Mary Rees: Well, good morning, all we'll wait a couple minutes while people are joining the
update this morning. Good morning. Good morning.
Good morning. We're gonna wait just another minute while people are still entering hope everyone's doing well this morning.
Well, good morning. We want to welcome you to our 2020 celebration Zoom Moorpark College Update,
I hope everyone is doing well. It's a very different way for doing our annual end of spring semester celebration, but we are delighted to have you all here.
Please note that if you click the CC at the bottom, you'll be able to see closed captioning for the event.
Also this campus update webinar is being recorded and the transcript will be posted on the President's page so that for those that were not able to attend be able to be part of our celebration and all the information.
The audio and video are disabled but you can still answer questions and make comments through the Q&A. Any questions will be answered, after the meeting, and it will be posted in the transcripts.
So to begin, we want to first acknowledge some of our guests. We're sorry that Chancellor Gillespie will not be able to join us this morning. I know they often do come but we so appreciate Dan Watkins coming and
as the Associate Chancellor for Information Technology. What a busy person he is with all of the IT people so we appreciate you being part of our event this morning, Dan, thank you.
And I'm sorry we don't have time to have you all meet Jill Haney. I don't know if you've met her or not, but our Chair of the Moorpark College Foundation, who plays a major role in helping promote the college. So we're delighted to have you here as well.
And we'll begin our whole process Julius? Good morning.
Julius Sokenu: Hi everyone and welcome it is 12 something so I will say good afternoon to you. And thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Mary.
I appreciate you all being here. I know that it's finals week for quite a lot of us and it's sort of the chaotic end of the semester work. So thank you for joining today.
I'm going to start off with some kudos to folks and just if you have not gotten a kudos today from me, it will come at some point. So please, don't be offended.
I wanted to say a big kudos to Dave Anter, as some of you know, and this really came out of your direction to us
the faculty in particular direction to us that there were concerned about having to give so many students F's, students who stopped participating or who are inactive and for many as a result of the impact of the COVID 19
pandemic on their lives and faculty realized that and asked us if we could find a way so that they did not have to give the students F's,
and with the our IT folks and Registrars and District Cabinet that we find a way to make this happen, and we find a way
to make this happen, but to make this happen by this weekend so that folks who were grading over the weekend could actually go ahead and assign EW's to students who are been missing in action,
and those students have the opportunity then if they do not want the EW to of course appeal that later on down the line, but this allows us and allows them to
have some grace. Thank you to Dave for doing a lot of that work and the back end of that work on campus, communicating with faculty, articulating very clearly to faculty, what that means,
and I understand that quite a few folks have gotten back to Mary and to others, really thankful that they've had the opportunity to offer that to our students. So kudos to Dave Anter and his staff in the
A&R area. I also want to say kudos to our Career Transfer Center folks to Giselle and Raul and Celine, and all the folks in the Career Transfer Center, but really to Giselle and the work that she's been doing
with the students transferring. We heard from UCSB this past week that of the 469 students who applied to UCSB from Moorpark College 321 were accepted.
68% of our applicants were accepted at UCSB we had the highest number of acceptances
across the colleges in our region and that is, of course, due to the great work of the students themselves but also the support of our Counseling faculty, our
Career Transfer Center staff and faculty who helped students through that process so that they could apply and they can be successful in the application process.
I also want to thank those of you for participating in the Drupal training with Patti and getting us ready for the transition
to Drupal 8 and our new website which promises to be quite dynamic and and quite user friendly,
and for those of you who have been trained to help us with that work and navigating that I thank you, we thank you so much, because we know we will depend on you for your expertise and your assistance as we move forward.
I also want to thank those of you who are working with Mary on the Drupal on the Blanket DE Addendum,
it is a monumental work, and particularly for those of you who are teaching this summer, who are doing this, it is monumental work and we are grateful for your response for your feedback, for your kind and
generous feedback to us on that work.
We are going to be were responding to the Basic Needs Center Work Group who proposed a Basic Needs Center
Protocol and program for us as an institution, and we are going to be hiring a part time Basic Needs Center Coordinator who will be
working with us and working with our programs and making sure that our students who are food insecure, students who are dealing with
the challenges of life and that need our support and assistance have it. So this is new to the college and we're supporting this with us SEA funds, Student Equity Achievement funds and thank you to those of you who are involved in proposing that and in that process.
I also want to introduce to you as part of a different responsibility that you will have John Loprieno
taking on this coming, well actually he began today, but the official responsibility, in addition to being Department Chair and being faculty and Director of a
quite a few of our Performing Arts productions. He's also going to be serving in a part time capacity as Director of Advancement Marketing and Communication.
John will be doing this for 20 hours a week, thank you John and in so doing, we have someone who can sort of step in for
James Schuelke who transitioned to Oxnard college. We're also using this as a time to revise that position as many of you probably know have heard
it's an overwhelming position, it has grants, it has advancement, it has marketing, it has community relations,
and it's just a tough thing to get one person who can do all of those. So we're going to focus on the advancement piece of this, as well as the community relations piece of it. But in the interim, John will be working with us to do that transition and we appreciate that work.
Let me see. Let's make sure I covered everything. Okay, so, next slide.
Okay, so we got feedback from faculty, thank you so much for everyone who participated in this, and who gave us feedback. As we had mentioned a couple of weeks back, probably about a week ago,
we had asked folks to please give us some input in how they would like to, particularly faculty and teaching faculty, how they would like to engage with our students in the fall.
So we asked their preference, if they were open to teaching on campus, if they prefer to teach in person,
if they prefer to teach online and hybrid
modes and as you can see from the data here when we asked the question, are you open to teaching in a socially distance classroom?
18% said no.
Prefer to teach online or hybrid, 33% said yes and hybrid 19%.
So what we've seen is there's a predominance of folks who do want to teach online and we have folks who also want to teach on ground. It's not evenly split, but at this point there's a predominance of those who want to teach
online or in hybrid format those together. We will continue to gather your input from you so that we can use that in our decision making, moving forward.
What is important is that we want to hear your voice, we want to hear your preference and we're also doing this in coordination with identifying the various tiers of
of course tiers. So we're putting courses into tiers. Those that are solely on ground, those that could be taught online, those that could be
taught with some support online and some support on ground, etc. So Mary's working with folks on that and I appreciate the support of Academic Senate on that activity.
Okay, so today is really a focus on celebrating, today's really focus on acknowledging our campus and acknowledging the great
work that has happened and it continues to happen. COVID 19 does not define us, we will survive and we will move on, but we also have to acknowledge that this year there was a lot of great work on campus and we have colleagues who are
retiring and we want to acknowledge them. So this is our opportunity to sort of turn this part of the event over to Nenagh and Gilbert and
and to host the Academic Senate Brunch in this case campus celebration. So if you have your lunch with you, feel free to eat your lunches we're doing this, if you have your, you know, your coffee or soda, whatever, please get into the mood and I will transition to our
Academic Senate Campus Celebration.
