Skyline College President, Dr. Regina Stanback Stroud was selected as a winner of the Ella Hill Hutch award by the Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA). Each year, the award honors several dynamic civically engaged women leaders across the state.

According to the award nominators, “Dr. Regina Stanback Stroud [was] selected as the San Francisco/Peninsula Chapter Ella Hill Hutch Award recipient because of her tireless work and extraordinary vision on behalf of students, faculty and staff of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond…Regina is a loving, courageous, hero who continues to give of her time and talents to make the San Francisco Bay Area better and the chapter is honored to select her as our Recipient for 2016.”

Founded in 1968, BWOPA understands that everything that affects the quality of life is in most ways political. Therefore, BWOPA’s primary goal is to educate, train, and involve as many African American women as possible in the political process. Today, BWOPA is a statewide 501c4 non-profit advocacy and membership organization.

BWOPA’s mission is to activate, motivate, promote, support, and educate African-American women about the political process, encourage involvement, and to affirm their commitment to, and solving of, those problems affecting the African-American community.

BWOPA’s purpose is to:

• Provide leadership, training and mentoring to insure participation in the political process;
• Developing long-range strategies to insure representation of African Americans within the political spectrum;
• Articulate collective positions on issues affecting African Americans;
• Develop collaborative linkages with other political organizations; and
• Preserve and chronicle the political experience of African American women in California.

Article by Connor Fitzpatrick

On Friday, October 7, Skyline College, in partnership with Base 11, hosted Manufacturing Day (#MFGDAY), a nationally recognized day of celebration of modern manufacturing meant to inspire the next generation of manufacturers. Over one hundred students from neighboring high schools attended, in addition to students, faculty, and staff from Skyline College, including the Middle College program. Morning and afternoon sessions were held that included workshops on entrepreneurism and hands-on breakout activities for students to engage with manufacturing tools and techniques.

The event opened with welcome remarks from Skyline College MESA director Stephen Fredricks and Base 11 Senior Vice President Ingrid Ellerbe. Ms. Ellerbe announced Base 11 paid fellowship opportunities and invited Base 11 fellow and Skyline College student Daniel Powers to share highlights from his Base 11 fellowship at CalTech this past summer. Skyline College’s Director of Marketing and Public Relations Cherie Colin introduced BAEC faculty member and keynote speaker Terri Wade who gave a sneak preview on the Process of Innovation and Entrepreneurism in STEM. Ms. Wade also announced Skyline College’s new STEM Entrepreneurial Accelerator program, a 16-week hands-on course in Entrepreneurism, Innovation, and Advanced Manufacturing held in the Fabrication Laboratory.

Following the keynote speech and closing remarks, event participants were led in groups to a variety of breakout sessions with hands-on maker activities developed by Base 11 Fellows, the students of the Skyline College Engineering and Robotics Club (ERC), and Fab Lab technician Marco Wehrfritz and Engineering professor Nicholas Langhoff. One of the breakouts was a robotics session in which students could fly micro drones and navigate them through a set of obstacles. There was also an electronic music making session, where students got to make music on drum machines, samplers, keyboard synthesizers, and use an electronic circuit developed by the ERC to control the pitch and sound of keyboard synthesizers by waiving their hands in front of distance sensors. Other sessions included an honors project showcase led by engineering student Daniel Powers and a tour of the exciting new manufacturing and rapid prototyping tools in the Fabrication Laboratory.

Manufacturing Day was a big success due to the dedication and hard work of Skyline College students, faculty, and staff, and Base 11 staff. A big thank you to Base 11 Senior Vice President, Ingrid Ellerbe and Marketing Director, Cindy Santos-Mendoza, Skyline College Director of Marketing and Public Relations Cherie Colin, Marketing office assistant Brittney Sneed, BAEC faculty member Terri Wade, SMT program services coordinator Alana Utsumi, MESA director Stephen Fredricks, Engineering and Computer Science professor Nicholas Langhoff, Engineering lab technician Marco Wehrfritz, and the students of the Engineering and Robotics Club at Skyline College. Pictures of the event can be found here.

