CAMPUS NEWS

West Coast Farmers Market Now Open on Sundays

The market is held in Lot 7 and opens at 9 am every Sunday.

The West Coast Farmers Market Association has opened a new farmers market at Cañada. It is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Sunday in Lot 7.

According to the group's website, the mission of the West Coast Farmers Market Association is "to establish and maintain a certified Farmers Market that will provide a viable economic marketplace for California farmers, food processors, and local artists, while providing the local communities, tourists and business interests access to high quality and reasonably priced California-grown farm fresh fruits and vegetables, baked goods and processed foods, as well as providing a showcase for California's artisans. To be the liaison between the local farming, business, tourist and residential communities, and strive to become the melting pot where all can come together in commerce and to participate in special events."

It currently operates a weekly farmers market in Cupertino and will soon open locations at Brisbane Community Park, San Jose City College, Redwood Shores, and Foster City.

For more information about the market, contact the West Coast Farmers Market Association at 650-290-3549 or wcfma.org@gmail.com.

 

 

Oceanography Students Head for the High Seas

Students will be taking a boat into the Bay to examine the ecosystem.

Adjunct Professor Kimberly Kirchoff-Stein will take a class of Oceanography students on the bay with the Marine Science Institute to get a first-hand look at the complex ecosystem. The field trip will board the Marine Science Institute boat, the Brownlee.

The Marine Science Institute was founded in 1970, around the time that the issue of water resources was becoming a major concern for many Bay Area inhabitants. The Institute's philosophy was founded on the idea that putting students in direct physical contact with their local bay environment will help cultivate their natural sense of curiosity while enriching their understanding of science and fostering a responsibility to protect their environment. Prior to 1970, no bridge existed between environmental concerns and education in the San Francisco Bay area. Few opportunities existed for students to get hands-on experience with the flora and fauna of San Francisco Bay.

"I took two oceanography 101 (lab) classes to Pescadero on April 17 and April 19 to investigate how waves sculpt the coastline, and the tide pool and marsh ecosystems," she said. The trips are part of Cañada's oceanography 101 class every year.

Lockdown Drill a Success

The Sheriff's Office commended the college on the drill.

For the second consecutive year the college conducted a lockdown drill to prepare the campus in the case of an emergency. This year, members of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office SWAT Command were on hand to witness the event.

“We were able to complete a total lockdown of the buildings in six minutes during morning classes and five minutes during evening classes,” said Vice President of Student Services Robin Richards, who coordinated the exercise.  “We were very pleased with the cooperation by faculty, staff, and students,” she said.

The Sheriff’s Office commended the college for the successful drill, saying it served as a model for how public institutions should prepare for emergency situations.

District Begins Process of Communicating With Students on Issue of Fee Payment

Current Students Received email two weeks prior to registration opening.

Current students have received an email from the District outlining important dates related to the payment of student fees for summer term and fall semester. Faculty and staff are encouraged to remind students of these dates.

On Wednesday, May 16, students who have any outstanding fee balances for summer, 2012 or fall, 2012 will be dropped from summer classes at midnight for non-payment of outstanding fees. Students will continue to be dropped from summer classes on a "rolling" basis every Wednesday at midnight (May 23, May 30) for non-payment of outstanding summer and fall fees.

Beginning June 4 (two weeks before the start of the summer term) students will be dropped from summer classes at midnight the day following their registration for non-payment of any outstanding fees.

On Wednesday, July 18, students who have any outstanding fee balances will be dropped from fall classes at midnight for non-payment of outstanding fees. Students will be dropped on a "rolling" basis every Wednesday at midnight (July 25, August 1) for non-payment of outstanding fees.

Beginning August 6 (two weeks before the start of the fall semester)  students will be dropped at midnight the day following their registration for non-payment of any outstanding fees.

The dates have been posted on the Current Student page of the Cañada College website as well as the college Facebook site.

Accreditation Milestone Reached!

First draft of Self Evaluation report has been completed.

By Doug Hirzel

On April 30, our accreditation writing teams completed a first, of three, drafts of our Self Evaluation report! This draft is being subdivided and reallocated to the teams for peer-review. The reviews are to be completed by May 23. So while the end of the semester brings with it a rush of activity for everyone on campus, be sure to thank your colleagues who have taken on this added responsibility of peer review. At Commencement we will all have much to celebrate!

