Skyline College Learning Commons brings together the functions of the Library and The Learning Center into a unified, technologically enhanced academic support space for students and staff in Building 5.  We are excited to announce our Spring 2019 newsletter – The Common Good – is now available online.

The Common Good is a collaborative publication, put out each semester, to showcase the resources and outreach services we provide for the Skyline College community.  Please visit The Learning Commons page at https://skylinecollege.edu/asltdivision/learningcommons.php and read why The Learning Commons is The Common Good!

For questions, please contact Sherri Wyatt.

On Saturday, May 18, 2019, Skyline College hosted the District’s 2nd Annual Migration Celebration. The Migration Celebration is a special ceremony to celebrate immigrant, undocumented, mixed-status-family and ally students and honor the special barriers that these students and their families have had to face in their pursuit of higher education.

The evening started with Keynote Speaker, Dean Santos, an undocumented Skyline College Alum and activist in the undocumented Asian and Pacific Islander community. Dean spoke of his fond memories of Skyline College and how much the support he found here helped him. He talked about the struggles of being undocumented and how happy he was to see how far undocumented student support has come at SMCCCD.

After the keynote, each graduating student was able to speak, with most saying heartfelt thank-yous to their family, friends, teachers and staff members who had supported them in their academic journeys. We look forward to the 3rd Annual SMCCCD Migration next Spring!

Article by Pamela Ortiz Cerda

Last summer, Dream Center Program Services Coordinator Pamela Ortiz Cerda was selected by the California Community College Chancellor’s Office to be part of a Dreamer’s Advisory Group. This group was tasked with creating and disseminating a survey about undocumented student support to California’s 114 community college.

The research from the survey was paired with research collected at seven regional meetings that took place throughout California. In these regional meetings, staff from local colleges doing undocumented student support and advocacy work were invited to discuss the issues that their students are facing and share best practices with each other.

Once all of this data was collected, the committee created recommendations for how the Chancellor’s Office could improve system-wide support of undocumented students. An excerpt for the report reads:

As institutions of higher education continue to enroll undocumented students, colleges and universities must build institutional capacity for their success by creating and implementing comprehensive policies and practices aligning with their institutional mission and vision. Facilitating equal access, affordability, and establishing academic support systems throughout all institutions of higher education has the potential to benefit all.

You can read the full report here.

Article by Pamela Ortiz Cerda

To mark the 50th anniversary of Skyline College (coming up in Fall 2019), the college will be establishing an official seal in order to create a formal emblem to represent the institution. We need your input on what should be included on the seal! Please take the online survey to make sure your voice is heard.

Both the College of San Mateo and Cañada College have established seals, so this 50th anniversary provides a perfect opportunity for Skyline College to match the visual identity assets of its sister colleges within the District.

WHAT IS A SEAL?

A college seal is an emblem that that represents a college through graphic elements, most often circular in design and including text. The text often runs around the border of the circular emblem and usually includes the name of the organization and possibly a motto that is representative of the college.

See some examples of college seals below:

• College of San Mateo
• Cañada College
• University of California
• Stanford University
• California State University, East Bay

HOW WILL THE SEAL BE USED?

The Skyline College seal will be used on official documents like diplomas and letterhead, in addition to marketing needs where a more formal representation of the college is warranted.

YOUR INPUT IS NEEDED

In order to begin the design process, we want input from the campus community on ideas for graphic elements to include in the seal. Please fill out the online survey to have your voice heard in the creation of our college seal.

If you have questions, please contact Cherie Colin.

Construction on the new Environmental Science Building will be complete in mid-September 2019!

Please Save The Date for the official Environmental Science Building Ribbon Cutting and 50th Anniversary Celebration on Tuesday, September 24, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. in the Farallon Room. Enjoy a short program, hors d’ouvres, building tours and most importantly, student work in environmental science.

Article by Cherie Colin | Photo by Mia Coo

We’ve heard you loud and clear. College events happening simultaneously, particularly in peak times during the semester, have made it difficult for students, Administrators and Board of Trustee members to choose which event to attend and/or causes them to rush from one to another making quick appearances. This often means we’re not demonstrating the full support of the college for each event. It also puts a strain on facilities staff, who work diligently to provide us with the support we need in order to ensure successful events.

In an effort to prioritize event scheduling and minimize college event conflicts, the SkyEvents and MCPR teams have developed an Event Tier System based on research of how this issue is mitigated at other colleges. When events are requested, they will be designated as Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier 3 according to the following definitions and will be scheduled in that priority order.

