Mary Rees: Good afternoon and welcome to the Moorpark Campus Update for April 19. We'll wait just a minute or two, while everyone joins us.
Good afternoon we'll wait just another minute while few more people join us for our Moorpark College Campus Update.
Okay.
Well, like I said welcome, thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Wanted to remind everyone that this update is being recorded.
And it will be posted on the president's website after it is closed captioned. If you are interested in seeing the update closed captioned, please click the "CC" on the bottom of your screen.
For today we're going to have some updates
from around the campus and then we'll be followed up with three spotlights for today. The campus spotlights, we'll look at the mission statement,
a report on our Dreamers, as well as some information about commencement. So we have a lot on our agenda for today. So you're welcome, so glad you're here.
We are delighted to announce and hopefully you've all seen the exciting news that Julius Sokenu was selected as the President for Moorpark College. Julius is not going to be joining us this morning and is going to be out for a couple of days.
But I do know that he would like me us to acknowledge, some of the great work that was done by the MC VCCARA group last week
meeting with and acknowledging the AAPI groups and a lot of that really important conversation will continue through our monthly brown bag. So please be looking for that and join those positive efforts.
Also, just wanted to acknowledge too the great work and the high professionalism of our zoo group yesterday. We had a false alarm alert
that notified probably many of you and falsely announced that there was an active shooter on campus.
In the attempt for safety and security, the zoo professionals supported the hundred people that were at the zoo and they all locked down
just as they were supposed to, provided support. In fact, I heard that they continue the discussion about the animals that they were showing them the visitors around.
After the police gave the all clear, they continued with the zoo presentations and when I came on campus shortly afterwards,
additional people were coming on campus and they were giving tours. So just the professionalism and the way they handled that was really to be called out.
Even though I'm sure it caused alarm for many of you, it did provide us with some really good opportunities to learn for how we were very lucky and nothing serious was happening, but it did give us a good opportunity for preparing for the future, so.
Thank you.
Allison, can you give us an update where we are on our...Oh I'm sorry I one more thing I forgot, Allison excuse me, I do want to remind
people that we do have an update in two weeks.
So our next update is going to be May 3, at the usual time, usual place and it's going to be our Academic Senate brunch and campus celebration. So we'll be celebrating the awards and we'll be celebrating retirees. So
do make a special point to come and join us for the end of the spring semester celebration. So Allison, I apologize on that can you give us the Covid update? Excuse me.
Allison Case Barton: Absolutely. So we had a little more activity this last couple of weeks. We have a couple of positive cases and students with a lot of on campus exposure.
But so that brings us up to 17 that are in quarantine and you can see that we have 54 cases since last September, and that we are 54 that have...
or 52 that have recovered. We added another number this week, and that is the total vaccines uploaded to the app.
And so I just wanted to make sure everybody understands that it would be really helpful if you get vaccinated that you add those to the app. Why is that? It's because it will it'll make our contact tracing much easier, especially as more and more of us return to campus.
And I've had several people ask me how to do it, that we've had a little bit of a change in the APP and so just to know that you go to the MyVCCCD app and you have to scroll over to the left a little bit to reveal the report vaccination tile that you can see circled on the
image to the left and then you just follow directions next, next, you pick whichever,
vaccine you got and then click on next, and then you can take a photo with the app of your card. It's very simple to do.
And then that will help us, if you happen to get exposed on campus to eliminate us somebody that needs to be quarantined. So it's really helpful if you can do that for us. And that's my update.
Thank you.
Mary: Allison there was a question that asked if there's a way to verify that what they upload is present?
Allison: It'll tell you.
The app will just tell you. You just click next and then it'll thank
you for uploading.
Mary: Thank you so much.
Jennifer?
Jennifer Clark: Good afternoon, everybody. I just have a quick update, because I know we have a very full agenda .Just a quick update on our HEERF money, CARES money, in particular when I'm talking about today is the student portion.
Those of you who have been tuning in will know that they are now three waves of CARES money or HEERF money, I should say.
And I am very happy to report that we have now fully expended the wave one, the first round of the student
direct aid. The 2.571 million in the first wave is now fully expended, so now we are starting to work on wave two. So that's good information. A lot of students we've been able to help almost 3000 students, I believe the number is.
3,236, to be exact. Thank you, Mary.
Mary: Thank you Jennifer.
Just a couple of points, I just,
Jennifer you were mentioning about the
more people coming on campus, we are moving towards a 30 to 50% on campus for fall. If faculty are interested in teaching a class on fall,
please reach out to your dean, and as far as staff, I assume staff are also too, reach out to their supervisors for conversation about coming on campus for summer and fall.
