CAMPUS NEWS
The college community lost a dear friend with the passing of Pamela Ward Smith, EOPS Counselor and CARE Instructor. Pamela, who suffered from a lengthy illness, passed away peacefully in her home on Feb. 25. A large contingent of Cañada staff, faculty and students attended her memorial service. Pamela began counseling at Cañada in 1987 and became a full-time counselor in 1988. She will be missed.
Educational Master Plan Consultant to Meet with Budget & Planning Committee March 5
Michael Maas of Maas Companies, Inc., has been hired to assist the college in the development of an educational master plan to meet the requirements of accreditation. Maas will meet with the Budget & Planning Committee at 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 5 in Building 3, Room 142. The Planning and Budget Committee is acting as the oversight and steering body for developing the master plan.
Maas has developed more than 90 master plans for community colleges in California. He is well respected throughout the state, including the State Chancellor's Office.
"I'm hopeful we can have this completed by the end of spring semester," said President Tom Mohr. "The first discussion we have with Michael Maas will center on the components of the master plan, most of which we have in some form, and how they will be integrated. We will also discuss how we will communicate to the campus community about the process."
The college recently received a warning letter from the accrediting commission centering on three deficiencies - the lack of an educational master plan, failure to implement student learning outcomes, and development of a comprehensive plan for providing student services. Mohr met with the Board of Trustees in February to discuss the colleges plans for addressing the deficiencies and he spoke at length with the president of the accrediting commission. "Members of the Board of Trustees were very supportive and confident that the college would handle the task comfortably," he said.
Groundbreaking Set for Facilities Maintenance Center
A groundbreaking ceremony will be held on Friday, March 7 at 11 a.m. for the new Facilities Maintenance Center. It will be held in the open space southwest of Parking Lot 6.
Middle College to Host Information Sessions
Cañada College will hold Middle College High School information sessions at Sequoia High School, Carlmont High School, Menlo-Atherton High School and Woodside High School during the first two weeks of March. All meetings will be held from 7 to 8 p.m. “With the rising cost of college tuition, we’re seeing more high-achieving high school students enroll in the Middle College program to take advantage of the cost savings,” said Jen Petroelje, a Middle College instructor at Cañada. Petroelje said it used to be rare for students to finish the two-year Middle College program with both a high school diploma and a college degree. Now, she said, it’s becoming more common as students and parents see it as a way to cut college costs. Middle College students have recently gone on to enroll at UCLA, UC Davis, New York University, Oberlin College, Carnegie Mellon, Reed College, University of Southern California, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and others.
College Introduces Concurrent Enrollment Offerings at Woodside
Cañada College will offer six concurrent enrollment classes at Woodside High School this summer as part of an effort to increase the number of concurrent enrollment students at the college. There will be classes in Speech, Sociology, History, Psychology, Life & Career Planning, and Spanish. All courses will be offered Monday through Thursday.
Financial Aid is helping students fill out the FAFSA on Fridays through March
The Financial Aid Office will help students fill out the complicated Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) every Friday through March. The FAFSA Fridays are designed to help students fill out the applications necessary to obtain federal financial aid.
Bay Area Artist Ben Cressy Featured in Main Theater Gallery
The Cañada College Art Department is presenting an exhibition of paintings by the Bay Area artist, Benedict Cressy. The exhibition is in the Main Theater Gallery, Building 3, and will run through April 8.
Originally from England, Ben moved to Claremont, California with his family, where he was exposed to a wide variety of art. He studied painting at UC Santa Cruz, developing a body of abstract paintings that led to expressionist figuration. Further studies included a stay at the Vermont Studio Center, and the MFA program at American University, in Washington DC, where he began painting the landscape.
After graduate school, Cressy, like so many painters before him, moved to New York to live and work in the center of the art world. For five years he worked on blending abstract, landscape, and figurative elements in his paintings, at the same time exhibiting his work extensively. Since 2001 Ben has lived in San Francisco where he continues to paint and to show his paintings.
