Eagles Nest-Basic Needs Center Distributes Clothing to Needy Students

On Wednesday, October 4, 2023, the Laney College Eagles Nest – serving as the Student Basic Needs Center - held a clothing pop-up on the Laney College quad. In total, 78 students received items to address insecurities and help them as they navigate the challenges of the Fall semester. This took place on a Wednesday, the same day that take-home food boxes (complete with protein items) are provided to currently enrolled students who show a valid student ID. Billed as a “pop-up”, the event was widely announced thanks to the great social media acumen of Basic Needs Coordinator Katrina Santos.

The newly established Eagles Nest fulfills the requirement for California Community Colleges to create Basic Needs resources for its students. With that requirement now comes annual funding to support the effort out of the statewide budget, and operations in the Eagles Nest are well underway in its first year. In fact, the College’s initial efforts to connect students visiting the center with other college and county resources align with a portion of the vision and guiding principles stated in the State’s Vision 2030 for community colleges, and students attending on the 4th could sign up for CalFresh (https://www.cdss.ca.gov/calfresh), a program run out of the state’s Department of Social Services.

The Eagles Nest will continue to offer clothing pop-ups once a month in the quad or in the Student Center when the weather is cold.

Laney College APASS Program hosted Leaders from the Foundation for California Community Colleges

On October 18, 2023, Laney's Asian Pacific American Student Success (APASS) Program hosted 20 leaders from the State Chancellor’s Office Foundation for California Community Colleges. Led by Iris Aguilar, Executive Director of Equity and Community Impact, and Anthony Amboy Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Director, the team spent the day engaged in strategic planning. President Rudy Besikof led the group on a personal tour of the Laney College campus and highlighted Laney's Basic Needs program, which has provided many services including preparing nearly 180,000 meals for students.

Joined by Vice President Marlon Hall, Manager of Food Services Neil Burmenko, and APASS Director David Lee, President Besikof led a robust conversation with the group about ways that Laney College might partner with Foundation for California Community College to expand and strengthen basic needs services for students. “As we move further into the realities of a world with escalating inflation and broadening numbers of residents having to confront poverty, our college needs to work with our state-level partners to ensure students with these challenges are put in positions to succeed as they begin, resume, or continue working toward their educational goals,” said Dr. Besikof.

The visit also included a site visit to the APASS Program which received over $270,000 in grants from the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander program ( a statewide program that funds over 50 Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving California community colleges) to support AANHPI students at Laney. Summing up the visit, Dr. David Lee said, "APASS is proud to host the first-ever site visit from the AANHPI program. We look forward to working with all these amazing leaders we were privileged to host today at Laney."

Classified Professionals, Faculty, and Administrators Collaborate to make October 18 Mid-Semester FLEX an opportunity for all who work at Laney

On Wednesday, October 18, the Laney community took a pause from everyday operations and dedicated the day to the enrichment of its campus as a whole. The first all-in-person FLEX Day since Fall 2019, roughly 350 employees participated in events that kicked off in the Odell Johnson Theatre, with sessions continuing throughout the day that touched on suicide prevention, health and wellness, and several other activities that brought enrichment to work challenges that at times don’t seem to relent. Also, during the opening plenary, the campus learned about several changes to the college website, along with student-based research being done about laney.edu and its effectiveness. In all, the day was fulfilling and provided reminders of the work being done to support Laney’s students.

This article is taken from the President’s Report, written by Dr. Rudy Besikof, Laney College President, that was presented to the PCCD Board of Trustees during their regular meeting on Tuesday, October 24, 2023. To view it as a PDF, click here.