Just as a reminder also this Friday is our retreat. So you all should have it on your calendar. So this Friday we'll also can put up a link for that. So Friday is the retreat and as you know your presence,
we really appreciate having faculty, staff, students, and administrators all present at the retreat that help us plan for next year. So please make sure that that's on your list to do.
Also, the 27th, the next week will be our Flex Week or Flex Day. And there's some great activities coming up for Flex Week.
ZTC, there's some career education information,
cultural space, enhancing teaching with creativity, how to make your PDFs accessible, and also rescuing there Zooms. The policy for saving Zooms is changing in the future, and so do sign up for that
session as well. So there's a lot of exciting things for Flex Day, which is the 27th. And the retreat on the 23rd. On the 29th our PRT visit will come for their second
visit. They have provided us with a list of recommendations that we'll talk about on campus and they want to go through and review those. So there'll be a lot of interesting things coming
in the next week or so. For finals coming up, we are going to have a schedule, so if you have students that would like to help make sure that they have
reliable internet and a quiet place for doing their finals, we will have the LMC 138 139 available again for this finals.
And we'll send out a link, so that people can schedule, if students wanted to schedule to use that computer lab for their finals they can schedule for that, because finals will be coming up. Amanuel?
Amanuel Gebru: Thank you Mary. Good afternoon everyone.
Just want to really take the time and thank our Multicultural Day Committee for an amazing job that they did last week in all the planning efforts and really
continuing that tradition in a virtual environment. So I want to take a moment and recognize those folks.
Starting with Tammy Coleman, Kristen Robinson, David Birchman, Brian Burns, Maria Thayer, Suzanne Fagan, Shyan Diaz-Brown, Ashley Vaughan, Cherisse Meichtry, Nicole
Bicakci, Michael Grimes, Ariana Burrell, Dina Pielaet, Kristen McCloskey Howard Davis, Tim Lumas, Ranford Hopkins, Cynthia Barnett,
Cynthia Osuna, Linda Resendiz, Aaron Stell, and if I forgot anybody thank you all. Tammy please thank others that weren't mentioned but we truly appreciate the work that continues to happen behind the scenes and for always putting on a phenomenon Multicultural Day. So kudos to everyone.
And then also just want to continue to encourage our students to use Raider Central resources every Thursday Moorpark campus 12:00 to 4:00 pm in parking lot H, please let our students know.
And
lastly, I just want to say, I want to before I transition just thank you all for the amazing work that you continue to do to support our students
and working with another in a virtual environment. So the next group of people, I will introduce our the mission statement presenters which is Jodi Dickey, Johnny Conley,
and I believe Khushnur will be presenting the work they've been doing on the mission statement. So I hand it off to you all.
Jodi Dickey: Thank you Amanuel. Next slide please? So as part of our social justice group number four we were asked to because we were interested to look at revising our college's mission statement. Next slide?
So real quick here we're going to go over the timeline the requirements ACCJC has for our mission statement, a draft, and then a side by side comparison, and some of the suggestions we've already received, as we have brought this to different committees and groups. Next slide please?
So just as a quick timeline, we were asked in January if we were interested in looking at our mission statement and having
a lens that looked more at equity and social justice, and we absolutely were. So our group first met in February we're a large group comprised of administrators, faculty, and classified professionals.
We met again on March 2 to have a further discussion on the elements that we wanted to include, which included equity, social justice, diversity, and of course, to discuss the ACCJC requirements. And
from there, a smaller group, after hearing everybody suggestions, a smaller group met to wordsmith the statement. They met in March.
And then, again, we met and all members were in favor of the the draft mission statement that the smaller group came up with. And that group was made up of Dr. Priscilla Mora, Dr. Khushnur Dadabhoy, Allison Barton, and Erin Dilley.
We have since presented this to Academic Senate, Classified Senate, EdCap, Consultation Council, ASMC, Student Services Council, and the Counseling Department.
And we also, yeah we brought it to Classified last week. So we are presenting here today and tomorrow it will be brought again to Academic Senate, with some slight changes from what you will see today and then again on Friday at the Spring Planning Retreat. Next slide please?
So ACCJC requires that we have a purpose, an intended student population, the types of degrees and credentials that we offer, and a commitment to student learning and achievement. And you'll see there's a link in the chat if you're interested in reviewing that. Next slide?
