#OneCypress Theme at Spring 2025 Opening Day
We take this journey together. Those words have been the motto of our campus. They embody the support we give to students and to each other, and the only way we can take this journey together is if we are one: one unit, one community, #OneCypress.
Cypress College President Dr. Scott Thayer led the campus’ Spring 2025 Opening Day ceremony with the #OneCypress call to action. In his words, #OneCypress is “an umbrella for centering our work in a shared vision of student success and wrapping our students in the support provided across the campus.”
NOCCCD Chancellor Dr. Byron D. Clift Breland encouraged attendees to support students who may feel affected by national changes. Dr. Breland noted that NOCCCD would provide resources that would enable wrapping students in that support.
To provide that support, we must also have a shared vision, and to have a shared vision, we must have shared knowledge. In that spirit, Dr. Thayer shared the college’s accolades, which included accreditation reaffirmation for seven years by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). This reaffirmation came with no compliance requirements or any recommendations for improving institutional effectiveness, reinforcing the goal of #OneCypress. The ACCJC commended Cypress College “for effectively implementing a mission-driven, collegewide data disaggregation strategy to ensure equity disparities are intentionally highlighted, evaluated, and discussed to improve student outcomes in certificate and degree attainment,” Thayer said. He also shared another accolade, which was the U.S. Department of Education naming Cypress College one of the top 100 community colleges in the nation, as part of the Department’s Raise the Bar Initiative. Thayer noted that the Department recognized Cypress College “based on student success metrics — highlighting both the work of students and the work of employees who deliver instruction and support students along their journey.”
One of the ways the work of students was highlighted at Opening Day was through a dance number, choreographed by Dance Professor Maha Afra, which celebrated Lunar New Year. Employee highlights included the distribution of Classified Awards to Lisa Hoang for Student Engagement and Support, Nai Hilo for Service to the Campus Community, and Joy Case for Classified Employee of the Year. For the first time, a new classified employee award was added: the President’s Award. This award was presented to Christy Montenegro. Congratulations to all awardees!
Continuing with the notion that a shared vision starts with shared knowledge, updates were given regarding each area of the college. Vice President of Instruction, Dr. Kathleen Reiland, highlighted improvement in enrollment numbers, and Campus Communications Director Marc Posner shared the contributions he and his team made toward marketing to help improve those enrollment numbers. Vice President of Student Services, Dr. Paul de Dios, added to the enrollment information by sharing the Strategic Enrollment Management Plan workgroup efforts, Charger Fridays, and Commit2Cypress. All of these efforts brought more students to campus. The campus updates, provided by Thayer, included improved network security, completion of EV charging stations in Lot 4, and the reboot and upgrade of surveillance cameras. Foundation & Community Relations Executive Director Howard Kummerman highlighted the 50th anniversary of the Americana Awards, a fundraising event that helps the college provide resources, including scholarships, to our students. In keeping with the theme of togetherness and supporting students, Institutional Research & Planning Director Bryan Ventura added that the college will continue its work beyond accreditation through its catalog coordination, Quality Focus Essay (QFE) in collaboration with Guided Pathways, and alignment with Strategic Directions, College Plans & Priorities, specifically enrollment, sense of belonging, and wellness.
Sometimes, knowing how to create a sense of belonging, or a feeling of #OneCypress, comes from living through an experience. Several members of our District went to Ghana for what became a life-changing experience. Virgil Adams, Gio Hortua, and Jaclyn Magginetti took the stage with Thayer to share what they’ll always remember from the trip, what changed them, what they’re adding to their curriculum because of it, and what story about it they repeatedly tell. To hear them share their experiences, watch the Opening Day video below, starting at the 30:28 mark.
The theme was evident throughout the morning: #OneCypress. “#OneCypress is the ‘we’ in ‘We Journey Together,'” Thayer said, adding, “It represents the strength of the collective, the great work that we do, and the shoulders that we stand on. It also is a focal point for pursuing our mission, our vision, our core values, our strategic goals. #OneCypress is what we share, what brought us together, and what bonds as we offer our best to the students who seek our best so that they can be their best.”
We do take this journey together — students, classified staff, faculty, deans, and administration. We have a common goal. We are #OneCypress.