May Music at Cañada

Concerts include a Gershwin performance and dueling pianos.

May is a busy month for music on campus. Events include:

• Kimberly Gelbwasser, Lecture-Performance -"The Assimilation of Jewishness and Blackness in Irving Berlin's Early Songs,"  Thursday, May 3 at 9:45 a.m., Bldg 5, Room 115 (regular class meeting of Histories of Popular Music and Rock; the public is invited)
• Richard Glazier, Gershwin! Performance and Discussion - Thursday, May 10, 12:30, Thursday, 10, Main Theater. Free and all are invited!
• Spring Fling – Music for Violin and Piano, Lindsey Huff and Mika Wang, Tuesday, May 15, 12:30 p.m. Main Theater. Free and all are invited!
• Four-hand Piano Fun with Avventura Piano Duo, Weonsun Joo and Stepan Rudenko - Music by Schubert (Fantasie), Bizet (from the opera Carmen), Mozart Variations and Erik Satie. Thursday, May 17 at 12:30, Main Theater. Free and all are invited!
• Grand Piano Fundraising Kick-off - Thursday, May 17, 5 p.m. in the upper quad near the Butterfield Horse. A celebration of the arts at Cañada College with a special salute to Tom Mohr. Free and all are invited!

Former President Tom Mohr to be Honored

A special recognition ceremony will be held May 17.

A special recognition ceremony for former President Thomas Mohr will be held Thursday, May 17 at 5 p.m. in the upper quad near the Butterfield Horse. Mohr will be recognized for his service to the college and his contributions to education on the Peninsula throughout his career in education. Mohr retired last June after more than 50 years in education.

During his tenure at Cañada, Mohr helped guide the college and the San Mateo County Community College District through a comprehensive strategic planning and facilities planning process. He worked to integrate the college with the local high schools and strengthen Cañada’s transfer programs. As part of this process, the school developed a successful Honors Transfer Program; strengthened its University Center by adding additional university partners; and added full-time faculty focused on transfer-level curriculum.

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FACES OF CAÑADA

Vice President of Instruction Sarah Perkins to Transfer to Skyline College

Perkins has been instrumental in a number of successful initiatives at Cañada.

Sarah Perkins, who joined Cañada in 2009, has asked for, and received, a transfer to Skyline College where she will be the school’s new Vice President of Instruction. Perkins will begin her new position in July.

At Cañada, Perkins developed the Center for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning to foster professional development opportunities for faculty and staff. She created academic pathways for students making it easier for them to achieve their academic goals. And, most importantly, she worked closely with former President Tom Mohr and faculty leaders to develop a campus culture built on open, honest, dialog.

“Sarah will be greatly missed at Cañada,” said Interim President Jim Keller. “Fortunately, we’ll continue to work with her at Skyline.”

 

Chris Yalonis Joins College to Teach Course on Green Entrepreneurship

Chris Yalonis has been hired as an adjunct faculty member to teach local entrepreneurs how to go green. Yalonis is teaching a four-week course funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.

“The course essentially mashes up two fields - sustainability and entrepreneurship,” he said. “The goal is to teach budding entrepreneurs how to build an organization on the concepts of social equity and justice; environmental stewardship; and economic vitality.”

Yalonis said up to this point, entrepreneurs have built businesses with the primary metric for success being financial performance.

“There is financial incentive for business owners, both big and small, to focus on environmental stewardship and social equality,” Yalonis said. Last year, clean tech businesses reaped a record $3.5 billion in funding from venture capitalists.  “I look at VC funding as a harbinger of things to come,” he said. “That’s where the smart money is going.”

Yalonis has taught sustainable management at a number of nationally-ranked Green Business programs including the Presidio Graduate School, Miami University, Columbia, and Indiana University. He has completed post graduate work in sustainable management at the Presidio Graduate School and has an MBA from Indiana University. He is the author of seven books, more than 30 white papers, 50 published studies, as well as 75 public speeches on sustainability metrics, green markets, measuring sustainability performance, and business planning.

Yalonis looks forward to helping the college with a road map and execution that builds out the sustainability and entrepreneurship curriculum, as well as potential coursework plans, labs, research, internships, incubators and local business networks that can fill out the College’s offerings in these fields.

Editor's Note: If you have ideas for the Faces of Cañada section of the online newsletter, please contact Robert Hood at ext. 3340 or by e-mail at hoodr@smccd.edu.

