Two Skyline College students, Noreen Singh and Anthony Yu, were selected for the 20210All-California Academic Team first team. In addition to the All-California Team, Noreen also selected for the Coca-Cola Academic Team.

Noreen Singh is a Psychology major at Skyline College. She is Vice President of Communications of the Beta Theta Omicron Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa. Noreen will transfer to California State University to study psychology and plans to earn her Ph.D. Noreen works as a community tutor, providing support and help to children K-12.  During the pandemic, Noreen created “Hope Kits” and delivered them to the children in her community who were struggling with the transition to online learning. Noreen is serves as a Multiplying Good Think Big Team member on the youth advisory board. She is passionate about education and equity for minority groups. Noreen strives to empower and inspire others to make a change in their community and accomplish their goals and dreams no matter what may come.

Anthony Yu is a student at Skyline College who is currently studying Business Administration. He is the President of the Beta Theta Omicron chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society for 2020-2021. He is also the Co-President of the Alpha Beta Chi chapter of the Kappa Beta Delta International Business Honor Society and serves as a Student Council Senator for the Associated Students of Skyline College. Anthony will be transferring to a four-year university after two years at Skyline College in pursuit of a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. Personally, Anthony enjoys traveling, listening to music, writing and spending time with his family. Along with his future endeavors, Anthony will continue to give back to his community.

Article by Chris Case

The Associated Students of Skyline College held an impactful calendar of Women’s History Month events which incorporated 3 speakers series events with STEM and Businesswomen professionals from our own campus for the first speaker series which featured:

• Soledad McCarthy Professor of Business, Hospitality, Tourism Management (HTM); Department Coordinator of – Business, Hospitality, Tourism and Business Computer Management
• Herlene Grace Beltran Faculty/Professor BS International Business, BS Business Management
• Emilie Hein Physics Professor

The ASSC continued the next day with a discussion panel which featured the Arts, Languages & Communication Society and Education Meta Majors which featured:

·         Rika Yonemura-Fabian Professor of Sociology

·         Pia Walawalkar Associate Professor and Outreach and Equity Librarian

·         Dr. Liza Marie Suyat Erpelo Professor, English and Coordinator, Kababayan Learning Community at Skyline College

On the 3rd and final day, the ASSC featured Executive Women in leadership which featured:

·         Michelle Batista Director of Student Support and Deputy Title IX Coordinator

·         Dr. Melissa Moreno, our very own Skyline College President

·         Andrea Vizenor Dean of Strategic Partnerships and Workforce Development

The speakers series was exceedingly eye opening and unsealed, a great chance for panelists to share their stories and experiences and a better chance for panel participants to learn from the women professionals on campus. The ASSC Women’s History Month also included a series of social media posts of women student professionals, former and current student council members sharing their stories.

If you’d like to learn more about the events, link to our padelt which includes informations of activities, resources and collaboration for the event, full video of the three day speaker series on our ASSC YouTube channel and social media posts links are attached below:

ASSC Women’s History Month Padlet: https://padlet.com/999x24k/asscwhm21ss

Day 1: https://youtu.be/Fsnwe8oHkSg

Day 2: https://youtu.be/aRp4clN8UgI

Day 3: https://youtu.be/1oBLFGGiqzc

ASSC IG: https://www.instagram.com/skylineassc 

Article by Felagot Desta, Center for Student Life & Leadership

Skyline physics instructors Kolo Wamba and Émilie Hein are pleased to announce the induction of Skyline College into the next Enriched Xenon Observatory (nEXO), an international nuclear physics experiment designed to search for (and hopefully discover) an extremely rare form of radioactivity.  Skyline will be the first community college to join the nEXO collaboration.  The following bullet points summarize what all this means.

 

• What: nEXO is an international collaboration of over 150 scientists at 35 institutions in 9 countries.  It is essentially a nuclear physics experiment whose primary objective is to observe a special form of radioactivity, called neutrinoless double-beta decay, in a common isotope of xenon.  Xenon, like neon, is part of the family of chemical elements in the periodic table that we call noble gases.  It is available in trace amounts in the Earth’s atmosphere.  When the nucleus of a xenon atom undergoes neutrinoless double-beta decay, it transforms into a barium nucleus as it emits two electrons (also known as “beta rays”– hence the  “double-beta” in the name).  This form of nuclear decay has never been observed (even though there has been one famous and highly controversial claim to the contrary).

