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May 12, 2017 • Volume 5, No. 15

Olive HillPress

• Congresswoman Eshoo Holds Town Hall at Cañada College

• Connect to College Night Draws 250+ Prospective Students

• Students Visit San Francisco State University

• Cañada Spotlight: Matt Lee

• SparkPoint at Cañada and Skyline Colleges Featured at Statewide IEPI Conferences

• Farewell & Welcome: ACES Coordinator

• Student Clubs Joins Together for a Star Party

• Mentor Lunch Supports Women in Engineering

• Honors Transfer Program Highlights & Successes

• May Professional Learning Newsletter is Now Available

• Grants Development and Management Team Launches Website

• Student Equity Plan Update

• ACES Hosts Inquiry Fiesta

• Snack & Share Series Offered to Employees

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Cañada College • May 12, 2017 • Olive Hill Press 2

Congresswoman (and Proud Cañada College Alumna) Anna Eshoo held her community Town Hall at Cañada on Saturday, April 22. There, President Moore introduced the Congresswoman to the stage and Associated Students of Cañada College President, Cindy Streitenberger, joined the Congresswoman in leading the Pledge of Allegiance.

Congresswoman Eshoo Holds Town Hall at Cañada College

Cañada hosted its third annual Connect to College Night on Thursday, April 27. At the event, more than 250 members of the community, including prospective students and their families, had the opportunity to meet Cañada students, faculty and staff to learn about programs and services available to them. They learned about educational opportunities through a College Resource Fair where campus community members held information tables in The Grove, as well as a series of workshops throughout campus where prospective students learned about programs and services such as Career Education courses, Financial Aid, Transfer and ESO Adelente programs. In addition, two lucky students each won $500 scholarships to attend Cañada College!

Thank you to our event sponsors, San Mateo Credit Union and Starbucks. Also, thank you to Mayra Arellano, Mallory Stevens and the Campus Ambassadors for the time and coordination dedicated to making the event a success.

Connect to College Night Draws 250+ Prospective Students

Twenty two students attended the university visit to San Francisco State University (SFSU) on Friday, April 21. The group enjoyed an informational admissions talk from Transfer Admissions Specialist, a lively tour with a Student Ambassador, and a delicious lunch at the campus’s Dining Commons. The admissions talk was the highlight for most of the students. They appreciated that it included general information about the CSU system, such as following the CSU GE pathway versus the IGETC if students know that they want to attend a CSU. The Admissions Specialist eased some anxiety about impacted majors, saying that “impacted does not mean impossible” – it simply means that students may have to take a few extra steps to be accepted. It also means that students will need to think about related backup majors. She ended her talk by offering her contact information so that students can reach her for questions.

SFSU is one of the most diverse campuses in the CSU system and they want incoming students to know it. The cover of the “prospective student” packet that the students received features faces of the campus, each one different from the next in many ways, and all of which are Gators, the College mascot. The Campus Tour Guide, Josh, made sure to highlight this important aspect at the beginning of the tour. The tour was thoroughly enjoyable due to the warm weather. #Karl, the fog, hadn’t come to visit from the ocean. Josh also shared that #Karl has both Facebook and Instagram accounts where students can find out when he’ll be on campus so that they can dress accordingly (layers are very important). He highlighted SFSU’s hands-on approach to learning. He talked about the Cadaver Room, where undergraduate and graduate students alike can study the human body. Josh also talked about the Child Development Center, staffed by Child Development students, where students and workers can drop off their children while in class.

The Cañada group was surprised to learn that the campus features a 5-star restaurant with 3-course meals that is run by a Michelin Star chef. Though it is only open for lunch, the prices are reasonable because it is staffed entirely by culinary students! The tour ended in front of a peculiar log that had front and back legs, an open mouth, and grid marks on the top of it – a gator! Thank you to TRIO and A2B for organizing and chaperoning the trip. Funding for this trip was possible due to the Vending Commission and the ¡ESO! Grant.

