Mary Rees: Good morning and welcome to 2021 spring semester. We'll just give people a minute or two while they're coming in.
Good morning. Just one more minute here while we wait for everyone to come and join us.
Well, I said good morning and I should have said good afternoon. Welcome to spring semester 2021.
We appreciate you joining for the campus updates. We will continue them on an every other week basis as we were doing last semester.
Just as a reminder, the update is being recorded. Also, if you wish to see it as closed captioned, please click the "CC" down at the bottom of your screen. We do appreciate our, having these captioned. So, thank you all very much.
Welcome and good afternoon Julius.
Julius Sokenu: Hi everyone. And as Mary said, welcome to spring 2021. I hope you had a restful holiday season, a safe one, and you got some chance to get all the Zoom fatigue out of your system and we're back again to the wonderful work we're doing here at the college.
I just think it is so important for us given the recent challenges and sort of social upheaval we're addressing to remind ourselves again as Moorpark College we value civility, we value collegiality, and first and foremost we put respect of our colleagues, respect of our students and the value of dialogue above all as we engage one another.
I know that the events of last week, last Wednesday in particular shook a lot of us. And for some of us, it was really sort of a call to sort of question and to reaffirm our commitment to the values of this republic and more importantly to sort of figure out and identify those areas where the republic is not and has not lived up to its values and its mission, and to do so and continue to do that work so we can be one union.
I do want to say that the work that we're doing on campus around social justice, around equity, around making sure we build allies and engage in conversations that help us support one another's experiences is central to that work and we can be models for the national debate and the national dialogue.
I also want to call our attention to the fact we're still in stay at home orders. We're still in the purple... in terms of the county of Ventura and that only essential workers and individuals are to be on campus at this time.
Higher Education, education in general is an essential sector. So that we're able to commute from homes to campus as members of essential sectors.
If you are on campus working, there is a letter that's been generated and you can get that through your supervisor as proof of you being an essential employee, of an essential sector.
We have seen surges in Covid transmission not only within our county, but also of people reporting transmission of Covid within our institution and all of these were transmissions outside of the institution, where they're still transmissions, exposures nevertheless. So what this asks us to continue is to wash our hands, wear face masks, practice social distancing, and most importantly stay home if you don't have to go somewhere.
You will probably and Jennifer will provide much more detail than I will about the budget, from the Governor of California, but you probably realized, from if you have done any sort of tangential review of the budget that it is, there has been quite a bit of one time monies coming to the California Community Colleges.
The way to look at this, is that with this budget we are given some additional time to plan for a potential budget down turn in 2022-23, which is the next fiscal year. So this just gives us time to do good planning.
So we've dodged the bullet for now, but that we will, the future is still precarious. It's also important to note with the passing of the stimulus bill at the federal level, that we have more resources that will coming to California and California Community Colleges. We don't exactly know what that will look like right now, but we should be getting more detailed information in the coming weeks.
And my hope is by the next update, we can provide you with more detail.
I want to use this as an opportunity to welcome new hires as well. Next slide please? We've hired quite a few people since March when we transitioned to remote. Remote learning and remote work.
And usually, you know, we get a chance on campus to meet these people or walk around the offices and they get to know and meet people. Unfortunately we can't do that. So what you have is a list of individuals we have hired since March of 2020.
And some of these are folks who are already working with us and they just changed positions and promoted up or moved to another area. So, welcome to the new folks, the new, new folks and welcome and congratulations to the folks who have changed or moved positions.
One of the folks who have moved positions and I'm glad to welcome her and reintroduce her to you, and he will get a chance to say a few words about herself, is Allison Case Barton.
Allison is our Student Health Center Coordinator. She's been with the Student Health Center. So she's not a new face around campus. Allison, would you please unmute and just introduce yourself briefly?
Allison Case Barton: Well, hello and thank you so much for that. I'm just very excited to continue to work on our campus in a new role. I always tell people that Sharon Manakas just gave me the keys to the star ship enterprise. I have this awesome staff and we're ready to go.
And gonna make the transition as seamless as possible, but hank you and welcome to spring semester.
