The second San Mateo Job Fair was held on Wednesday, May 7th at Skyline College in partnership with the Skyline College Career Services Center, California Employment Development Department, the San Mateo County Peninsula Works, Veterans Services, Menlo Park Job Train, and several local community and public organizations. The Job Fair drew the largest group of job seekers in the County’s series of regional job fairs, drawing as many as 570 job seekers! This community event provided a dynamic atmosphere for job seekers to connect with 35 local employers, including Kaiser Permanente, Electronic Arts, United Airlines, Hilton, and Starbucks. Job seekers also had the opportunity engage with local service agencies, including those available at Skyline College such as the Veterans Resource Center and SparkPoint. Over 100 job seekers participated in a resume critique session which was offered in four languages with volunteer career specialists in order to enhance each job seekers’ employability and provide constructive feedback on each individual’s employment strategy.

To all the staff, students, and community volunteers that helped to make this year’s event such a great success, the Career Services Team extends our deepest gratitude and appreciation!

San Mateo Job Fair Planning Team

 

 

Resume Critique Sessions

 

 

Recently the Transfer Center along with UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz took some time out of the day to celebrate students that have been accepted to both campuses on Monday, May 5 and Tuesday, May 6. According to the admissions counselors 45 students were admitted to UC Santa Cruz, and 82 students were admitted to UC Davis! We are very proud of these transfer students and we are happy to celebrate such a great accomplishment.

And on Thursday, May 15 the Transfer Center will be celebrating all students who have been accepted to a 4 year college/
university for Fall 2014 semester. If you know someone that has been accepted and is planning to transfer please share this link (http://skylinecollege.edu/transfercenter/admissionnotificationsurvey.php) to a survey. The Transfer Center is working hard to track student progress in order to see how we can continue to better our efforts to help all students make transfer to a 4 year college/ university a possibility.

Special thanks to Monica Galvan and her team at UC Santa Cruz, to Myra Escobar at UC Davis, and the staff in the Transfer Center for helping to make our Skyline College Students’ dreams of transfer a reality.

Article by Michele Haggar | Photos by Suzanne Poma

Friday, May 16th at 7 p.m. in the Skyline College Art Gallery
Ground Floor of Building 1.

Please join and celebrate the release of the 44th Issue of Talisman, Skyline College’s Literary Magazine. The event, held in the Skyline College Art Gallery, will include food and beverages, copies of the magazine, as well as feature readings from the Student Prose and Poetry Prize Winners and many other student writers from this issue of Talisman.

Talisman staff hopes to see you at this special event. If you have any questions please contact Rob Williams, Talisman Faculty Advisor williamsrob@smccd.edu

Friday afternoon, May 9, The CTTL hosted the dynamic “Guru” of Distance Education and Online technologies, Michelle Pakansky-Brock. The 3-hour workshop, entitled “Humanizing your Online Classroom,” treated Faculty and staff to an inspiring afternoon filled with engaging and thoughtful dialogue. Michelle relayed to CTTL staff and administration afterwards that she “was impressed with the level of commitment and support for innovation through technology at Skyline.”

Some faculty participants reported, “It was a very useful workshop, and something I hope we get to do more of.” Other attendees immediately applied what they learned and created short video
e-mails by using one of the new technology tools that Michelle demonstrated.

All who attended agreed the workshop inspired a renewed vigor and provided them with exciting new tools that will help them to engage students in their classes.

As a special treat, Michelle put together a page of resources just for Skyline College. It can be accessed here.

Copies of Michelle’s book, Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies, are available for loan from the CTTL. More information about Michelle and the work she is doing can be found at her Website: TeachingWithoutWalls.com

Article by Bridget Fischer

In preparation for the opening of the Infant Room in Fall 2014, the Skyline College Early Learning and Child Development Center (CDC) has partnered with the Program for Infant/Toddler Caregivers Partners in Quality (PITC PQ) to provide specialized training and technical assistance for classified and student staff. Staff will receive 20 hours of training in the areas of Social Emotional Growth and Socialization, Group Care, Learning and Development, and Culture, Family, and Providers.

This partnership will enhance the current training and mentoring of staff and students at the CDC and provide expanded opportunities for students training to work with infants and toddlers. The CDC and PITC PQ are committed to caring for infants and toddlers in ways that are responsive to the differing cultures, lifestyles, preferences, abilities, learning styles and the needs of the children and families served.

The CDC provides high-quality early learning and child development experiences for children ages 0-5 years old. The program also provides Early Childhood Education students opportunities to observe, participate, and teach in a center-based program, provides their practicum experience and a career ladder for extending work-force skills and job training.

If you would like more information about the Early Learning and Child Development Center please contact the program at (650) 738-7070.

