Amanuel Gebru: Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, and we'll wait about a minute or
so to let folks jump on our last Zoom session for
our campus update, and we have a full agenda. So
I'll just wait a few seconds to get people dialed
in so we can get started.
Just want to remind you, this meeting is closed
captioned and you can access it by hitting the CC
button on the screen. So please make sure you do
that.
And then also this event will be recorded and put
on the President's page for reviewing after this
event.
Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to
another edition of our campus update. As many of
you know me, Amanuel Gebru, Vice President of
Student Support. We have a full agenda of
announcements, activities, and then also our end
of the year celebration. So as we get started, let
me see if we have any special guest joining us
today. So we have a surprise guest joining our
webinar this morning before we kick everything off.
So, Julius, we're going to have to tell you to hold
off. Our chancellor, Dr. Greg Gillespie, is here
to make an announcement and just say a few words
and say hello. So Dr. Greg Gillespie, the mic is
yours. [Dr. Greg Gillespie]: Yeah. Thanks, Amanuel. And hello, everyone.
Good to see you here today. But I just wanted to
take a few minutes and recognize your new
President, Julius Sokenu, new in the permanent
capacity now at Moorpark College. And I couldn't
be any more thrilled than to have Dr. Sokenu moving
from the interim position to the permanent
position. He's really shown creative and effective
leadership through all that we've gone through
these last couple of years. And I know that he's
really the right person to work with all of you to
continue to have Moorpark College be not just one
of the best colleges in the state, but one of the
best community colleges in the nation. So, Julius,
congratulations. And looking forward to the board
approving your new contract at the May 11 board
meeting. So thanks, Amanuel, for letting me join
in briefly today. Julius, congratulations. [Julius Sokenu]: Thank
you so much, Dr. Gillespie. I really appreciate
the opportunity to continue to serve our district
and to work with a phenomenal group of folks on
campus and at the district and our community
stakeholder partners. As you well know,
this has been a challenging year for all of us.
And we as a district and as a college, have not
only been resilient and I'm proud and honored to
continue this great work. Thank you so much, Dr.
Gillespie.
Okay, so I thank you to everyone for joining us this
afternoon for our campus update on May 3 Campus
Update for faculty and for those folks
who will be going off contract. I'm guessing this
is probably your last campus update
for a while. We have one scheduled
for the 19th, I'm sorry, the 17th of May,
but we will continue to sort of do that. Look at
how we do it beyond that. So we'll keep you
updated. I do want to say a very big thank you to
each and every one of you who sent me notes and
letters of congratulations on the appointment to
the presidency. I wish I could have responded
back to every single individual. I started
trying to do that and then, of course, things
happened and then I wasn't able to. But I really
do appreciate your generosity, your spirit. I
appreciate your support. This college, as I said
earlier, has been resilient through this pandemic
and resilient through everything that's happened
this year, and we continue to serve students, we
continue to put students first. We continue to be
kind and respectful of one another, and we continue
to challenge one another, to be better and to do
the very best we can for all our students. And I
look forward to continuing that work that we're
doing and investing more and more in making sure
that we as a college, not only continue being
the excellent college that we are, but we let more
and more people know, by being more visible in the
college community, in higher education, and
particularly, in our local community. I want to
also extend my appreciation to the members of
our planning team, who planned our PRT visit that
happened last week. I appreciate the work of the
of the vice presidents, the work of the deans,
the work of the classified professionals, the work
of our student leaders. All of those individuals
who were part of making sure that this particular
effort continues to go smoothly. Kudos to Vice
President Rees, who is our contact, as well as
Linda Resendiz, who has done a wonderful job. This
is her second time around doing this of making
sure that we connect and we continue communicating
very clearly to the team as well as to the campus
as to our goals. I also want to extend my
appreciation to all of you who participated
in the retreat, the campus planning retreat.
Such great work has come out of that. And we
continue to serve our students and our community,
with all of the work that's done and the planning
that's been done. So kudos to everyone on that team
and particular emphasis to our planning team, which
included Nenagh Brown and Oleg Bespalov, Erik
Reese, Linda Resendiz, trying who else I'm missing,
Tamarra Coleman and our student body
president as well, David Katz. Returning to campus,
as you know, we're working towards our returning to
campus in the fall. We know that the vaccinations
are available and that they are widespread,
they're available wide spread. And we hope that and
encourage our campus community, our faculty, our staff,
and our students to get to get vaccinated. And for
those who do have health reasons for which they
can not, we understand that, and we just need that
to be documented. And as you also know, once you get
vaccinated and you complete your sequence, please
upload that to the app. And Allison could give us
some more information if people need that. But
it's pretty straightforward. And thank you to the
492 people who had updated
as of this weekend. I forgot to do mine, so I'll
have to do mine and update mine as well. But I do
think it's so important for us not to mandate
stuff, but to encourage participation, because it
really matters for our campus community and our
safety. If we want to bring back as many people in
the fall and bring back as many people safely,
that's one way in which we do it. And we're
looking forward to continuing to increase our
schedule and increase our capacity for folks to be
on campus, but we really do need vaccination
compliance to be able to scale that up. In
terms of returning to campus, we're
looking at flexibility. We're looking at what the
needs of a particular office is as we make that
decision. We're encouraging our faculty and our staff
to start thinking of themselves as being returning
back to campus and whatever the needs are that
need to be addressed, please communicate that to
the dean or to the supervisor or communicate that
to me or Mary, Amanuel, whomever, but let us know
what you need so that we can better help you feel
comfortable coming back to campus. In terms of
vaccinations, and I'm not sure if Allison is going
to talk about this, but we've been contacted by
the county Office of Public Health to
as a pop up clinic center. So we're looking
at doing that work and hopefully we're able to
sort of provide more vaccinations to people as
they need. I also want to use
this as an opportunity to say congratulations to
the folks who are retiring. We'll have a robust
celebration following the campus update
segment and 166 years of
service to this college and to this district. And
each and every one of you has made a difference in
the lives of our students. And I thank you for
that. And I know that you've more than earned your
retirement and you are in our hearts and will
remain so. Okay, I am going to pass it on to Allison,
who will give us an update on the Covid dashboard. Thank
you, Allison.
