President Schilling’s Board Report for June 12, 2018

The following is a report to members of the North Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees.
Presented by Cypress College President JoAnna Schilling, Ph.D.
on June 12, 2018

The college successfully completed our “end-of the-semester” events, adding a few more since the last Board meeting. I personally want to thank our Board members for their support at so many of these events; it means so much to our staff and faculty that you are invested in seeing our students succeed and flourish. It’s been a wonderful first year to acknowledge and celebrate their accomplishments. We Take This Journey Together!

The past few weeks have been “quiet” only because we are between the spring and summer sessions. But it has been very busy as we prepare for the summer session, close out the fiscal year, and complete evaluations and end-of-year administrative tasks.

Enrollment: Our summer enrollment is going well. On the first day of our summer session, we are currently up 5% in our headcount (+500 students) as compared to last summer and our fill rate has increased to 86% from 78% last year. We attribute this increase to offering more dual enrollment courses, a reduction of previously low-enrolled courses and adding more high demand courses, and a focused approach to marketing our summer offerings.

College Events

  • Dr. Schilling and a District team made up of HR, Cypress, Fullerton, and NOCE faculty, staff, and administrators attended the NCORE conference in New Orleans the week of May 29 – June1. It was an exciting time to look at moving our Equity agenda forward at Cypress and within our District. The Cypress team consisted of faculty members Justin Campbell and Stephanie Tran, Executive Assistant Ty Volcy, and Dr. Schilling. We are still in the process of identifying action items, but will be reconvening to identify equity strategies in July.
  • Cypress held our Classified Appreciation Day on June 1. Over 100 classified employees and managers attended to enjoy great food, raffle prizes, games, and camaraderie in our Theater Lobby. Many of our retirees were honored and will be missed.
  • Our Toyota T-TEN Program held their graduation ceremonies on June 1. Each student was honored and accompanied by their Toyota industry partner, and all students are working and advancing in their careers in Auto technology. Thank you to Trustee Molly McClanahan for attending and supporting this event!
  • Also on Friday, June 1, our (STEM)2 Program honored their graduating students at a wonderful celebration at Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel. Fifty-seven transferring graduates and their families were in attendance; 34 students have obtained summer research projects. Biology faculty member, Adel Rajab, provided an inspiring keynote speech to our graduates.
  • The College will hold a Deans Enrollment Management retreat on June 18. We will be looking at making final changes to our fall schedule, based on reviewing our historical data, and additional topics will include scheduling, extended day budgets, and strategic enrollment planning.
  • Cypress is exploring how to “auto-award” degrees to our students. Although there are challenges and we want to be sure not to award degrees that will affect the ability of students to continue to receive Financial Aid, we are exploring the feasibility of notifying those students who may be close to completing a degree and offering incentives to complete. This will become more important with our new funding formula, so we are looking at ways to implement this slowly in preparation of helping students complete.
  • Cypress is exploring a collaboration with NOCE in the hopes of moving our Math 10 from Cypress credit programs and into a non-credit NOCE pathway. We appreciate our math faculty thinking creatively and for the opportunity to partner with NOCE.
  • Our math faculty are also ramping up to move many of their course materials and textbooks into an OER platform. The college is supporting math faculty this summer as they review how to reduce textbook costs for students. Thank you to Math Coordinator Cindy Shrout, and math faculty Amy Ward for their leadership on this important initiative!
  • Congratulations to Cypress Faculty member, Jolena Grande, who was named by Governor Brown to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors. The 17-member board is appointed by the governor and formally interacts with state and federal officials and other state organizations.

Community Events

  • The Boys and Girls Club of Cypress are gearing up to attend the inaugural Camp Cypress June 18-21. We met to discuss the upcoming schedule or workshops, which include Bug Class, Basketball Camp, Library Scavenger Hunt, Chemistry Fun, and Acting Class, among others. We have many exciting workshops to share with our 6-10th grade boys and girls, and hope to show them they, too, can attend college one day!
  • Dr. Schilling and Foundation Director, Gail Taylor, attended the La Palma City Council meeting to discuss the kick off to the Americana Awards. They shared information about the committee membership, scholarships to La Palma students, and the process for choosing the 2019 Citizen of the Year.
  • The Cypress city representatives came to tour the Cypress campus on Monday, June 4. Marc Posner and Dr. Schilling shared the vision of the Measure J projects, and showed them our new water and energy saving projects.
  • Dr. Schilling and Marc Posner have identified over 21,000 Cypress College staff and alumni on Linked In. We are working on a focused campaign to connect with them and share the great work happening at the college. Our goal is to better engage our alumnus and encourage a robust fund-raising campaign.
  • On Tuesday, June 12, Mortuary Science Program Faculty member David McCament will be featured on the TV show “Storage Wars”; he will be filming an episode discussing the history of antique embalming equipment found in a storage unit and what it was used for. Airing dates will be announced soon!

That’s the Board Report from Cypress College. Buen Cypress!

 

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