Julius: Thank you, Allison. Our next newest person is Matt Crater. Matt Crater is our new athletic director. I think he starts his second week as of tomorrow.
And Matt comes from College of The Canyons. I know that, you know, we've incurred some enemies at College of The Canyons by stealing Matt away from them. I will let Matt introduce himself as well. Matt will you please unmute?
Matt Crater: Thank you. Allison, we might have, that our predecessors may have something in common how well they left the programs. I'm just really excited to be here. I've been here almost a week now. If there is anything I felt is, I've felt incredibly welcomed. If hat's how our students are going to feel on campus, I'm really excited.
The athletic program here at Moorpark is great one. I have some big shoes to fill with Vance and Howard, previously, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.
So, can't wait to meet you all whether it's virtually or hopefully it's sooner than later I'll get to see you on campus. So, thank you.
Julius: Thank you very much Matt and welcome to the college. I'm going to pass the baton now to our Vice President of Business, Dr. Jennifer Clark. Jennifer.
Jennifer Clark: Thank you Julius. Hi everybody. Welcome to spring 2021.
I couldn't aframed the presentation of the January budget better than what Julius just said. You may for those of you that are, kinda have your ear to the ground on it, you might of heard, yes there is actually more dollars being infused to our budget for the next year that begins July 1. So, this is our 21-22 budget. So, July 1 to June 30th, 2022.
However, we have to be very, very, we are still in a very much precarious situation because things with the pandemic and the recession induced, or that I'm sorry pandemic induced recession is precarious. It's changing all the time.
I wanted to just kind of give you an idea. Out of a $227 billion statewide budget, 34 billion is what the governor calls budget resiliency. And what he means by that is it's a combination of reserves and discretionary surplus.
So these are one time funds. So that means that 15% of the budget is using one time funds.
So, we have this next year again, beginning July 1, to really look long-term. Our long range planning is going to be super important, and the district has actually asked us to do this in preparing for any future reductions that we may need to have across, you know, across our district. Again, not, it not would not be until likely until 22/23. Right?
So, we're going to be going through that exercise this year. You know, what are potential areas if we were reduced by 5% or maybe as much as 10%? What are the areas potentially that we would look at for not this coming budget year, but the year after that.
So, let's see. What else did I want to say?
There is a lot of, a lot in the budget you probably heard on investing billions, investing in workers and businesses, just the pandemic induced recession again, and a lot being focused on getting schools reopened. Starting with the youngest students first.
So, a lot of money being infused to California just to recover from the pandemic and try to get back to, you know, normal, whatever that new normal is going to be as quickly as we can.
And so that long-term, you know, we won't have to rely on one time revenue sources that with our in stimulating our economy. It's going to get those ongoing revenue sources, taxes, our taxpayers, corporations and corporate taxes, etc., sales taxes, those engines working again because we need that for the long-term, for our long-term revenue.
Also, improving Covid testing throughout California, increasing the number of sites, improvements in contact tracing, vaccine distribution, there have been logistical challenges. So there's a lot of money being infused in those sectors, and also in, again, getting the economy going again.
So, anything to do with getting people into the workplace, retrained for jobs as quickly as possible, so again, we can get the economy going.
We are at the community college level going to see an infusion of 250 million dollars in one time emergency financial aid for students. So they'll be in addition to the CARES money which I'm gonna talk about in a second, what we have left for students, there's gonna be another infusion of money.
We don't it doesn't look like it's going to be quite as much, but it's going to be something both from the state level as well as federal level. So that is good news for our students. Also money in the California budget for what does he call it, a retention, what does the governor call it I mean? Retention and re-enrollment.
So, really trying to focus and reengage students who have had to drop out, or take fewer classes, or really the pandemic has kinda derailed their studies, there is money that's being put towards those efforts to get those students back on track as quickly as possible.
Again, I want to emphasize, we need to be extremely cautious moving forward, because again, this next budget year,15% of that budget is one time money just to get things going with the economy and with Covid. That's not long-term. So, we have to be very, very cautious moving forward.