Allison Case Barton: All right, sticky computer keys. Well, Julius gave
my update. Just kidding. So it's good to see lots of
zeros. Once again, we have a couple of exposure's
and those folks are in quarantine, but we're just
clicking along like we should be. And A+
on the vaccine uploads. Michael has just put the
instructions once again, in the chat, for those of
you who haven't uploaded your vaccine information,
so that you have just a simple guide for to
follow, to upload. And it sounds like the
county is providing us with a little mobile
vaccine service. So this is hot off the presses.
We don't know all the details yet, but just stay
tuned. If you haven't been vaccinated or students
haven't been vaccinated, that that's going to be a
great and convenient strategy for us. And that is
all my exciting news this morning. It's good
all around. Back to you, Julius or the next
person. [Amanuel]: Thank you. Thank you, Allison. And
and once again, congratulations to our own college
president, Julius Sokenu, for finalizing his
presidency and now removing that interim or
temporary title. So congrats once again, Dr. Sokenu.
So if you can go to the next slide?
So this is one of my favorite and many folks
favorite times of the year graduation. We're not a
normal environment where we could do graduation in
the in the same manner in the past years. But
Kristen and her team have done a phenomenal job of
planning and doing a lot behind the scenes to make
this commencement happen in the best way for our
students. So, as you already know, May 20,
2021 is our graduation from 9:00 to
1:00 pm. Graduates will receive free
commemorative lawn sign and free diploma covers and
there's going to be a drive through graduation. We're trying
the best way we can support our students through
this process. But in the midst of doing all that,
we do need some volunteers. So there are some
volunteer opportunities. If you want to help the
day of the operation, please sign up at the link.
Michael will put that in the chat so that you can
sign up for to be a volunteer for the graduation.
And also, this is probably the best part for you
to cheer for our students during the drive through
ceremony. We also recommend that you sign up,
which is a link right there. So kudos to Kristen
and the committee for the phenomenal work you've
done till this point to plan our graduation for our
graduates this year. And if you have any further
questions, please email the MCcommencement@
vcccd and they will respond to you for any
questions that you may have. I know folks are
asking, do you have to wear your regalia and
those kind of things. I don't think Kristen is
asking for that, since it'll be a drive through.
But we hope if you have questions, please reach
out to the email below. So thank you. And the next
slide, please? So now I have the pleasure of
introducing Tamarra Coleman, who will speak about
the curriculum summit, so. [Tamarra Coleman]: Thank you, Amanuel.
Good morning, or actually good afternoon, everyone.
I'm really excited about another opportunity for
the campus community, particularly our faculty, to
engage in the DEI work, the sort of ongoing DEI
work that we've been doing specifically over the
last year. But I think in the bigger picture, many
of us have been doing for a long time, and we've
also been doing work around equity for a long time
on our campus. This May, at
the end of May, sorry, we are hosting a curriculum
summit. We are calling this the Summer Sandbox,
right? Thinking about ways to bring faculty
together and play nicely together, and work on
curriculum. Equitizing, I'm not sure if that's a word,
but that's the word we're using, our curriculum so
that we can reach more of our students. Thinking
about the voices that are reflected in your
discipline, in your classroom, in the curriculum
that you're presenting to students and also
thinking about the student voices. Are they
engaging and responding to that work? So part of
the curriculum summit will be about those things,
right? Thinking about voices. We'll have time to
hear from presenters. You'll have some of your
colleagues from campus who have engaged in this
work, share what they've been doing, strategies
that they've used. We're also working on bringing
in a outside speaker as well, to add another lens
to the discussion. So it will run for three days.
Three hours on the first two days, which will be
presentations and discussion. And then the final
day will be a full day of work shopping. And we're
hoping to have enough participants where you can
workshop with other faculty members within your
discipline and think about ways and ideas to
equitize your curriculum for the fall. So if
you're interested, you can sign up at the link
that's there. But, Michael, could we put that in
the chat as well? For folks to grab that link? And
then we'll send it out again for you to access it.
We'll send out more specifics in terms of speakers
and presentations about a week before, maybe a
little bit longer for the event, it's coming pretty quickly.
So think about what you have planned for the
summer and make time in these three days to join
us. I'd also like to solicit from the faculty in
the STEM fields. If you have done some of this
work and you have some ideas, you don't need to be
an expert, but if you have ideas and strategies to
share, please reach out to me. We'd like to have
more representation from STEM fields, because it's
always the area, the math, the sciences, even also
thinking about business, to incorporate these types
of things into the curriculum. So please let me
know if you're interested in participating and
maybe presenting and sharing some of the work that
you are doing for this event. Thank you all for
the work that you've done over the last year and
for those of you who have been participating in
work around equity and curriculum on campus.
Thanks Amanuel.
