Friday, January 31, 2020

Greetings Peralta Community!  Welcome to issue #5 of Peralta Gems. Past issues are archived on the Peralta website here. Please send photos, events and news stories you'd like to be shared in Peralta Gems and our social media accounts to Mark Johnson markjohnson@peralta.edu  Thank you!

Chancellor Stanback Stroud Visits All Four Colleges

Dr. Stanback Stroud with Berkeley City College Students

On Wednesday, January 29, Dr. Regina Stanback Stroud visited each of the four colleges in a marathon day that began at Berkeley City College at 8am and ended at Merritt College well after 5pm. At each college, the Chancellor gave a brief talk followed by extensive question and answer sessions. 

Laney students enjoy their breakfast before the Chancellor's visit

The visits were timely given the news this week that the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) had placed each of the colleges on a one year probationary period. Dr. Stanback Stroud was able to provide some context and background information regarding ACCJC's action that really isn't obvious in the letters sent to the colleges (here is the Laney letter; the letters for each of the colleges are identical). 

Dr. Stanback Stroud at College of Alameda

The Chancellor started by noting that it is critically important to recognize that Berkeley City College, College of Alameda, Laney College and Merritt College all remain fully accredited, now and for the duration of the probationary period.  Students and community members should understand that they continue to receive an excellent, fully accredited, and affordable education at these schools.  

While this is not good news, it could have been worse.  ACCJC could have assigned each of the colleges a “Show Cause” status as a step toward removing the accreditation.  But they did not go that route. In fact, ACCJC recognizes the extensive work that Peralta reported in the five-year integrated financial plan submitted in December. They believe in the positive momentum that Peralta has generated. ACCJC is giving Dr. Stanback Stroud and her administration time to continue making good progress and provide the real evidence of change. Dr. Stanback Stroud expressed gratitude that ACCJC has given us this time to show progress.

It is important to remember that the teaching, learning, and student self-improvement continues at the four Peralta Colleges while the Administration is addressing the financial challenges. Each college has excellent programs and services that benefit students and our community. She also emphasized that the concerns raised by ACCJC probation are NOT academic in nature, they are about finances and organizational matters. ACCJC has NOT expressed concerns about the teaching in the classrooms.

Dr. Stanback Stroud said, "While we are disappointed that ACCJC has placed the colleges on a probationary period, I am certain that we will be able to address and resolve the concerns raised." She continued, "I joined this district a little over 90 days ago.  I come from a college where I lead the accreditation process that resulted in a letter providing 4 commendations, compliance requirements and no recommendations for improvement.  I have confidence that we will be able to respond to this challenge."

The issues called out by ACCJC are the same items identified in the FCMAT report. We’ve been working on them. Since Dr. Stanback Stroud started, the District has made significant progress in implementing the recommendations by FCMAT, and those from CBT (Collaborative Brain Trust), which address the same concerns raised in the ACCJC letters.  All of the FCMAT recommendations are either already completed or in progress. Were FCMAT to conduct their assessment again now, the results would be materially different and significantly better.

The audience at Merritt College listens intently

Brandon Christian from the Chancellor's Office took extensive notes at all four visits. Thank you Brandon!  We'll be sharing the questions and answers via Peralta Gems over the next several weeks. Stay tuned for more!

Spotlight On: The College of Alameda Career and Employment Center

There are many, many outstanding programs and services that Peralta Community College District provide to students, employees, and community members. This "Spotlight On" section is intended to highlight the really important work we do here in the district.  Many thanks to Stefanie Bradshaw for providing this piece and the photos. 

The College of Alameda Career and Employment Center provides a host of career services for students and community members. The center’s mission is to help transform lives by providing access and opportunities for achieving success.

The College of Alameda Career and Employment center is led by Stefanie Bradshaw, Director of Workforce Systems under the leadership of Dr. Tina Vasconcellos, Vice President of Student Services. The team members include: Rowena Brown, Valarie Carey, Miesha Clipper-Willis, Tiffany Ghoddoucy and Kimari Williams. Director Bradshaw curated a team of consultants with extensive experience in Workforce Development, Career Counseling, Small Business and Entrepreneurship and Employer Engagement. The team created a series of workshops called the ‘Career Academy’. The Career Academy workshop series provides students with: Exploring Career Options, Job Search Strategies, Interviewing for Success, Resume Writing, and Linked In. The Career and Employment Center also host monthly employer hiring events on campus.

