CAMPUS NEWS
Marilyn McBride Accepts Assignment at the District Office
Vice President of Instruction, Marilyn McBride, has accepted the position of Vice Chancellor of Special Projects at the District Office and will begin her duties on June 16.
McBride was invited to the District office by Chancellor Ron Galatolo. She will work with Galatolo, Vice Chancellor Jing Luan and Barbara Christensen.
“I am looking forward to working in this new environment and making a positive difference for the District and the colleges,” she said in a recent e-mail distributed to campus. “One of my goals will be to bring the colleges’ perspectives to the discussions at the District Office.”
While she is excited to start her new job, McBride expressed sadness in leaving Cañada. “I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed my tenure here at Cañada,” she said. “I feel I have been part of a family who cares for one another, and above all, supports the students in achieving all they are capable of achieving.”
At-Risk High School Students in Redwood City Are Exploring College, Career Options in Multimedia Thanks to Unique Partnership
Cañada College and Sequoia Union High School are offering college-level multimedia courses on the high school campus and exposing at-risk students to the possibilities of college.
Katherine Sarabia didn’t consider college an option until she was exposed to digital imaging by college professor Dani Castillo as part of her class work in the Electronic Arts Academy at Sequoia Union High School.
Sarabia and other at-risk high school students in the Electronic Arts Academy have not only been exposed to college-level work but they can now see a clear path to college thanks to the partnership between the high school and Cañada College.
“The students we have in the Electronic Arts Academy are not your traditional students,” said Mike Kuliga, academy faculty chair and Sequoia Union High School teacher. “They aren’t AP, over-achieving students.”
The Electronic Arts Academy is like a school within the high school. Students learn Web page design, animation and other high-tech skills while also taking regular high school classes. The program has approximately 160 students. About 50 percent of the students accepted into the academy are considered at-risk for a number of reasons, including their socioeconomic status, attendance record or because they read below their grade level.
Several years ago, Kuliga approached Castillo and Jeannie Mecorney, professors in the Cañada College Multimedia Department, about offering college courses after school at the academy. They began this year with Digital Audio, Digital Imaging, and the History of Animation. Students receive college and high school credits and Kuliga said they begin to see how their work can result in a college degree.
“It’s a huge boost to their confidence to be successful in a college course,” he said. “A number of our students have visited the college for events, including the opening of the art gallery where some of our students displayed work.”
Sarabia was one of those students. She said having her digital art displayed at the college gallery gave her a big boost in confidence. “I know I can do college level work,” she said. “The program has made college real for me.”
Castillo said having a prepared pool of students ready to enter the college’s multimedia programs when they graduate from a high school is the goal of the program. “There is a need for web designers, video game artists, and people with digital imaging skills in our workforce,” Castillo said. “The fact that 70 to 80 percent of the students entering the academy are at-risk of not graduating from high school means every student that makes it to Cañada College from the academy is a success story.”
Kuliga said he hopes to build on this year’s pilot project. “We’re hoping to take what we learned this year and improve upon it,” he said. “We want to see these students graduate and move on to Cañada.”
Castillo said the college Multimedia Department is hosting an open house on Wednesday, May 28 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Building 22, Room 113 on the main campus and she hopes to introduce current academy students to the variety of programs offered at the college.
“We’re prepared to offer additional classes at the high school,” she said. “We want to build on the success we had this year.”
Middle School Students Learn About Chemistry
A group of about 30 local middle school students learned first-hand about chemistry following a visit to the Cañada College chemistry lab earlier this month.
Students performed a variety of experiments designed to heighten their interest in the science. Chemistry Professor Jeanette Medina said the purpose of the field trip is to build pipelines from local schools to Cañada in order to prepare students for future jobs involving chemistry.
“If students are interested in chemistry at a young age they’ll be more likely to pursue it in high school and college,” she said. “There are a variety of jobs available in the Bay Area that require backgrounds in chemistry.”
Plans Move Forward For Honors Program
During the Cañada College strategic planning process of 2007, it emerged that an honors program would be a powerful strategy for addressing a variety of weaknesses in the academic program of the College. In considering the needs of highly motivated, transfer bound students, it was clear that absence of an honors program, and the concomitant transfer agreements, left them at a disadvantage in the transfer process to highly competitive colleges and universities. While assessing the concerns of our in-coming high school students, it appeared that students who were ready to take transfer-level coursework either chose not to attend Cañada, or if they did they left after one semester. In addition, while the College placed a great deal of focus on support for students who were under prepared for college-level work, there remained a paucity of programs or support for the most highly motivated and ambitious students.