For us at the district level, I've mentioned the district wants us to look long-term if a 5% reduction, 10% reduction. What does that look like? Again, that's not until the following year. It's not necessarily for the budget year, 21-22, but for 22-23. I just want to emphasize that.
Next slide please?
So, I wanted to just touch really quickly on CARES funding. We still have from last year we got our CARES funding for students last April/May.
We have spent the lion's share and given out. We have been able to help a lot of students over the last eight months or so with emergency CARES money. We have about $550,000 left for the spring semester and I know Financial Aid is as we speak rapidly disbursing those funds to as many students as possible.
Students are advised to either complete a FAFSA form or the CADA, the Dream Act application in order to get that process going. They can contact Financial Aid at any time.
As far as Covid screening is concerned, just want to remind everybody that there is sort of a three step process here for the most part. Same as it looked in the fall semester.
You need to pre-screen before you come to campus, so there's that app. We ask everybody to use that app, answer those questions, make sure that you, you know, haven't had any potential exposure or health issues that may, you know, flag you for possible Covid-19.
When you come on to campus, we still have the screening locations that are up and operational the same as they were in fall semester. We have one at the zoo, one by the Performing Arts building, sort of in between Performing Arts and the Music building in that area. We also have one at the Campus Center and for those that are coming in, our vendors coming in are to check in at FM & O. That's another location.
Any of those locations, same hours before. Those locations are opening up at 6:00 a.m I believe. Somebody correct me in the chat if it's not 6:00, if it's 7:00. I think it's 6:00. Again, same as before. Let's see what else.
The last thing you need to do after you check in and get your, go through the screening location, they'll take your temperature as they have before, provide you with a wrist band to show everybody on campus that you have checked in.
Remember that when you go to class or when you go to your office, please, please, please scan your QR code. That's your location code that shows where you are going or where you have been on campus, so that in the event someone from the Student Health Center needs to involve you in any regard for contact tracing it makes the process so much easier for these folks having to manually phone people for every event and every possible exposure.
So these phone calls stack up quickly for the Student Health Center folks, this makes their job hours and hours less than it potentially could be.
And then the fourth possible step that you may need to note, if you ever come up positive, through the app we ask you in addition to first notifying your supervisor if you were to come up positive, notify your supervisor and notify HR, right, that you have this, but you also need to go into the app and you need to report that positive Covid test through the screening application as well.
That also assists on the contact tracing side. Allison may mention that later but that's a key component of that process. So, that's it for my part. I'm going to pass the baton over to Mary. Thank you.
Mary: Thank you Jennifer. There was a question that's really fits in with what you have been talking about. They were asking the number of positives on campus. Do you want to talk a little bit about where that information is and the numbers?
Jennifer: Sure. So, we have, it was probably about a month or maybe a bit more than a month or so ago. We decided to put together, it's probably more than a month ago, we put together what's called our dashboard and that is information that our Student Health Center folks, or our Student Health Center Coordinator and her team keep up to date. And they keep it up to date at least on a weekly basis.
I believe they have it on their website. I believe it's on the website, that information can be found. It basically reports any positive cases that we have or the total cumulative number of positive cases that we have right now on campus. Thank you Allison, yes it is on the website. So you can go to the Student Health Center website and see that dashboard.
It also looks cumulatively how many we have had and how many cases, people have recovered. And it's broken down by student versus employee. So people can get an idea at any given moment sort of how prevalent or how many cases we have that we're dealing with at given moment on campus.
Mary: Thank you Jennifer. While we're talking about the Covid, Why don't we talk this other or raise this other question that came up as well. Someone was confused, as so they wanted to know if you're test negative and then become positive and start having symptoms and your doctor recommends that you quarantine and not get tested again, what would be your process?
Jennifer: So, again, if you do come up positive, you want to make sure wherever you are in the process, as soon as you find out that you are positive, you need to go through the steps I had mentioned a few minutes ago. Let your supervisor know. Go to the app. Report that information in the app. Notify HR. Make sure that HR knows.
There is now, and I'm not a health person, but I believe the quarantine period after symptoms and I believe is 10 days now Mary, is that correct? It is not 14. It's down to 10?