The current exhibition consists of 18 paintings, including two large scale works. The subjects include landscape painted on location, still life paintings, and surreal “spaces” in which the play of abstraction and representation is most evident. About the work in this present exhibition, Cressy says:
“In this body of work, I engage a set of recurring still life symbols, discovering possible meanings through their relationships and context within the painting. It is rather like reading tea leaves. The consistent themes that play out are pursuit and angst over the cycles of life, and the relationship between concept and acceptance.
The open ended nature of these expressions allow for many interpretations that can change and grow over time with the viewer. New meanings arise from a simple switch in understanding of what a particular element symbolizes.
Painting has been the ideal medium for me to engage my needs for personal expression as well as for playing with a more formalist set of ideas about abstract spatial constructs. For the last several years I have been working to bridge elements from modernist movements in painting. Lessons from objective and non-objective abstraction synthesize with elements of metaphoric still life to create a framework for personal expression without dictating an absolute story or specific agenda. “
For more information about this show, contact Bill Morales, Cañada Art Department, at 306-3343, or morales@smccd.edu. To see more of Ben Cressy’s work, visit his website at www.bencressy.com
FACES OF CAÑADA
Janet Stringer Joins Cañada as Dean of Science & Technology
Dr. Janet Stringer, associate professor of Pharmacology and Neuroscience at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, has been hired as the new Dean of Science & Technology at Cañada College. She replaces Victoria O’Donnell who resigned her position for health reasons.
Stringer is a researcher in the area of brain seizure initiation and termination in the normal and epileptic brain. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1983 and her M.D. from the University of Virginia in 1984.
She has relocated from Houston TX with her husband and two Greyhounds. Janet’s husband works for Evolved Machines in Palo Alto.
“I have a lot of experience in the allied health field and Cañada has a strong allied health program. That’s what attracted me to the college,” Stringer said. “My goal is to work with local hospitals and the healthcare industry to determine their workforce needs and see how the college might help them.”
Cañada College President Tom Mohr said Stringer’s allied health experience will benefit the college.
“We’re very fortunate Janet Stringer has agreed to join the college,” Mohr said. “She will be a tremendous asset as we continue to build our allied health programs and develop new partnerships with the healthcare industry. Her knowledge will also help us make sure our curriculum is up-to-date and relevant for students transferring into health-related majors at colleges and universities.”
Stringer said she likes to go hiking and walking. She also plays the viola. She said she is excited to explore the Bay Area and California.
“I’ve never lived in California but I have visited the Bay Area several times,” she said. “It will be a new experience for me. I’ve spent all of my professional life working in Houston.”
Cañada College Engineering Professor Named Regional Outstanding Educator
Amelito Enriquez receives Pacific Southwest Section honors from American Society of Engineering Education
Amelito Enriquez, professor of engineering, has received the Outstanding Community College Educator Award for the Pacific Southwest Section by the American Society of Engineering Education.
Enriquez will be honored at the organization’s regional banquet on March 27 at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz. He’ll receive a $1,000 honorarium and a plaque. Enriquez was chosen as the top community college engineering professor from a field of educators in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii.
“It’s really a tremendous honor because there are so many great engineering professors at the community college level in this region,” Enriquez said.
This latest award is just one in a growing list of professional citations received by Enriquez. Last year, he received the Hewlett-Packard Excellence in Technology for Teaching Award for his work on innovative and effective uses of technology in education. In 2006, he was honored by his peers at the Hewlett-Packard Worldwide Technology for Teaching Conference for developing an interactive learning network in sophomore-level engineering course and demonstrating the impact this had on his students.
In 2005, Enriquez and a team of faculty members at Cañada College were selected to present at the HP Worldwide Technology for Teaching Conference. Only six colleges and universities worldwide were chosen to make presentations at the conference and the Cañada team was the only community college selected.