Article by Tina Watts | Pictures by Martina Center & Vicky Feng

Skyline College’s TRiO Student Support Services (SSS) Program provides wrap around services for TRiO students on their path to graduate and transfer to a four-year university within four years. An important component to these wrap around services is the individualized counseling TRiO students receive upon admission to the program until they accomplish their educational goals at Skyline College.

Since the initial counseling appointment, student and counselor work together to build a strong working relationship and work closely to identify the student’s academic, career, and personal goals. As part of their commitment to TRiO, students are required to meet with a TRiO counselor at least two times during the semester. During these counseling appointments, the TRiO counselor connects students to academic support services, like one-on-one tutoring and supplemental instruction. Furthermore, student and counselor work collaboratively to develop and update a Student Education Plan (SEP), which encompasses the student’s short and long-term academic goals and includes General Education coursework and lower division major preparation for graduation and transfer.

In addition to educational and transfer planning, the TRiO counselor provides career and personal counseling and assists TRiO students in developing effective study skills to help them be successful during their academic journey!
Please encourage students to apply to TRiO. The application can be found online at www.skylinecollege.edu/trio/application or they can stop by the Learning Center.

Article written by Guillermo Villanueva and Jessica Lopez.

Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee wraps up Spring semester meeting and prepares for next year!

In an effort to increase our Transfer Culture, the Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee has 3 main priorities they identified:

• Outreach and Promotion
• Cross-Division Collaboration
• Creating student-centered Transfer Pathways “Transfer Pods”

Here are some highlights of the implementation of these ideas:

• The Transfer Center hosted 3 College tours – UC Davis, CSU East Bay and San Jose State reaching over 100 students!
• The Transfer Hour was debuted – check it out in the Fireside Dining Hall!
• The best yet Alma Mater Day – including the WHOLE counseling Division showing up in Alma Mater wear (YES, that’s a challenge to ALL divisions in the future!)
• Faculty signed up for a regular “transfer slide” so that they can display/announce information on upcoming transfer related events and workshops at the beginning of class
• Presentations on the work of the Advisory Committee were made to all Divisions, the Academic and Classified Senates, the BSI Committee, and the  Student Services and Instructional Leadership Teams creating opportunity for feedback and further cross-division collaboration
• Skyline College has begun the process of collecting both qualitative and quantitative data from SFSU, UCD and CSUEB our major feeder campuses for a PRIE Data project for 2014-2015
• The SMT Division Faculty and Transfer Center collaborated to submit a PIF to pilot a ‘Transfer Pod’ for STEM majors, where all students who are STEM majors would get all transfer support and services, including access to all STEM discipline faculty, tutoring, counseling and additional transfer specific workshops in a STEM Center. If granted, this would be pilot for future ‘Transfer Pods’.
• Set the goal to transfer 337 students for the CSU, 88 students for the UC, 425 total as a benchmark.

Looking forward…

The Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee will continue to meet next year. The focus of the year will be to continue the efforts and priorities of this year, to continue to grow our campus-wide transfer culture and to engage students around how to best support them to transfer. Following the Completion by Design Model, the Transfer Center hopes to engage students at the different phases of a student’s education, in this case, Entry, Progress and Completion. The PRIE Office will begin its’ qualitative data project with our key university partners and the results will help inform our work for future years.  If you are interested in joining the Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee, please contact Suzanne Poma at pomas@smccd.edu.

Article by Suzanne Poma and Michele Haggar

Students of the Kababayan Learning Community were published in the poetry anthology Verses Typhoon Yolanda: A Storm of Filipino Poets (Meritage Press, 2014). Super Typhoon Haiyan – known as Yolanda in the Philippines – was the largest storm ever recorded on land, affecting over fourteen million people who became homeless or displaced. This week, the publisher confirmed a July book launch at the University of the Philippines, Visayas – Tacloban College, where Philippine-based contributors will read and work with the people in Tacloban.

At the end of the Fall 2013 semester, students answered a call for submissions put out by Meritage Press and edited their work accepted for the anthology. The book was officially published in January 2014.

The students’ poems posit times of natural disaster as times of need. The student-poets understand the devastation of water with wind just as they value the unbreakable spirit of the Filipinos affected by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda. Students Maria Geneva Reyes, Natassja Mullen, Weisley Wong, Jacob Tolentino, Neil B. Castro, Richelle Caranto, CJ Navalta, Richard Caranto, Hali Saldajeno, Raeven Fernandez, and Lorenzo Finau-Cruz all make up the ending coda to the anthology.

From the introduction written by Liza Erpelo and Janice Sapigao, “these poems represent those desires and collective attempt to build a global community, especially at a time that necessitates their voices, place and power as Filipina/o-American students.”