To this end, the Academic Governing Council and the Vice President of Instruction decided to assign a faculty member the task of researching the viability of, and various design possibilities for an honors program. In the fall of 2007 Patty Dilko, Professor of Early Childhood Education/Child Development and District Academic Senate President began research and wrote the first draft of an extensive Prospectus, which included details regarding honors programs at colleges across California and recommendation from the National Collegiate Honors Council. As it turns out, 51 of the 109 community colleges have programs and are member of the California Honors Transfer Council. During early spring 2008 she held fifteen focus groups to gather questions, hopes, and concerns regarding the idea of preparing a program model for the college community to consider the results of these forums are documented in the Prospectus. By mid-semester she gathered volunteers for a steering committee that includes faculty, staff, students, and administrators from across the college. Steering Committee members include: Alicia Aguirre, Ayo Camara, Ashley Cohen, David Ibañez Doria, Denise Erickson, Alex Garcia, Linda Haley, Arturo Hernandez, Robert Hood, Ray Lapuz, Cathy Lipe, Jeanette Medina, Lisa Palmer, Melissa Raby, Carol Rhodes, Paul Roscelli, Soraya Sohrabi, Kayla Taivit, Katie Townsend – Merino, Mike Stanford
In April and early May the Steering Committee worked on the details of a plan custom-designed for the unique needs of the Cañada College community. Key components were derived from the UCLA Transfer Alliance Program (TAP) so that the College would be able to apply for admission within two years of operation. TAP membership brings many benefits to students in terms of transfer to highly competitive colleges and universities.
The values that the committee established from the formal research and the materials developed from the focus groups were clear and strong. They can be summarized as follows. For an honors program to succeed, there must be substantial commitment on four levels; fiscal, curricular, student support, and programmatic. Fiscally, the College must be consistently willing and able to provide sufficient funding and space for program components on and ongoing basis. Regarding curriculum, faculty must be willing and prepared to provide an honors quality course experience through the various honors classes. To be successful, students must have specialized counseling and a place to gather to extend and support their learning community under the guidance of the faculty advisor. And programmatically, the College and faculty must be sure that the core of the honors experience is built around dedicated honors sections that are guaranteed to run even if they experience low enrollment. With these three components in place the integrity of the program will be secured.
Patty and Steering Committee members will be shepherding the proposal through the shared governance process during May. For more details on the project, or a copy of the Prospectus and Program Model, please contact Patty at dilko@smccd.edu or 306-3115.
Even Start Program Receives $50,000 In New Computers
The John Gill Even Start Program celebrated the donation of $50,000 worth of new computers by the Sobrato Foundation with a special ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this month.
Cañada has been collaborating with this Even Start program for eight years, providing ESL and family literacy classes while participants receive on-site parent education and preschool for their toddlers. It is a comprehensive family literacy program and at least 20 students each semester move up to Cañada to continue their education.
The ceremony featured songs from the preschool children and well as personal reflections from the mothers who have benefited from the program.
Redwood Symphony to Play Messiaen’s Turangalîla June 8
The Redwood Symphony will play Turangalîla on Sunday, June 8 at 3 p.m. The concert is free for Cañada students, staff, and faculty. A pre-concert lecture will be held at 2 p.m. in the Main Theater.
The concert includes Stravinsky: Fanfare for a New Theatre and Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony with Dan Glover on piano and Mark Goldstein on synthesizer.
Messiaen’s monumental symphony conjures mystery and ecstasy, from ethereal bird song to bold brass lines depicting mythic elements. More information on the concert and the Redwood Symphony can be found at www.redwoodsymphony.org.
FACES OF CAÑADA
Jack Preston
Since fifth grade, Jack Preston has been in love with astronomy. So when Halley’s Comet passed by the earth in 1986 and someone was needed at the college to teach a Saturday workshop about the comet he jumped at the chance.
“My friends will tell you I would rather talk about astronomy than just about any other subject,” he said. “Following the workshop the college needed someone to teach the astronomy night class and I did that. It was a chance to teach a subject that I had been in love with my whole life.”
Preston is retiring from Cañada after 24 years of teaching computer science, math, and physics but his biggest impact can be seen in the popular astronomy class, where students often find it difficult to find an open chair.
“I love the community college students. They are the best,” Preston said. “I’ve always liked teaching at this college because I didn’t have to worry about research and publishing. I spent almost all of my time in the classroom and that was always my favorite thing to do.”
Preston will continue to teach part-time, including an on-line math class and probably astronomy. He’s also working with a friend to write a calculus textbook. “It goes back to the beginnings of calculus and re-examines the concept of infinite numbers. I’m having a ball writing that book because I love math and especially calculus.”
He will also spend time traveling with his wife, Jean Mecorney, a multimedia professor at the college. They spent several months last year traveling across the country with a small travel trailer. “We have a little bigger motor home now and we have some small trips planned up and down the California coast,” he said.