[Mary]: I think the total quarantining if you would be, would be for the 10 days versus 14. [Jennifer]: Yes. [Mary]: if you were exposed or whatever... [Jennifer]: Yes. [Mary]: and you would do the same, the question is what if you don't have a positive from the doctor. If the doctor just recommending, just recommending that you don't need to get retested, you should go into quarantining. I think you still contact your supervisor that your doctor recommended that you go into the quarantining.
Jennifer: Absolutely. And I would still, if you're looking at quarantine for 10 days or whatever it is, I would still let your supervisor know and I would let HR know.
Mary: Right. So it says to be sure and report positive Covid tests on the app as well as if you have just positive symptoms I would still contact your supervisor and we'll see on the app and you would mark yes on the app. And the 10 days is only if symptoms are improving. If you are still sick, you would want to continue beyond and
Jennifer: So it's 10 days, is it 10 days from the day the symptoms begin to improve or is it 10 days from when symptoms, you're over the symptoms?
Mary: I think there are kind of two conversations there. We could ask Allison for additional clarification. But if you're exposed, they would tell you to quarantine for 10 days. If you were sick, Allison do you want to cover this? Why don't you cover this?
[Allison]: Sure. [Jennifer]: Yes thank you. [Allison]: Based on, you know, fresh off the press, so, 10 days from a positive test for sure, unless you're sick and your symptoms aren't improving. And then you just stay home and stay away from people until your symptoms are improving. You also have to be fever free without the help of Tylenol, or Advil, or Asprin. Right? It has to be a real temperature drop.
And then if you have symptoms and you were exposed let's say, and you have symptoms, that's one thing. But if you were exposed and you hadn't had symptoms, you want to get tested about four or five days after the exposure to give yourself enough time to develop the antigen, right, to get a good, you know, honest test of it too.
So there's a lot of different, lot of different stuff going on, it just depends on your situation. Which is why it's a good idea to use the app if any of that stuff is happening because we can help you make the right decision based on your particular circumstances. Does that, hopefully that makes sense? Clear?
[Mary]: Yes. And Allison there are a few additional questions too. So I'm going to go ahead. [Allison]: Okay. [Mary]: Because this is clearly on people's minds. [Allison]: Yeah, for sure. [Mary]: The app asks you to upload a positive test results, so how do we do that if you don't have a positive? If you don't have the test results? If it has just been a verbal or something like that.
Allison: So, if you, so if you get tested through the county, they actually send you a file that you can take a picture of or you could take a screenshot or picture, and you can upload that. I did it just to see how it worked. I had a positive, I mean I had a negative test but I tested it out and it is very easy to do. Takes a minute. So, let's see, what else? I don't know the answer to the sick time question.
Mary: Okay, so let's read that. So you question you might know is asked, what is the website, web site link for the Covid information, for the dashboard? Do you know where that is?
Allison: So what was really nice is Tiffany Pawluk put it up there. And that's so nice. I'll re put it in the chat that's great. Thank you Tiffany.
Mary: Thank you. There was also a question, that asked. If you need to use sick time or if there is a federal supplement time that people can use if they're quarantining. Jennifer, can you help with that?
Jennifer: Yes, I can address that. So, unfortunately the Families First Coronavirus Response legislation that passed last April 1, 2020 expired December 31, 2020. So what that was is it provided for people that had a positive, that tested positive and, or had to quarantine. They had somebody home sick and so they were sent home to quarantine for that period of time or they needed to care for someone at home that was sick.
This was a legislation that passed that provided paid leave for employees to be able to do that. That did not impact their own time at all. They did not have to take sick time they did not have to take vacation time. My, what I want to say again is unfortunately, that legislation expired December 31 so we no longer have that.
So if someone needs to take time off to quarantine, they will need to take their own sick time. Now whether legislation is passed again in the future, that may occur, but at this time there is no provision for that.
[Mary]: Thank you Jennifer. [Jennifer]: Mhmm. [Mary]: So just as to kinda go over a couple of these points again, Allison is typing what the process is if a student becomes positive. So in your class, if a student reports out they were positive that comes in, then Allison I assume, I can't see your response, but I assume that you're...