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SPOTLIGHT ON STUDENTS

Upward Bound Student Named Gates Millennium Scholar

Redwood City’s Roberto Pablo Pimienta plans to attend Stanford University in the fall.

Redwood City’s Roberto Pablo Pimienta is one of 1,000 students nationwide that will receive the prestigious Gates Millennium Scholarship for 2012. More than 24,000 students applied. The scholarship will pay for Pimienta’s tuition, fees, books, and living expenses at Stanford University. It will also pay for fellowships for graduate school, mentoring services, leadership opportunities, and access to internships.

Pimienta is a senior at Sequoia High School in Redwood City and is a participant in the TRiO Upward Bound Program. Upward Bound is a federally funded pre-college program designed to assist first-generation college students prepare for college. It consists of Saturday workshops at Cañada and weekly tutoring. During the summer, students participate in a six week program offering academic courses and activities on campus. It serves approximately 50 students from the East Palo Alto and the North Fair Oaks areas.

“I initially learned about the Upward Bound Program because I saw my friends going there after school,” Pimienta said. “Joining the program was definitely one of the best decisions I made in my high school career.”

Pimienta joined the program in the second semester of his sophomore year. He said the Upward Bound Program became his platform for success in high school, both academically and emotionally. “With the help of Upward Bound, I have significantly improved my writing skills and learned more about my potential to be successful. I was able to learn how to prepare a competitive college application for some of the leading higher education institutions.”

Pimienta was accepted by Stanford, Tufts, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He chose Stanford but hasn’t decided on a major. “I’m considering Chemistry and/or Biology,” he said. “I would also like to explore Chemical Engineering, Biological Engineering, Environmental Engineering, and Environmental Science. I have plenty of time to explore my options.”

“Roberto is awesome!” said Upward Bound Program Director Rosalina Mira. “He is extremely dedicated and a hard worker. He is passionate about science. Upward Bound is like a second family to him. I have seen Roberto grow from when he started the program. He is more confident and he also volunteers and is involved in the greater community.”

Pimienta has focused his community service on supporting the local immigrant community. He has tutored English, taught English to senior citizens, and raised money for scholarships for undocumented students. His participation in the Sequoia High School Dream Club and the Immigrant Youth Action Team has helped raise awareness as to the challenges faced by immigrant youth.

Pimienta said he is finishing his International Baccalaureate Diploma at Sequoia and has taken additional math and science classes at Cañada College. He has also conducted research in three different departments at Stanford and participated in the summer engineering program at MIT.

The Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) Program, established in 1999, was initially funded by a $1 billion grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  The goal of GMS is to promote academic excellence and to provide an opportunity for outstanding minority students with significant financial need to reach their highest potential.

Carlos Ortega Earns $10,000 Pister Scholarship to UCSC

Ortega, a member of Phi Theta Kappa and Dean’s List recipient the past five terms, is the first person in his family to attend college and he works 40 to 50 hours per week as a self-employed furniture mover.

Carlos Ortega, the Vice President of Finance of Cañada’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter, has been named a recipient of the Karl S. Pister Leadership Opportunity Scholarship at UC Santa Cruz. The Pister scholarship was established to help the most promising students from regional community colleges transfer to UCSC. All recipients receive a $10,000 scholarship for each of two years, as well as the support of a strong academic mentoring program and assistance finding paid summer work experience in a field that complements their studies. Former UCSC Chancellor Karl S. Pister designed the program.

“It’s truly an honor to receive this award,” Ortega said.

Ortega, a global economics major, will be turning down the scholarship as he has been accepted to UC Berkeley, his first choice of schools. "Hopefully another deserving student will be able to use the scholarship," he said. "It's been a dream of mine to attend Berkeley, so I'm very excited for Fall Semester to begin."

Ortega grew up in a poor, uneducated household and he does not receive financial support from his divorced parents. “The BOG waiver and Pell Grant have allowed me to work a little less and better concentrate on my studies,” he said. Still, Ortega estimates he works 30+ hours per week as a handyman and fine furniture mover to help make ends meet. “It would be difficult for me to succeed academically at a university without the assistance of financial aid or a scholarship,” he said.

Ortega had a difficult childhood and had relocated twelve times by the time he was 15. He lived in an upholstery shop owned by his father’s friend, fashioning a mattress out of pieces of foam remnants. He began stealing food, clothes, and car stereos to meet his basic needs but that lifestyle became dangerous so he dropped out of high school in his senior year to take on a full-time job.