 

• Why: If neutrinoless double-beta decay were discovered it would help us understand why we even exist at all! The laws of physics, as they are currently understood, appear to predict that equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have formed during the Big Bang, and whenever you have matter and antimatter together in the same place, they sort of cancel each other out, leaving behind only a burst of pure energy.  If this had actually happened, today’s universe would just be full of radiant energy– it would have no galaxies, stars, planets, or people– and it is a long-standing mystery as to why this is actually not the case.  But if there were certain special subatomic processes happening in the early universe (called “lepton number violating processes”, of which neutrinoless double beta decay is one example), they could have provided a way for all the antimatter to get “filtered out” before it would have had a chance to cancel out all the matter.

 

• How: To observe neutrinoless double beta decay, nEXO will collect 5 tonnes of xenon in liquid form and place it in a special vessel deep underground (to shield the experiment from cosmic rays).  If one of the xenon atoms undergoes a decay, it will produce a tiny pulse of electricity and a brief flash of light right at the location in the liquid xenon where the decay happened.  Special electronics will capture and record these signals, and computer algorithms will be used to help discern whether the captured signals came from a genuine neutrinoless double beta decay or from other uninteresting forms of radioactivity that arise from whatever residual mildly radioactive contaminants might accidentally be present in the experiment.  Neutrinoless double beta decay is such a rare process that we expect to observe fewer than 10 of these decays in the 5-tonne sample of liquid xenon over a 10-year period.

 

• Where: At the moment, the 5-tonne liquid xenon detector setup is still being developed by the nEXO team, but when it is complete it will be installed and operated 2 km underground at SNOlab (a former nickel mine near Sudbury, Canada).  The R&D for the detector is being performed at nEXO member institutions all over the world.

 

• Who: Physics Profs Wamba and Hein are collaborating scientists on nEXO and are currently helping to perform some of the R&D that is being done to create the special 5-tonne liquid xenon detector.  Much of this work takes place at Stanford University and at SLAC, both of which are also nEXO collaborating institutions.  Skyline physics or engineering students who are interested in getting involved with nEXO (as SLAC summer CCI scholars, as future graduate students at a nEXO member institution, or as Skyline students working on nEXO-related honors transfer projects) should contact Prof Wamba or Prof Hein for more information.

 

• Want to learn more? Visit the official nEXO project website at https://nexo.llnl.gov/.

Article by Kolo Wamba

The Skyline College International Student Program (ISP) collaborated with the Center for Student Life and Leadership Development to create an asynchronized padlet celebrating the Water Festival. The Water Festival is the New Year’s celebration that takes place from April 12 to 16 on the Western Calendar. It is traditionally celebrated in Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. The festival is rich with history and symbolism.  Please follow the link below to learn more about the Water Festival!

bit.ly/ispseany21

If you are interested in learning more about future ISP programs and events, contact the ISP office at skyinternational@smccd.edu

Article by Adrienne Villegas

The Skyline College Strategic Planning and Allocation of Resources Committee (SPARC) met on Thursday, April 8, 2021.

President Dr. Melissa Moreno presented the college’s recovery plans and timelines for return to campus.  Given Governor Newsom’s recent announcement to reopen the State with a target date of June 15^th, the college will be gradually increasing on-campus instructional programming for Fall 2021 and expecting a full return in Spring 2022.  The President will be conducting College-wide virtual discussion forums, Think Tanks, to collect feedback to inform the campus’ community safe and smooth return. The Think Tank forums will be held on April 27^th at 2pm and May 5^th at 2:30 pm.

Dr. Moreno also shared Fund 1 priorities with the committee. She provided a refresher on her goals for Skyline College, including strengthening participatory governance, promoting fiscal sustainability, advancing antiracism efforts, increasing community engagement, and transitioning towards recovery. For more information, please see this link here.

Tri-chair Vice President of Administrative Services Eloisa Briones gave an update on the three federal HEERF (Higher Education Emergency Relief Funds) allocations that the college has or will receive.  She also indicated that the District will be providing the Fund 1 college allocations for 2021-2022 which will inform the College Tentative Budget for next year.

Institutional Effectiveness Committee (IEC) Tri-Chair Karen Wong presented the revision of the IEC Charge primarily with of the addition of managing and supporting program review . The Committee moved to approve the recommended revisions to the IEC charge.

Karen Wong also shared proposed revisions to IEC’s membership structure to increase the number of representatives using divisional representation as a basis for membership. SPARC members voted in favor of the change.

Vote to recommend to CGC that the recommendations of the CPR Redesign Task Force be accepted and implemented.