Nenagh Brown: Julius, thank you so much for allowing us to do this. Yes, if I could ask everybody you imagine you're in the cafeteria.
we have our normal breakfast burritos. Maybe there's chocolate and candy on the table here.
Normally we'd be begging you to be quiet because everyone's having such a good time catching up and talking about what the summer brings so
I'm afraid we had to forego the burritos. I think we can live without them, and the chocolate and all the rest of it, but we could not forego the celebration of our retirees and our annual award winners. So thank you all so much for being here.
Gilbert,
I think I'm going to pass over to you.
Gilbert Downs: Well, thank you so much. I just would love to say that I'm so excited to have all of you here today and to be part of this event is
really exciting for me. It's an event that I look forward to every single year. It's this last day that we get to come together and really celebrate what the campus is all about.
And as my time is finishing up as Classified Senate President, I know this is the last time that I get to
be part of a big event and really get to celebrate right now with Nenagh. So this is my last time with Nenagh as well. So I am really excited, but also very touched and feeling all sorts of different ways about
how we are finishing this year. I am so thankful and excited to be part of this. And at this point I think we're getting ready for our retirees so Julius, do you want to take over?
Mary: Julius, we can't hear you.
Julius: Okay, thank you. So our retirees in total, how I have over 100 years of service to this college district.
Retirees range from coaches to nurses to math professors our retirees are ceramicists, retirees are carpenters,
retirees are in Custodial Services and our retirees in Student Services and
this college and this success of this college would not be possible without the energy, the vision, the intellect, the wit of all of these individuals. So I will introduce to you our first
MC and we have MC's today so a relief of having MC's and our MC's will introduce the person and then they will introduce the individual who will celebrate them.
And the emphasis on the word celebrate because that is what we are here to do today. We are not sad anybody's leaving we're celebrating them and we're acknowledging their contributions to this college community, Jennifer.
Jennifer Clark: Thank you, Julius. Good morning, everybody. Hey, and thank you, Nenagh and Gilbert particularly Nenagh for that image. This is my first time being part of this wonderful event this
you know this celebration and I have my coffee Nenagh and I did close my eyes and imagine myself in that cafeteria sitting at one of those roundtables
talking my head off. I was probably somewhere near the back because that's where I tend to want to sit. Anyway,
I'm there, I'm there with all of you now. So, it is my honor to be able to introduce the celebrators for the first few retirees this year.
I'm going to open up, actually, if we can go to the next slide.
We'll see that who we are celebrating, first. We are celebrating Mark Clements' retirement from Maintenance and Operations. He was the Maintenance Assistant II/ Painter for 22 years. So I'm going to reduce
I'm going to introduce, either John or Scott Colvin, I'm not quite sure who is speaking in honor of Mark this morning.
Scott Colvin: Okay, I'll do it, this is Scott.
Jennifer: Good morning, Scott.
Scott: Good morning.
Mark was a great individual, he was a Maintenance II and a painter, but he also he did all the signage on campus.
Anytime there was a plaque that need to be engraved or made or a new employee came in, he did all that he did all the hangings of all the banners for everybody on campus. So that was another main thing he did.
He was a he was a really very even tempered person. He was a very he's a good person.
He's always willing to help.
He was our first call when we had a problem, because A he was willing to do it and B he was a little closer than most people.
But he also worked a lot over time. He did a lot of fire watch for the PA Performing Arts for all their performances. So he was always there for them, and he was just an all around great guy.
Jennifer: Thank you so much, Scott, I'm sorry. I think I came on board just as Mark Clements was retiring, so unfortunately, I never got to meet him.
And then so our second retiree, Spencer Thompson understand, he was our Carpenter also 22 years of service and unfortunately I didn't get to meet Spencer either, but we have I think probably John speaking this morning, maybe, Scott, again, I'm not sure, in celebration of Spencer.
John Sinutko: Well, Spencer, still was a fantastic carpenter of first and foremost, we called him The Wizard of Saws.
He was a self-described meteorologist keep us informed and with weather forecasting all the time.
Most notably, besides his just excellent work, he had his own little network where he
prioritized work orders by the number of cookies and brownies people would supply for him
and we'd go about it and just kind of smiled.
The sense of humor was well known and well documented and, you know, we kind of have, we have a new carpenter, and he's good, but there's no one will ever replace Spencer, he's just one of a kind.
Jennifer: That's awesome, John. Thank you so much. And again, I regret not meeting Spencer.
Totally my kind of guy, clearly he had his priorities
squared away.
Thank you. So the next slide, I think I get to introduce one more celebrator for one more, yes, Donna Scott,
and I think we have Donna with us today she, I think she played two roles. She was a Ceramics Instructional Lab Technician in Ceramics for
over 20 years, 21 years I believe she was also a part time faculty, I believe she served in that role as well. So I have the honor of introducing Gerry Zucca this morning to celebrate Donna Scott.
Gerry Zucca: Hello. Hi. So yeah. Donna and I were both hired in 1999 to teach Ceramics and shortly after that she got the job of a Lab Tech so she was organizing the studio, loading kilns, firing kilns which is she's so good at and
ordering materials and also just organizing that ceramic sale that just gets better and better every year. So I'm so thankful to her and for her service.
She has been just a really passionate artist and fun to be around and the students get that, she transfers that enthusiasm to her students and it's just been wonderful to work with her.
and I just want to tell a little short story about how helpful she is not just
just to everyone. So she's become a good friend of mine, we have we have camped together, we did a pit fire and Catalina and we fired pieces with buffalo dung and we have been in countless pit fires on the beach with the students. And I just want to tell one more little story about her.
About two and a half years ago, I called her up at one in the morning and I didn't think she would answer, and she answered the phone and I said, Donna
I need to evacuate. Can we evacuate to your house? And she said, sure. And I said, well, it's not just the family, it's the dog and the cat,
and the horses and she said, sure, no problem. And to this day, my kids still talk about how much fun they had evacuating for four days at Donna's house. It was just like being on vacation.
And then a year later, we did it again because the power outage and we had to evacuate again and this time we had another horse and she just said sure. So it's just it's
so wonderful how helpful she's been to everybody, and to me, and she's a good friend. Thank you,
Donna.
Donna Scott: Hi, Gerry.
Mary: Do you want to say something, Donna?
Jennifer: You're on mute, Donna.
Mary: Can't hear you.
Donna: Okay, is that good?
Mary: Yes, thank you.
Donna: Hey, can you hear me now anyway. It's been a great 21 years at Moorpark. I'll be back, I hope
it's you know so much in my life has happened while I've been at Moorpark.
My daughters got married, my grandchildren were all born, I've made so many wonderful friends. We love having Gerry and Tina and the kids and the horses and the cats and the dogs, they're just the best they're fun to have.
So anybody needing space and have horses or animals or chickens, bring them on over.