Amanuel: Thank you Tammy. And now we have Erik Reese and...
joining us to do welcome for our Academic Senate
Brunch Campus Celebration. [Erik Reese]: Welcome, everyone. It's
my pleasure. We're going to switch gears a little
bit from the usual updates to have a celebration,
for the last campus update while everyone's still
on campus before the faculty flee into the great
unknown. The summer should be interesting as
things are changing, but we're going to celebrate
retirees and discuss a little bit about the boards,
the Classified and Academic Senates and the
student board and also the annual Academic Senate
awards. So with that, why don't we start the
celebration of the retirees? Thank you. [Jennifer Clark]: Good
afternoon, everybody. It is my honor to be able to
talk today about the classified professional
retirements in our midst. We have three of them
that we'd like to highlight today. So I'm going to
go ahead and get started. So the first couple that
I'd like to recognize is Suzanne Gerhardt from
our Student Health
Center. She's been with us for 13 years, actually I
knew Sue before she came to Moorpark. So I
personally have known her for over 20 years, but
13 years here in the district at Moorpark. And
Yvonne Ackerman, a student services assistant in,
I believe, in the EOPS Office, and she was with us for
nearly 40, 38 years she was with us. So just
those two ladies alone. What does that more than
50 years between those two ladies alone?
Unfortunately, they can't, neither one
were able to join us today. But I wanted to just
take a minute to just, again, recognize and thank
them for their service to the students and
community of Moorpark College and the district.
You know, they're, they will be sorely
missed, I'm sure. So the next slide, please? I'd
like to recognize our last retiree from the
classified ranks. She's actually a supervisor, our
zoo operations supervisor, Michlyn Hines. Most of
you probably know her. She's been with our campus
for almost 20 years. You can see that
years of service 19. And she's
just a wonder.
Fortunately, today we have Brenda
Woodhouse, who knows Michlyn, a heck of a lot more
than I do that. And I'm honored to introduce
Brenda, who is going to say some words and help us
celebrate Michlyn's retirement. So take it away,
Brenda. [Brenda Woodhouse]: Okay, I am so happy to be able to represent
the EATM faculty and ATZ staff in celebrating
Michlyn today. We're really excited for her to
finally have some uninterrupted time to go camping
and traveling, but we're also a bit sad on our end.
This poor lady, she had planned to retire last
September, and was asked to postpone till December and
now it's been moved to May, and we're lucky enough
to be able to hire a replacement, and she has
kindly agreed to stay on and mentor our new hiree.
Maybe we won't really allow her to retire. This is
just a fake. But her staying longer is just an
example of the dedication she has to the zoo and
the people that work with her. When she started
her position as Zoo Supervisor 19 years ago, this
was a position that was not clearly defined. I
mean, she was actually the first zoo supervisor.
She molded this position as well as the zoo over
the years. And when she first started at Moor-
park, things like communication amounted to people
yelling from the front of the zoo, hoping people
at the back of the zoo could hear. We had no
technology whatsoever to speak of. She could be
seen every day on the zoo with a clipboard and a
yellow notepad, taking notes and making lists of
all the things that needed to be done. And I have
to say, just last week, the staff actually was
wondering how many notepads she's actually gone
through in those 19 years here. When she first
arrived, we all agreed that our facility was more
of a compound, but she is leaving it a zoo. And
this includes the technology we didn't have.
Radios that we replaced our tired voices.
Computers to replace all our handwritten notes.
Formalized record keeping systems, vet techs, a
ten year master plan, and even hiring zoo advisors
to guide our zoo and fundraising efforts to the
next level. We all know that making changes here
can happen a little bit slowly. And as department
chair, when I worked with her, our mantra was one
or two changes a year and we'll be happy. Well,
she definitely surpassed that when you look at
all of the changes that happen at the zoo under
her direction, Michlyn is dedicated, she's smart,
she's passionate. She's a strong leader and a
logical individual. She's also a cancer survivor.
And during that time, she never faltered. The zoo
never suffered from a lack of leadership. She has
grit, determination, and is a great example to our
students of resiliency. She continues to be a
support for other survivors, celebrating a group
every year at the zoo. In 2017, we had
requests from Fish and Wildlife to create a home
for a confiscated tiger Neil, many of you may
have heard about him. Michlyn spent hours
working out the logistics of permitting housing
and funding that allowed Neil and his companion,
Karma, to move to Moorpark College. We now have
plans and funding toward a new habitat that one
day those tigers will be moving into. We are
extremely grateful for everything, Michlyn, that
you have done. And even if she had to deal with
us kicking and pouting at times, we got a two
for one deal with Michlyn because her husband, Pete,
was an amazing volunteer and worked on many of our
projects here at the zoo. We're going to miss both
of them tremendously, when it's time for her to
actually leave. She's been a friend to all of us
and the animals at the zoo. And we want to thank
you again.
Michlyn Hines: Thank you very much, Brenda, that was wonderful.
Can you guys hear me? I hope, it's truly been my
pleasure to work not just at EATM and the zoo, but
for Moorpark College and the Ventura Community
College District. It's been an amazing experience,
and I am grateful to have touched as many lives as
I have and helping our next generations of animal
care professionals move to the next generation. I
can't believe it's been 19 years. It certainly
doesn't feel like it. And I am looking forward to
retirement, but also will be missing the people,
the animals, the students. So visiting frequently.
And I also am really looking forward to seeing
where my successor takes the EATM Program and America's
Teaching Zoo to the next level and to our
capital campaign to build a beautiful zoo. Thank
you so much.
