President Schilling’s Board Report for December 14, 2021

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 December 14, 2021

Enrollment is currently down around 8% for spring and demand for online classes (56%) is exceeding on campus classes (40%); our vaccination compliance is about 77% for all students and 99.7% for students who have registered for an in-person class. We are implementing multiple marketing and recruitment efforts to help stimulate our enrollment including: marketing campaigns focused on those interested in specific programs, geofencing (which identify social media buys that focus on specific areas of interest), and utilizing our partnership with Niche.com to promote programmatic interest. We are also preparing a mailer to all households in our District to highlight college programs, and our Cypress Cares Campaign ambassadors are calling all students who have left Cypress in the past year. More is coming for January!

The Cypress Women’s Soccer Team completed their season with an impressive 21-2-2 record, coming up one game short from winning the state championship. They lost in the Championship Final 3-0 to Hartnell College. The team is coming off back-to-back OEC Championships and were in their first final four appearance in over 10 seasons and battling for their fourth state championship and first since 2004. We are proud of their amazing season and know they will be back next year!

Also in the hunt for a state championship was our Chargers Women’s Volleyball team, who finished their season with a 23-2 record and earned the 4th seed in the CCCAA women’s volleyball championships. The Chargers were crowned 2021 OEC champions after a historic season, recording the best regular season record in program history. We are looking forward to the spring and our Beach Volleyball season which will welcome back many of the same players. Go Chargers!

The Veterans Resource Center and SEM Grand Opening was a big success and we captured a brief video of the event and speakers. Our thanks to Chelsea Salisbury, Kai Stearns, and Marc Posner for leading the way on this project.

Thank you to Cypress’ Guardian Scholars leader Ashley Berry and Fullerton College who hosted a District Foster Youth Friendly Ally Training on Friday, December 3. Over 70 participants joined us for an effective and important training to build empathy and understanding through a review of the child welfare system, trauma informed care, and best equity practices both in and out of the classroom.

Janet Owens-Driggs, Fine Arts faculty member and curator of our Cypress College Art Gallery, has published an article with KCET called “How a Nazi Infiltrated L.A.’s 1930s Art Scene.” Read this important and interesting article.

On Thursday, December 3, Cypress College Legacy Program celebrated our 2021 Kwanzaa event. The theme this year was It Takes a Village: Paying Homage to Our Ancestors. Our Legacy scholars shared lessons learned from the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Thank you to Professors Regina Rhymes, Virgil Adams, Annette Letcher, and Daniel Lind for guiding our Legacy Scholars and hosting a wonderful event. 

The LIFE Program, led by Counselor Anne-Marie Beck and supporting our formerly incarcerated students, ended the fall ’21 semester in style — with a Winter Solstice Party on Thursday, December 9 from 3-6 p.m. Students celebrated the successful end of the semester with a positive and supportive gathering.

On December 2, our English Department hosted young adult author Lanre Akinsiku  to chat with students about his early experiences with writing and subsequent success as an author. Thank you to Professors Ashton Politanoff and Kendyl Covey for bringing this opportunity to our campus.

The college enjoyed a week of holiday cheer from December 6-8. Our week of holiday support for our employees included Breakfast Buffet on Monday, Cookies and Cider on Tuesday, and our Holiday Luncheon for over 150 employees on Wednesday. We had a great time seeing one another in person again, enjoying raffle prizes donated by our managers, playing a round of Holiday Friendly Feud, and having a holiday meal together, sponsored by Schools First. Thank you to President’s Office staff, Ae Young Kim and Kristi Valdez, for all their efforts organizing a wonderful week of events for our campus!

Cypress College is proud to be named as a Top 150 College by the Aspen Institute, and on December 13, we submitted our application for the 2023 Aspen Prize, for an opportunity to be awarded as the top community college in the nation. The application process was arduous and detailed, but we are confident that we put our best efforts into this process. Thank you to our Board, our college community, and our writing team for all their efforts ensuring we show the Aspen Institute why we are #CYProud.

Student Eric Nguyen was named the winner of our annual Holiday Card contest. Since 2018, we have sent holiday cards designed by our fabulous Media Arts and Design (MAD) students and I hope you agree they do outstanding work. In addition to our winner, the two runner ups were Jocelyn Hernandez and Anthony Tolentino. Congratulations to our winners!

Americana 2022 is about to begin, starting with the Americana Kick Off event on December 16 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Americana 2022 will be held on March 26 at the Disneyland Hotel. Please save the date(s)!

The Cypress EOPS & CARE Program established the Adopt-A-Family program in 2016 to assist our single-parent CARE families during the holiday season. Last year our Charger family adopted over 35 families and generously provided gifts for the holidays! This year we celebrated our students and their families on December 10 with a drive-up visit from Santa and Movie Night in our Gateway Plaza. Thank you to AnnMarie Ruelas and her team for putting on a great evening in support of our students.

For the third year in a row, Cypress College was again voted the favorite community college by the Long Beach Press-Telegram. We are proud that the Long Beach readership and our students continue to understand we care!

Culinary Arts instructor and 2020 Instructor of the Year, Amanda Gargano sent this heartwarming message about one of our students from Chef Jay Garcia from Disneyland Resorts:. I wanted to share the news with you about Chef Elizabeth Ramos. She was promoted pretty quickly when we relaunched the park. We knew right from the beginning that we had someone special. Chef Elizabeth is a huge asset to the team and company. I only see more greatness in her future here at the Disneyland Resort. Thank you Cypress College for the training you provide your students! Thank you to our excellent instructors in the HRC Program and for the impact they are making in student success.

Congratulations to all our students who celebrated on December 7 in an on-campus Nursing Pinning Ceremony to commemorate the completion of their nursing program. We appreciate the efforts of our nursing faculty who helped these students persevere during the most challenging health crisis of our lifetimes. We are #CYProud of our graduating class of 2021.

Buen Cypress! We Take This Journey Together!

 

%d bloggers like this: