Glendale Community College

President's Corner

As we approach the final weeks of the fall semester, I am hopeful that you enjoyed your well-deserved break over Thanksgiving. It seems as if Halloween and Dia de los Muertos were just a few days ago. If you missed those celebrations on both the Verdugo and Garfield Campuses, check out the photo album links which you can find below my updates.

On Friday, November 3rd, GCC hosted our annual Counselor Day, bringing in high school counselors from GUSD, BUSD, LAUSD and some local charter schools. This was a great opportunity to orient counselors to the great work of the college and the amazing opportunities for the students from their high schools. The outreach and student services teams were exceptional at building these important relationships needed in our enrollment efforts.

Tuesday, November 7th the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) provided training to the Board of Trustees. FCMAT’s primary mission is to help California’s local TK-14 educational agencies identify, prevent and resolve financial, operational and data management challenges by providing management assistance and professional learning opportunities. FCMAT’s services are used not just to help avert fiscal crisis, but to promote sound financial practices, support the training and development of chief business officials, and help to create efficient organizational operations. The workshop focused on new ways to present the annual budget that would provide additional transparency and context to the college and general community.

On Thursday, November 9th, the college hosted Supervisor Kathryn Barger (5th Dist.) for a Veterans' Town Hall Meeting. The event was well attended by student veterans, veterans from the community, and multiple providers of veteran services. The context for the meeting was set by USC Professor of Social Work, Sara Kintzle, who presented the Southern California Veterans Study (https://socalvetstudy.org). The gathering also provided the opportunity for veterans to dialog with representatives from the VA, and suggest improvements in service. We would like to thank the Veteran Peer Access Network (VPAN) for their support of the event and continued service to our student veterans.

In our continued efforts to build our capacity as leaders and lead an equity-driven agenda, we embarked on a new professional learning opportunity. The college was recently awarded a Culturally Responsive Pedagogy & Practices (CRPP) grant that gave us the opportunity to have access to specific classes through the 3CSN organization.  Professors Sangita Dube and Maite Peterson, co-chairs of our DEIA committee, have been supporting this initiative. Together with the CRPP work group, they have brought forward a management-oriented training that is a facilitated anti-racist reading group. The reading group has focused on discussing the work of renowned scholar Ibram X. Kendi, author of seminal anti-racist texts including How to be an Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning. These group discussions have given participants the opportunity to share their thoughts and questions about anti-racist theory and practices. These discussions will also serve as a model as to how to lead similar discussions across the campus. We hope that this work will support our continued efforts to build inclusivity, equity and accountability throughout GCC.
 
The VP of Administrative Services position is posted and active for recruitment. We are hoping for an exceptional pool of candidates that are eager to support our college. Through the next months, the selection committee will work to find the best candidates for forwarding to the college. Please anticipate that we will be hosting public forums to gain insights from all those wishing to share. We hope to welcome our new VP by the start of this next fiscal year on July 1st.
 
The Fall Athletics Seasons are coming to a close and we thank everyone who attended events in support of our students. Check out gccathletics.com to learn more about how our teams finished and the coming winter and spring sports. The conclusion of the 2023 Cross Country season for Glendale Community College had the women's team finish seventh and the men's team finish eighth in the state competition Saturday, Nov. 18 at Woodward Park in Fresno. The State Meet results followed the women finishing fourth in the Southern California meet and the men taking eighth. Earlier, GCC’s Women’s Cross Country team won its 18th straight Western State Conference (WSC) title Oct. 20 and the men took second.
 
Heading into December and the holiday season, this is a time to reflect on the people close to us and the moments that matter. I want to extend my appreciation to each member of our college family for your hard work, professionalism and dedication to our students and to each other. Your efforts contribute to the success of the college and create an environment where our students reach their potential.

Virtual Reality Center to Become a Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) technology is typically associated with gaming or entertainment, but GCC is now in position to become a significant player in VR’s potential as an innovative tool for education. On Wednesday, November 8, GCC publicly announced a new partnership with Dreamscape Learn that will offer students an in-person immersive experience on the Verdugo Campus. A new state-of-the-art Virtual Reality Center will open in 2024 thanks to $4.5M in state funding secured by Senator Anthony Portantino (D-Burbank) who joined Hollywood executive and Dreamscape Learn co-founder Walter Parkes at an event held Wednesday, November 8. Click here to read the news release.