Amanuel: Thank you, Michlyn and congratulations once again,
to you and all of our classified staff that do
tremendous work to support our students and our
community. So kudos to our classified staff. So
now I have the pleasure of recognizing the faculty
retirements. So if we can go to the next slide?
First person is Paul Kores, professor of biology,
who served 17 years to the Moorpark College
community and our students, so they couldn't be here with
us. These three faculty members. But I just want
to say a big kudos to you, Paul, and thank you for
serving Moorpark and our students. And we truly
appreciate you, and hopefully we'll see you
when we come back on campus to be able to really
celebrate you since you weren't able to join us
today. The next person is Sally Ponce-O'Rourke, who's a
professor of psychology, who served for 27
years here in the psychology department at
Moorpark College. I've actually had the pleasure
of working with Sally as the Dean of Behavioral
Social Sciences. So congratulations, Sally. We
will miss you. And thank you for your service to
our students, our Spectrum Club, and everything
you've done. So thank you, Sally. And the other
faculty member is James Song, professor of music,
who served 30 years in our music department and
our campus, our community. I didn't get a chance
to work with you personally, James, but you've
been a phenomenal community member and a
phenomenal faculty, and just getting to know you
a little bit on campus. So thank you for your
service and our phenomenal faculty for all the
years of service in giving our students their best.
And we wish you the best retirement. And our
congratulations once again. And the next slide is
Erik Reese. Dr. Erik Reese will be speaking on
behalf of Ronald Wallingford. So Dr. Reese, you
jump on board. [Erik]: Thank you. I'm back. Did you guys
miss me? Well, as the most senior full time
faculty member in the physics and astronomy
program, it is my pleasure to say a few words with
a happy, I guess, bittersweet, really, but really
happy occasion of Ron Wallingford's retirement as
of last summer. He was hired full time on Moorpark
College in 1998, serving 22 years on
behalf of students. However, he started part time at
Moorpark in 1987, adding
another 11 years for a grand total of 33
years of service to students at Moorpark College.
Over that time, he's taught every course we
currently offer in both physics and astronomy,
providing quality instruction to thousands of
students, served on numerous committees and
contributed to all aspects of our program. I have
to say, if you've ever visited his classroom,
you've seen his ability to toss extra credit form
wrapped candy to students during class without
missing a beat. It's truly amazing and a sight to
behold.
He helped hire me in the department when he was
the only full time faculty member in the program.
So you can partially blame room for my being
here talking to you today. During this critical
period where he was the only faculty member and
then I was the second full time faculty member, he
served as a department chair for, I think, roughly
five years, keeping the program afloat as it was
in transition. From those that had been with the
department for decades, including himself, to
this, "new generation of instructors"
that now continue, all the foundation work that he
and his colleagues had set up for us. He valiantly
mentored myself and other hires, always making
time to talk and keep the atmosphere of the second
floor of the physical science building fun and
inviting, which is not easy for a physics
department, for students, classified and faculty
alike. Ron and I spent quite a bit of time in each
other's offices catching up and chatting on a
variety of professional and personal items every
day. Like we talk to each other every day. I had
the opportunity to go on a trip with Ron and Jim
Artero, our lab tech in 2017, to see
the solar eclipse. It was truly quite the
experience. The return trip turned into quite an
adventure when missing our flight home, due to even
more excessive traffic than we had planned
for, well beyond our imagination. I shudder to
think about that many people being so close
together, both inside and outside of cars, in the
current Covid times, quite frankly. It's a true
pleasure to call Ron, both a colleague and a
friend. Thank you for everything you've done for
students, colleagues, and the college, and
congratulations. You very much earned and deserve
retirement. I wish you all the best in your new
life of leisure. [Ronald Wallingford]: Well, thank you so much. It's
really nice to you. Working at Moorpark College is
a real pleasure. I started back in 1987,
and as a part timer and I was a freeway
flyer. And I had hoped that I would actually get an
opportunity to work full time at Moorpark when I
first went in for my interview for part time. It
was funny because of the other faculty members,
Fred Meyer, Balazs Becht, and Clint Harper, and I
look sort of disappointed, because they were all
young. And I was like, "Ah, man, none of these guys
are going to be retiring." So it's like, you know,
there's no opening. But anyhow, they hired me in
and I really enjoyed the experience. And being a
freeway flyer, I get to teach at. Here's a list of
schools I've taught at. Santa Monica, Citrus College,
Orange Coast College, Golden West College,
Glendale College. So I got to teach in all these
schools. But the one thing that really set
Moorpark apart is that it was the friendliest and
most congenial environment. And so I really wanted
to teach full time. So fortunately, Fred Meyer
retired and I had an opportunity for a full time
position here, and it was a really great
opportunity. So I get to do that and work with
Fred and Balazs and Clint. They're all really
great. They mentored me and they were very
nice. And I really appreciate that. And the other
aspect of Moorpark that I really like, is the
administrators that I got to work with. I got to
work with President Walker and President Conrad
and now, even President Sokenu. So they're all
very nice. But in the interim, we also got to have
different deans. And one of my deans was Dr.
Hoffmans, which he's now over at Ventura. And we
also got Dr. Sanchez. So it's really nice to work
with all these people. Again, they're all they
wouldn't always listen to you, don't always have to pay
attention, which is probably a good thing, but
they were wonderful to work with. And so from my
point of view, it was a very, very warm and
hospitable environment. And even when we were
going through the Covid-19, you know, we all had
to pivot from being on campus, which is more of my
modality to online. And yet people were willing to
help me. And so I was able to make that transition.
