President's Update: September 28, 2022
To the Shasta College Community:
It has been a while since my last update. It sure is nice to have the crisp fall mornings and warm afternoons we experience this time of year. October is just around the corner, and I am hopeful that the September storms…
To the Shasta College Community:
It has been a while since my last update. It sure is nice to have the crisp fall mornings and warm afternoons we experience this time of year. October is just around the corner, and I am hopeful that the September storms we experienced are a harbinger of more rain throughout this winter.
Success Stories
It is fun to see the work of North State Together expanding to additional counties through the K16 Collaborative grant program. See North State Together for additional information. In short, we have a great team we are sending upstream to help support the counties in our region to improve outcomes of our children over time, and we will trust we will see healthier and better prepared students in the long run, as well as an improved community in general. That is the gist of the goal of a cradle-to-career network as I see it.
Next I want to share a testimonial from a student. Thank you to Scott Yates for passing along (with permission) this great reminder of why we do what we do every day for our students! This student writes: "When I was filling out my application to go to Shasta College, I was very surprised at how easy it was. However, my parents were even more surprised than me because it cost virtually nothing, and I got paid to go to school because of the Pell Grant. My parents are saying that this was never an opportunity for them and how excited they are about me going to college to get a higher education.
. . . . . .
I also want to talk about how much support you get in college. You have places like the writing center, the VA center, and Trio to help you with all your subjects. You also have so many more opportunities for scholarships that just weren’t possible even 35 years ago. I didn’t even apply for that many scholarships and yet still I’m going to college for free which is incredible. There are so many kids like me who want to go to college but the only thing stopping them is the cost. But thanks to all the grant scholarships and help that is provided to make it finally affordable to everyone."
Finally, if you need more inspiration, check out this story Nadia Elwood shared with us about one of our CalWORKS students, Shannon Riley. Shannon has been serving as Shasta College CalWORKs SPARC leader (Student Parents Are Reimagining CalWORKs) since 2020, as part of Project SPARC, funded by Blue Shield of California Foundation. Shannon graduated from Shasta College last semester and successfully transferred to an online Bachelor’s program with the support of CalWORKs and BOLD.
Business Update
I simply want to remind everyone of our accreditation timeline and thank all who are involved in drafting our Institutional Self-Evaluation Report (ISER). I received the formal notice of the process from the ACCJC this week. Our final product is due on December 15, 2023, so we have a little more than 14 months to complete the ISER (but remember, accreditation is about constant self-reflection and improvement over time, so it is a never-ending process). The Visiting Team will review this work in spring of 2024 and a focused site visit with a sub-set of the team will happen in fall of 2024 with the formal ACCJC Commission action happening in January of 2025. Those years may seem like they are way into the future, but will be here before we know it. I have been reviewing the draft work to date and we are really making good progress on the first draft of the ISER. Being this far along will allow time for us to make any course corrections we may need to over the coming months that we discover through documenting the way in which we meet the accreditation standards. Thank you once more to all involved and to our Accreditation Liaison Officer, Will Breitbach, for your leadership on this major endeavor.
OK that is all for today. Enjoy the rest of September!
Joe Wyse
Superintendent/President
Shasta-Tehama-Trinity Joint Community College District
11555 Old Oregon Trail
Redding, CA 96049-6006
530-242-7510