In addition to serving students, the Career and Employment Center also helps to transform lives for our community members. The center is a sub regional workforce network partner under the Alameda County Workforce Development Board (WIOA). Eligible students can dual enroll for WIOA services and/or refer family, friends, and neighbors to the career center to participate in workshops and seek job search assistance. The center serves qualifying adults that are Dislocated Workers, Justice Involved, Adults with Disabilities and Adults that are Unemployed. The Career and Employment Center is a member of the Alameda County Rapid Response Team and provides support to local employers during a layoff. For this program year, the team has provided support for dislocated workers from The North Face, Singulex, and Nexon.

Stefanie Bradshaw with Eduardo, Census 2020 recruiter, Peralta alum and parent (his child is a student now!)

We encourage students and community members to stop by the College of Alameda Career and Employment Center to learn more about the free services offered. The Center is located on the COA campus at 555 Ralph Appezzato Memorial Parkway in Portable P. For more information please contact Stefanie Bradshaw at sbradshaw@peralta.edu

Parcel Tax Measures Oversight Committee Meets

In November 2018, Alameda County voters generously renewed the Alameda County parcel tax that helps fund educational programs in the District. The Parcel Tax Measures Oversight Committee met here at the District boardroom on Monday, January 27, 2020. Committee members attending included Debra Weintraub (committee chairperson), Zac Unger, Oscar Porter (vice chair), Aisha Jordan, and Bernard Ayanruoh. Adil Ahmed (Peralta Budget Director) gave a presentation on how past parcel tax dollars have been spent by the District. The committee expressed gratitude in the work done to create the report, which isolated spending by college and at the District level. 

The Parcel Tax committee will meet again in April. Before the next meeting, they would like to have more detail from the District about the specific programs funded by the parcel tax. The committee wants to be able to report to taxpayers that their money funded important classes or programs which otherwise wouldn't have been paid by the General Fund, and which created positive benefits for the community members and residents. That's something we believe is happening and the committee is asking for more data to report this good story. 

Class Census Data is Due This Weekend

Attention Faculty Members:

Take a look at the low % of faculty that have turned in their Census as of yesterday afternoon. Thank you to those who turned it in ONLINE AND ON-TIME but we need the REMAINING faculty to turn their CENSUS in BEFORE Sunday 11:59pm.

The Census data is the primary way that PCCD receives funding from the State. The number of Resident FTES PCCD receives is based on all students that attended class in person or online at least 1 day.  When faculty do not submit, auditors see this and we have to remove the FTES that would have been earned by the students in your class. 

If you have any questions, please contact Vice Chancellor Siri Brown at sbrown@peralta.edu

Oakland Town Hall and College Fair

On Tuesday, January 28, 2020, the Black and African American Advisory Panel of the California Community Colleges hosted a Town Hall and College Fair at McClymonds High School in Oakland. 

Natalie Rodriguez is sharing what makes COA the best fit for college

The Peralta District and each college was well-represented at the event. Prospective students and their parents had the opportunity to speak with representatives from local institutions including all four Peralta Colleges. Chancellor Stanback Stroud gave a brief speech followed by California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley with the keynote address. The speeches were followed by breakout sessions that involved Berkeley City College Interim President Dr. Debbie Budd, Laney College President Dr. Tammeil Gilkerson, Merritt College Acting President Dr. David Johnson, and College of Alameda President Dr. Tim Karas. 

Maria Spencer worked the Merritt College table and was making sure that everyone attending went home with "The Town" bags filled with Merritt College swag.  Great job Maria...the blue Merritt bags were everywhere!

Berkeley City College was in the house! Here are Dr. Stacey Shears and Andrea Williams spreading the good word about BCC.

Stay tuned for more about the Oakland Town Hall and Career Fair. The speeches by Chancellor Stanback Stroud and Chancellor Ortiz Oakley were recorded and will be made available on the Peralta YouTube Channel soon. We'll post the link when it's available. 

The Laney College table was constantly busy. Great job!

Staff Development Workshop - Applying for a Full Time Position

Email Announcements

Did you know that we have a process for sending District-wide email?  If you would like to send an email communication to every employee in the district, please send your message to announcement@peralta.edu. This address is monitored by the Marketing, Communication & Public Relations team and we are very happy to send the message on your behalf.  This email address is used to send "PCCD Announcements" to the all-employees list which is announcements@peralta.edu (with an "s" at the end).

Since at least 2006, the policy has been to restrict access to announcements@peralta.edu, the all-district distribution list. Folks have discovered that combining the campus-specific Faculty, Administrator, and Classified Staff lists (the FAS lists), they can work around the restriction and send to all employees... but that was not the intended use for those different FAS lists.