Back
President's Updates
Skyline Shines

December 16, 2005

Executive report to the Board of Trustees: The report I made to the Board of Trustees as this week’s meeting is available online at http://www.smccd.net/accounts/skynotes/ Click on President’s Board Reports.

Anita Martinez to move to College of Marin: Please join me in congratulating Anita Martinez who has been named the new Vice President of Student Learning at the College of Marin. She will begin her new duties on January 30. She will be greatly missed not only by the division, but by her administrative colleagues and by students, faculty and staff from all over the college. We will let you know about plans for a farewell reception for her in January. Typical of Anita, she is making careful plans for her transition in order to ensure the minimum of disruption. We are seeking an interim Dean for the division and will likely engage an experienced administrator from outside the college to cover her duties while we do a search for a permanent Dean. We will do our best to have someone in place by January 30.

Soodi Zamani wins Math Teaching Excellence Award: CMC3 (California Mathematics Council Community Colleges) North is the main organization for community college math instructors in Northern California, with several hundred members. Each year they give the Teaching Excellence Award to a small group of math faculty who truly stand out as excellent math instructors. Math departments from throughout Northern California nominate math faculty who have affected students is a positive way. This year they selected eight faculty for the award, including Soodi Zamani from Skyline College. Here is what her peers wrote about her:

"Soodi Zamani has been a member of the Skyline mathematics department since 1993, first as a part-timer, and full-time since 1997. She has from the start been involved in the inner workings of the department and College. She was a member of our last accreditation writing team, a member of the Academic Senate Educational Policy Committee and more recently has been instrumental in kicking off Skyline's Student Learning Outcome Assessment Cycle (SLOAC) efforts. She has been a strong advocate for students in developmental math. She has strived to create materials and a classroom environment that reach out to those often difficult to reach students. She has been instrumental in our department effort to modify courses in arithmetic and pre-algebra including: contact hours and units, tutoring and lab components and creating hands-on activity based materials."

Please join me in congratulating Soodi on this award.

Student scholarship funds raised by Student Services: The Student Services staff held a retreat on December 5 at which they conducted an auction in order to raise funds for student scholarships. Many members of the Skyline staff contributed items to the auction, and Jennifer Hughes served as a shockingly entertaining and effective auctioneer. Linda Van Sciver coordinated the event and Sherri Hancock assisted Jennifer. The auction raised far more than in any previous year, a total of nearly $1500. Likewise, the DSPS staff conducted a raffle to raise scholarship money, and you heard about the terrific results of that effort from Linda last week. Please join me in thanking all of these people on behalf of the students who will benefit from these scholarships.

Fresh Look Project update: The recommendations from the Fresh Look project are now complete and have been reviewed by the Advisory Group. As you know, the purpose of the Fresh Look Project is to take a close look at all the ways that Skyline College communicates with our students and the world — our signage; publications such as the catalog, class schedule, flyers and posters; our website; our e-mail signatures and more. Many people have participated in the Fresh Look project this past semester. The College Council appointed a Fresh Look Advisory Group with representatives from faculty, students, classified, administration and the community. We conducted Student Focus Groups to assess the perceptions of students. We surveyed members of the President’s Council for their perceptions of Skyline. We knew that Skyline College delivers an excellent education and the Fresh Look Project has taught us that students often don’t find that out until they are here. We will now begin to work to bring that excellent education out into the light for everyone to see as we implement the recommendations from Fresh Look. The project recommendations will serve as a guide to focus our efforts to communicate more effectively about Skyline College. Details on how we will implement the recommendations will be forthcoming next semester, as we move from the "fresh look" to work on a "fresh image."

Skyline Shines will resume in the Spring semester: I will be away for a few weeks, so the next edition of Skyline Shines will be the first week of the new term. Best wishes for a restful break and a great start to 2006!

Victoria P. Morrow, Ph.D.
President, Skyline College
650-738-4111
morrowv@smccd.net
3300 College Drive
San Bruno, CA 94066