Article by Nicholas Langhoff | Photo by William Nacouzi

International Student Program (ISP) hosted a group of 11 students from American Academy of English (AAE) on campus. AAE is a language school located in San Francisco, that have been sending qualified international students to Skyline College. The event was our first effort to give the college experience to our prospective international students from AAE.

AAE students were greeted by a group of current Skyline College international students upon their arrival. The students then observed a business class taught by Professor Hui Pate to get a feel for an American classroom. After the classroom observation, ISP Manager, Wissem Bennani, gave a presentation about the college and moderated a panel discussion with the current Skyline College international students. The dialogue between AAE students and the college international students continued throughout the campus tour and the lunch that took place after the panel discussion. AAE students were all impressed how beautiful the campus is and enjoyed meeting with the faculty, staff and students at Skyline College.

ISP will continue to provide services and programs for international students as well as for the entire Skyline community. If you are interested in learning more about future ISP programs and events, contact ISP office at skyinternational@smccd.edu or call (650) 738-7021.

Article and Photo by Chikako Walker

On Tuesday, October 11, 2016, representatives of the Black Student Union, Filipino Student Union, Latin American Student Organization, CIPHER, and the SMCCD Solidarity Initiative organized a well-attended event entitled “Black & Brown Lives Matter: An open forum event to discuss issues that affect disadvantaged communities and empower students to use their voice.”

Held in the Multicultural Center Hosting Gallery, students shared a poem that dispelled and directly addressed the myths and presumptions of the Black Lives Matter movement, just as they discussed and defined systemic racism. They located the necessity of this political, youth-led movement within gentrification, police brutality, and racial profiling that happens “at home” in the Bay Area and/or on campus.

Student leader Iridian Martinez honored victims of police brutality, used call and response in rally cries, and led an open discussion. In the discussion, staff, faculty, and students voiced their concerns about policing and the possibility of arming police on campus. Most of the attendees sided in opposition to arming public safety officers on campus.

The student leaders utilized practices of community organizing to show deep care and commitment to inciting lasting change. If you are interested in being involved, please contact Kevyn Lorenzana: kevynlorenza@my.smccd.edu

Article and photo by Janice Sapigao

On Thursday, September 29, 2016, Skyline College hosted the fall High School Partner’s Breakfast.  High school principals, high school counselors, transition specialists, and community program directors from locations within San Mateo County, San Francisco, and Treasure Island, made up the 29 attendees of the breakfast.

During the interactive breakfast, attendees were asked to share their thoughts and opinions of community colleges in order to create an open dialogue to start the meeting.  Afterwards members of the Skyline College community provided updates on programs and services that most impact high school students in order to combat some of the misconceptions of success in community college and answer questions that attendees may have had.  Will Minnich shared information on the Promise Scholarship, concurrent enrollment, and Skyline College PREP.  Jenny Yang shared vital information on financial aid updates.  Melissa Matthews shared information on alternative assessment and the new Counselor Liaison Program and provided insights and resourceful information regarding the Disability Resource Center.  Finally, Michael Stokes provided exciting information on the JumpStart and Summer Scholars Institute Program.

Attendees ended the meeting by participating in a “Share Your Woo!” activity in which they read off Skyline College accolades that highlight some of our proudest moments and programs as a campus.  The Outreach Office plans to host a follow up breakfast in Spring 2017 in order to continually keep our high school partners abreast of the great programs and services that are available to their students!

Thank you to Dean Lasana Hotep, Dean Dr. Tammy Robinson, Alina Varona of the Career Advancement Academy, and Matthew Ledesma of the Counseling Division, for joining us for this breakfast and participating in the discussions.

