Last week, over 30 SMCCCD staff members attended a professional development retreat at the Flamingo Conference Center in Santa Rosa. Skyline College sent 15 staff members to take part in the program entitled “Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace,” presented by facilitator Susan Thomas, who holds an M.A. in Counseling Psychology. The retreat focused on learning how to handle yourself, your emotions, and your working relationships to help improve and maintain professional interaction. The areas of focus were Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social Skills.
At meals and in the evenings, employees were able to interact at a more personal level, and were encouraged to work and sit with people from other campuses that they may not know yet, to build an even larger professional network. Employees gained valuable insight not only into themselves and their communication, but also into interacting with co-workers, students, supervisors and friends. They left Santa Rosa after the retreat feeling professionally empowered and personally refreshed.
Those in attendance would like to thank Dr. Stanback Stroud for her focus on staff professional development at Skyline College, as well as our supervisors, for their support in attendance of this retreat.
Article by Alana Utsumi