Students Visit San Francisco State University

Cañada College • May 12, 2017 • Olive Hill Press 3

Cañada College • May 12, 2017 • Olive Hill Press

Cañada College Spotlight: Matt Lee |

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This employee feature spotlights members of the campus community. If you would like to nominate an employee, please send names to canmarketing@smccd.edu.

1. Why did you choose to work at Cañada College?

“Once a colt, always a colt,” a wise man once said. I was a former student athlete in my former life and now I have the privilege of serving the same cohort of students in the same capacity with great leadership, colleagues, faculty, and staff.

2. Describe Cañada College in three words.

• Green

• Gold

• Possibilities

3. What would you sing at Karaoke night?

Rapper’s Delight – Sugar Hill Gang.

4. What’s the most unusual thing you’ve ever eaten?

Probably anything that I cook.

5. What is your favorite spot on our campus?

Building 1 – Home of Colts!

Division Assistant – Athletics, Kinesiology and Dance, Library, Learning Resources

Recognizing the importance and impact of financial literacy and well-being in student success, the Institutional Effectiveness Partnership Initiative (IEPI), a division of the California Community College’s Chancellor’s Office, invited SparkPoint at Cañada and Skyline College’s to share the nationally recognized SparkPoint model for student success. More than 130 financial aid, counseling, categorical program and other student services staff and faculty attended the two, one-day workshops titled, “The Role of Financial Well-Being in Student Success”

Adolfo Leiva, Director of SparkPoint at Cañada College, presented in Irvine, Calif. on April 24 and Chad Thompson, Interim Director of SparkPoint and Career Services at Skyline College, presented in Walnut Creek, Calif. on April 26. Topics covered during each workshop included the history of SparkPoint, the need for financial literacy and education and how it impacts student success and degree attainment, the effect of bundling as a measure of student persistence, Cañada Cash as an effective incentive program for positive financial behavior, and key takeaways from the SparkPoint model. Included in the presentation was also, “A Day in the Life,” a short video created by Achieving the Dream’s (AtD) Working Student Success Network (WSSN) that featured Ingrid Martinez, current student and Office Assistant II at SparkPoint at Cañada College. In the video, Ingrid outlines the challenges she faced in becoming a student and her current role as a champion for student success in working for SparkPoint.

Joining Adolfo and Chad at both conferences was Alexandra (Alex) Kennedy, Student Assistant in the Public Benefits Office at SparkPoint at Skyline College. Alex shared her unique experiences including that of being a single mother navigating the educational system while seeking public benefits herself and as a student assistant recognizing students’ challenges and advocating for their benefits.

During the April 18 ACES meeting, the Committee showed appreciation for Michael Hoffman, Math Faculty, for his dedication to the Committee and equity throughout campus. The Committee presented Michael with a special gift of words used to describe him and shared refreshments while celebrating Michael’s contributions as the ACES Co-coordinator. This celebration also included welcoming Rebekah Taveau, ESL Faculty, as the new ACES Co-Coordinator starting in the Fall 2017. Rebekah is excited for the upcoming year and the opportunity to continue Professor Hoffman’s work. In her words, “It’s an honor to be in a position where I can help facilitate the important work we do addressing equity gaps and empowering students to achieve their dreams. I’m excited about continuing our collaborations and engaging even more of the campus in ACES projects. Michael Hoffman has set the bar high as ACES Coordinator, and I am looking forward to building on his inspiring work.”

SparkPoint at Cañada and Skyline Colleges Featured at Statewide IEPI Conferences

Farewell & Welcome: ACES Coordinator

Cañada College • May 12, 2017 • Olive Hill Press 5

Astronomy Club’s Star Party drew around 60 attendees, with several attendees arriving in Star Wars costumes and apparel. Along with refreshments and music, different clubs engaged guests with different astronomy-related activities as star gazing occurred outside. The Video Game Development Club set up a Star Wars themed Virtual Reality (VR) game, Math Club displayed a poster on mathematically proving Kepler’s Second Law of Planetary Motion, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and Astronomy Club collaborated on instructing students how to build a Galilean telescope (with which they used to focus and view different objects in the night sky during the event). There, attendees could see Jupiter and its moons, with one of them starting its transit across the planet, as well as various astronomical objects.