All proceeds will benefit individuals and relief organizations wishing to raise funds for Yolanda’s survivors. The book can be purchased for $20.00 through http://versestyphoonyolanda.blogspot.com.

Article by Janice Sapigao | Book cover by Meritage Press

On May 13, 2014, the Mills High School String Orchestra and the Skyline College Concert Band joined together to present a thrilling concert of classical and popular music in the Skyline College Theater. The 32-member award-winning string ensemble from Millbrae, under the direction of veteran music teacher Doug Miner, began the night with 45 minutes of diverse pieces, from eighteenth-century Mozart to the twenty-first-century hit song “Let It Go.” Just before intermission, the Skyline College Concert Band joined the Mills High School musicians on stage to perform Gustav Holst’s orchestral tour de force “Mars, the Bringer of War” from his suite The Planets, commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the piece’s 1914 premier and the start of World War I. For the second half of the night, the 47-member Concert Band continued the centennial anniversary theme with selections composed during the Great War as well as some modern pieces – The Red Baron, “Downton Abbey” Suite, Cyprian Suite – with musical references to World War I. Skyline College clarinetist Pedro Gomez magnificently stole the show as featured soloist in Carl Maria von Weber’s Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra. In Fall 2014, Pedro will transfer to San Francisco State University on a performance scholarship, pursuing a degree in clarinet performance. For the final piece of the night, the Band and audience played and sang together the newly-composed Skyline College “Alma Mater,” a song which will be featured in the 2014 Commencement Ceremony: A beacon shining through the fog, Alma Mater stands, Ever watching and cherishing Her children hand in hand. Skyline, O Skyline, Worthy of our praise, Skyline, O Skyline, We shall love thee all our days!

Article by Zack Bruno | Photo by Edwin Serrano

Meet Chelsea Terrell the new NBC Universal Summer Intern!

“Without the Skyline College Career Center I would not have learned about this wonderful opportunity, and I thank the Career Center for their help and support.”
Chelsea was introduced to Skyline College Career Services through her participation in National Trio Day in February. Chelsea was intrigued by the internship presentation component of the general session, and decided to schedule a career counseling appointment to help with her career goals. Chelsea, who has been an intern with the Skyline College’s Baseball Team, was uncertain which direction her interests would lead for her careerpath; she wanted a career that would allow her to work in sports, but was uncertain what options were available in this area. After meeting with a Career Counselor, Alex Jones, she learned about NBC Universal’s paid Summer Internship Program and completed her resume, interview prep, and application. Chelsea realized her passion for Communications, and decided to change her major from Business to Communications. During the Summer, Chelsea will be working as an intern for PR/ Field Operations for the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s through NBC Universal. Congratulations Chelsea!

CPMC Program participant gains acceptance into the Cañada Radiology Program!

Congratulations to Benedict Chan for being accepted into the Cañada Radiology Program! Benedict was part of the first CPMC (California Pacific Medical Center) Externship cohort. Since Fall 2013, Benedict has been completing his hours of training at St. Luke’s Radiology Department. He recently informed the Career Center that beginning Summer 2014, he will take Radiology courses at Cañada. Benedict was 1 out of the 93 well qualified students selected for 20 vacant spots, and said he felt the CPMC Program helped prepare him for the next steps in his career. Rafael Rivera, professor of Radiologic Technology, indicated that the applicants for this year’s cohort were some of the most qualified and prepared applicants he has seen.

“I feel this internship really helped me focus on my goals. Through my experience, I’ve been able to build relationships with people in the field; I received valuable mentorship and guidance that helped me maximize my learning experience. Also, I feel the technologist provided me with more opportunities to learn based off my measurable learning objectives created during the Skyline’s Externship Program. I feel they took me more seriously because I was a part of a school program rather than a person volunteering on their own. ”

Skyline College Literacy Intervention Community Program completes its first year!

With the support of the Principal of Los Cerritos, President Stanback Stroud’s endorsement (as featured in the 14th Annual President’s Breakfast video) and the community’s involvement, the Literacy Intervention Community Program has been renewed for an additional academic year! Just this past year, 25 selected Skyline College students, 20 local high school students and multiple community members have provided tutoring services for 50-60 elementary students referred to the program by Los Cerritos faculty. We would like to thank everyone for their support and look forward to another wonderful year!

CPMC Externship 2nd Cohort Complete. Will expand to Mills Peninsula Fall 2014!!!

The CPMC’s first year cohort is complete! 50 students have completed the program, and have provided over 5,000 hours of service to all of the CPMC campuses. Stay tuned for Fall 2014 !!! The hospital externship program will be revamped during Summer 2014, and will extend to Mills Peninsula for Fall 2014. We will have new opportunities in business, human resources and health informatics.

Article by Lavinia Zanassi, Alex Jones and Brian Jenney