Allison: Refer them, just refer them to the app and ask them to please report it on the app. There's a tile that's on the app that is next to the, you have to kinda scroll over a little bit. I'm just looking. So next to the health pass to the right of there, is report Covid-19 test. And just ask the student to report it. That's the very fastest way for us to be able to start communicating with the student.
[Mary]: Thank you. And you will also then do the contact tracing, and we will contact anyone- [Allison]: Right. [Mary]: that has been exposed due to that? [Allison]: Correct. Yes, and the more that people check in like they're supposed to with the QR codes and the more we know who was where when, that makes it even a more an automatic and it makes it much easier to follow up and doesn't depend so much entirely on human beings. You know, it's a lot more automatic and a lot quicker.
[Mary]: Thank you. And for employees, they would also could just note it on the app as well? [Allison]: Yup. [Mary]: And Jennifer, you were saying where to contact someone over in HR, is there someone in particular or would you want them to use the phone app?
[Jennifer]: I would, well, our, I would actually let Katy Lyon who is in Benefits, that has been the person I reach out to first. I would let Katy Lyon in Benefits in HR know after you let your supervisor and put it in the app. [Mary]: Okay. Great. [Jennifer]: Yeah. [Mary]: Thank you.
As you can see, there's a lot of interest and there's a lot of concern. People have worrying about the Covid. And I think that's our number one point for today, is that we are very concerned about the safety of all faculty, staff, and students. And we also want to help everyone move towards helping our students continue on their educational journey. So, we appreciate everyone being part of this team.
We have an incredible team here at Moorpark. Just huge kudos to everyone from last semester. What a fantastic job. We did our numbers are down a little bit for spring semester, but considering the situation we are in, our numbers are amazing. I thank an absolute kudos to everyone that was involved. Thanking you for all your work last semester and a huge thank you for all getting ready for this semester.
I'm very excited that we're going to continue with our Moorpark updates every other week because you can see the communication is absolutely critical. Getting information out from our Student Health, Center, getting our business from business department as far as what our processes are,
so that everyone can have as much information and we can really function as a team to help keep everyone safe, and to keep everyone moving forward towards their educational goals. So an absolute, you know, well done, you know, because this is, you know, to say it is unchartered is like, you know, not even in the right level.
This is just amazing times, and yet, the things you are all continuing and moving forward is just, you know, a huge thank you and kudos too. As Jennifer and Allison said, get your phone app. Make sure you have that and so that you can do the pre-screening. The screening, there is one change on the screening app. You won't have to type in your temperature, you'll just answer yes whether it's over the, I think it's 101.4 or not.
Be sure that you use the QR codes. They're going to be around marking all the buildings. They're going to be marking specific classrooms if you're in. If you're here to come into an office for working or to visit your office for faculty or full or part-time, be sure you check in. You scan the QR codes.
That really is important so that we can track people to make sure if you've been exposed or if you're exposing anyone so we make sure we got that. And then if you are positive, fill that out, record that in the app so this will help us to keep everyone as safe as possible.
As we're starting this another new semester here in our Covid world, I think it's really important that we start looking forward. Moorpark is all about excellence. And we start looking at it not from a reactionary but looking forward with planning. What are we going to be doing moving forward? How are we dealing this? Where do we want to be in the new, in the future?
We use the term "new normal," but what we want to do is take the things hat we have learned in the process and use them as a foundation moving forward. We have our local peer online course review team. How can we use that to help make sure our courses are as best as they can be to meet students' need?
Are we taking advantage of our incredible opportunities provided by our Instructional Design Support team? They have office hours. They also have scheduled open support for faculty on improvements in their classes. How to deal with certain things in the class, things that have come up. There are so many opportunities in the, in providing this instruction to students.
We've got really very innovative, our faculty as you know are extremely innovative. And we've got synchronous opportunities, asynchronous opportunity, a mixture of both, mainly asynchronous with certain times that the students get together online.