And now you guys are going to be pivoting back
again. So now it won't be a pivot, it'll be a
pirouette. So but anyhow, I again, thank you guys
for letting me work with you. It was a real honor.
Thank you.
Amanuel: Congratulations, Ron, and thank you for your
service to our campus and our community.
So next slide?
Linda Resendiz, you'll be joining us to do this
piece?
Linda Resendiz: Yes, good afternoon, everyone, thank you for
joining us today in this celebration. I would like
to extend my heartfelt congratulations to all of
our classified professionals and faculty for their
retirement, for their service to our students and
service to our Moorpark College community. Thank
you very much. Enjoy your retirement. Well, this
year was our first year as your Classified Senate
Board, Vice President, Gabby Chacon, Treasurer
Deb Brackley, Secretary Daniella Rodriguez, and
yours truly, Linda Resendiz, as President. We've
enjoyed our first year, although we've held our
meetings through Zoom. We look forward to serving you
again in 2021-2022. And
we look forward to seeing you in our meetings and
providing you with all the necessary updates and
opportunities to be involved in our
governance meetings. And just want to say thank
you for the support during this year. I and our
board really, really appreciate your participation
in our meetings and look forward to continue
seeing you all participating in 2021-
2022. Now I will pass it on over to
ASB President David Katz.
David Katz: Thank you, Linda. So the names you see before you
are the members of the Associated Students Board
of Directors for this academic year, 2020-
2021. I would like to
acknowledge all their hard work to provide for the
Moorpark College student body as best we could in
this virtual format. And I would like to thank
each of them for their individual contributions. I
would also like to recognize and thank all of the
faculty here at Moorpark College for working with
this ASMC Board. You listen to our voices, you
encouraged our ideas, and you saved chairs of the
tables of our shared governance committees, so ASMC
could provide a student perspective in making our
college better. The opportunities provided to each
of us will not be forgotten, nor will each of the
smiles from faculty members when we join each
Zoom committee meeting. Next slide?
The names here, are the members of the incoming
ASMC Board of Directors. I would like to thank
them as well for stepping up to the plate and
declaring their leadership for this upcoming year,
as we venture forth from the pandemic. I think
it's important to acknowledge them and really
just express our gratitude for their
leadership, their confidence, and leading us into
the next year. So thank you.
Erik: I'm back. Hello again, I get the privilege of
talking about the Academic Senate leadership,
your current year of officers has been re-elected
for the next two years and we will continue into
2021-2022, that's
my self serving as President, Vice President
Tiffany Pawluk, professor of chemistry, Secretary
Nicole Block, professor of Film and Television and
Media Arts, and Treasurer Ruth Bennington,
professor of accounting. It has certainly been a
pleasure serving all of you through what was a
very challenging year. I remind everyone that
you're all invited to Academic Senate Council
meetings that are always open and public and just
really want to take a brief moment to thank my
fellow officers for their hard work this year and
for I know what will be continued hard work in the
upcoming year. I daresay we've actually had some
fun along the way, despite all the challenges,
it's been quite the experience and we'll have more
opportunities to learn and grow from each other.
We look forward for to the upcoming year and please do
not hesitate to reach out to any of us if we can
be of service in any way, shape or form. Thank you.
Academic Senate Annual Awards. Academic Senate
celebrates the exceptional contribution to
Moorpark College over the preceding academic year
for classified employee of the year, manager of the
year, adjunct faculty of the year, full time faculty of
the year, and the President's Award. Exceptional
contribution can be demonstrated in areas such as,
job performance, concern for students, concern
for colleagues, contributions to campus, leadership,
professional development, and general awesomeness.
Okay, I might have made that last one up. But other
areas where they also contributed. Nominations for
the awards are made by any non-student employee of
the college and Academic Senate Council votes,
always having to make very difficult decisions
every year because so many colleagues make
exceptional contributions. And this year is no
exception. Each recipient is honored at the
Senate's year end event, which is today's update,
receives a letter of nomination and a plaque
commemorating the award. Can't get
the words out, and their name is recorded on the
Academic Senate's board of recognition, boards of
recognition, rather, that are housed in the
President's conference room. Remember when we used
to meet in these tiny little rooms? Yeah, it's one
of those rooms. We certainly all miss sharing a
meal together, while we celebrate retirees and
exceptional work across campus. And very much
appreciate you all attending yet another Zoom to
help with this celebration. The first award will be
presented to the classified employee of the year
by Vice President Tiffany Pawluk.
Thank you very much, Erik. It is my very, very
distinct pleasure to introduce to you the
classified employee of the year. A few comments
that I read from the nomination letters, I
wanted to quote here, describing this particular
person. He is a superhero. He is a wealth of
knowledge. Amazing colleague. Extraordinary. A
pleasure to work with. Humble. Selfless.
Unbelievably patient. Epitomizes the idea of
community and collegiality. Exceeds expectations at
every single turn. This particular award recipient
has led countless canvas certification courses
and seventy five webinars, including Convocation,
town halls, Campus Updates, presidential forum,
social justice forums, Multicultural Day and
Guided Pathways, sorry, Guided Pathways forums. So
if you happen to recognize by now, you probably
are guessing that today's recipient of the
classified employee of the year is the
instructional technologist, Michael Ashton.