But anyway, my time at Moorpark it's just been the best, like I say, the energy from the students. I just love all my students. I've heard
stories from so many students and I have so many students keep in touch with me. I'm going to really miss it, but
when I planned my retirement, they said after six months, I could come back and teach one or two classes if I want. So Gerry, if you take a vacation or a sabbatical or time off, you know, I'd be more than happy to come in and, you know, fill in.
I live close by and it's just, it's been a big part of my life. The very first time I ever went out to Moorpark College was like, golly 30 years ago, and I entered an art show there. And I thought, wow, I felt like driving from neighborhood I was on the dry end of Earth.
to get to Moorpark, but once I got here, it was just beautiful. And, well, actually was 45 years ago, time goes by so darn fast. But anyway, I love it here and
it's just my time, at Moorpark has just been the best. It's just been great. So thank you, Gerry, thank you everyone else. Okay, stay safe. Love you guys.
Julius: Thank you Donna.
Donna: You're welcome. Thank you Julius love you too.
Amanuel Gebru: Thank you Donna.
Donna: My pleasure.
Amanuel: Good afternoon, everyone. And I have the pleasure of recognizing a few individuals, starting with our faculty.
First person is Cynthia Stringfield who's an EATM faculty member was with us for 17 years. So, we want to thank Cynthia for her commitment to our college and our community for all those years.
And the next person, I have the pleasure of introducing is Gloria Miranda from EOPS Counseling and she's given 29 years to our students, our community, and our college so want to thank her
for her commitment to the community as well.
And the last person, I have to introduce is Linda Loiselle from Nursing, who's given us 38 years. So thank you so much Linda for all that done to impact our students and our community,
and everyone on this list that I had a chance to highlight so thank you everyone for your commitment to Moorpark College and wish you an amazing retirement and wish you well.
Mary: Thank you Amanuel, we have four additional faculty that we would like to recognize and which well as they move on to the next stage of their journeys and that. Carol, do you want to help us introduce Argie Clifford?
Carol Higashida: Hi, it's an honor for me to introduce Argie Clifford.
Over 16 years she has helped make the Nursing Program what it is today. Argie was the lead faculty for the Capstone Nursing Leadership course and the preceptor-ship.
She also taught all levels of clinical for Medical Surgical Nursing, which was a great asset since Medical Surgical Nursing is the foundation of our Nursing Program. Argie was always willing to take an extra clinical assignment, when there was a need
so thank you for that Argie. Argie also was instrumental in increasing the professionalism of the Moorpark College Student Nurses Association,
by having our students join the National Student Nurses Association and also encouraging that the funds that were raised go towards student scholarships and equity-minded conferences.
Argie is a true team player. I mean, she postponed her retirement for the benefit of the Nursing Program so she could assist with our National Nursing accreditation site visit that we just had
and this is even though she was expecting another grandchild.
Argie, best wishes for the next phase of your life. It's been a great pleasure to work with you. Thank you.
Mary: Argie, would you like to say a few words?
Argie, would you like to say anything?
Julius: Oh, she's muted.
Argie Morales-Clifford: Can you hear me now?
Julius & Mary: Yes, yes.
Argie: Okay, great. Well, first I want to say thank you very much for this opportunity and thank you Carol for those kind words. I really loved working for Moorpark College.
One of the things that really sold me from the moment that I applied, was the college mission that we are there for the students that the students come first.
Throughout my time at Moorpark, I always had the feeling that if I really looked at
improving areas for student success, I always was supported 100%. I was supported when I attended meetings with the rest of the staff throughout the college
the Nursing Department is very strong working with the students, and even when I went over to the hospitals and the relationships with the hospitals
were amazing. Which is always because of the reputation and the dedication that all of us at Moorpark have which really makes us a very special place. I have taught at other universities and other junior colleges and nobody matches Moorpark.
So I do miss you all. One of the things that wasn't mentioned, but I do suggest that maybe some other departments may eventually develop, we developed a boot camp for our
students, we were having a lot of attrition, and so one of the things that really bothered me was during the first semester we were losing students so
I came up with the idea of developing a boot camp and I was supported, was lucky to attend one of the
state conventions with the students and got to talk to some people in person who had just started to develop a boot camp. So together we come up with something and
the boot camp is where students when they just start at Moorpark in the Nursing Program. They're very nervous nursing, they know it's going to be exciting but
they know it's going to be a lot of work. So by having our upper classmates upper students in the Nursing Department come in and help
do little workshops to just mainly just show them the ropes of what is going to happen and we get to play with the mannequins, which is something very exciting for our Nursing students.
But the main thing is that students helping students and what I have heard all throughout the time since we develop the boot camp is that
support they've never seen it in any other place, we have students who come in with many other degrees and they are just amazed with what Moorpark can do and that has a lot to do with the success of our program. So
it's all collaboration and it's all teamwork, we're all one and I really miss you. I do love my grandbabies I got to see him yesterday and I had a wonderful time
being a grandma, but I probably will come back part time because I also love the students and I love working with all of you. So thank you very much for this opportunity and this recognition.
Mary: Thank you Argie.
Phil, can you help us celebrate and acknowledge Dave Weinstein?
Phillip Abramoff: Absolutely. Can you hear me?
Mary: Yes, we can.
Phil: Okay, so I am wearing this funny hat because Dave certainly felt that it would be indicative of his long career here
at the college. I think Dave was always an entertainer, who always had the ability to make students laugh. Now Dave is our six decade superstar.
He has a teaching career that spans 41 years, which includes the decades from the 1970's, all the way on up now to the 2020's. Having appeared now in
six separate decades, he gave 29 years to Moorpark College, which included 9 years of service as Academic Senate Rep, long time as Union Representative and of course long time on our Wellness Committee.
Now, Dave is going to be leaving us in a few days, but my relationship with him is certainly going to continue.
We are going to be continuing our nine mile walks that we do on Saturdays that we've been doing for about 12 years now.
We're going to continue that and continue the process of me having a conversation with him about sports and school and having him insult me for three hours.
So rather than go on and talk about how wonderful Dave is because he's not a particularly modeling person.
I don't need to talk about how wonderful he is or how wise he is how much we're going to miss him or despite his gruff appearance that he's still just a big teddy bear inside.
I will let Dave himself say that, in his own words, as I now literally turn my computer over to Dave Weinstein.
David Weinstein: Here I am, and I see that I'm still labeled Phillip Abramoff, which is probably the most vital insult that Phillip Abramoff has ever received.
I at Phil's suggestion I wore my Dashiki, for the very last time. The first time Julius ever saw me wearing this he accused me, I believe, of cultural misappropriation but I think what he doesn't understand is that
I've owned this Dashiki, since he was about 10 years old before he had ever even heard of Moorpark College or had Moorpark College be a glimmer in his eye.
So I thought that by wearing the Dashiki it would make most people even happier to see me go to know they would never have to see me wear this again. Many people have told me, don't ever wear that thing again.
