Merritt College Welcomes the Return of S.O.U.L.

I am pleased to report that Merritt S.O.U.L. has returned to campus. What is S.O.U.L. you may ask? Well, the acronym stands for Sustaining Oakland Urban Lives, and represents an effort on the part of the college to engage and support our students and the greater community. Led by Doris Hankins, the Director of Student Activities and Campus Life, and working in concert with the Alameda County Community Food Bank, our Natural History and Sustainability Department, our EOPS Program, and the Associated Students of Merritt College, we did a “soft launch” on Thursday, April 28.

Pamela Samuels, a student at Merritt College in Oakland is one of 15 Phi Theta Kappa members selected as a 2022 Guistwhite Scholar and will receive a $5,000 scholarship for baccalaureate studies.

Merritt College Career Fair

Kudos to the individuals responsible for putting on the Merritt College Career Center and Job Development Fair on April 8, 2022.  Merritt had about fifty students in attendance, and the event featured presentations from several East Bay employers, including the YMCA of the East Bay, ChildCare Careers, the Unity Council, Duck’s Nest Preschool, Kidango, Oakland Unified School District, and City of Oakland Head Start. 

Dear Peralta Community,

Merritt College Open House

As part of the ongoing efforts to establish Merritt as the “Community’s College,” we are excited to host a Career Education Open House on Friday, April 29, 2022. In partnership with Oakland Unified School District and our other K-12 feeder Districts, we expect to welcome over 150 prospective Merritt students (high school juniors and seniors) to tour our campus throughout the day.

The following article is written by Brock Drazen, Athletic Director at Merritt College and Head Coach of the Merritt College Track & Field team, and is use by permission from an announcement sent to all Peralta employees on March 29, 2022.

Even while on spring break, our students continue training and competing with a meet last Friday at Santa Rosa Junior College and upcoming meets at Stanford, Sac State, and Mt San Antonio College the next three weekends before our Big 8 Conference championships.

Merritt College awarded California Apprenticeship Initiative Grant

Merritt College is proud to announce that we have been awarded the California Apprenticeship Initiative Grant: New and Innovative Programs from the Workforce and Economic Development Division of the State Chancellor's Office. The grant award is for $416,509 and will be used to strengthen our Cybersecurity Apprenticeships and increase access to digital literacy for underserved and underrepresented communities.

Merritt College Day of Appreciation

Merritt College Addresses Student Enrollment

On Wednesday, February 15, Merritt convened a joint Strategic Enrollment Management/Educational Master Planning Task Force meeting to examine and address some of the prevailing and persistent challenges we face in terms of the recruitment and retention of students. We recognize that COVID-19 has had an obvious impact on our enrollment numbers and the way our institution will need to function going forward (including devoting more attention and resources to support the mental health of our students). But we also concede that some of the challenges were endemic even before the pandemic. It is important for us to acknowledge troubling issues if we ever hope to surmount them… we cannot skip that critical step. With that said, a few of the areas that we will address are:

Recognition of Faculty & Staff

I would like to begin by acknowledging the collective efforts of the faculty, classified professional staff, and administrators to make the first few weeks of the semester (particularly the on-campus instruction and delivery of in-person student services) more successful than many had anticipated.