This is what that small group came up with, and that the larger group endorsed. "Grounded in equity, social justice, and a 'students first' philosophy, Moorpark College values diverse communities.
We empower learners from local, national, and global backgrounds to complete their degree, certificate, transfer, and career education goals. Through innovation and customized students support, our programs are designed to achieve equitable outcomes. Next slide?
This will give you a view of what our current mission statement is and versus our draft statement.
You'll see that a lot of the same elements are in both, but they have been reworded to sort of have a better flow and emphasize our commitment to equity and social justice.
Next slide?
As we've brought this to different groups, these are some of the comments and suggestions we've received. I've highlighted the blue there because it was our intention and actually our group met today, and we have added in "integration of innovative instruction and customized support". So,
we were suggested to have that emphasis on instruction and we did reword that and that is in there now and that goes to point number two and a strong emphasis on teaching and learning.
We've also received from some that they would like to see students first again at the beginning of the sentence.
We were also suggested to re-insert basic skills. We have not done that, largely in part due to AB 705.
And because we're short on time, I'm not going to go into that more deeply here. We were told, we can of course add more to the statement than ACCJC requires and we have.
So one comment we received was that perhaps we should include or identify the demographics of our diverse communities.
This was actually brought out at ASMC and, as the person was talking and making the suggestion, they also said, "Well actually if we start doing that then maybe we might inadvertently leave some groups out."
And ASMC, which is our main student demographic that we were able to present this to, our student group rather that we could present this to,
actually really liked the new mission statement, they said that it flowed better. They felt that it went from general to more specific and they really wanted to see us add that teaching part back in, because they thought that it was important to
support our instructors as well as our students. Next slide please?
And real quick here, these were just a couple of suggestions for rewording, if that was the way that the college wanted to go as a whole. So just a couple of examples of how we could do that. And then, if you could just go back to the draft, I think it's like three slides back?
Or maybe no we can't. That's okay. There we go. One more please? One more back?
So that's the draft mission statement. As I said, we've made a little bit of an adjustment and that last sentence by adding through
the integration of innovative instruction and customized students support. So I just wanted you to know that that's there. I want to give a big thank you to Johnny and Khushnur for their support in
putting this together as well and Johnny helped out a lot with this PowerPoint as well as
just general support, and so, even though they aren't speaking here today, I just want you to know that they had a very large role as co-leaders of social justice group theme four. Thank you.
Mary: Jodi, a question for you. Will this be at the retreat and will there be conversation and a vote at that point?
Jodi: So I can answer. I believe it will be at the retreat. I don't know how much time we are given at the retreat and I don't know if there's a vote.
If that's the way we do things, then certainly that would be the case.
Mary: Thank you.
Jodi: Thank you.
Mary: Karla, can you tell us a little bit. I see you've got visitors with us here on campus as well?
Karla Montenegro Gonzalez: Yes, definitely. So I'm joined by Patrick and Eveline today from the UFW Foundation team. And my name is Karla Montenegro Gonzalez. My pronouns are she, her, and hers and ella.
And I am here to talk to you all a little bit about MC Dreamers and what we do, and what we have been doing, and what we can do with you in the future. So first and foremost, MC Dreamers is here to support all undocumented students,
and students who come from different immigration backgrounds, when it comes to their parents or their siblings, so we're happy to to help them out.
We have a little over 150 Dreamers on campus and we have been seeing that incoming applications for them come in. So
I have been contacting students to help them fill out any forms that need and refer them to Financial Aid if they're deep in concerns about a student's records.
But we are here to help them from beginning to end. Like I mentioned, we have support systems around campus such as Financial Aid, we also have the Career Transfer Center and EOPS to mention a few. And
we also help students apply to other programs on campus, if they have questions or hesitations prior to going into the programs. And we also provide education for students and parents about the ever changing needs,
the needs that they may have, just because we know that immigration is
very evolving. So I never know what my meetings are going to be about, what students and what their needs are at that point but,
we focus a lot on holistic well being and I not only answer questions about first generation incoming students to college, but, you know,
informing the community about Covid testing and vaccinations and that undocumented immigrants still qualify for the services for free.
Throughout the previous semesters, we have awarded various grants to our students to support their school supplies, their textbooks, their career development by the
grants that we had in partnership with MC Raider Central where students volunteer six Fridays, and they received a grant,
and they also receive a book voucher. So we have those opportunities available to students, because they have voiced
that they needed those resources, so we were able to make it happen and continue to listen to our students' need and see how we can move forward here at MC
to make sure that, you know, we are up to date meeting their needs, like I mentioned. And I wanted to take a minute to invite everyone here, I know that the links were dropped in the chat, so
we're having a Dreamers Work Group meeting this upcoming Wednesday from 2:00 to 3:00 pm. And in that communication you'll see the Zoom link to join us.