In any event, I will say that if I had to put my mind to it, it would probably be difficult for me to come up with a crummier way to have ended my 41 years of teaching
than what we're going through right now. A terrible labor war, a global pandemic, lots of troubles everywhere, but this is the way it ended. This is the way finishing out the week and I have no idea when my office will get cleaned out, but that's a problem for another day.
I want to tell you that the people who I will certainly miss the most are all of my colleagues.
Some days, the only thing that made the the job tolerable for me was to know that I would be able to come in and have intellectual communications with the people on my floor and the people who I would see across campus. So for all of my colleagues who are out there, whomever you are
I'm sorry that this is the way it has to be goodbye. I would much rather that the goodbye would be in person. I know that there are some of you I will never get to see you again and that saddens me and for everyone else, I will tell you that once my
finals are graded, grades are turned in. And once whenever my office gets cleaned out, I'm firmly putting Moorpark College in my rear view mirror and I will not be back and good luck to all of you, good luck moving forward, good luck with the situation we're in, and all the best. Thank you.
Mary: Thank you so much Dave, we will miss you. Vance, can you help us celebrate Remy McCarthy?
Vance Manakas: Thank you Mary I would be honored to celebrate Remy McCarthy's 32 years.
Well, for some of you that know Remy, you know how passionate and competitive, he is and you probably did not realize the reason he is so compassionately competitive is he's one of 10 boys out of Camarillo.
But there's more important things about Remy that we need to know. First of all, he's an example of what Moorpark College is all about.
Many of you may not have known this but Remy McCarthy played basketball for Moorpark College between 1975 and 1977.
So he really leads by example and he can really explain what it's like as a community college student athlete. From Moorpark, he went to Cal State University Northridge where he earned both his Bachelor's Degree and Master's Degree in PE.
His desire for coaching, his love for working with individuals, brought him back to Moorpark College as an Assistant Basketball Coach for four years starting in 1981.
Most of you associate with him with basketball, but during that same tenure, he also was our head Softball Coach for two years. Again, another fun fact about Remy.
Well in 1985 Remy had the opportunity to become an Assistant Basketball Coach at Utah, so we could expand his horizon and learn more about basketball and working with other individuals.
After four years at Utah, he went to Oxnard College with this desire to help community college student athletes and he was a basketball coach there for five years, as well as teaching in the Health Physical Education Department.
He came back to Moorpark College as an Assistant Basketball Coach with Del Parker for two years, before he became the Head Basketball coach for 17 years. After 17 years of coaching the boys, he became the Assistant Women's Basketball Coach in 2015.
During this time he mentored countless numbers of students as well as student athletes.
He served on numerous committees across the campus as well as taught in our Health, Kinesiology, and was our Department Chair.
Also Remy McCarthy has been fortunate to live in Camarillo and he has been married to his wife of 27 years and he has a daughter, Samantha, who is also a Moorpark College student. With that said, Remy McCarthy.
Remy McCarthy: Thank you very much Vance for that
for the kind words, and I just want to say that to everyone
as coaches, we're very much invested in our students, no more so than the other faculty on campus, but we do spend so much time with them and everything else. So we become very attached to them, and over the years, what I found is that
you know, we weren't, we weren't in this journey alone. That everyone on this campus was willing to help the young people that we were trying to help
in the same manner that we were and there's no better example of that, than the person that's going to be taking over my position, shall we say
as even though he was the Head Women's Basketball Coach, he will continue to be, but he will now be a full time Kinesiology instructor and that's Kenny Plummer,
who's one of our former players. He played for us back in the year 2000
and what many of you may or may not know is that Kenny came out here to meet his
father, who he never met before and live with him and then to go to college and pursue a basketball career
and he came from Harlem. So here's a kid who came out to California from Harlem to meet his dad, it kind of went a little bit rocky, but the bottom line was he persevered
in large part because of due to the help of all the people on this campus and he is now on a tenure-track professor and full time
Basketball Coach, Kinesiology instructor at Moorpark. All of us need to be very, very proud of that because it certainly was because of the efforts of all of us, and that's a microcosm
of what all of you do and to be a part of that was it just it's really an honor and I know people use that word too much, but
it really was an honor to work with you all, and I just, you know, I loved my job and I loved where I worked. And thanks to each and every one of you.
Mary: Thank you Remy, I appreciate that. Danielle, can you help us celebrate Mary LaBarge? Danielle Kaprelian: Yes.
Thank you.
Well, there's so much that I can say about Mary to recognize her decades of achievement here at Moorpark,
Mary served the campus as a highly requested math professor, Curriculum and Tech Review angel, and an irreplaceable librarian.
But I really want to bring attention to something beyond Mary's work. I know that there have been many people at Moorpark College that have received little gifts and baked goods.
And notes of encouragement in their mailboxes or office and Mary's been behind a lot of that. I really admire the way that Mary just loves people without reservation.
She has a way of getting people to open up and share their inner selves and secrets, and I believe it's because she gives people a safe place to be.
I've always seen Mary as one of my closest friends.
She's really like a soulmate to me
and as I've been attending a lot of Mary's retirement events, I realize I'm not the only person that feels this way, and I think it's because Mary makes you feel important. She makes you feel seen and she makes you feel loved.
I didn't think I was gonna cry. So, I'm sorry, Mary, but thank you Mary for touching so many hearts on campus. I really think it's changed us all for the better.
Mary: Mary, would you like to say a few words?
Mary LaBarge: Sure, I would. I came to, thank you Danielle for the sweet introduction
I came in 1976 to Moorpark - I mean to Ventura College where I worked for about six years.
And of course there was a big rivalry between Ventura and Moorpark Colleges. It was really an amazing thing to see happening.
And of course, at Ventura College, I was told things about Moorpark College, which were not always complimentary and I came out to Moorpark College and I heard a few things
about Ventura College that weren't complimentary. So it was sort of a give and take.
But one of the things that happened to me at the very beginning of my career here which sort of colored everything, and I didn't realize it at the time, had to do with a
situation in which I went down to the Campus Center. Then we had a cafeteria. Some of you may remember that.
And I was kind of a clothes horse at that time I had about 35 pairs of shoes.
I had a great pair of shoes that were very high and made me six feet tall and they were fantastic and I loved wearing them.
And I pranced down there, past the Technology building, looked over in the windows saw I looked so great and I was so proud and I went down to the cafeteria.
Got my lunch, which was a big salad and paid for it, walked out into the cafeteria, where there were all these people having a lunch and fell flat on my face.
The tray I had and the salad went flying right in, of course, to the lap of a young woman who was sitting there, who had on a shirt that said, EATM.
I was on the floor, as I said, face down and a kid a young man came up to me and said, "Are you okay?." And I said, "Well, my pride is wounded. But yes, I think I'm okay." He put his hands underneath my armpits and pulled me up and set me down like I was a big doll.
And I, of course, was mortified because I was so embarrassed. The ladies in the cafeteria came running out. They said, "Oh, you must come back and get you to lunch." "No, no." I said, I just have to leave here. I'm so embarrassed. And I went back to the library.
