled pork sand-wiches, while Mac Doogles Old Time Kettlecorn offered up some before- or after-meal snacks.

Freddy Loera set the mood by serving as the event’s DJ and the IAC Amphithe-ater provided the perfect backdrop for kids to run and play in the grass while their par-ents ate and mingled.

“It was awesome, because I got to expe-

It was a mouthful of cotton candy for this youngster during the Convocation Carnival.

More than 400 Attend Inagural Convocation Carnival Event

rience the culture within Merced College,” Career/Transfer Center Assistant Pablo Gutierrez said. “My daughter was going up and down the slide for a good hour. The food was great. The music was great. It was nice to get a chance to just mingle with ev-eryone.”

Photo by Sean Lynch