Cañada was one of only 31 colleges and universities worldwide to receive the Hewlett-Packard Technology for Teaching grant in 2005, which is designed to transform and improve learning in the classroom through innovative uses of technology. Enriquez and the Cañada team are using wireless technology in engineering, math, and physics courses to create an Interactive Learning Network (ILN) that allows professors to monitor students in real-time as they progress through problems. This is accomplished by linking notebook computers used by the students to a central computer used by the professor to allow professors to monitor their progression.
“As students work through problems, we can see where they struggle because we can monitor their progress and we can help them understand how to overcome the problem,” Enriquez said.
Paul Roscelli Names 2008 Phi Theta Kappa Faculty Scholar, His Fifth Such Honor
Paul Roscelli, professor of economics, was selected as a Faculty Scholar for the 2008 Phi Theta Kappa Faculty Scholar Conference and 2008 Phi Theta Kappa International Honors Institute. Roscelli is one of only 24 people who were selected for this honor from a large pool of applicants. Applicants must be Phi Theta Kappa advisors who have exhibited exceptional knowledge of the current Honors Study Topic, The Paradox of Affluence: Choices, Challenges, and Consequences, and demonstrated excellence in teaching. Roscelli also serves as an Honors Study Topic Expert on the Honors Program Committee, which contributes substantially to the development of the Honors Study Topic. The Faculty Scholar Conference, sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, was held at Phi Theta Kappa’s Center for Excellence in Jackson, Mississippi, January 30 –February 3, 2008. The Faculty Scholar Conference prepares the Faculty Scholars to serve as group facilitators at the Phi Theta Kappa International Honors Institute. Faculty Scholars heard presentations on a variety of issues concerning the paradox of affluence and participated in discussion groups throughout the four-day conference. The annual International Honors Institute will be held at San Francisco State University June 16-21.
Renee Moresco Named Program Services Coordinator in Counseling
Renee Moresco has been named program services coordinator in Counseling and Enrollment, replacing Javier Urena who transferred to Skyline College. Renee will be coordinating international students, residency issues, and the concurrent enrollment program. She has worked in Admissions and Records for the last few years after transferring from Skyline. Renee is very familiar with the Cañada campus and people, having worked in Cooperative Education and at the off-site facilities in Menlo Park and Redwood City before joining Skyline.
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 Takes First College Class at Age 13, Shoots for Engineering Degree by the Time he Graduates from High School
Home-schooled student started with political science, now he’s taking 17 units a semester
Graham Garvin took his first college class, political science, when he was 13-years-old. His mother accompanied him to class. Today, two years later, he’s taking 17 college units a semester and is aiming to earn a college degree in engineering by the time he graduates from high school.
“When I took my first college class in political science my mom took it with me,” said Graham Garvin. “My dad took Spanish with me my first two semesters. Now, I like to take classes on my own.”
His parents, Darrah and Royce Garvin, said they are proud of his academic ambitions. “Graham is better than a ‘good son,’…he is an absolute joy,” said Darrah Garvin.
Garvin is concurrently enrolled in both high school and college courses at Cañada College in Redwood City. Concurrent enrollment gives him the opportunity to earn credits towards finishing his high school diploma at the same time he earns college credits towards his associate’s degree in engineering.
“Graham is an excellent student and works very hard outside of class,” said Cathy Lipe, director of the Cañada College Math, Engineering, Science, Achievement (MESA) Program. “I don’t think most of his classmates know how young he is.”
Garvin was recently selected to participate in the UC Davis Center for Biophotonics Science & Technology Winter Internship for Community College Students. Garvin was teamed with 14 community college students from around the state for two weeks of intensive work designed to expose students to the rigors of scientific research.
“It was a great experience because it taught us how to conduct scientific research,” he said. “I was the youngest person there but that was no surprise because I’m almost always the youngest person in everything I do. Most of the students were involved in pre-med. There was one bio-engineering student and I was the only engineering student.”