Definitions:

Tier 1	College-wide events of the highest priority which are core to the institution’s mission. No other college events should be scheduled on the same day. This is so that faculty, staff and administration can focus on these high priority events and students, board members and district and college leadership are not placed in the position of having to choose which event to attend.
Tier 2	Signature college events which happen annually or in some cases more often. Please check the college events calendar on the homepage of the website for potential conflicts before scheduling your event date and time. If you will be inviting the President and/or a Vice President to keynote or attend, please coordinate with the President’s Office or appropriate Vice President’s Office before finalizing your event date and time.
Tier 3	All other events and meetings on campus.

 

Note: Please be reminded that the public college events calendar is populated by approved event requests that have been entered into Ad Astra.

All events on campus are important and we will always make every effort to accommodate the campus community to ensure that events are scheduled on or as a close to the desired date as possible.

If you have any questions, concerns, feedback or corrections to the attached document we will use for guidance in scheduling events, please feel free reach out to Cherie Colin at colinc@smccd.edu or ext. 4346.

 

Sincerely,

The SkyEvents & MCPR Team

Attention Event Planners!

Did you know? The master college events calendar is now populated directly from the Ad Astra events reservation system in place at the college. Event information entered into the system marked as “featured” by SkyEvents have been coded to pull directly into the public events calendar which is displayed on the homepage of the website at skylinecollege.edu and on the TV screens in main areas of buildings across campus.

The SkyEvents team reviews all event requests and as part of their workflow, Annie Trinh and Linda Bertellotti check the “featured” box for events that are of interest to the public. Take a look at the calendar by viewing the next few events on the homepage or clicking on the calendar icon which takes you to the site displaying events by month events.skylinecollege.edu.

Types of Events Marked “Featured” and Displayed on the College Events Calendar

• Campus-wide Events
• Public Events (conferences, athletic games, etc.)
• Community Events

Types of Events Not Displayed on the College Events Calendar

• Division Meetings
• Interviews
• Participatory governance meetings
• Other internals meetings

Event Planner Guidelines – IMPORTANT!

There are just a few things you need to be aware of when planning an event to ensure the event is properly displayed on the college events calendar.

1. Event Description: When requesting your event, please include an Event Description written for public viewing. Keep in mind when writing that the audience (public) may have no background information on your program. Please avoid using acronyms, check for misspellings and write a short, but concise event description no longer than 2 sentences. Please do not include any links in your description.
2. Contact Information: Please include contact information in your description in case the public has questions about the event.
3. Conference/Large Scale Events: If you are hosting a conference or large scale event that has multiple locations throughout campus reserved in the Ad Astra system, feature only the check-in location. If several locations show up on the calendar, the additional rooms need to be unchecked as “featured”.
4. Event Time: Make sure the featured event lists the actual event time only and does not include set up and tear down time.
5. Featured Event: You may request that your event be marked “featured” so that it will display on the college events calendar when you send your reservation request to SkyEvents. Please notes, t will not actually show in the calendar until SkyEvent has approved your request.
6. Specialty Event Venues: Please be aware that specialty venues such as the Art Gallery, Theater, Gym and the Quad require permission from individuals that manage the respective space before they can be reserved.  If you have any questions about these spaces, contact Linda or Annie.
7. Common Event Planner Links:
   • To facilitate your request, a variety of setup diagrams are available for the Fireside Dining Room, Building 6 conference rooms and the Multicultural Center in Room Layouts available on the website. You may choose from the layouts available or use as a starting point and modify to accommodate your event.
   • If you need assistance in using Ad Astra, visit the Ad Astra Event Request Guide.
   • Ready to make a request? Use the Ad Astra Event Request Form.

Why is my Event not Displayed?

There are a few reasons why your event may not be displayed in the college calendar.

1. Your event takes place in a location that is not reserved through Ad Astra such as the Art Gallery. If this is the case, Deans may identify a staff member to be trained in Ad Astra and enter the public events in directly and mark them as “featured”.
2. The “featured” check box was missed in the workflow process. Please contact Linda Bertellotti or Annie Trinh to have your event marked “featured”.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact, Linda Bertellotti at ext. 7141, Annie Trinh at ext. 4431 or Cherie Colin at ext. 4346. We look forward to working with you collaboratively to create impactful events for our campus community.