Article by Lauren Ford | Photo by William Nacouzi

The Grove Scholarship Program celebrates its eleventh successful semester, awarding 25 new and continuing Career and Technical Education (CTE) scholars in Fall 2016. Recipients were selected on a competitive basis from approximately 70 applications from diverse academic programs. On October 7, 2016 the selected students met in the Career Services Center to complete the Grove Scholarship orientation. The orientation gave participants an overview of the expectations for the Grove Scholars Program which include: the maintenance of a 75% completion rate, 2.0 GPA, enrollment in at least 1 CTE course, financial workshop attendance and participation in the student awards ceremony. The orientation also highlighted SparkPoint services such as: benefits access, personal financial classes available for college credit, the food pantry, and Career Center services. A celebratory lunch was served to congratulate recipients.

Grove scholarships are funded by a generous $125,000 grant from the Grove Foundation eponymously named after Andy Grove, a founder of Intel Group Corporation. Each scholarship is worth up to $2,000 per semester and $4,000 of funding per school year per eligible participant.

Please forward any questions regarding the Grove Scholarship program to Andrea Doffoney Anyanwu at anyanwua@smccd.edu, or to grovescholar@smccd.edu.

Article and photos by Andrea Doffoney Anyanwu

Recently, the First Year Experience (FYE) attended the Fort Miley Adventure Challenge Course. This course, a low and high element ropes course, empowers students to confront their personal fears and to push through their perceived limitations through personal goal setting. While this course benefited the individual FYE members, this course also strengthened the entire FYE community as it encouraged trust, teamwork and leadership.

Moving from low element—low risk—community building exercises, the FYE students navigated through a series of high element challenges that pushed them physically and emotionally. While pushed to their limits, the students were surrounded by the support of their FYE instructors and fellow students.

The FYE instructors, Younga Choi, William Sapigao and Jarrod Feiner, will build from what was gained from the course, and the FYE team will continue to apply the principles of trust, teamwork, and community in the classroom.

Article by Jarrod Feiner | Photo by Younga Choi and William Sapigao

On Friday, October 7, 2016, EOPS/CARE and CalWORKs took a group of students on a campus tour of UC Berkeley – the first university visit of the semester.

The day’s events started with a guided campus tour where students learned more about UC Berkeley’s student-body, campus demographics, as well as its history and interesting facts.

EOPS/CARE and CalWORKs students also had the opportunity to connect with former EOPS Skyline College students who are currently attending their senior year at Cal. During this engaging student panel, students spoke about the transfer process, shared personal experiences, and great insight in terms of what to expect once at Cal.

The event concluded with a buffet lunch at Crossroads, one of UC Berkeley’s dining commons.

The campus visit was a major success, which served to promote the goal of transferring to a four-year institution among EOPS/CARE and CalWORKs students.

Article by Jessica Lopez | Photographs by UC Berkeley Campus Tour Guide and Jessica Lopez

On October 5, the Disability Resource Center (DRC) and Veterans Resource Center (VRC) joined forces to provide student veterans with breakfast and important information on resources available to them.

Adjunct Learning Disability Specialist, Patty Blankenship, provided study tips and learning strategies geared to students who have experienced Post-Traumatic Stress or Traumatic Brain Injury. Assistive Technology Specialist, Judy Lariviere, was on hand to show veterans the types of technology that may help improve their comprehension both in class and on tests.  The DRC and VRC were recently awarded a grant to provide students with a license for a note taker technology called Sonocent Audio NoteTaker.  Students were also able to demo the technology at the event.

Article by Melissa Matthews

On Wednesday October 5, 50 students from Skyline College’s Puente learning community spent the day on San Bruno Mountain at the White Hawk Ropes Course. The entire day was facilitated by amazing high school students who are part of Jefferson Union High School District’s Wilderness Program.

Puente students participated in challenges that encouraged team building, problem-solving, and personal growth.  In addition to several “on the ground” team challenges, individual students faced extreme (but safe) “ropes” challenges that took them high up into the trees while their peers cheered them on. Overall, the day resulted in a stronger Puente familia—new bonds between classmates, trust amongst the overall group, and deep appreciation for each other’s courage and strength.

Article by Paula Silva