We have hybrid courses that are a mixture of the online and the on ground in many of the different labs. We have something called high flex that we're doing, where the instructor is on campus and most students are online but a few are in the classroom so you have the cohort forming.
So there's a lot of innovation that we're doing and we really want to hear from you what you're doing that's innovative and how we can share that advances to help all of our students.
The other thing we really want to looking forward to in the classroom and our educational system this semester not only the leadership, the innovation, but also make sure we're looking at everything through a equity lens. As Julius was talking about, Moorpark has always had a real focus on that, that is where we're headed in the future as well.
We have recently hired a coordinator to help us bring about the ethnic studies in Moorpark style here onto campus. Patty Colman is helping with that. We're looking forward to hiring a ethnic study, excuse me, hiring a DEI Coordinator to help us coordinate and facilitate much of the social justice work of our work groups that have been ongoing all year.
And we're going to be continuing those efforts this semester. We have, computers, we have over, almost 400 that we have loaned out to students already and I believe we have a significant addition. I think Dan said we have about 450 requests through the fall, and including now. I know I personally saw about 20 more this morning.
So we have a lot of, we're meeting a real student need by lending out laptops and chrome books. We also will have about 200 wi-fi hotspots that will be available to students. We probably will have them in about a week, week and a half. And so if you have students that have needs either for computers or for hotspots, you can send an e-mail to Linda Resendiz and she'll provide the information that we need.
She'll ask you for the information needed in order to provide the computers or the hotspots for our students. We also have a textbook lending, system here through our, the library. 378 textbooks were lent out in the fall. And we're hoping we can do even more than that here in the spring. So that's one of the things we can do to help all of our students.
The equity is partially as far as providing resources and access, it also is in our curriculum. So we're going to be looking at both of those aspects. The zero textbook cost, over 300 sections this spring will have zero textbook costs for students. And we all know that that is really an important component for our students as far as access and equity.
Let's see. I think. Amanuel, do you have some student support services information for us as well?
Amanuel Gebru: Absolutely. thank you Mary. A lot of great resources for our students. Wanna welcome everyone to spring 21. A lot of exciting things happening on our campus to support our students. So just wanna give you a few reminders and some updates.
As you all know, all of our student support services will continue to be online this semester. We will start off by Raider registration taking place this Tuesday and Wednesday, and we also had Raider registration last week.
This is an opportunity to really assist all of our students with Counseling needs, campus resources, how to choose their courses, transfer planning process, anything from financial aid or any basic information that our students need. They'll have an opportunity to meet with our counselors, counselor assistants, and get information on priority registration and what they need to continue succeeding on our campus
for those continuing. And then also any new students you have in your classes that may be looking for resources, please refer them to our virtual welcome center and our support services to we continue supporting them. Also in addition to that, we have the Raider chatbot which is available on our web pages to help answer questions students may have in Spanish and in English.
The Raider chatbot is a virtual assistance and helps students and visitors answer any questions they have in regards to registration, campus support services, financial aid, or any specific questions that they may have. They'll be able to get support through the chatbot.
Admissions and Records, Counseling, EOPS, the Welcome Center will also be open virtually Monday through Friday, but on Tuesdays and Wednesdays they will be open till 7:00 p.m. So we have our extended evening hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I apologize. Tuesdays and Wednesdays we'll be open until 7:00 p.m. to support our students and our community.
And if folks have questions, students have questions, community members have questions, we still have our virtual welcome center which I'll post the chat information on there with the phone number for any specific questions students may have in our community to be able to engage with our campus staff.
I also wanna congratulate Angelica Rodriguez who will serve as our interim EOPS Counselor Coordinator for this semester and she will continue to provide leadership for that office. And I also wanna remind you that the EOPS is still accepting applications for spring 2021. To apply I will post information you can go to the mcEOPS@vcccd.edu and provide that information to students.
The EOPS is also continuing to offer cooperative agencies resources for education for our CARE students and then also providing information for our TANF and Calworks students with children under the age of 14. CARE services in addition will be given out to our students and our EOPS students. So please if you have questions, contact our EOPS office or Angelica Rodriguez who will be providing leadership for our EOPS students and our staff.