 

Sincerely,

The SkyEvents & MCPR Team

Skyline College has created a Grab & Go meal program offering low-cost nutritious meal options for lunch and dinner available to all students with a Student ID at a cost of just $3.00 for each meal. This extremely low-cost meal plan is made possible thanks to the leadership of the Associated Students of Skyline College, which has worked in collaboration with the college to subsidize the $6.00 cost of the meals by half – reducing the cost-per-meal for the student to $3.00. Individuals without a Student ID may still purchase meals for $6.00. The program soft launched in April and is available at World Cup Coffee & Tea located next to the Fireside Dining Room in Building 6.

For $3.00 (or $6.00 without a student ID), the Grab & Go bundle consists of:

• One triangle prepackaged sandwich (tuna, ham and cheese, egg salad, chicken salad, salami and cheese, turkey and cheese or roast beef and cheese)
• One fresh fruit or healthy snack
• One Aquafina bottled water(16.9oz)

The Grab & Go package was developed by the Skyline College Bookstore and SparkPoint, in partnership with the Associated Students of Skyline College.

In fall 2019, a projected 100 meals will be sold each week. Several categorical programs on campus have expressed interest in further subsidizing the remaining $3.00 for fall 2019 students who are in their program. The Grab & Go program is a compliment to the SparkPoint Food Pantry and Free Community Market that are offered at Skyline College. As a full marketing campaign has just launched, we look forward to contributing to a solution for the widespread food insecurity many students at Skyline College experience daily.

This spring, the Internship Job Shadow Program, hosted five student interns across various campus programs, including the off-site Bay Area Entrepreneur Center office. In addition to earning one unit of Cooperative Ed credit, funded by the IJSP, the student interns participated in events, on and off-campus and in various activities where they learned industry-related skills, and the ins and outs of how programs at the college function to serve students.

The student interns also worked collaboratively to complete and present a project where they identified problems in our world and proposed solutions. The focus of their group project was education on the health effects of global warming.

This semester, the IJSP would like to highlight student intern, Vincent Blensdorf.  Vincent is in his first year at Skyline College, is currently studying finance and competes on the wrestling team- go Trojans!  Vincent is also a member of the fall 2018 Promise Scholars cohort. After shadowing under Kevin Chak this past semester, Vincent has been hired to work at the Skyline College Bookstore as a paid student assistant.  Vincent will be the 8th student that was hired as a result of their participation in the IJSP.

With continued support from campus partners, such as the Center for Career and Workforce Programs, Skyline College Bookstore, the Study Abroad and Exchange Program and the SparkPoint Center, the BAEC is able to provide a unique internship experience for students, where they engage in a real-world career setting.

The Job Shadow Program is a great way for students to benefit from hands-on career exploration and project-based learning while they pursue their educational goals at Skyline College. The IJSP empowers students to define success for themselves. This program supports students in developing and enhancing the skills they will need to be successful, whether they decide to continue their education, contribute meaningfully to the workforce, pursue entrepreneurship as a career, or all three!

We are currently accepting applications for the summer 2019 academic semester.  The application can be found here: skylinebaec.org/internships.php. Please spread the word!

For more information on the Internship Job Shadow Program, contact baec@smccd.edu, visit the website at skylinebaec.org, give us a call at (650) 738-7992 or come in for a tour, we are located at 458 San Mateo Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066.

Article by Pcyeta Stroud | Photo by Sam Panganiban

The Skyline College International Student Program hosted a farewell party for international students who are graduating or transferring out this semester. Students, faculty and staff gathered in the Multicultural Center on May 16, 2019 and were treated to student performances, games and a raffle.

The event was hosted by the International Student Club (ISC) president, Sophie Huang and the ISC vice-president, Rachel Zhang. It began with a karaoke session to get the guests in the party mood. Students belted their hearts out to current top hits, starting an impromptu dance party at the same time.

Wayne Wang then took center stage with a K-pop dance, wowing the crowd with his energy and agility. Soon, it was time to eat and party at the same time by continuing with the karaoke session or taking photos at the photo booth. The highlight of the event was when Dr. Russell Waldon, Dean of Global Learning Services and Programs, presented the transfer students with certificates to celebrate their achievements. There were loud cheers as the crowd celebrated each student’s success.

Next, Rachel sang with Walter Oshima accompanying her on guitar; the crowd sang along, enraptured by the familiar tune. Right after their performance, Dr. Jennifer Taylor-Mendoza, the Vice President of Instruction, stopped by to address the crowd and congratulate the transferring students once again! The party ended with a raffle drawing where lucky guests won Skyline College memorabilia and an energetic K-pop dance by Sally Wan. It was a wonderful event with lots of smiles and laughter. Congratulations to all students who are graduating or transferring out! You did it!

Article by Clair Yeo-Sugajski