Published March 23, 2023

To the Shasta College Community:

If you are like me, this term has felt busier and more “normal” than any other in the last few years. We are not done, however, evaluating the effects of the pandemic on the way in which we operate into the future, but I believe we are up to the challenge of figuring it out.

Success Stories
First I want to highlight the work of Cindy Silva. I received a wonderful letter from a family friend of an international student Cindy has been helping make the transition to college life. The letter states, in part “Thanks to Cindy’s unwavering support, the student has thrived in her new academic and social environment…{Cindy’s} dedication to the well-being of international students at your college is a testament to her commitment to excellence.” Well done, Cindy!

Next, I had the pleasure of recognizing the 50 years of service of Bill Woods during one of his classes a few weeks back. Thank you to Dean Bartlett and Bills friends and colleagues who stayed late that night to give him some well-deserved recognition – below is a photo from that night.

And a couple of other items/reminders:
Work continues on the Institutional Self-Evaluation Report (ISER) for the accreditation process. Thank you to Will Breitbach who is coordinating this effort. The draft will continue to be refined, and will be turned into the ACCJC (our accreditor) by December. Then in the spring of 2024 a team will review it, give a report of core inquiries for which they will visit us to look into during the Fall of 2024. These core inquiries can be a further look into areas of concern or areas where we are excelling. Please keep alert for opportunities to review the ISER and provide feedback in the coming months.

Related to accreditation, our annual planning process is underway. Part of closing the loop on the process from last year is to make sure everyone can view the list of proposed initiatives and what has been approved. I understand this has been made available earlier this semester, but I simply want to reiterate that the information is available at the following link: https://scmainweb.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/files/resources/2021-22-annual-area-plan-initiatives.pdf That link takes you directly to the pdf, but you can view all of the planning documents and the history of the annual planning lists (since 2013-14) at the main planning webpage: https://www.shastacollege.edu/about/planning-documents/ It is kind of interesting to see the improved support of our system over the past 10 years as we were only able to approve around $230,000 on-time and $260,000 in ongoing cost initiatives after the 2013-14 process, but in the most recent we were able to approve over $2.2 million in one-time and $180,000 in o-going initiatives. Much of the one-time increase stems from the great opportunities we have through various grant and categorical programs, such as the Strong Workforce program and our grants in the forest management arena.

Ok – that is all for this update. Thank you once again for your service to students - I know there are hundreds and hundreds of stories like I shared about Cindy above – thank you for your excellent work in making a difference in our students’ lives. The ripple effect goes throughout our communities in ways we will never fully know!

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