In addition to that, our campus the United Farm Workers, UFW Foundation have partnered to bring free immigration legal services directly to our Dreamers. For more information, I will post a link on that and then also Karla is our point person for anything you need for our Dreamer students in regards to legal support or any students who are looking for information in terms of any support they need for our Dreamer population.
Also, I wanna remind you that the Student Health Center will continue to offer medical, mental, and health education services via telehealth this spring. Please let students know they only need to call the Student Health Center to make appointments. I'll post that information for the phone number and also you can refer them to our website.
And as you have met, Allison will be the lead person as the health center coordinator in our office. And they are open Monday through Friday, Monday through Thursday, 8:00 to 5:00. Tuesdays and Wednesdays 8:00 to 6:00. And Fridays from 8:00 to noon.
A lot of good things happening also with Dual Enrollment. We are offering 29 sections this semester. We're serving many students, approximately 90 more students than we did last semester. So a lot of good things happening with our partnership with our K-12 and feeder high schools to provide dual enrollment courses with the support of our faculty, our department chairs, and Sergio leading our pefforts in this partnership.
And then also in terms of food, just another reminder, Raider Central provides grab and go food assistance every Friday from 12:00 to 4:00 in parking lot H. So far in January, we have served 18 students, distributed 26 bags, and have assisted 78 family members in terms of food.
In addition to that, also Ruben Castro provides food to the community on Tuesdays from 1:00 to 5:00 in parking lot H, and then on Saturdays from 12:30 to 2:30 which is off campus. And ifyou need more information, please refer our students and our community to rubencastrocharities.org for more detailed information just in case there are some changes to the dates and times.
And lastly, I want to thank our PD tri-chairs Howard, Beth, and Gabby for doing a phenomenal job in leading Flex week presentations last week. And thank you to all the faculty and staff that attended. And I also wanna do a big shout-out to Brian who did a phenomenal job in always coordinating our Flex week activities and putting everything together. So thank you those involved and all those that presented during Flex week last week. And I will pass it back to you Mary.
Mary: Thank you Amanuel. Which is really a good reminder to let people know that we are taping the update and it will be published after it is captioned at the, on the president's website. There are so much important information coming in the chat that we'll also put that information and we'll e-mail a summary of a lot of that information so that people have access to it while we're waiting for it to be captioned so you will have access to all of that information.
There was questions about how to get students the Microsoft Office. If the students need the software, we can have that on the computers that we are loaning to them. And also you can just when you request the computers, you can make a note as to what software is needed.
And as far as textbook lending, please, you can reach out to the library, if you have specific, wanting to know how to get the textbook lending for your students. Danielle will be able to help you with that particular question on that. So thank you for that.
There was one more question that we have had before we get into the last piece that we're going to be covered here in the update. Julius, there was a question about what the vaccine process will be for college faculty and staff.
Julius: Yes. So in Ventura County so far, the college faculty and staff are slated to go after the high school population, the high school faculty and high school administrators. The chancellor will be connecting with Ventura County Public Health later on this week to get some very specific guidance as to the timeline.
I know that Santa Barbara County has identified February as a timeline to vaccinate faculty, and staff, and I think even students at the community college level, but we don't have that feedback yet from our county. So we can't give you specific dates and times, but we know that our chancellor is speaking with Ventura County Public Health and trying to get some definitive timelines for that.
Mary: Thank you Julius. We would like to close our update today with a, with some kind of sad news and with some kind of inspirational acknowledgement. A contribute to Kathryn Adams. Many of you may remember Kathryn was a faculty here at Moorpark College for many years. Beth Gillis-PSmith and Tracy Tennenhouse, can you help us with this please?
Beth Gillis-Smith: Yes. So thank you so much for letting us have a little bit of time just to let everyone know that Kathryn Adams who was the first Writing Center faculty lead who came on when we had our new building, our new library. And she started the Writing Center, which was, you know, a vision of the English Department, and she brought it into fruition.