Some weeks later, a young woman came up to the reference desk.
And she said she needed help with some research and I took her back into the stacks and I noticed she was wearing an EATM shirt.
And I turned to her and I said, "You don't happen to be that girl that I dumped that salad on do you?" and she said, "Yes, I am." She said she said, "I felt so sorry for you". I said, "I felt so embarrassed." And we had a long conversation about that.
That is Moorpark College, where people come together and try to support each other, help each other.
and I think back on that event and it sort of colored my whole experience here. I'll tell you one other event because it involves David Weinstein. I'm going to show you one other event that brought Moorpark College to my attention.
I was in a meeting over at the administration building we held meetings in that small conference room over there.
David was at this meeting and he said something that I didn't like it was insulting to the library or I took it as insulting and really hurt my feelings gave him a very dirty look. And after the meeting, I went back to my
place at the reference desk and I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself and David came in the library.
And he came over and he got down on one knee
at the reference desk so he was at my level. And he said, "Mary, I want to apologize to you. What I said, I didn't mean to insult you. And when I saw your face, I knew you were hurt. And so I want you to forgive me."
Well, I said, "Of course I forgive you."
That's another example of Moorpark College.
And I have thought about things like that all through my career here. I've been very, very fortunate to be a member of the faculty.
I've gotten to meet many, many people, work with many people on committees and so on. But I look back on my time at Moorpark College as a number of lessons that I learned,
as well as a lot of fun I had. I will miss Moorpark College. I will miss you, all you out there, because I treasure you and your kindness and your ability to forgive people. And so I just want to say thank you. Thank you for making this career of 43 years. It seems impossible.
Thank you for making it so much fun and and I honor you all. So I leave the library in excellent hands. Danielle and Jackie are our two new librarians. They're really crackerjack people. You will love them. And I just feel very
thankful, really grateful, for having the chance to be part of your community and thank you for everything.
Mary: Well thank you Mary. And a huge thank you, I wish we could have a huge applause and a huge wave of support, and thank you to all of our retirees. What an impact they have had on our campus and with their colleagues.
As well as, particularly the impact that all of our staff and faculty have had on all of our students. So just know that
the impact that you've all had, and thank you all, and we will miss you, even though we weren't supposed to be sad Julius I know, but we will still miss all of these retirees. So thank you all.
Our next thing we get to do is to celebrate our current and our new academic classified and associated boards. Gilbert, can you join us first?
Gilbert: Sure. So I just, I wanted to thank our current officers on the Classified Senate right now.
We have Linda Resendiz as a Vice President, and Gabby Chacon as a Treasurer and the two of them have really done an amazing job over the years really getting a lot of things together and
I am so excited to say that as we went on to these next elections for the upcoming terms, Linda and Gabby decided to run again. So I'm very excited to introduce Linda Resendiz as our incoming Classified Senate President.
Gabby Chacon as our incoming Vice President, Deb Brackley as our Treasurer and Daniella Rodriguez our Secretary. I know they're going to do an amazing job. The Classified Senate has done so much work
to really help get our voices out there. And I know that Linda and Gabby and Deb and Danielle are just going to take it to the next level. And I'm excited to see the upcoming future of what they can do.
Mary: Thank you. Gilbert, Kris, can you talk...introduce the Associated Student boards?
Kristopher Hotchkiss: Yeah. Sure. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for this opportunity to celebrate the 2019-2020 Board. As you can see,
all kind of these names are people that are on the current board and will be transferring on to different universities.
across California and some will be leaving to colleges that are outside of California, too. But
I just want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for being so supportive of ASMC and everything that we do.
It would have been hard to do it without all of you, and thank you to my entire board for working so hard and being so dedicated throughout
like our entire term. I really appreciate you all and I appreciate the opportunity that Moorpark College has given not only me or my board, but all the students that have attended here. And it's a great campus that we're all going to miss so much. So thank you all.
We will be back to visit, of course. But for now, our time is done and we will be handing it off to our next board. As you can see here
there's 11 new names that you all will be able to get closer to and will be able to meet and help support them as well. So thank you so much. All of you. I really appreciate it.
Mary: Thank you, Kris. Julius, did you have any comments on for the classified and associate boards?
Julius: I'm sorry?
Mary: Oh, I didn't know if you had comments you wanted to make for the Classified Senate and associate board.
Julius: I'll do it later.
Mary: Thank you. Nenagh, can you introduce the new board as well?
Nenagh: It would be my absolute privilege.
I'm just making sure. I'm up there. Forgive me, ladies and gentlemen. We have had a real roller coaster of a ride. Our current team for the Academic Senate
it's been quite amazing. I'd like to thank all those officers you see listed there. Eric Renee, and Ruth. We have been in this for a little while now.
I really want to thank the Academic Senate Council. They are the heartbeat of the Academic Senate at Moorpark College. We have 27 I think elected representatives.
But we have about 40 or so that come every Council. The alternate, the ex officio, and they really are the heartbeat of the 10 plus 1 on our campus.
But as you can see we have a new team coming in now. I'm standing down from this representative position. Of course I had to follow Gilbert, who always just pips me one ahead of the game so.
It's been the biggest privilege of my academic career. It has been a pleasure every single day to represent the amazing faculty at Moorpark College in academic and professional matters.
It will be something I will never forget, I would like to thank Julius, but all the management team, all the people
that the Academic Senate works with for their listening, for their understanding, and their supporting of our academic and professional matters.
I would like to thank the Associated Students as Kris said, we've worked with several people every year. It is such a pleasure to work with them. I'd like to thank Gilbert, of course, on behalf of classified professionals, but please
it's so many individual classified professionals have helped me, have helped our management, our officer team,
and have helped us in everything we've done and you know who you are. I really thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support of what we do on this campus. And I would like to thank all the faculty.
It's been incredible. The support, and the work, and what we've achieved for the Academic Senate for academic and professional matters.
I'd like to introduce you all formally to Erik, Dr. Erik Reese, and tell him welcome. He's got the best job in the world.
And he has a team with Tiffany Pawluk who is joining the team as well as Renee, and Ruth, and just wish you all the incredible year. This is going to be some year folks. So congratulations to everyone for our work. Thank you, Mary.
And indeed, am I right, Mary, I'm moving right on. Yes?
Mary: Yes, please.
Nenagh: Thank you Matt for putting us forward. So, it is now time to congratulate our last group of people, not quite, actually. Julius I think has a few slides at the very end.
But with great pride as the Academic Senate, we would like to introduce you to our annual awardees for this year.
And thanking everybody for their nominations. For again, for Academic Senate Council for the incredibly difficult choices we had to make.
We always give the letters of recommendation out to everyone who was nominated. So please expect those at some time, and everybody who gets an award, don't forget that amazing little plaque you all get.
As soon as we're able to order those and get them to you we will. Today we will do it virtually. So Ruth, you are starting us off today, if I may?
