5 Things to Know Weekly Update
Dear Colleagues,
Last week, President’s Cabinet approved our new Strategic Focus list for 2024-2025 (see the link to the PDF below). If you recall, last year we had “Think Big” – this year, we have replaced it with “Elevate GWC.” There are SO MANY WAYS that we do and can keep doing that, as individuals and as an institution. Here are just a few that have happened recently:
- Our theater department received three nominations from the Orange Curtain Awards for Best College Show, Best Actress in a Musical, and Best Featured Actor, all for the splendid A Little Night Music directed by Martie Ramm Engle. And Tom Amen put on an amazing one-woman show with Amanda Zarr that was sold out on Sunday!
- Our Promotions/Marketing Department received nominations in seven categories for the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations awards, more than Saddleback and Santa Ana (among others).
- Our football team, ranked #8, beat last year’s state champion Riverside on Saturday (and I learned never to leave a game 4 minutes early….).
- Charissa McCord, our Curriculum Tech, was one of only TWO people in her position statewide to help write a technical manual for non-credit curriculum.
- Diana Rochat, CTE outreach coordinator, is nominated for Educator of the Year at the Empowering Futures event honoring CTE in Orange County.
- Lastly, I was featured in the magazine Diverse: Issues in Higher Education – here’s a link to the article. Everything mentioned about the college is true and will elevate our profile (although I may never live down being called “tedious” by our Senate President! 😊). As President, I do feel keenly the need to get the word out about GWC any time and anyplace.
I know I haven’t heard about everything we are all doing, so this is just a taste of how we are “elevating” the college. And elevation is not just about awards and recognition – it’s about the high quality work we do with every student every day. Let’s all enjoy another week of making a difference.
Meridith
Yet another way to elevate is to step up and celebrate our employees and students for Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 to October 15. Today will kick off with an employee mixer and art show at the Art Gallery from 1:30 to 3 pm, hosted by Somos, our employee resource group for Hispanic/Latinx/Chicano/a employees. Each week will have more events, both fun and educational, so check out the flyer below as well as our webpage and I hope to see you at many. Viva GWC!
On Thursday, September 19 at 10 am, we will be holding our Grand Opening of The Stand – all employees are invited as well as our community partners and local elected officials. And our program presentation at the Board meeting on Wednesday will be about meeting basic needs more broadly, thanks to Yasmin Bravo and her team.
Last week, several of us went to the dual enrollment conference held by CCEMC in San Francisco, where Lauren Sosenko and Alice Martanegara presented to standing room only crowds about our nursing pathways from high schools, and Doreen Fioretto and Erin Craig held a session on considerations when teaching high school students. Our dual enrollment program is clearly more developed and thoughtful than many others in the state and we were happy to share our experience. The conference will be held in Irvine next year, so I’m hoping many more of us can attend.
Several of us had an excellent meeting with Christina Ryan Rodriguez and Joel Powell, our new faculty Umoja coordinator, about plans for Umoja moving forward, and we have some exciting strategies planned to help our Black/African-American students succeed. Thanks to the group and all the faculty who have attended Umoja conferences, both recently and in the past.
