President's Update: February 8, 2023

To the Shasta College Community:

I trust your semester continues to progress well. It certainly seems to be flying by!

Success Stories 
There are two stories I’d like to highlight today. First I want to draw your attention to an article that just came out in the American Association of Community College’s (AACC) journal featuring our STEP-UP program as one of the re-entry programs. It is also on the front page of their website. Keep up the great work, STEP-UP team! You can see the article at the following link: https://www.ccjournal-digital.com/ccjournal/december2022_january2023/MobilePagedReplica.action?pm=2&folio=16#pg18

Second, I want to mention that Dr. Kate Mahar is representing us at a national convening in Alabama this week. Kate’s summary is as follows:

SCAILE has been invited to co-present with CivicLab at the upcoming NCII (National Center for Inquiry and Improvement - https://ncii-improve.com/) Rural Guided Pathways Institute in Birmingham, AL. The title of the event is: Rural Guided Pathways Project February 8-10, 2023: Connection to College and Connection to Programs: The Role of the Institution and Community Stakeholders. The goal of the event is to help rural community colleges make the connection between Guided Pathways and Community Partnerships. The invite stated that "lifting up Shasta College and it's regional partnerships as an exemplary model will bring valuable perspective to the 16 colleges and communities that are participating in the Institute." Represent us well, Kate!

What fun it is to see our vision of national recognition coming to reality!

And a couple of business updates… 
Our spring enrollment is looking strong. After census day, we are projecting to be up about 8.6% over last spring (and last fall appears to be ending up around 3.5% above the prior fall). These are estimates, as some FTES, such as positive attendance, have to be estimated at this time. We are still significantly down from pre-pandemic levels (approximately 20%), but it is good to see the trend reversing this year. Next year remains the key year under current State policy and law to get our enrollment up as much as possible to help stabilize future funding levels.

I want to take a moment to recognize our HR, Payroll and Technology staff members – you may have noticed that there are quite a few hiring committees going on this year. There is quite a bit of work involved before the interviews, during the interview process and then after the process is complete to bring people on board or change their access/location of where they work. Much of this happens behind the scenes. Every detail needs to be correct on these things, so I simply want to thank all involved in making this happen. If I counted correctly, we have had 110 hires/promotions/reassignments of permanent positions since July 1 – plus all the part-time faculty and student hiring that is going on. Thank you again to all involved.

OK, that is all for this update. I trust you will have a good rest of the week and will enjoy the upcoming long weekend February 17-20.

Joe Wyse
Superintendent/President
Shasta College
11555 Old Oregon Trail
PO Box 496006
Redding, CA 96049-6006
Ph: 530-242-7510