Garvin estimates that he’s still four semesters away from finishing his engineering degree but he’s already looking at his transfer options. “I’m looking at UC Berkeley because it is the top-rated school in the country for environmental engineering and UC Davis is not far behind. But I’m leaving myself room to change interests since I’m only 15,” he said.
Former Baseball Player Swinging a Different Stick
San Mateo’s Ryan Hammer grew up playing baseball. Following his graduation from San Mateo Union High School in 2006, Hammer looked to San Jose State for the possibility of extending his baseball career. What he found was something totally different.
“I was not guaranteed a roster spot and I was getting up at 6 a.m. to practice and working several jobs,” he said. “I decided to concentrate on school work and I started playing golf.” Hammer said he never played golf in high school because he was afraid it would hurt his baseball swing but when his girlfriend suggested they go to the driving range to hit balls, Hammer discovered he was a natural.
Now Hammer is playing golf at Cañada College, majoring in business, and hoping he can turn his new sport into a college scholarship. “I love playing golf at Cañada,” he said. “My teammates are my best friends and we have a great time together. School is going great and if golf doesn’t work out I know I have a great education to fall back on.”
Cañada College Theater Arts Presents: The Three Musketeers - and the Famous Female Duelist of France
Original World Premier Introduces a Swashbuckling Woman to the Classic Story.
Cañada College presents The Three Musketeers and the Famous Female Duelist of France, a world premier of an original adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel by Anna Budd.
Performances will be held at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 3; Friday, April 4; Saturday, April 5; Friday, April 11; and Saturday, April 12. A special matinee will be held on Sunday, April 13 at 2 p.m. All shows in the Flex Theatre, Building 3, Room 129, on the Canada College Campus: 4200 Farm Hill Boulevard, Redwood City, CA 94061. Tickets are $12 general admission, and $8 for students and seniors. Tickets will be available at the box office, or reservations can be made by calling (650) 306-3396.
Playwright Anna Budd introduces an authentic historical figure into the classic story: La Maupin, a 17th century French swordswoman, adventuress and opera star, who was said to have been "born with masculine inclinations.” She sang, dueled, and intrigued in the streets of Paris very close to the same period in which the Three Musketeers - Athos, Porthos, and Aramis - first encountered D’Artagnan, the young adventurer freshly arrived to Paris, eager to prove himself worthy to become a Musketeer.
Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan and La Maupin struggle to protect the Queen Anne’s secret – her love affair with the Duke of Buckingham – as the manipulative and sinister Cardinal Richelieu employs the Milady Du Winter in his efforts to expose the Queen and weaken the young and inexperienced King Lois XIII. Much dueling, intrigue, drunken brawls, and love affairs ensue in this gender-bending swashbuckling adventure!
Anna Budd directed Cañada College’s fall production Twilight Los Angeles, 1992 by Anna Deavere Smith. She joined the faculty this fall after working last year at the College of the Siskiyous in Shasta.
Two Students Earn Scholarships From Latino Business Professionals
Gabriel Alvarado, Jr., a pre-dental major from East Palo Alto, and Rene Rivera-Rosales, a civil engineering major from Redwood City, have been awarded scholarships from the Latino Business Professionals organization. Rene started at Canada as an ESL student and was one of the Canada students who joined Phi Theta Kappa students rebuilding a hoe in New Orleans last fall. Gabriel is new to Canada and is very involved in the East Palo Alto community and coaches girl's soccer. His dream is to become a dentist. The scholarship awards dinner will be held March 15. Last year’s scholarship was worth $750 but it could rise to $1,000 this year.
ASCC Hosts Successful Events for Evening Students
The Associated Students of Cañada College hosted two successful events designed to introduce evening students to the array of services available for students. Evening faculty were invited to bring their classes to the cafeteria where service providers were available to provide information and answer questions.
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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