Glendale Community College

Professional Development

How do you dramatically shift an entire college district to a remote learning model in just a matter of days? You make sure you have a solid team of trainers in place and faculty and staff willing to face the daunting task. 

Over a nine-day period beginning Wednesday, March 11, Eric Hanson, Katie Datko, Alexa Schumacher and Samantha Garagliano scrambled to create and host 45 hours of workshops that served 642 faculty members. By Monday, March 23 GCC was up and running classes for 16-thousand students. 
  
Each day continues to be a learning experience for our students and our instructors. It has been inspiring to witness the significant number of faculty who stepped up to offer tips and advice to their colleagues during the learning process.
 
Staff continue to provide both basic instruction regarding Canvas and more advanced learning opportunities with regard to tools and platforms. Go here if you need help or have any questions.

Link to KPCC/LAist Story

Making it Work Remotely

Most GCC faculty and staff are now working remotely due to the stay-at-home order. To make that possible, Information Technology Services (ITS) dedicated a dozen staff members who worked more than 900 hours to set up, configure, and maintain support for the college’s Virtual Private Network (VPN). Thanks to the efforts of ITS, more than 270 of our GCC colleagues are able to contribute to our mission using VPN. The ITS staff members accomplished all of this while continuing to work on several other projects, such as the upgrade of PeopleSoft, and programming efforts to implement the new rules for student withdrawals, grading options, and fee refunds. If you need help setting up your VPN account or have any other technology issues, contact ITS via helpdesk@glendale.edu.

Human Resources Webpage: COVID-19 Resources

Human Resources staff may be offsite these days, but they can still offer many resources to help us adapt to our new work environment. HR has created a special COVID-19 related webpage featuring a variety of topics, some of which include:

• Emergency Paid Sick Leave and Emergency Family Medical Leave
• Infographics and instructions for setting up ergonomically correct desktop and laptop.
• Videos that offer tips and online training.

GCC Uses 3D Printers to Provide Face Shields to Medical Workers

GCC has been working daily to produce face shields after learning that local medical workers were in need of personal protection equipment (PPE) in the fight against coronavirus. Engineering Instructor Nareh Manooki (see photo) was instrumental in coordinating GCC resources to produce face shields using the college’s state of the art 3D printers and laser cutting equipment. The City of Glendale and GCC collaborated to identify potential areas of need. Working together we were able provide face shields to several facilities including one nursing center that was set to be evacuated due to a lack of PPE. Instead it remained open. Nareh has worked with her GCC colleagues to increase production to more than 40 shields a day.

Mobile Food Pantry

GCC’s community spirit was on full display Tuesday, April 7 when more than 50 faculty and staff volunteered during a drive-thru food bank event on the Verdugo Campus. Nearly one thousand vehicles over a two-hour period drove through two stations set up in the parking structure.

Although the basic needs initiative was offered to our students the majority of those served were from the general community. In all, approximately 4,000 people received groceries. So now, a second event is scheduled for Wednesday, May 6, 2020 in the same location. At least 50 volunteers are needed. If you are willing and able to help, please click this volunteer sign-up form.

Link to GNP Story