So she passed away this past January 3, after a 18 month battle with a rare form of cancer. So we just really wanted to take a minute to just share with the campus, those of you who remember her. And she wasn't just involved in the Writing Center but she definitely moved out into the campus and supported students in a variety of ways.
She taught Developmental English and she taught composition, and she also ran a number of workshops that supported students in their humanity. I mean, that's, that's really what it comes down to. She was really beautiful and creative, supportive, and brought all kinds of new ideas I think to our campus regarding supporting students, providing learning assistance in a really supportive way,
while also focusing on the high standards and excellence along with, you know, strong academic support. So, she started a Vet writing group, and really got us thinking about the populations that were on the periphery of our campus. And I know just personally for me, being around her, serving on committees with her, working with her in the Writing Center, she just was a wonderful inspiration to, to working with students with compassion and empathy.
And left us an amazing legacy to carry on. I know Tracy and I when we're often doing planning or working on new ideas, we will often say, what would Kathryn do? and thinking about her in that way. so, Tracy?
Tracy Tennenhouse: Yes. Kathryn was just an absolute beautiful soul inside and out and we were so lucky to have her at Moorpark College, for the years that we did. And in the short time, 10 years or so, that she was there she really left a lasting impact. I think a lot of the successes, all of the successes we had in the Writing Center is because she set us up so well.
All of her practices, all of the things she did are continuing to this day, and Beth talked about the legacy. And I have so many great memories of Kathryn. We got to teach a class together and I learned so much about how people learned through her. She was incredibly smart, such an intellectual person. Her, she had PHDs and two Master's degrees. I mean really an amazing intellectual background.
But she was also the person at the end of the conference or end of a workshop, she was the person picking up the trash before we left. She had that true servant mindset. She had these very high standards of intellectual capacity but she wasn't afraid of the hard work. And her real passion, the reason she left Moorpark College around 2014, was because her real passion was helping people in Haiti.
And, you know, it's not easy to leave a tenure track job, but she did that. And she did that because she was following her dreams. And again, another inspiration to us. She had that servant mindset of helping others and she would go to the ends of the earth to do that. And she really did. And there's a video that we put in the chat where you can see some of her work in Haiti.
And one of her heroes that we actually used in our class was John Wooden, the coach John Wooden. He has that pyramid of success, and you know, you have all these pillars and foundations that you get from that, that leads you to the top of the pyramid. And you know, I think Kathryn had a shorter life than we would have liked but I think she got to that pyramid, that top of success because her heart was about serving others.
So let us, you know, use that as inspiration for all of us. And now I'm crying so I'm going to go on mute.
Mary: Well, thank you Tracy and Beth for helping us remember and to acknowledge the incredible life of this, of Kathryn so thank you so much on that. One more reminder before we have Julius, any last words, is reminding to the faculty to please publish your Canvas shell. You need to do that for each semester. So be sure that you publish your Canvas shell to have access for this semester.
If you have any questions or concerns, reach out to the Instructional Design. They have office hours. They'll be glad to help walk you through what needs to be done. So be sure that gets done. That will save you a lot of problems. Julius,do you have any last words for us or help us start off the semester?
Julius: Yeah thank you so much Beth and Tracy for that remarkable tribute to Kathryn. And I do think that what is so important for us to remember is that we're here in service of one another. And yes, we're dealing with the pandemic, yes we're dealing with all kinds of racial and social issues, but at the end of the day, we're here to serve one another.
The spring semester offers an opportunity for a new beginning for our students and for ourselves, and the opportunity for us as individuals who are committed and have this vocation of helping others fully develop themselves. You know, we're in the business of human development and this semester also allows us to continue that work. Whichever, wherever you are in campus, whether you're in M & O, or you're in a division office, or you are in the health center.
Key events that we do over the semester and the spring, April 13, Multicultural Day will be virtual this year. April 23, is our annual strategic plan and planning retreat. Please mark those dates down and please plan to join us virtually. And commencement I believe is May 20 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., 1:00 p.m. and will be a drive through experience once again.
Again, have a great semester. Please, please, please be safe. And as always, know that you have a community here at Moorpark College to support you. Thank you.