Ruth Bennington: Thank you, Nenagh, and thank you everybody for taking the time to celebrate all of the wonderful people we are here for today. And I am happy to say that
and just general fun person John Handlos is receiving our adjunct faculty of the year award.
And I will say that it's probably better that we are in quarantine or whatever we're doing because I'm sure john is really mad at me
for nominating him, but he has always been a wonderful faculty member.
Long before I came, he fulfilled many of the roles that a full timer does including reviewing of textbooks, sitting on part time and full time hiring committees,
and and then sitting on my Tenure Committee for four years. This year...I would have nominated him any year but this year he was absolutely extraordinary. He's always used canvas, but he has never
taught online nor had any interest in ever doing so. And this year when we all had to go online, he was immediately in contact with
wonderful Rena to help him. He was in contact with me, how were we going to do this, and he took multiple trainings, and he has set up his class probably way better than most of us who teach online regularly. And
he has even, though I know his favorite part of teaching, just like it is mine, is being in the classroom. But as soon as Howard suggested that he do
the full semester online John was ready. He is like, way more ready I can tell you, than I am. And I just think he is the epitome of what
a professor should be. I love you John.
I hope he's still here. I can't see him anymore but
John Handlos: Thank you Ruth. Can you hear me?
Ruth: I do
John: Okay, tes I'm a little upset and
and in addition to that,
I think that the the award was given to the...if you were an adjunct professor, I think the award should have been given to you for the creative writing as well as the creative public speaking.
But I want to thank you and I want to thank the academic center for this award. It is definitely an honor. But with that being said,
I'm not one that accepts
these things well, and probably the main reason is because I don't think it's me. I think it's the people that have surrounded me, the people that God has put in my life and directed me.
My wife, the students, Dean,
the current faculty.,
It's just amazing, the people who have been put in my life that have allowed me to do the things that I'm capable of doing. So I just wanted to thank everyone
I am grateful. But again, it's something that I feel
is the result of the people that are in my life. So thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Nenagh: Thank you John. John and I had the pleasure, or at least it was a pleasure for me John, of teaching beside each other a couple of years, so I was so excited. And now, Renee. Would you like to introduce our Academic Senate Classified Professional awardee of the year?
Renee Butler: Yes, it is my honor to present the Classified Professional Annual Award to Shyan Diaz-Brown.
Fanfare yay!
If you've not met Shyan, you are missing out. She is a very friendly fun and kind hearted person. She works in the access department as a Disability Service Specialist
and an interpreter. She is committed to making the college environment more accessible for all of our students.
And she also gives so much of her time to administrators and faculty as well.
Last year during flex week I attended her workshop that she and Silva put on so that we can be ADA compliant on all of our documents. And as Secretary I was very concerned about this.
It was very helpful and I still had many questions. So I asked Shyan if she could help me, and she sat there for another hour with me one-on-one to make sure
I understood how to do all my documents when I'm sure she had a million things to do before the start of the semester.
So I thank her for that and I know that she has done that many times for many people at Moorpark College. She has a huge heart for Moorpark College. She is a gift to Moorpark College. So I am honored to be the one to present this award to Shyan. Congratulations.
Shyan Diaz-Brown: Wow, that was...thank you so much, Renee. I really appreciate that introduction.
I really am quite honored. I wanted to thank Academic Senate for choosing me to be the recipient of this award as well as Kerry for nominating me. I've never won anything before in my life so this is a this is a great place to start, I think.
Yeah, as Renee said, I've been here for a couple years, and Moorpark College has proven to be
a really great place to work and a great place to grow as a professional.
I have the benefit of working with a number of different departments on campus, faculty, staff, and the administration.
And during the process I've come to realize that we all have the same goal. We all want to provide our students with a meaningful, successful, and equitable environment to learn from.
Being in this field as an interpreter and as an individual who works in ACCESS I've really come to cherish all the time I spend with the different individuals on campus as well as with our students.
It has been a great honor to
meet so many of you and to work with you and I look forward to many more years of service and giving back to our campus community. So again, I just want to thank everybody so much this award is wonderful and I could not be more grateful. Thank you so much.
Nenagh: Shyan. Thank you so much for all you have done for the Academic Senate and for all of us in reaching forwards towards our hundred percent accessibility goal that you have for us.
Erik, would you like to do the honors for our Academic Senate Management Annual Award?
Erik Reese: Thank you. Nenagh, I have the pleasure of introducing the Manager of the Year.
Dean Khushnur Dadabhoy who was nominated by Vice President of Student Services Amanuel Gebru.
There are a lot of things that are great things to say about her. I will keep it a little bit short, given our time constraints now.
But a few highlights were her spirit of collegiality and concern for not just students but colleagues as well.
Really earn trust just stepping onto the campus right away. She always is focused on students with a passion for equity, making sure that all students have not just access to college, but all the opportunities afforded to them.
She always says yes to anything asked of her, and volunteers for things, which has been a benefit to me personally because I've served on some committees and other done other activities with her because she's always willing to help out.
She's taken on the Herculean task of Dual Enrollment.
Providing a framework for this, our outreach into the community to provide this service at high schools and really
listening to the feedback from both sides to try to make this a better process. So I'll leave you with just a few thoughts from the letter itself because
I don't know how to re-express this quite frankly. I truly appreciate that she is kind, respectful, and authentic in every sense.
Dr. Dadabhoy deeply cares for the well being of her staff and colleagues and she is an amazing human being to work with. I mean, how's that for a recommendation? So without any further ado let's congratulate Dean Dadabhoy.
Khushnur Dadabhoy: Thank you everyone. I am extremely, extremely humbled by this board and would like to thank the Academic Senate and Dr. Gebru for nominating me.
Nothing happens in isolation in this world and being at Moorpark College has been the most wonderful experience for me in my long professional career as a student services professional.
I have met some incredible faculty, incredible staff, and incredible students over here and it is my distinct pleasure to work with each and every one of you.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the support. And know that during this difficult time I will be reaching out to more of you so that we can help our students succeed.
Nenagh: Thank you, Khushnur, for all you have done. I know getting teary eyed here.
We have one final annual award that the Academic Senate gives out every year. It is the Academic Senate President Award.
It's a privilege to give this out to be able to
acknowledge someone or some team.
Ruth: Nenagh?
Nenagh: Yes. Erik: We have one more before you do that
do that. We have the Full Time
Faculty Award. Nenagh: Oh my gosh I had forgotten the full time faculty award. That's why you need a team. Thank you for interrupting me. May I pass this over to Tiffany. Thank you, Tiffany. To introduce our full time faculty of the year. Thank you.
Tiffany Pawluk: Thank you, Nenagh. We definitely would not want to overlook this last...the words that we got to vote on in Academic Senate.
This Full Time Faculty Award is going to be Rena Petrello this year. I actually had the pleasure of nominating Rena, and she's a full time faculty member in the math department if you don't know her.
