President Schilling’s Board Report for September 26, 2023
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 September 26, 2023
Please enjoy the Student Services Fall 2023 newsletter put together by VPSS Paul De Dios. Thank you to the incredible team we have in Student Services, who work continuously to enhance the student experience. Some highlights include the opening of the Career Center, Pride Center, Rising Scholars Center, and welcoming four new employees. We also want to congratulate Career Counselor and Rising Scholars Coordinator Anne-Marie Beck on being named the 2023 DEIA Award winner!
The Cypress College Health Center has expanded our Mental Health Counseling hours to include evening appointments. Any registered student may receive free Mental Health Counseling for 6 visits/semester. All in-person mental health counseling is in Room 210 of Gym II. Our new hours for the semester will be:
- Monday-Thursday 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. – Two Counselors scheduled
- CRISIS Walk-In Hour Monday-Thursday – 1 p.m. – open for any student in crisis
- TELEHEALTH Mental Health Counseling hours – Tuesday-Friday 5-9p.m.; Monday & Friday 8a.m. – 12 p.m., and upon student preference during business days
- AFTER HOURS CHARGER HOPELINE (714) 484-7361 (formerly called ProtoCall) will continue to provide in-person crisis support for after hours, weekends and vacations. Note: the call is answered by voicemail initially but the first option connects to a live person.
We are happy to announce that the Cypress College Foundation has received a $1.2M gift in support of the Cypress College Aviation program. This generous contribution will fund an expansion of the aviation simulator lab as well as a new cabin simulator and high-powered drone. The reimagined simulator lab will increase the number of students who can participate in training. Five years ago, this same anonymous donor contributed a $1M to the Aviation program for state-of-the-art flight simulators, which are saving our students thousands of dollars in flight time fees each year. Both donations are the largest the Foundation has received in its history!
WestEd and Student-Ready Strategies recently announced the publication of Translating Opportunity: Improving Postsecondary Pathways for Multilingual Learners of English. This report synthesizes findings from policy, research, examples of institutional practice, and faculty and student experiences and provides recommendations for improving the postsecondary systems that serve multilingual learners of English (MLEs). We are happy to share that Cypress is featured prominently in the report, which focuses on ESL across the nation. Faculty member Kathy Wada was involved in the early investigative stages and was one of the reviewers. Two of our former ESL students are featured for the success of our program. Also highlighted in this report are our Guided Pathway ESL Milestone certificates with the following link to our Understanding ESL Certificates page. We want to acknowledge our ESL faculty and hope you will join us in celebrating this significant recognition of our ESL program, not just at the statewide level, but also at the national level.
Our next boot camp from the Center for Entrepreneurship at North Orange County Community College District will be the Arts and Creative Startup Boot Camp, September 28-29, 2023, held on the 10th floor of the Anaheim campus. An art entrepreneur is an individual who combines their creative talents with an entrepreneurial mindset to create, promote, and sell art. The two-day boot camp focuses on developing new ventures related to deep dive exploration, hands-on training, and practical application.
The Solace Foundation of Orange County and the Cypress College Health Center provided a free Naloxone workshop on September 14, 2023. The workshop helped train employees and students on how to reduce overdose incidents per Senate Bill 367. This will be the first of multiple training being held to support the safety of our campus community.
The Cypress Career Planning and Workforce Development Center invites you to our Grand Opening on Tuesday, September 26, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Our new Career Center, located in the previous VRC on the 2nd Floor of the CCCPLX, is a new engaging space for students to connect with career opportunities, pick out a professional outfit in our Career Closet, and identify the careers most suited to their interests. We hope you can stop by and see this new engagement space! To see the full semester events and activities, please see below.
The Cypress College Basic Needs Center is expanding our space and services. We have added extended food pantry hours and offerings, housing vouchers, laundry services and diaper services. To see all our updates please see our flyer on the following page.
Buen Cypress! We Take This Journey Together!