Michael Ashton: Thank you so much, Tiffany. Thank you Academic Senate
and thank you Moorpark College community. There
really are no adequate words to express the
gratitude I feel in receiving this honor. I am
beyond humbled to have been nominated by my
colleagues and peers for consideration of this
award, and even more so by the words that were
spoken just a few moments ago. Honestly, though, I
don't feel that this would have been possible were
it not for the unique and positive environment
that is the Moorpark College community. Since my
very first day at Moorpark over a year ago, I
have felt supported and valued by everyone here.
And because of your support, I have thrived in
ways I've never imagined possible. And because of
that, it has and will continue to be a genuine
privilege to serve you, our students, and our
community. Therefore, I feel this award is a
reflection of the positive energy and
collaborative spirit you all bring to Moorpark.
It is these qualities and more that inspire me to
give the best version of myself every day. So from
the bottom of my heart, I thank you all for making
this possible.
Tiffany: Our next award will be presented by Ruth
Bennington.
Ruth Bennington: Hi, everybody. I'm not sure if you can either see
or hear me, because all I can see is Tiffany
Pawluk up on the screen. But I am hoping that you
can hear me present the manager of the year award.
Can somebody tell me? Oh, excellent. Thank you,
Linda. I would just again, like to read out a
couple of the comments about this person who
richly deserves the award. He has assisted me with
professional development and other projects,
always, quote, "with remarkable professionalism,
kindness and patience." He has brought such a clear
point of view to our department. He came at a time
we were rebuilding and his leadership has helped
us transform. He asks important clarifying
questions to help us streamline our objectives.
While he provides guidance, he gives us the
freedom to use our skills and abilities in ways
that make us shine. He sees a bigger picture and
communicates this across departments so that we
work together to support one another. And if I
tell you that his workload is described as a,
quote, "staggering amount of departments," I am sure
you will realize that the recipient of a manager
of the year is Dean Matt Calfin. Congratulations,
Matt.
Matt Calfin: Thank you so much, Ruth. Thanks. I just want to
thank the Academic Senate for this award and for
Danielle and Brian for the nomination, and I'm
just really grateful and honored to receive this
award and having the privilege of working with
amazing professionals, one of which just received
the previous award, Michael Ashton, in our
division. That even just makes this award possible
today. But first, I really wanted to recognize
Linda Sanders. She is the unsung hero of our
division, and she ensures that our division,
faculty and staff and all the students that
encounter our courses thrive. Linda, I couldn't do
my role without you. You simply are the best. And
so this award is really for you as well. In
addition to Linda, there are so many other
colleagues who are committed to excellence in our
division and in on all that they do. I'm so
grateful for department chairs and coordinators
and supervisors, whether that's Phil in the math
department or Adam and Health Ed Kinesiology, I
actually should say. Dr. Black in Health Ed
Kinesiology. Matt Crater our new Athletic Director
and Vance, our former Athletic Director. Danielle
in the library. Silva in ACCESS. Deb in the
Teaching and Learning Center. Anasheh our DE
Coordinator. And Cindy, our ZTC Coordinator. Thank you so
much for all your support and your patience with
me. I really appreciate it. I just also wanted to
thank all the faculty and classified professionals
in our division and others that I've had a
chance to work with over the last year for the CVC
grant, the DE Committee and other work groups. I
appreciate how you welcomed me to Moorpark. And
in fact, it's really because of your support and
the collaborative nature of Moorpark College that
I'm in the process of relocating my family up here
and they've been very supportive. You can see the
balloons behind me and the sign above, my family is
just thrilled about this nomination and this award.
And of course, I couldn't do it without their
support as well. A couple other quick thank you's,
I'm just grateful for my dean colleagues. I
appreciate how that they've always been there to
help. And we have really the best group of deans.
A really collaborative group of professionals. So
we're really fortunate here at Moorpark. And
last, I just wanted to thank Julius and Jennifer,
Amanuel and Mary for giving me the opportunity
that encourages my professional growth and support
to me along the way. I really thank you so much
for your support, for your leadership, and again,
thank you Academic Senate for this honor.
Tiffany: I have the pleasure of introducing our next award
winner. And this is for the adjunct faculty of the
year. In the nomination letter, I'm going to quote
from, "He is a true work for college equity agent
committed to equity and advancing social justice
on our campus. He is the co-advisor for the
student charter of A2MEND and the Black Student
Union. He is a basic needs specialist with Raider
Central and a core member of both TWMOCA's and
VCCARA. All of this, in addition to being an
outstanding instructor who embodies a student's
first philosophy. This adjunct faculty member
teaches in the criminal justice department. And
I'm sure if you know him, you will not be
surprised to hear that the winner of the adjunct
faculty of the year is Tim Lumas.
Tim Lumas: Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank
the Academic Senate and especially the staff,
faculty, and administration of Moorpark College, my
wife, Rochelle, and my daughters, Myesha and Malaykah, my family and
all those people that had made it possible for me
to work at our college, including Cynthia Barnett,
who took a risk in giving me a job here. I
appreciate that. I'd like to thank everyone that's
helped me with Raider Central and also Ruben
Castro Charities, which includes
Ruth Bennington and Alejandro Castro. And it's
been my pleasure, my honor to be a part of this
campus. I hope to do so forever. And I'll leave
you like I leave my children. Always leave a
positive difference in someone's life each day.
Have a nice day. Thank you very much.
Tiffany: Okay, if we could go to the next slide, please? This
will be presented by Nicole. It is the full time
faculty of the year.