The next SPARC meeting will be held April 29^th at 2:10 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

For additional information, please see https://skylinecollege.edu/sparc/.

Article by Judy Hutchinson

Skyline College’s Paralegal Department hosted its annual Legal Careers Night event on April 8^th. The event opened up with a warm welcome from College President, Dr. Moreno and a keynote address by the President of the San Francisco Paralegal Association, Amy McGuigan. It featured two panels consisting of Skyline College alumni: “Become a Legal Support Professional” and “Law School and You.” Additionally, it included a “Recruiter Insight: Trends in the Legal Job Market” segment. The event welcomed over 60 attendees.

Paralegal Program Director and Professor, Jesse Raskin, facilitated the event and panelists provided valuable insight regarding their educational, professional, and personal journeys. The attendees asked many relevant and engaging questions throughout the webinar using the Zoom “Q & A” feature. This was the program’s first virtual Legal Careers Night and it proved to be a success! A lot of positive feedback was received regarding the event:

“I attended the Paralegal program the other night and it was very informative and very interesting for me. I have always had a fascination of the law and how it works, but after attending it has definitely caught my eye and is something I want to look more into and try, currently my majors at Skyline are Administration of Justice and Political Science and would love to explore the law on both aspects, I appreciate the efforts you all put in that night and how engaging it was and is something I want to look into! Thank You!”

“I just wanted to let you know that the seminar was fantastic! Thank you it was very inspiring so much need it!!! Because it has been a big challenge for me and before the seminar I was feeling that I am on the wrong path choosing to be on this field. But after yesterday I remember WHY I am back to school after so many years and honestly it is my passion studying law, I always wanted to be a lawyer, but because of the circumstances in life I was not able to do it! I don’t think I will get there but becoming a Paralegal it means so much to me! Thanks for all the support ! I am so happy to be part of your class and get to know you.”

“I am happy I attended because I did learn a lot and retained a lot of the information given tonight. I also appreciated how authentic, transparent, and relatable the panelists were.” 

The Paralegal Studies Team would like to express our gratitude and thank the following speakers and panelists:

Skyline College President, Dr. Melissa Moreno

San Francisco Paralegal Association President, Amy McGuigan

“Become a Legal Support Professional” panelists: Sheryl Bernardo, Albert Chen, Grace Liu, and Simona Stodulkova

“Recruiter Insight: Trends in the Legal Job Market” panelist: Samir Metovic

“Law School and You” panelists: Kellie Baumann, Alejandra Campos Tostado, and Nikki McLaughlin

The Paralegal Studies Team would also like to thank the MCPR team for marketing support and Roger Marcelo for multimedia support.

We look forward to growing our community of mentors to further support the academic and career pathways of our students.

 

Article by Jesselle Hoque

Our Skyline College Academic Senate is pleased to announce the call for nominations for the last award in our yearly award cycle,  the Meyer Excellence in Teaching Award. This award seeks to honor and celebrate  excellence in the classroom—the primary criterion for this award. Other criteria include departmental participation, student activities beyond the classroom, and overall collegiality. The Meyer Award is an monetary award established by SMT faculty member, Professor Phil Meyer, to be given at the end of the academic year to a colleague who has been a full-time Skyline College faculty member for no more than five academic years. This prestigious award acknowledges the hard work of our full-time faculty colleagues in the beginning of their tenure at Skyline College. Since we did not award a Meyer Award recipient last year (…global pandemic), this year, eligible full-time faculty will include those from 2016.

 

Skyline Faculty Members Eligible for the Meyer Award
2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Brianna Clay Kim Davalos Rika Yonemura-Fabian Jarrod Feiner Nicholas Langhoff Soledad McCarthy Regina Mitchell Lucy Perez Jovel Carlos Romero Bianca Rowden-Quince Cassidy Ryan Gabriel Saucedo Erinn Struss	Nicole Porter Alberto Santellan Jessica Truglio Miranda Wang Kenyatta WeathersbyKim Saccio-Kent Pia Walawalkar	Yancy Aquino Lindsey Ayotte Vincent Chandler Perry Chen Jing Folsom	Athena Nazario Ame Maloney Emily Hein Janice Sapigao Kenny Gonzalez Katie Hern Jenny Le	Andrea Fuentes Mandy Lucas Christina Shih Beatriz Qura del Rio Christopher Watters Felicia Mazzi Kolo Wamba Shaun Perisho Herlene Grace Beltran	Joseph Adams Kathy Zarur

 

Nomination Specifics:

To nominate a faculty member for the Meyer Excellence in Teaching Award, refer to the list of eligible candidate above and submit the nomination form. Share how the nominee demonstrates “excellence in the classroom”, i.e. innovative teaching techniques, supporting students, excellence in other areas on/off campus, and overall collegiality.