We are happy to be introducing or new EOPS counselors in that meeting, and then we're going to have a couple of optional activities
and introductions that students, faculty, and staff can participate. These meetings are not only open to our students, they're open for you all like I mentioned, and allies. So feel free to come in and introduce yourself to our Dreamers.
And last but not least from my end, if your faculty, staff, a student leader on campus and are looking, you know, to have us come speak to your class or to your group,
for 20 minutes, please go ahead and invite me. We're happy to come in with the UFW Foundation for those 20 minutes and we'll provide you
any information that you need and any resources at that time as well. Feel free to email me and then I'll coordinate that meeting with the UFW Foundation like I said.
Now I would like to introduce Patrick Martinez and Eveline Lin, who are the UFW Foundation lawyers who would talk with your campus community here at Moorpark College. So without further ado, we'll have them hop in.
Patrick Martinez: Thank you Karla. Good afternoon everyone, my name is Patrick Martinez and I'm a staff attorney with the UFW Foundation.
Eveline Lin: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Eveline Lin, I'm also another staff attorney for the Community Colleges Project. Thank you for having us.
Patrick: Yes, thank you for having us and we're here to provide you a bit of information about the UFW Foundation and the services that it is providing to the members of your campus.
The UFW Foundation is a nonprofit organization here in the state of California that provides immigration legal services to the community.
And now, through a program developed by the Department of Social Services of the State of California,
UFW Foundation has partnered with Moorpark College to provide immigration legal services to all campus members and so we're providing
appointments and providing service to that assistance with interim or temporary immigration benefits to assist those that are in pursuit of becoming a lawful permanent resident or
obtaining their citizenship and in support of those services, we also assist with more ancillary processes like request of immigration records or a criminal history records.
And I believe that one of the more important services we provide is a general consultation, which is a opportunity to meet with campus members and to comprehensively explore the options that they may have at this moment in time, and also as part of those services, we also offer
informational events, regularly provide presentations on topics of immigration law and policy. We also
provide that Q&A sessions which are opportunities to meet with our staff with questions on topics of immigration law and policy.
We provide appointments twice a month, and those are appointments that are specifically designated for the members of Moorpark College. We also have additional days, where
appointments are offered on a first come, first serve basis. I believe, information about our services has been included in the chat section, and you can also find more information about
the UFW Foundation and it's services through our website, the ufwfoundation.org.
We encourage you to to reach out to us, if you have an interest in our services and even if you first want to ask a few questions, we encourage you to reach out to us by phone, or by joining us for one of our informational sessions, or one of our Q&A sessions.
Eveline: That's right, and our next Q&A session will be on the 28th of April from 10:00 am to 10:30. In addition, we just received funding for
DACA applicants, that their filing fee may be covered, provided that they meet qualification. For details, please reach out to Karla and or you can call our regional office in Oxnard. The phone number is 805-246-3367. Thank you.
Karla: Thank you Eveline and thank you Patrick for sharing about those services. If you want a look over the event that is going on for the Q&A, that is listed on the April newsletter events
link that was included in the chat. So you can join them then as well. Something that I wanted to emphasize
is that Moorpark College is not directly tracking who seeks immigration services. So please rest reassured that if you seek their services out, we don't know here at Moorpark College. It's more of a conversation that you have with the lawyers.
And that is all to, you know, just
have that confidence with them. So that was all for MC Dreamers and the UFW Foundation and I'm happy to answer any questions in the chat if we have any.
Okay, I don't see any questions.
Thank you everyone.
Mary: Karla, could they also reach you at your...
would it be also reasonable for people to reach out to your office, through email or through phone here on campus? Would that work as well?
Karla: Yes, I am happy to be contacted through email, through phone. I'm also going to go ahead and share my phone number here on the chat for everyone.
[Karla]: Thanks everyone. [Mary]: Thank you Karla. Thank you Patrick. Thank you Eveline. We very much appreciate you joining us here on campus virtually any way, right? Thank you.
Eveline: Thank you.
Mary: Lynda and Christy, can you give us some information about commencement? A very exciting time here on campus.
Christy Douglass: Thank you Mary. Yes, we are very excited to celebrate our graduates this year. Good afternoon everyone, I'm Christy Douglas, faculty in our hospitality management and business programs.
