President's Update: November 1, 2025

Dear Shasta College community,

I hope you are doing well as we head into the weekend. Our Board agenda for next week’s meeting will be posted soon, and I wanted to share a few highlights from my written report along with other important updates. Also, a reminder that the monthly Board agenda is a great and easy way to keep up with all that's happening at Shasta College. Please take a few minutes to review the updates provided by our campus leaders, including members of Cabinet, the Academic and Student Senates, and our bargaining units.

As we near Veterans Day, I'd like to thank our many faculty, staff, and students who have served in the armed forces. Your courage and commitment continue to inspire us all. I also want to thank our Redding and Tehama Veterans Support and Success Centers for their outstanding work in supporting veterans and their families.

Many of you have expressed concerns about the delay and reduction of CalFresh (SNAP) benefits. Thank you to Faculty Association President Aaron Maready for reaching out to faculty today about this. I'm happy to share that our Student Service team and our Basic Needs Center (BNC) are on it and doing a great job helping our students in this difficult and uncertain period. If you have student inquiries about this, please be sure to direct them to our Basic Needs Center. Some of what the BNC is doing is detailed at the bottom of this message.** If you'd like to donate to the Food Pantry, the BNC has collaborated with the Foundation to set up a Donor Dock at this link. 

A huge thank you to the Basic Needs Team, the Foundation, Student Services, and IT for making this happen. Let’s hope the CalFresh delay is resolved soon.

Our bond projects team recently distributed a short online survey to employees and students under the “Help Shape the Future” heading. It invites big-picture ideas on how our campus facilities can evolve to better support teaching, learning, and the student experience. Your input will help determine the next phase of facility planning at Shasta College. Please look for these surveys—we’d love to hear your ideas. Responses are due by Friday, Nov. 14 at 5 p.m.

Shasta College’s latest Tehama Center status application is up for a vote at the Nov. 18 Board of Governors meeting. I’ll be heading to Sacramento to give a short presentation about our efforts to better serve Tehama County. I am grateful to Vice President O'Rorke and Dean Billy Miller of Extended Education and their team for their excellent work on the latest Tehama Needs Assessment. They will be accompanying me to Sacramento. Fingers crossed we’ll have some good news to share soon!

The Chancellor’s Office recently shared several updates. Attached is a report summarizing all new laws enacted by the Legislature and signed by Governor Newsom in 2025, along with implementation guidance. The sections most relevant to Shasta College begin on page 50.

In addition, the Chancellor’s Office continues to roll out updates to its new DataVista metrics and data visualization tool—the system’s primary platform for student success, outcomes, and adult education data across California’s community colleges. DataVista replaces the earlier LaunchBoard system. The latest update introduces a new Student Athletics Report under the Reports & Insights view, replacing and reimagining the former CalPassPlus Student Athletes Stats Report. It provides an annual overview of student participation in California Community College Athletic Association (3C2A) sports. This release also includes enhancements to existing metrics and improvements to the user experience. Our Research team has also been steadily building out the Shasta Data Hub, which can be found on the Portal when you log in. It includes a growing list of Shasta-specific metrics and will be an increasingly useful resource for us all. 

We’re entering that time of year filled with end-of-semester and holiday events. Here are a few that have been finalized so far:

• Tree Trimming: Tuesday, Dec. 2, 12–2 p.m., 100 Building
• Associate Degree Nursing Graduation (Nurse Pinning): Thursday, Dec. 11, 5 p.m., Theatre
• President's Holiday Celebration: Friday, Dec. 12, 4-6 p.m., 100 Building Lobby and Board Room
• Physical Therapist Assistant Graduation: Sunday, Dec. 14, 4:30 p.m., Theatre
• Marrianne Williams Retirement Reception: Thursday, Dec. 18, 12-2 p.m., 100 Building Lobby and Board Room
• Firefighter Academy Graduation: Sunday, Dec. 21, 12 noon, Theatre

Reminders on the holiday events will be sent as we near the dates. Regarding the graduation events, thank you to the faculty, administrators, and staff for helping to celebrate your students in this way - it adds even more joy to the Season of Joy.

The Board agenda includes an item in the consent agenda, rescinding Vice President Yanna Iatridis's retirement. And on the action agenda, there's an item for an IJE (Interjurisdictional Exchange Agreement) with the Chancellor's Office. I wanted to explain these since they are linked. Yanna was set to retire June 30, 2026. However, the Chancellor's Office requested that they "borrow" Yanna for a period of two years, with us serving as the fiscal agent for the exchange. It's a great honor both to Yanna and to Shasta College that they asked her to do this, but it did require something we never do - rescind the retirement. So her retirement and little flat in Greece will have to wait for a few more months!