And I nominated her because of her outstanding work training all the faculty on how to hold a class via Zoom.
I said in my my nomination letter that one of the last things that I did before the campus shutdown was the best thing that I ever could have done. I ran over to the Academic Center
or the AA building and I sat in on a Zoom training. Rena had shown me not only how to use the Canvas and Zoom together, but how
the best way to conduct a class. How would that look. And for me, it was very nerve wracking at first, and I had a lot of bumps in the road going along, and
Rena continued to be there through Zoom trainings,
meetings, she gave me her cell phone number, like she was just there for me the entire time. And I know that I'm not alone.
The Academic Senate agreed with me, and we all wanted to present this award to Rena. Because of her Moorpark College spirit just helping us all get through this. It really made a difference in my life and I'm very happy that Rena will get this award this year.
Rena Petrello: Thank you, Tiffany. Thank you, Academic Senate.
It's such an incredible honor to receive this award.
It was my absolute pleasure to help everyone, anyone that needed help. Who knew eight weeks ago that Zoom would virtually replace all human contact as we know it.
Here we are. This is our new world for a little while, but I'm so, so proud of us all. Getting our whole campus online in such a quick fashion was a heroic effort by everyone. And I'm just so happy to be a part of helping my colleagues
make that transition. Um, I would be remiss not to take this moment to give us all some encouragement in this next phase.
More Zoom folks.
And more online, more Canvas, things like that. But,
you know, now that we're mostly online for the summer and the fall,
our students may feel isolated. I mean, don't we feel isolated? We're all in silos all over the county, right?
And...because of that, I think we have to work harder to build community. To build community with our students. To provide an atmosphere for students to build community with each other. To build community with our staff.
So how do we do that? I don't have all the answers. Definitely it's going to take some thinking outside the box, you know?
For those of you who are teaching online or hybrid, that's many of us, there's a good what almost 70% of our courses are now online or hybrid.
You could use Zoom. I just recommend that, you know, obviously Zoom and Canvas are great for imparting information right, one way.
But it's the conversation that builds relationship. And it's not just the relationship between us as faculty members and our students. It's also the conversation that the students have with each other.
So,
it's going to take more time I think, online than it will on campus. So I encourage us all to take time to do the introductions with all of the students. Take time to say
hello and mention them by name as they enter the room. Take time for icebreakers. Take time for group work. If you're meeting in Zoom and you have
a group work activity that you would normally do on campus, send them into groups in the breakout room. If you haven't tried that feature it's really helpful.
Another thought I had was, you know, our students are often, you know, passing each other in the hall and that would
you know, lead to some friendship and study groups and all that good stuff.
And, you know, they don't really have the moments before the class end or the moments after the class ends
to have those side conversations. But if we're holding class in a Zoom session, you might want to invite them to just stay. Just stay and having a conversation or study together. And I'm going to leave and you can leave the room without ending the session, which is really fun.
You know, community building will always involve Zoom.
Activities and Canvas of course, discussion postings, all that. But whatever we do, and I'm not going to prescribe it all for you, whatever we do, let's just be intentional about it.
Let's be intentional that it's that community building that is so vital for our students success. It's the glue that's going to keep them in our classes. It's the glue that will keep us...keep them a student at Moorpark College.
I would just like to take the time to thank Tracie Bosket. Amazing, you're amazing. Michael Ashton, oh my goodness, you were, what a great decision it was for Moorpark College to hire you and,
you know, and the timing of that, it was incredible. And thank you, Matt Calvin, each of you provided and orchestrated the most helpful training
opportunities for us and we are all so grateful. Thank you all for this honor, I miss you all. I can't wait to see you all face to face. Have a great summer.
Nenagh: Rena thank you for your thoughts as we move forward. And the one thing I really took to heart when I did several trainings with you was just do your best. Don't be a perfectionist, just go on trying. Thank you, Rena.
So for our last award.
I asked other people, you know, who do you think we should give the Academic Senate President's Award to this year, who's given exceptional service over this last year.
And I got lists and lists and lists of people. All the people who we are acknowledging right now, those four winners. All of them were on these other lists to for the President's Award.
I think these last two months we have...I would say all of us have given exceptional service way beyond what we would normally do in our job descriptions.
However, I felt at this time the Academic Senate would want to acknowledge a team in this case of people
who have given exceptional service over this year not focusing on our current situation, but on what Moorpark does best which is planning for the success of our students in the future.
They've been working all year, before the year, and some of them will be working after the year on something that we will all be part of in the fall, and that is our Guided Pathways Program.
I really wanted to acknowledge the faculty who have worked so hard this year. And in those positions we have Traci Allen as our Faculty Coordinator. We have Beth Miller
who has been mapping, helping programs map over 70 different programs that benefit our students. Ashley Lajoie areas of interest. Oh my gosh, that was huge. Seven areas of interest with an eighth undecided.
Matthew Morgan our Analytics Expert. How could we best and most effectively provide that support for our students that we have all been discussing?
So on behalf of them, I'd like to hand it over to Traci, and thank the whole team and everyone who's been working on this next year. We look forward to the roll out in the Fall. Miss Traci.
Traci Allen: Nenagh. First just a personal thank you to you Nenagh. From day one over three years ago, you have been
just a huge advocate and supporter of the importance of faculty leading this work and that's been critical to our success so far so
you've kept this ball rolling during the many transitions so personal thank you to you, Nenagh.
And I really just wanted to take the time to really speak on behalf of why Matthew Morgan, Beth Mille,r and Ashley Lajoie are really so deserving of this.
They've truly, as you said, have gone above and beyond their roles to really lead this work, which is why we've really been so successful in our planning so far.
Ashley has been essential in reminding us to get the student voice heard. Over and over at every meeting, every crucial step,
we got to go back to the students. We got to...this is for the students. And she's just been huge and essential for that.
Matthew Morgan has truly become a leader, a researcher, and just advocating for students to ensure their needs have been met, both personally and academically and he's
he's just really led us in how important this really is about equity, and he just keeps bringing that forward with that work. And then, Beth
as Nenagh said with the mapping. This was a tremendous effort across the campus and Beth was so organized and such a strong leader in this and it was a huge task.
And it was, it was really effective. And it's truly because of her leadership and the collaboration of instructional faculty and Counseling faculty
working together. The finished products are amazing. We're excited to start getting them out, they are incredible. And again, these are going to be huge for getting students off on the right foot and just for being successful for day one for our students.
So again, just thank you to Nenagh. Most importantly, thank you to Ashley, Beth, and Matthew for their amazing work on Guided Pathways.
I'm really excited for the year ahead for Guided Pathways is...I truly think this is going to be so important for our students.
It's going to impact their lives now more than ever. This is going to make a difference for knowing who our students are, what our students need, and being able to connect to them and it's going to impact their lives and their success. So thank you on behalf of all four of us.
Mary: Julius, do you want do you have a last celebration note for us?
Julius: Yes, I do. And actually, I just wanted to do a little bit of a summary of what I've occurred today.
