Without fog London would not be beautiful.
Claude Monet
Happy New Year and Welcome Back to Spring Semester 2023!
Welcome back to Spring Semester – 2023! Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all had a restful winter break and have returned feeling refreshed and ready to go. Much gratitude to the students who chose Skyline College and have returned to bring life to our campus again! To our faculty, classified professionals, managers and administrators: Thank you for everything you are doing in these first few weeks to ensure a smooth start to the semester for our students.
Welcome Trustee Mike Guingona!
I had the great pleasure of meeting our newest Board of Trustees member, Mike Guingona, this week. He visited my office, met the President’s Cabinet team, and everyone else who was around. We had a great conversation about a lot of progressive ideas. He’s an alum of Skyline College, and the former Daly City Mayor. He’s an athlete, a lawyer, and a wonderful student-focused advocate and community member. We are very grateful to him for joining our Board. I hope you have a chance to meet him and have a conversation. I am looking forward to working with him. He is going to be a great supporter of Skyline College and our students and programs across the District! Welcome Trustee Guingona!
Please Apply by January 27 for the Learning, Equity & Growth Series
Please make time to participate in this series. Skyline College’s Learning, Equity & Growth Series (LEGS), formerly known as Equity Training Series, is an intentional sequence of experiences designed to increase awareness of the various intersections of equity. LEGS will provide attendees with additional access points to understand how equity gaps are not only created, but systematically embedded and supported within the many institutions, systems, infrastructures, and practices of our society. But you have to apply by January 27!
Learning, Equity & Growth Series Application
Due to the subject matter and interactive nature of these sessions, we strongly encourage all participants to attend in-person. If unable to attend in-person, necessary arrangements can be made. Visit our 2023 Faciliator Biographies for information about each speaker. Additionally, check out the Skyline College Library’s Learning, Equity & Growth Series: Facilitator Publications page to learn more about the current research and work of our speakers.
If you are interested in participating in LEGS, please complete the online application. The deadline for applying for our Spring 2023 cohort is Friday, January 27. If you have any questions, please contact Joshua Lindo, Program Services Coordinator at lindoj@smccd.edu.
Guided Pathways Update
By Guest Bloggers Jessica Hurless and Herlene Grace Beltran
To help finalize the integration of the Guided Pathways work, Skyline College selected Herlene Grace Beltran and Jessica Hurless (us!) as Co-faculty Coordinators. Since then, a lot has been accomplished, so we would like to provide an update.
Andrea Fuentes, Marisa Thigpen, and the CTTL support staff, have entered 124 Degree and Certificate maps in the District’s Program Mapper software. These maps are the final step in realizing the program mapping work faculty participated in years ago, as it creates a webpage, for each degree or certificate, where students can explore the program learning outcomes, possible career information, and a colorful map of major, general education, and elective courses (with prerequisites denoted). This allows students to visualize what their courses, and sequence of coursework, might look like while at Skyline College. The program maps have been reviewed by discipline experts and are currently being reviewed by counseling faculty for accuracy of graduation and general education requirements. The maps have been published to a staging site with plans to incorporate them into the Skyline College webpage upon final review. We have also engaged in preliminary discussions about how to integrate and sustain the work of updating program maps into current institutional practices and spaces (ie. Committees, etc.). We hope to have a documented process by the end of the Spring 2023 term.
Additionally, to help determine where and how these program maps are incorporated into how we do business at Skyline College, a spring Flex Day session was offered. This created a space for campus partners from Counseling, Early Alert, Instruction, Outreach, and Promise Scholars to discuss and imagine different possibilities. For example, we will be exploring how to connect with our High School Counselor partners, so that they are familiar with the Program Mapper tool and can use the maps when working with prospective Skyline College students.
Another focus of the Guided Pathway’s work is to finalize the rollover of all instructional program webpages into the “new layout” (that denotes the Meta-major). Working with MCPR, about 63% of the departmental program pages have been converted, but it is time to review and refresh the content of the pages to ensure we are providing students with accurate and up-to-date information about all Skyline College offerings. The Meta-major instructional faculty leads have inventoried the departmental pages on the website and will be reaching out individually to faculty for updated information. These new pages will allow us a space to incorporate the program maps as well. Examples of this work are currently being finalized, so that the campus community can visualize the end product before they embark on their updates.
Lastly, the Guided Pathways work has long tried to “break down the silos” at Skyline College. As such, we have established standing monthly meetings with various parts of campus and are trying to connect with as many areas on campus as possible. More updates (and collaboration) will be forthcoming as we continue our tour de Skyline!
Communication Update
In our continuous efforts to improve communication and transparency, today we launched a new Cabinet Communication effort. In my humble opinion, the Skyline College President’s Cabinet team is the best in the world! I hope the campus is interested in what they have to say. This week we are highlighting the work of Dean Ingrid Vargas and her PRIE team, alongside SPARC regarding the herculean efforts to write a new Education Master Plan.
In addition, we have a built an Education Master Plan (EMP) webpage so that you can track the progress, and provide feedback along the way. The EMP webpage will be updated as progress continues. We look forward to your feedback throughout the drafting phases! If you get a chance, please express your gratitude to Ingrid, her team, and SPARC for this great work.
Random Run-Ins
Celebrating the People!
Free Form Fridays
Free Form Fridays with the President is intended to provide us with a virtual space to connect. Anyone is welcome to join throughout the session which keeps the conversation interesting!
Upcoming dates: 02/03, 03/03, 04/07, 05/05. Zoom In!