Nicole Block: Our colleague who nominated this full time English
professor said it best when he wrote that,
"It would be impossible to list all of her
leadership and contributions to the campus and our
community without making this nomination letter
several pages long." So since we don't
have time for that long list, just a few of those
contributions include leadership roles on the
Multicultural Day Committee, Black History Month
Committee, social justice work groups, Women's
Herstory Month and the upcoming curriculum summit.
In addition to all that this year, she is also our
Diversity Equity and Inclusion Coordinator. She's
doing the urgent and important work of
facilitating the social justice work groups and
integrating those ideas and strategies into our
campus. She's also serving as a liaison with the
District and Ventura County College's Anti-Racism
Alliance VCCARA, and other groups both
inside and outside the college. The nomination
letter concluded, "Her passion for social
justice, her commitment to equity, her dedication
to her students, her skills as an organizer and a
leader are all beyond compare.
She works tirelessly to contribute to
Moorpark College through many different projects,
all with the goal of helping our students achieve
and find success." It is my honor to congratulate
Professor Tamarra Coleman, full time faculty of the
year.
Tamarra: So thank you. Thank you. First to the Academic
Senate for acknowledging. So I just have to say
that right now I'm having anxiety and heart
palpitations. You would think as much as I speak
and as much as I'm in front of audiences, that I
would be okay with this. While I have a fairly easy
time doing the work, I have a really hard time
accepting recognition. So I'm struggling a little
bit here. I was tempted to jump out of the meeting
so I wouldn't have to speak. But I just want to
say that
everything you said, Nicole, is true. I do have a
passion for this work. This is very important to
me. It's a big part of who I am. But I also want
to share that in the last four years, which is the
time in which I relocated back to California and
started at Moorpark, I've had lots of challenging
things in my personal life with my family. I've
lost two brothers. I know many of you know, I was
in the hospital. My son was hospitalized for five
months last year. And so while I was trying to
organize the Ventura County Colleges Anti-Racism
Alliance, I was doing it from a hospital room in
Los Angeles. And I tell that story. And then there
were other things that were happening in my life.
I tell that story to say that while for those of
you who think that the work that I've done have
benefited the campus, in many ways, the work has
really helped me to be able to continue to move
forward with all of the challenges that I've had
outside of work. So it sort of provided a space,
believe it or not, for me to feel like I'm
actually doing something and that my life is
actually working, right? I'm doing something
meaningful for other people. So I wanted to
share that. Sometimes we don't what
what pushes people and motivates people or what's
happening in people's lives, and I think sometimes
it's helpful to really connect with others and
kind of speak our truths, right? That's what civic
engagement. That's what advocacy. That's what
social justice is about. Is all of our voices
being heard and speaking our truth. So thank you
to to the Academic Senate. And I also want to say
thank you to all of the folks that I've worked
with on that long list of things. I didn't do any
of that work alone. There were many people around
also contributing. Thank you.
Erik: I think this might be my final appearance, so you
can rest assured. I have the pleasure and the
curse to present the Academic Senate President's
Annual Award. This is the one award that is
actually still kept secret this year in this
online environment. It's really hard to do that.
Like we normally do on ground, we like to surprise
people at the event. This one will keep that
tradition. So much amazing work has been done by
so many, very, very many people this academic year,
that was incredibly difficult to decide, as I'm
sure it is every year. And what a year it has been?
Covid-19. Systemic racism bursting onto the scene
in the worst possible way, not to say that it
wasn't there before, but sparking long overdue
conversations and action across the country on
certain budgets. Continued danger from possible
active shooters, winds and fires, just to name a
few. An entire year online. Innovative solutions
to services, academic and administrative, and
online instruction continue at a rapid pace to
advance student equity and success. Creative ways
to continue collegial dialogue, such as with
online committee meetings, which I know we all
love. The Strategic Planning Retreat. Our
innovative Convocation. Regular campus updates,
keeping everybody informed with integrity. Always
striving for excellence, regardless of modality.
True to a student's first philosophy, Moorpark
College has continued to provide the best possible
experience for students, so that they can continue
on their academic and professional journeys. There
was a huge shift to redouble our efforts on equity
and social justice, inviting everybody into the
conversation. We formed social justice work groups with
leaders from all four stakeholders, students,
classified professionals, managers, and faculty.
Worked, we worked and continue to work tirelessly
to help move the college forward, reducing
barriers and becoming more diverse, equitable, and
inclusive. Reaching out to the community. Making
sure everybody is safe. The list is endless, but I
will stop here and simply thank the recipient of
this year's Academic Senate President's Annual
Award. A person that has been and has been integral
to all of our work over the very difficult past
year, supporting the college, its people and most
importantly, keeping the focus on students as we
keep moving forward together. This year's
Academic Senate Annual Award recipient is President
Julius Sokenu. Thank you for guiding us through
an exceptionally difficult and tumultuous,
tumultuous. I can't even say it. I'm getting so
flummoxed, tumultuous year, the likes of which we
hope not to see again any time soon.
Congratulations. [Julius]: Wow.
Thank you so much, Erik. Wow, I am just, yes, I'm
surprised. Goodness. Okay, I really do
appreciate the work that we as a community have
done at Moorpark College this year. And I can only
say a very big thank you to each and every one of
you. This is work that we've done together.