The words that the sort of come at us and that reaffirm for us what Moorpark is. Because today's really about what Moorpark is and what Moorpark will continue to be, and where Moorpark will continue to grow. Words like unconditional love, visibility, supportive,
change for the better, readiness, vision, kindness,
importance. Those words mark Moorpark College and it is a great honor to be at this college supporting our students and doing the work that we're all doing
even under these circumstances. Really, kudos to everyone on campus. And I want to say big thank you to our Kris Hotchkiss. Kris is Associated Students Moorpark College President this past year and he has been
a terrific leader. He has been engaged, he has built partnerships, and he has sought to make sure that the voice of our students is integral to the work that we do. I now appreciate and thank
Kris for that. I also want to use this opportunity to remind us all that at the end of the day, this is about students.
What we're doing here is how we make the lives of students better. How students come to us sometimes broken, disenfranchised, hurt, angry, hopeful, dreamful, and that we do all of that work and we make their tomorrow's brighter. So this past weekend we had the
wonderful opportunity. Thank you to Kristen. Thank you to Howard. Thank you to Lynda Dobson. Thank you to our ASMC leadership. Thank you to Trustee Perez who came over and visit with us. Thank you to Gilbert and to
Jennifer Clark, who came and helped to support our students. What you see in front of you is the opportunity to not only congratulate the class of 2020 but to have the class of 2020 realize that their accomplishments would not be marred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Next slide.
So we had about 600
yard signs that we purchased and tassels and 450 of those yard signs and tassels were taken.
Students drove by. They were there about an hour before we were supposed to start the distribution. They said thank you multiple times. Their parents came with them.
Their dogs came with them as you will see, and this event was an opportunity for us to support our students and I appreciate Nenagh lined up helping Gloria students were driving by and driving away into the sunset.
What is significant is that this was an opportunity to recognize our students. And these students even though this was a challenging
event, these students had the opportunity of making their commencement a very individualized one. And I want to thank those of you who were able to help us celebrate these students.
EATM is going to be celebrating their graduating class today.
They will have a YouTube page that celebrates their class. And what the students who came on Saturday were able to do is to get the tassels and a yard sign that says a "Moorpark College
graduate lives here". So that is what you will see that is being distributed to the graduates. We want to acknowledge the work of all of you who helped us get students to the finish line and get students to graduation.
So if a Moorpark College graduate lives somewhere in your neighborhood. Please drive by and wave at them or honk at them. If you see the sign.
And the success of our mobile college graduates is really our success, and our success is found in our leadership. I want to use the next couple of minutes to thank and congratulate Nenagh and Gilbert.
It is a joy it is a gift to work with people who are intelligent. It is a joy and a gift to work with people who are committed.
It is an honor to work with senate presidents who think first about how this is going to impact students.
It is a joy to have an Academic Senate President who knows 10 plus 1 and knows AP 1725 inside out. She's diligent. She has good human intellect.
And at the end of the day, she sees this as the work of making sure that we impact lives. Thank you, Nenagh. Thank you, Gilbert. Gilbert has given voice
to one has been for a good number of years of voiceless classified professional population. Gilbert has taken it upon himself to serve on numerous, numerous committees, so that the voice of our Classified professionals can be acknowledged.
I want to say to Nenagh and I want to say to Gilbert that we are more better. We are more blessed for having had you in leadership positions.
One of my favorite musicals is Wicked and there's a song in that musical that says "I am better because I have known you."
We are all better because we have known Gilbert and we have known Nenagh. Thank you so much for helping us accomplish our mission. Thank you so much for helping us plan our future.
And we know that even though you will not be senate presidents, that you will be active in making sure that this college
lives up to its potential because you will ask the critical questions, you will give us a gentle nudge of support when we need it and, you will always always think about students first.
To help celebrate Nenagh and Gilbert this afternoon, we have called in some good support and some reinforcement from our Moorpark College Choral and Vocal Program.
Yes, they are going to be celebrating you Nenagh. And we want to thank this Moorpark College Choral and Vocal Program for not only
bringing their voice and the vision and the energy to this, but at the end of this here we will cover student who speaks to all our faculty and staff.
If you find that at some point you can't hear well please increase the volume, but it is a gift from our students to the college, but secretly a gift from our students to Nenagh and Gilbert.
Contemporary Vocal Ensemble: Hello we're a few members of Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and we will be singing an arrangement by a Moorpark College Choral Vocal alumnus. Enjoy.
Contemporary Vocal Ensemble: I said you wanna be startin' something ya got to be starting somethin' I said ya wanna be starting somethin' ya got to be starting somethin'
[Acapella music] Soloist: Well my friends [Acapella music] the time has come [Acapella music]
[Acapella music] to raise the roof and have some fun [Acapella music]
throw away the work to be done [Acapella music] [Acapella music] Let the music play on play on play on
[Acapella music] You're too high to get over [Acapella music] You're too low to get under [Acapella music] You're stuck in the middle
[Acapella music] and the pain is thunder [Acapella music] You're too high to get over [Acapella music] You're too low to get under [Acapella music] You're stuck in the middle
[Acapella music] and the pain is thunder [Acapella music] ev'ry body sing ev'ry body dance
[Acapella music] lose yourself in wild romance we going to party karamu fiesta
forever [Acapella music] come on and sing along we going to
party karamu fiesta forever [Acapella music] come on and sing along [background vocalists: we gonna be starting something]
all night long [background vocalists: wanna be startin’ something ya got to be starting something I said ya] Soloist: all night
long [background vocalists: wanna be startin’ something ya got to be starting something I said ya] Soloist: all night long
[background vocalists: to be starting somethin’] Soloist: all night long
Contemporary Vocal Ensemble: Once you get started you can’t sit down
Come join the fun it's a
merry go round.
ev'ry one dancing their troubles away Come join our party and see how we play
Contemporary Vocal Ensemble: You wanna be startin’ something ya got to be startin’ something I said ya
wanna be starting somethin' ya got to be starting somethin’ Soloist: so lift your head up high and scream out to the world
to the world you know I am someone so let the truth unfurl [background vocalists: party karamu fiesta forever party karamu]
no one can hurt you now because you know it’s true I do believe in me [Acapella music]
[Acapella music] and do believe in you all night long
[Acapella music] all night long [Acapella music] all night long
all night long [Acapella music] Contemporary Vocal Ensemble: All night long
To all of the faculty. We know that this has been a really, really difficult transition for you as it has been for us.
And we just thank you so much for doing everything that you can to help us to still be successful despite such challenging and uncertain times. we really hope that we can return in the fall and perform for you again in person. Thank you.
Mary: What a wonderful ending for this great event. Have a wonderful rest of finals to the students, staff,
and faculty, those that are still here, we will have another update next week. Those of you that will be gone for this summer, we will miss you and see you all soon. Have a great afternoon.
Julius: Thank you everyone.
Ruth: Thank you.