Palo Alto H.S. Coach Takes Over Cañada Basketball
Peter Diepenbrock, who won a state basketball championship at Palo Alto High School, has been named the new coach at Cañada College. He takes over for Lamont Quattlebaum, who resigned to concentrate on teaching high school.
Diepenbrock plans on using all of his connections on the Peninsula to recruit any players who haven’t committed to colleges yet and contacting the returning freshmen to form the nucleus of his first team.
Diepenbrock said the entire hiring process was a whirlwind.
“I interviewed for the job and Linda (Hayes) calls me the same day and said, ‘We were going to wait but you blew us away,’ so that was very positive,” Diepenbrock said. “I think they felt my excitement about the challenge of getting Cañada going again.”
It will be an enormous task. In the last three years under former coach Quattlebaum, the Colts averaged eight wins per season. But if anyone can return Cañada to its former glory — the Colts actually advanced to the State Final Eight in the late 1990s before the program was disbanded for a couple of years — it’s Diepenbrock.
Known for his intensity, tactical skills, motivational techniques and booming voice, Diepenbrock spent the last 11 years coaching Palo Alto High, one of the best prep basketball teams in the Bay Area. During his tenure, the Vikings went an incredible 113-19 in the tough Santa Clara Valley De Anza Division, won five league championships and three Central Coast Section titles, including the CIF state Division II championship in 2006.
Before his stint at Palo Alto, Diepenbrock spent six years as the head coach for a women’s professional team in Denmark, two years as an assistant at U.C.-Davis and two years as the head coach at Pinewood.
A 1982 Burlingame High graduate, Diepenbrock was a four-sport letterman in basketball, baseball, tennis and cross-country, and was inducted into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame two years ago. After a standout prep hoops career, Diepenbrock went on to play at Menlo College, earning all-league recognition as a sophomore.
He also received a recommendation from Cal coach Mike Montgomery; the two have known each other ever since Diepenbrock worked one of Montgomery’s basketball camps in 1987.
Diepenbrock can hardly wait for the 2008-09 season to start. He listed several reasons for taking the job, including the accountability aspect of coaching a college program.
“The type of responsibility that goes along with coaching a college team, I’m ready for that,” Diepenbrock said. “Can I do a good job recruiting? I’d like to think so. That question remains to be seen. I know a lot of (high school) coaches (in the area), and I feel I have good relationships and a lot of respect from them.
“Now my job is get in communication with all of them and showing them by being at their practices and games that I’m very serious about building a program. If they send players to me I’m going to take care of them and do my best to develop them and send them to four-year universities. I have a foundation (to win) and now I have to show it.”
Years ago Cañada and Skyline were perennial playoff participants and contenders to reach the State Final Eight. But times have changed, and neither program has made a postseason appearance since Skyline did it five years ago. The good news is turning around a junior college program can be done in a couple of years.
“I’m not saying I can do it overnight,” he said. “Even now we’re way behind the 8-ball (in terms of recruiting). Yes, it’s going to be a challenge, but I happen to think it can be done. It’s not like I’m trying to change the 49ers or Cubs’ culture; it’s junior college and one good recruiting class can get you going in the right direction.”
A Teacher's Farewell to Students
These poems were written and delivered by Professor Yolanda Valenzuela at the Phi Theta Kappa/Cañada clubs dinner on Tuesday, June 3.
Ode to My Students
Thank you for the smile you brought out in me each time I walked into the classroom for your eyes that followed me in the classroom for your perceptions of reality, which I experienced through your eyes for your voices, which made me think, laugh and sigh
I have appreciated your hours of work interest respect
Thank you for I have learned to love humanity through you, my students
Un poema de amor
Se van y mi llantollora solo caliente, triste, profundo no se le oye
porquearriba de suabismocaeunacascada fuerte y ruidosa sonandosustambores
Ya se van! grita la cascadaalegremente A despedirlos con marcha!
Y asi se fueron derechitos consabiduria, seguridad, y dignidadhacia la universidad aaprendermas
De lejos los veomarchando y luegosiento la inundacion el abismosube y calienta la cascada el aguallega a mi pecho y sientoorgullo llega a los ojos y caenlagrimas de amor
A Love Poem
They’re leaving my cry cries alone hot, sad, deep no one can hear it
because above its abyss falls a waterfall strong and loud hitting its drums
They’re leaving now! screams the waterfall happily Let’s send them off with a march!
And that is how they left straight with knowledge,confidenceand dignity to the University to learn more
From far away I see them marching away and then I feel the flood the abyss rises and heats up the waterfall the water reaches my chest and I feel proud it reaches my eyes and tears of love fall
Editor's Note: If you have ideas for the Faces of Cañada section of the online newsletter, please contact Robert Hood at ext. 3340 or by e-mail at hoodr@smccd.edu.