And I'm a member of our wonderful commencement committee. There is a huge group of people who are working to make this happen. So I'm here today just share a little about how commencement going to happen this year and how you can help. So next slide please?
So basically the event will take place as scheduled on Thursday May 20 from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. This is an open window, it will be a drive through event. So graduates are invited to come anytime during that 9:00 to 1:00 window.
But, items that we will be giving to the graduates will be first come, first serve. So we do encourage graduates to come as early in the day, as possible.
Graduates will receive a lawn sign to put on their, you know, front lawn or somewhere display it with pride showing that they're a Moorpark graduate.
They will receive a diploma cover and they may also receive some gifts from ASMC or other areas on campus. After going through that main part of the line,
they will then have the option to leave campus or to park their vehicle and have their photos taken by professional photographers, we will have on hand with set backdrops.
And so that will be the graduate's choice whether they want to just receive their their gifts and exit or have those photos taken.
And this is what is consistent with what Oxnard and Ventura are doing this year, so we have a consistent offering across all of our campuses in the district for our graduates. And this drive through will take place, as mentioned in lots AA and A. Next slide please?
So this is the fun part, this is where you get to get involved, and I know in the past when we've had in person commencement people have taken on numerous roles
in celebrating our graduates. So we continue to have numerous opportunities for you to support the event.
There are links in the chat right now. There's two different types of opportunities you have to participate in the event. So the first is our volunteer opportunities, where you will help make this event happen.
These roles are going to be people actually handing the gifts to the graduates, putting them in their vehicles, helping to direct traffic and direct foot traffic to the photography area and all of that.
Or if you're less comfortable with that, you can have a just a cheer leading supporting role, which is just sort of we're going to have
faculty and staff on hand just holding up signs, cheering for our graduates, staying at a distance, just to support the day and make it seem extra exciting.
So again, those links are there, you can browse the different descriptions of the various
opportunities. There are different levels, as I said, people who would maybe coming closer contact with other individuals than other roles and you can pick what is most comfortable for you, based on your
personal needs. All of these roles you'll be, you know, very active and staying busy throughout the entire time slots.
The time slots are two hour windows. You're welcome to select one or more of those time slots to participate with us.
Another opportunity with the cheer leading area, is for you to sign up as a department or as an office or group specifically on campus to support our graduates and celebrate them. And so you can team up with others in your discipline or in your department
to man sort of the entire window and divide up the times that work best for you guys individually, but knowing that someone from your area will be there representing you throughout the event,
and there will be an option for you to select if you'd like to have signs made. We'll be making signs for the various departments you'll see, you know,
for example, "Hospitality department supports our graduates," or something like that. So you'll have the option to select if you're going to sign up for your department or your office,
and who's gonna sign up and if you'd like signs made or not, and then you can divide up the timing.
All of these roles will be set up to maximize and maintain current social distancing guidelines to the extent possible obviously, reaching into the vehicle to put
the signs in is probably the closest we're going to get to other people that day, and obviously masks will be required by all volunteers and attendees. Next slide please?
Alright, well, thank you so much. I want to hand it over to Lynda. Lynda did I miss anything? Can you throw anything else out there that we need people to know?
Standing by.
Lynda Dobson: Sorry about that.
No, it's perfect.
I think you covered most of it. Great job. Just, you know, it's a lot of fun cheering on the graduates. So I encourage, you know, participants or individuals to definitely sign up. It's a fun time.
Christy: Definitely. It's going to be a great event.
And we will, as we said we're going to be doing it in the lots up on the north side of campus which have the lovely new solar panels in place, so most of these volunteer positions, you will be able to be in the shade most of the time. So that's a huge benefit.
And so, please reach out. Check out our graduation website or our mccommencement@vcccd email address for any questions. Thanks so much.
Mary: Thank you Christy and Lynda, that's such an exciting time on our campus with the commencement. So if you have the opportunity to help with that, it's really a very rewarding time and all of that so. So thank you much it looks really fun.
Thank you so much. We had a lot of information that we kind of went through really quickly. We want to thank all the people that are supporting the Dreamers, commencement do sign up,
mission statement, we will review it and hopefully we'll be in a position where we can vote to
take on the new mission statement for the campus and that will all happen at our retreat on Friday. So do come and join us at that.
Just a huge thank you from all of us here for everything that everyone is doing, helping our students complete on such a good note their spring semester. And we look forward to all the planning for fall and you all have a great day. Thank you so much.