Nominations are due by Monday, May 3rd and may be made by any administrator, faculty, or staff member of the Skyline College community.

The Professional Personnel Committee will review all of the applications received and make a recommendation to Academic Senate for the official Meyer Excellence in Teaching Award. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Bianca Rowden-Quince, Professional Personnel Committee Chair at rowdenquinceb@smccd.edu.

Article by Bianca Rowden-Quince

Skyline College Dance, Drama, and Music Departments invite you to join us for our 2021 Spring Musical production of URINETOWN, the musical. Directed by Skyline College instructor and former Broadway performer Gary D. Ferguson; Urinetown tells the story of a dystopian society that requires a fee to pee, and the hero who leads the fight against the establishment and this restrictive regulation.

A Broadway cult classic celebrating its 20^th anniversary, this Brechtian musical pokes fun at such varied topics as authority, capitalism, classism, environmental devastation, love, and even musicals. In URINETOWN, private restrooms are nowhere to be found and everyone must pay for the privilege to use the public facilities. What IF the only option was PAY toilets??!!

Creating the production for a streaming environment added new challenges for directors, cast, and crew.  Music Director Jude Navari shared that “having to reimagine how to get the desired results, has been challenging but also rewarding . . . we have come up with interesting and potentially potent ways of finding solutions for how to create work in a new medium.”

Technical Director Josh Harris believes students have received an “invaluable learning experience” through the training required to manage their own technical theater needs at home.

For a taste of URINETOWN, the musical, view the Skyline Spring Musical Trailer at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2e2l1VPxQQ

STREAMING

Friday, April 23, 2021, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 24, 2021, 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, April 25, 2021, 2:00 p.m.

GET YOUR TICKETS TODAY!

showtix4u.com
Search “Skyline College”

Article by Chris Burwell-Woo

“If you do not learn how to make your money work for you, you will always work for it” (unknown). Financial literacy and money management are tools that are key for every person’s success. Join the Kappa Beta Delta Business Honor Society for a 2-part workshop series on saving and investing starting next Wednesday, April 21, 2021 from 3P – 4P.

In our first workshop, students will be learning the importance of prioritizing saving money, tracking expenses, and the steps to create an emergency savings plan. Different types of savings accounts will be detailed along with certain things to beware of when selecting a potential bank. Taking control of your savings is the first step to success for your financial future.

On the following Wednesday, April 28, 2021 from 3P – 4P, students will be exploring the world of stocks and investing. This workshop will be centered around why you should begin investing as soon as possible, including a discussion about what type of brokerage account may be right for you. Selecting investments can be difficult, but we will provide you with the tools and resources to be successful. These workshops are open to all!

Date & Time: Wednesday April 21 & 28, 2021 3P – 4P (Pacific Time)

Meeting Link: https://smccd.zoom.us/j/83220639779

Article by Christopher Wardell

This past week marked the 30^th Skyline College Free Drive-Thru Community Market! At this most recent weekly grocery distribution event we had 30 volunteers and served 890 families! It was also our volunteer appreciation day, so we had live music and gifts to thank for our incredible volunteers.

Every week each household or family receives almost 40 lbs. of groceries, including milk, eggs, pasta, rice, fresh produce, canned goods and dry goods, as well as a protein item (ham, chicken, turkey, etc.).  Second Harvest Food Bank calculates that over 559,518 pounds of groceries have been distributed since our program started in September 2020 and that we have offset over $1.8 Million in grocery costs for the most at risk members of our local community! In addition to thanking the hundreds of volunteers that have supported us since our launch in September 2020, we would also like to send a special thank you to the SMCCCD employees from SparkPoint, public safety, and facilities who make this event possible every week.

This event is held at Skyline College every Wednesday, 11:00am-1:00pm and has been extended through August 2021. All staff, volunteers and participants adhere to all COVID-19 Health and Safety Protocols at all times.

• Only drive-thru pickups will be served
• All participants must remain in their cars at all times and wear a mask
• Open to students and the community
• No I.D required to pick up food
• Please call 650-738-7970 for weather and air quality closure updates
• Please use Skyline Blvd entrance

If you are interested in volunteering, please sign up through the Second Harvest Food Bank website.  If you have any questions please email us at skylinesparkpoint@smccd.edu.

 

Article by Chad Thompson

Photos by Becky Threewit