SPOTLIGHT ON STUDENTS
Redwood City Student Receives $20,000 Scholarship to UC Santa Cruz
Cynthia Cruz is the third Cañada College student to receive the Karl S. Pister Scholarship in the past three years
Redwood City resident and Cañada College student Cynthia Cruz has received the 2008 Karl S. Pister Leadership Opportunity Program Award, a $20,000 scholarship that will help her study sociology and pursue a career in community organizing.
Cruz plans to enroll at UC Santa Cruz in the fall. The Pister scholarship was established to help the most promising students from regional community colleges transfer to UCSC. All recipients receive a $10,000 scholarship for each of two years, as well as the support of a strong academic mentoring program and assistance finding paid summer work experience in a field that complements their studies. Former UCSC Chancellor Karl S. Pister designed the program. Cruz is one of 11 community college students receiving the scholarship this year.
To earn the scholarship, Cruz had to overcome a difficult childhood that included drug use and unhealthy eating habits. “I grew up without a father and I lacked self esteem which led me into a self-destructive path,” she said. “I struggled with these issues without any significant support.”
Cruz grew up in the low-income Fair Oaks neighborhood of Redwood City. Her mother worked long hours and Cruz took it upon herself to raise her younger siblings. “These experiences have made me into the person I am today,” she said. Cruz finished her final year of high school in the Cañada Middle College program and then began taking college courses at Cañada.
Cañada College President Tom Mohr said Cruz is an inspiration to other students. “She has overcome immense obstacles to an education which would have been far too daunting for most other people in our society,” he said. “She has acquired this level of education entirely on her own initiative, without family assistance or any of the usual support mechanisms of a functioning family. Her return from a period of self-destructive activities, through sheer determination and resolve, is absolutely remarkable.”
Cruz said she draws strength from her passion for social and environmental justice and her commitment to community organizing.
“Since I was 14, I have been involved with various organizations within my community and neighboring cities,” she said. For the past three years, she has been working with Youth United for Community Action (YUCA) and helped spearhead the group’s opposition to a hazardous waste facility in East Palo Alto. “I have been engaged in endless meetings with lawyers, monitoring agencies, citywide rallies and co-strategizing with other organizations within the city and around the Bay Area,” she said. “When we were able to finally shut the plant down in 2007, it was one of my proudest moments.”
Cruz said she wants to earn her degree and begin a career in research helping low-income neighborhoods.
ESL Student Donates Aztecan Headdress to Library
David Lopez, who has been taking ESL classes at Canada College since 2001 and has progress from Level 1 to Level 4, showed his gratitude for all the help he has received from counselors and instructors by donating a beautiful Aztecan headdress to the library.
It is a striking, feathered headdress worn on the head of an Aztec woman. Lopez named the woman "Iztaccihuatl," inspired by the beautiful snow-capped volcano by the same name which is seen from his former home of Mexico City. The Nahuatl name, spelled "Ixtaccihuatl," means "white woman" derived from the formation of the mountain top which resembles a snow-covered woman sleeping on her back. The volcano is also nicknamed, "The Sleeping Woman" or "La Mujer Dormida" in Spanish.
Lopez asked his friend Jorge Hernandez of San Jose to create the headdress. Hernandez makes Aztec costumes and performs Aztec dancing.
The headdress can be seen high on a prominent shelf above the library’s front desks.
Kautz, Reynoso Named JC All-Americans
Cañada College baseball coach Tony Lucca has more than the Colts recent resurgence to be proud of. On Wednesday the skipper announced that designated hitter Max Kautz (left) and sophomore third baseman Wade Reynoso (right) were named 2008 JC All-Americans.
Kautz, also a sophomore, hit .366 overall with a league leading 12 homers and 55 RBI. Kautz also set a Colts record by hitting for the cycle - twice - in the same season.
The slick-fielding Reynoso hit .357 with 5 homers, 18 doubles and 42 RBI. Reynoso also hit three HRs in one game versus San Jose City College.
Kautz and Reynoso share another unique distinction. On April 19th against Cabrillo both men collected 6 hits in a game - simultaneously breaking the single game record of 5 hits set by - - Tony Lucca, current Colts hitting coach Tony Gomes and three others.
Editor's Note: If you have an idea for a student feature, contact Robert Hood at ext. 3340.
CAMPUS CALENDAR
Please see the EVENTS CALENDAR for the latest event listings.
Editor's Note: If you would like to submit an event to the Cañada Calendar of Events please contact Robert Hood at hoodr@smccd.edu.
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