GCC Students Thrive at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

25 years ago, GCC students began doing research as part of their independent studies projects at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. As a result, a GCC student co-authored and published a description of a new species of deep-sea fish in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Since then, GCC has established an internship program with NHMLA that has resulted the participation of approximately 80 students, multiple published papers, and a student award at a scientific conference. A current group of GCC students were featured recently in NHMLA’s newsletter, specifically about their work with the museum’s scanning electron microscope. (Thank you to Professor Javier Gago and Dr. Jann Vendetti for this submission.)

Ms. Santana Goes to Washington

Glendale College Foundation Executive Director Paola Santana was invited to the White House in late October for a reception celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. The event was held in the Rose Garden hosted by First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The festivities included speeches, mariachis, Guatemalan singer Gaby Moreno and Latin cuisine.

While there, Paola also held meetings with the following people:
Eduardo Cisneros with the Intergovernmental Affairs team at the White House
Viviann Anguiano, Director of Education for the White House Domestic Policy Council
Jesse O’Connell, Chief Advancement Officer at the American Council on Education
John Garcia, Senior Advisor, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education

Paola also met with former colleagues Michelle Cooper, Vice President of Public Policy and Wayne Taliaferro, Director of Student Success at Lumina Foundation.

The New Mod Theatre

The Theatre Arts Department has a new space in SN 104. Performing Arts Production Manager Guido Girardi describes what makes it different. "GCC has a brand-new venue called The Mod Theatre. The name is short for modular theatre since the venue can be configured in an endless amount of audience/ performer configurations.  Such as "end staging" (like the GCC Auditorium), "thrust" (like our Studio Theatre), "in the round" (audience surrounding the stage), or river staging that was utilized for "The Importance of Being Earnest." The Mod Theatre is also purposefully different from our other GCC venues in that it has very little infrastructure, requiring the students to learn to transform a non-theatrical location such as a ballroom, warehouse, gym, etc. into a performance venue."

The first production staged in The Mod Theatre was "The Importance of Being Earnest," which used river staging. Dress rehearsal photos taken by theatre arts instructor Jeanette Farr-Harkins provide a glimpse of the venue's versatility.

Aarin Edwards Presents Workshop at Conference on Student Parents

GCC CalWORKs Director Aarin Edwards recently co-presented a workshop at Michelson 20MM Foundation’s “Forging Equitable Futures for Student Parents" conference. She explains some of the work she has been doing on behalf of student parents:
 
“In 2020, I wrote a grant that was funded by Blue Shield of California Foundation for Project SPARC, Student-Parents Are Reimagining CalWORKs. Since then, SPARC has brought community college parenting students from across the state together on a weekly basis to use Human-Centered to create policy recommendations for the higher education and public benefits systems.
 
We have also partnered with the Center for the Study of Social Policy in Washington D.C. to conduct research on the systems which affect CalWORKs students, and the barriers those systems create for low-income families.  That report, "Designed to Keep You Down," as well as many research briefs based on that study, can be read on CSSP's website. It was my great pleasure to co-present a workshop with our SPARC students on our CSSP research at the 20MM Foundation's “Forging Equitable Futures for Student Parents" conference in September. Our years of hard work are paying off, and parenting students are now finally understood as an equity group.” 

Fall Holiday Celebrations

Halloween costumes
Winners from the Human Resources Halloween costume and decoration contest:

Individual Costume
1st Mike Serot (CalWORKs) aka Ghostbuster
2nd Carlo (Career Services Student Worker) aka Popeye
Honorable Mention: Joanna Parypinski and Zelma Jacobs
 
Group Costume
1st Welcome Center/Student Outreach
2nd Student Equity
 
Door Decoration
Foundation
 
Office Decoration
1st Heather Glenn (VP Student Services Office)
2nd Garfield Career and Counseling Center
3rd Student Equity
Honorable Mention: Welcome Center/SOS
 
Guess the M&M’s
Christine Reiner with a guess of 2000, there were 2026. She also won a special prize for best decorated car.

Check out this photo collage from this year's Halloween festivities!

Dia de los Muertos
At Garfield Campus (Check photos from the day here)
MCEC ofrenda at the Verdugo Campus

Pumpkin Pie Contest
Classified Council held a pumpkin pie contest with four contestants and 44 judges! The winning pie was baked by Nancy Traynor. Attendees also put messages on a "thankful" wall.