He began working for a fine furniture store as a mover. He quickly rose through the ranks and eventually became the warehouse manager, in charge of millions of dollars of merchandise. He was leading a six-man crew and was soon making logistical improvements in the warehouse operations to make it more efficient.

“I’m thankful for my time as manager and the invaluable skills I’ve learned from that powerful experience,” he said. “Today, I use these skills while planning events and fundraisers with the honors society on campus. I am able to see potential problems in budgeting and logistics and prepare myself, and fellow members, to deal with such issues.”

Interim President Jim Keller said Carlos is a student-leader committed to receiving a quality education. “He has had to overcome immense obstacles to an education which would have been far too daunting for most other people in our society. He did this entirely on his own initiative, without family assistance or any of the usual support mechanisms of a functioning family.”

Ortega said academically he was immediately drawn to economic theory, calculus, and the mathematical formality of economic analysis. “Examining global and local events and pressing issues unfolding around me, I realize that economic analysis is essential to prescribe solutions,” he said. “I strive to dedicate my life to such a discipline that has the potential to positively affect societies on both the local and global level.”

Ortega said he would like to eventually work for the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. “I believe the next step toward achieving my goal is to study in a culturally diverse setting, such as the University of California educational system. I want to study under cutting-edge professors with different outlooks.”

Phi Theta Kappa Chapter Receives International Honors

Beta Zeta Nu earned five different honors at the orgnization's annual international conference in Nashville.

Beta Zeta Nu, Cañada's chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for two-year colleges, was recognized at the organization's annual confererence as one of the premier chapters in the country.

"The achievements probably amount to the chapter's most successful year since its inception," said Paul Roscelli, one of the club's advisors. "These honors reflect the entire campus. The club is successful because of the support it receives from faculty, staff, and the administration." BZN was recognized in the following manner.

• The College Project - One of just 30 chapters recognized for this project.
• Most Distinguished Administrator - Dean Linda Hayes one of 30 administrators honored.
• Honors in Action History - BZN was one of 50 chapters recognized for their efforts on this research project.
• Honors in Action "History" Theme - BZN was one of only three chapters to receive this honor.
• Most Distinguished Chapter - Cañada was one of 25 chapters to receive this honor.

"We received the fourth runner-up to the top chapter, which is pretty amazing given our size," said Roscelli. "We were the highest ranking non-southern chapter in the world of PTK."

Cañada College Wins Math Competition

All five Cañada competitors placed in the competition.

A team of MESA students from Cañada came in first overall in the program's annual statewide Math Challenge.

Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) conducted the 60-minute test that is modeled after the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year College's Student Math League test. Almost 190 MESA students in teams of five or more participated from 21 MESA community college campuses. Cañada's Alex Wu finished first overall. Teammates Soroush Motahari and Aimee Sylvia tied for second. Christina Arenas and Michael Murphy tied for third. That gave Cañada's five member team a clean sweep of the top spots.

The Cañada MESA center will receive a plaque for the achievement. The goal is to expand the contest to more MESA community college centers each year and build a healthy level of competition between campuses to maintain or gain the title.

CPA and business consultant firm, Vasquez & Company LLP, sponsored the test and provided professionals to help with grading.

"The Math Challenge allows students to gain recognition for their problem solving skills and helps alleviate the stress that often comes with test preparation," said Tiffany Reardon, who oversees the MESA Community College Program. "It gives them tips and the confidence to perform at their best in future exams."

MESA is an award-winning academic enrichment program that provides educationally disadvantaged students with the tools to earn bachelor's degrees in math-based fields. With tutoring, mentoring, study sessions, transfer counseling and study centers, MESA provides an environment that allows students to succeed and navigate the transfer system more easily.

MESA has programs in 33 community colleges. One hundred percent of MESA students who go to four-year college as math-based majors.

For more information about MESA visit www.mesa.ucop.edu

For more information about Vasquez & Company visit http://vasquezcpa.com/

Editor's Note: If you have an idea for a student feature, contact Robert Hood at ext. 3340.

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Please see the EVENTS CALENDAR for the latest event listings.

Editor's Note: If you would like to submit an event to the Cañada Calendar of Events please contact Robert Hood at hoodr@smccd.edu.

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