This is a vision that we have crafted together. We
have built an understanding of the work that we're
doing around social justice and equity. We have
built an understanding around the work that we're
doing and to make sure that our campus is safe and
secure for everyone. We have built together as a
campus community, a commitment not only to student
excellence, but to faculty excellence, to classified
professional excellence, and an equally as
important to manager and administrative
excellence. I am honored. I am stunned. And I
am grateful not only for your recognition, but for
your acknowledgment of the work that it takes to
sustain this college and sustain this college
community. Each and every one of you really
alongside me, are honored with this award
and not just me, I am just a
representative of the energy and the love on this
campus to make sure that we create a learning
community that's inclusive, that's safe and
invested in human development. Thank you to the
Academic Senate. You've grappled
with the great issues of our day, of our time,
and you continue to do that work and I
appreciate it, you continue to do it with respect and
you continue to do it with a curiosity of spirit
and curiosity of mind. I thank the leadership of
the Senate for this honor and this recognition. I
thank the leadership of the classified
professionals and the Classified Senate. We often
forget that the first people our students meet,
not managers, they may not even be faculty
members they're either other students or they are
classified professionals. And I am I am honored to
serve alongside you in doing this work. I'm
surprised. I have to say. I wasn't.
Thank you. Thank you to our student leadership.
Thank you to all of you who support our students,
whether you are in student services or you're in
instruction or in the business office, each one of
us and each one of you make the experience of our
students a complete and a full one. And we
challenge one another every single day to make
sure that that experience is worthy of our
mission and our mission statement. I am more than
grateful for all of this because as many of you
know, these past couple of weeks have been very
challenging for me and your support,
your prayers and your love have sustained me.
I'm sorry. I appreciate this honor. Thank you so
much Erik. Thank you so much to the Senate. Thank you
so much to the college community. I can only hope
that in the years to come that I live up to the
honor and I continue to live up to the honor that
you have bestowed upon me. Thank you.
Amanuel: Congratulations, Julius, and I'm going to let you
catch your breath for a moment. We appreciate you.
And before you do the closing remarks, I'll just
do a quick announcement that I want to say we have
an event that is for our AAPI month, which we'll
have a guest speaker, author Pam Zhang, this Friday
at noon. We will be sending out emails if you
haven't seen it. You'll see emails coming out. So
please register for this event that we have. And
our guest speaker is Pam Zhang. And it will be at
noon this Friday. And I just want to say
congratulations to all of our awardees, our
retirees, and thank you to our campus community
and the faculty for all that you do in supporting
our students as we get ready for finals and
graduation. I just can't say enough thank you
from everyone, our part time faculty, our
classified staff, full time faculty, and all of our
administrators who continue to do phenomenal work
in supporting our students and our community during
this difficult year. So kudos to everyone. A great
way to end the year. Congratulations to our award
winners for all those areas from the Academic
Senate. And now I will pass it back to you, Julius,
if you're ready, to kind of do the closing remarks.
Julius: Thank you Amanuel, and thank you to the college
community. A couple of words come to mind as we go
through this day and as people are expressing
their gratitude and their thanks for
either for their retirements or for
the awards. Words like collegiality, words like
excellence, words like humility, words like
resilience, student focused, making a positive
difference, and we will need all of this and
each and every one of us our commitment to making
sure that this campus community is not only safe
and secure place to learn, but it's a safe and
secure place to work as well. And we will need
this in the coming year as we transition.
And I love the expression that Ron Wallingford,
articulated, he said we would pirouette, we will
pirouette into the next phase
of our lives as a campus community, that we are
here for one another. We are here to support one
another in that movement towards returning to
campus. And I want to acknowledge the fact that it
is going to be a challenge for some of us to come
back to campus, after not having been on campus for
a year. And so I ask you and I welcome you
to start talking to your managers about coming
back to campus and just coming to visit the campus,
and walk on the campus, and come back to your offices,
and come take a look at the space, and visit the
space, because we know that we are a multi-service
campus and we exist on ground and we exist online,
and we cannot fully serve all the needs of our
students, unless we are doing both. I also thank
those of you who have already been vaccinated. And
for those of you who have not, I encourage you to
do so. And if you can't, I fully understand and we
just ask that you be safe and that you continue to
support our campus community. This college and this
campus community is not only invested in equity
and inclusion, but this campus community is
willing to ask itself the tough questions as to
how committed are we. And I know that we will
continue to do this work over the summer and over
the years to come. The folks who are retiring
today with that 166 years of
service, their legacy is us. We're their
legacy. We're their dreams. And they're were someone
else's legacy and someone else's dreams. And I
hope and I pray that we continue to support our
campus community with their spirit and with their
energy and with their innovative effort in mind.
Have a great summer for those of you who will not
be here for the summer and for those of you who
will be here for the summer, we will certainly be
getting together and we'll certainly be moving the
work forward. And we look forward to having
everyone back, either virtually or on ground. For
Convocation in August, my goal is that we have
about 80 percent, if not more of our folks on
campus on that first Convocation day in August.
And that over the course of the
summer, more and more of us will be on campus
visiting and celebrating the beautiful campus that
our FM & O folks have made it home for
incredible learning. Thank you to the
college, to the college community. Thank you to
Mary and to Jennifer and to Amanuel and to Erik,
and to Linda, and to David for being the
President's Council this year and holding us
accountable for the work that we do. And thank you
to each and every single one of you, because it is
in you that Moorpark College exemplifies excellence.
Have a great rest of the semester and please do
come back and visit with us for those of you who
will not be here during the summer. And for those
of you who are here during the summer, we'll see
you around.
Thank you. [Amanuel]: Thank you, Julius, and that concludes
our campus update and awards recognition. So have
a wonderful day, everybody.