The Engineering Department, lead by Faculty member Cheri Markt, arranged for Cañada students to connect with women in the Engineering profession at a Mentor Lunch. The lunch, held on April 20, was an opportunity for women Engineering students to practice networking with women who are in the professional Engineering field. The students and professionals met one-on-one for five minutes each, and then rotated to a new mentor. Eight students and six professionals attended the event, including an Aerospace Engineer from NASA, Civil Engineers from Hensel Phelps and Computer Scientists from Oracle. There, students were able to ask questions about what the professionals studied in school, how they found their first job in industry, learned about what the day-to-day experience is like in a variety of fields. Students were also provided with business cards to hand out during the event and some of the professionals were ready to hire!

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Student Clubs Joins Together for a Star Party

Mentor Lunch Supports Women in Engineering

Cañada College’s Honors Transfer Program (HTP) is proud to share its successes during this academic year. As many of you know, the HTP is open to all students, members and non-members. For those students who qualify and apply to become a member, they are eligible for enhanced transfer opportunities from schools such as UCLA and UC Irvine, enhanced scholarships opportunities, and more. Eighty-one Cañada students are currently members of the HTP. This year, 25 members will finish the HTP at the end of this semester, which consists of completing at least 15 units of honors course work with a ‘C’ or higher and maintaining a cumulative GPA of 3.3.

Sixteen Cañada College students were certified under the UCLA Transfer Alliance Program. These are record highs for the program! Again for students who are members and non-

members and who have completed honors work the within the past year, were eligible to share their research with the campus at the annual Honors Research Showcase on April 27. This year there were seven student presenters, one of whom is an alumnus, Gerald Morlidge, who will complete his degree in History from SFSU this semester and shared his research that will be published in the next few weeks. In addition to the College’s campus-wide honors showcase, several students submitted proposals to share their honors research at the state-wide Honors Research Symposium at Stanford University on Saturday, May 6. Two Cañada students were accepted to present: Gabrielle Baum for her studies in ENGL 200 titled “Grice’s Maxims in Town of Salem: Rules Made to be Broken” mentored by Professor Harmon, and Alexey Isayev for his studies in HIST 101 titled “Marxism, Leninism, and Stalinism; A Dissection of Ideology” mentored by Professor Stanford. At the symposium, Gabrielle Baum won the Katharine Harer Award for best crafted proposal. Congratulations to all of the HTP students on a successful year!

The May edition of the Cañada College Professional Learning Newsletter is available on the Professional Development webpage. The newsletter contains information on Professional Learning Opportunities, the Chancellor’s Office Professional Learning Network, recommended Lynda.com opportunities, session presenters at conferences, and much more!

Honors Transfer Program Highlights & Successes

May Professional Learning Newsletter is Now Available

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Cañada College has a long-standing history of success in obtaining significant grant funding to implement innovative programs and projects supporting student success, completion, and transfer. In order to sustain these important projects critical to achieving the College’s mission and goals, grant development, implementation, and management support is offered through the Administrative Services Division.

Its recent undertaking to update the website was noted as a goal in its program review, and the team is pleased to present the website as part of the grant management and compliance services the office provides. “We look forward to this ongoing process of improvement to better assist our college faculty and staff as they work to make incredible strides serving students,” said Michelle Marquez, Vice President of Administrative Services.

The purpose of the updated Grants Development and Management website is to serve as a “one-stop” resource hub throughout the grant life cycle to meet the various needs of project directors, managers, faculty and staff. The Grants Development and Management webpage includes information and resources on the following topics: Roles and Responsibilities; Approval Process; Proposal and Budget Development; Post-Award Process; Grant Management and Compliance; Grant Funded Programs; Grant Resources.

The College also updated its procedures in Spring 2017 with respect to seeking and applying for funding from external sources, as well as clarifying roles and responsibilities for all involved in managing grants. “The updated procedures are intended to enable key leaders in the College and District to be informed, approve proposal development, ensure the feasibility of proposed projects, and ensure the organizational capacity to effectively implement grant funded programs,” said Marquez.

Website suggestions and additional helpful grant resources can be emailed to momjiang@smccd.edu.

One of the goals of the College’s Student Equity plan is to close the performance gaps for disproportionately impacted students. As equity scholars affirm, to close equity gaps, educational institutions need to establish equity goals based on data about groups of underserved students in specific areas and to share responsibility for monitoring and addressing those goals so that they move into actionable institutional priorities (AAC&U, 2015c; Bensimon, 2004, 2005; Bensimon, Dowd, & Witham, 2015; Dowd, & Bensimon, 2014; Harris & Bensimon 2007; Hern, K. & Brezina, 2016; McNair, 2016). Moving forward on these recommendations the group provided to departments in program review Equity Supplement data packets which identify access and success rates for groups that experience disproportionate impact identified as “equity gaps.” The question was asked: which gaps are most important for improving outcomes in your program? How can the College help you address these gaps? What changes could be made? At the April 18 ACES meeting, the group discussed faculty experiences with the Program Review Equity Supplement and charted some of the noted equity gaps, “doings,” and “to dos.” For further information, see the ACES agenda site.

Grants Development and Management Team Launches Website

Student Equity Plan Update

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On May 5, participants in ACES Inquiry projects shared their learning from their inquiry projects. Attendees had the opportunity to ask questions, celebrate achievements, and provide additional ideas for furthering the projects. The projects are the result of faculty, staff, and administrator efforts investigating an area they see can benefit underrepresented student populations. Some of the projects lasted a semester, others lasted the entire academic year, and others have spanned multiple years. The ACES Co-coordinators are working on determining additional methods for disseminating information about the projects. Some of the projects represented during the ACES Inquiry Fiesta included:

• Jeanette Greene – Anatomy Faculty: Why aren’t students passing anatomy – an investigation of student motivation

• Monica Malamud – Spanish Faculty: Motivation: Key Concepts

• Alison Field – History Faculty & Julie Carey – ESL Faculty: DREAMers Matter – 2017 DREAM Center Updates

• Chialin Hsieh – Dean of PRIE & Jessica Kaven – Communication Studies Faculty & Assessment Coordinator: Teaching Learning Assessment – Assessment Coaches

• Ray Lapuz – Math Faculty: Poster Sessions to Engage Student Participation

• Elizabeth Barile – Chemistry Faculty: Active Learning Techniques in a General Chemistry Classroom

• Maggie Baez – A2B Assistant Project Director & Hannah Morrison – Basic Skills Retention Specialist: Proactive Registration – A Collaborative Basic Skills Initiative

• Martin Partlan – Physics Faculty – Improving Group Work – Developing Analytical Discourse

• Yolanda Valenzuela – English/Reading Faculty – Puente

• Ray Lapuz, Michael Hoffman, David Monarres, Sumathi Shankar, Michelle Beatty, Hongyan Meng, Namita Saxena – Math Faculty: Math 190 – Learning Standard Deviation – An example of a lesson study

• And many more!

ACES Hosts Inquiry Fiesta

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The last week of April and first two weeks of May, ACES and Professional Learning coordinated to offer a series of three Snack & Share sessions. These sessions offered a time for facilitated discussions during which participants could share their experiences, resources, and ideas. Rebekah Taveau led a discussion about Transparency in Assessment Design that included a variety of resources for maintaining transparency when creating classroom materials, communicating clear assignment expectations, building checklists, using rubrics, assigning editing logs, and different types of reflections. Maggie Lozano led two sessions: How to maintain high expectations, and Showing care and compassion when working with students. Both sessions included a wealth of research-based practices for respective topics and left participants wanting to continue the discussion. ACES and Professional Learning will discuss the possibility of offering similar sessions during the 2017-18 academic year during the June 6 ACES Planning Retreat. All are welcome to attend!

Snack & Share Series Offered to Employees

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