April 10, 2024
Dear SRJC Community,

I am pleased to share with you the District updates that were provided to the Board of Trustees at the April meeting last night.

Office of the President 

• Attended the following events: 
  • Latinas in Petaluma  
  • Roseland Charter Scholarship Benefit Dinner where three former and current SRJC students were honored 
  • ACCT Governance leadership Institute with Trustee Chaaban 
  • High School Principal Breakfast hosted by SRJC 
  • Los Cien: Youth Perspective event 
  • Piner High School Early College 10th Grade Parent Info Night 
• Interviewed the finalist for Child Development faculty position 
• Held SRJC Voices session with Intercultural Centers  
• Hosted Cafecito with the College at Public Safety Training Center in Windsor with over 120 students and employees 
• Spoke at Women’s History Month Event: SRJC Making Herstory: A Conversation With Dr. Angélica Garcia, SRJC’s First Female President   
• Sonoma County Prosperity Project which brings leaders from all sectors to identify societal stressors that are impacting the county has invited Dr. Garcia to identify possible solutions to address 1-2 stressors.  
• Joined Trustee Lindley in attending the Ag Alliance meeting to thank the fundraising efforts of this group, provide information on student demographics, share about the CCAP agreement with Sonoma Valley HS, which is focused on Ag Science 
• Invited to be on the Council of Higher Education Accreditation Recognition Committee for the upcoming year. CHEA is the non-profit arm of the US Department of Education and ensures that accrediting bodies (ACCJC) are accredited and meet the standards. 

Academic Affairs 

• MESA along with STEM Faculty Liaisons Vince Bertsch and Ngoc Tran, kicked off the new STEM Speaker Series with their first guest civil engineer Jesus Hernandez from Summit Engineering.  This was followed by a second speaker later in the month, manufacturing and R&D engineer Luis Fernandez, from Keysight Technology. Future speakers are planned in the coming weeks as the new STEM Speaker Series will become a cornerstone resource for students at SRJC. 
• MESA and HOPE took students to the MESA STEM and Pre-Health Conference at Bakersfield College in March, an event designed to facilitate career exploration and networking within both fields.  Along the way, students also stopped at UC Merced and Fresno State for campus tours as they explored potential transfer opportunities. 
• MESA sent six engineering students to the Silicon Valley Women in Engineering Conference hosted by San Jose State University, where they learned more about engineering fields and networked with other students and industry professionals.  Also, another cohort of eight students attended the MESA Emerging Leaders Academy at Woodland Community College, where they learned leadership skills and networked with other students on STEM pathways. 
• Journalism students won more than twenty awards at a conference in Los Angeles. 
• Men’s Basketball Coach Craig McMillan was named BIG 8 Conference Coach of the Year 

Student Services 

• The Queer Resource Center (QRC) hosted the Transgender Day of Visibility on March 27th. There were over 160 students who attended in addition to employees, community members, local businesses, and organizations. There were 27 different exhibits, including gender affirming haircuts offered by Daredevils & Queens and information provided by Positive Images. Tiesa Meskis served as the DJ and Emcee for the event, and also shared about the importance of trans visibility. Student athlete Kim Stephens spoke about their lived experience. Our new QRC Coordinator, Jennifer Espinoza, was the keynote speaker for this event and her wife, author Eileen Espinoza, also spoke. Trans Day of Visibility was very successful and was a great example of the important work the QRC staff is doing to increase awareness of LGBTQ+ issues and provide support to our transgender students. 
• A new Guided Pathways workgroup, in a district wide collaboration, commenced its meetings in early April. The group's objectives include overseeing the implementation of the Guided Pathways (GP) work plan, organizing sessions on GP and facilitating cross-disciplinary collaboration, ensuring extensive communication through shared governance platforms, providing updates to relevant constituent groups and submitting reports to the Chancellor’s office regarding GP initiatives. Additionally, the group aims to prioritize the student experience in all recommendations, propose initiatives to the Superintendent/President, and document SRJC’s GP efforts for future reference. Meetings will persist throughout the summer to prioritize tasks outlined in the college's GP workplan. 
• On March 25th, SRJC hosted a High School Partners Breakfast that brought a total of 16 High School Superintendents, Principals and other administrators from various parts of Sonoma County as well as staff from Sonoma County Office of Education in an effort to foster ongoing communication and support with our local high schools.  The group was welcomed by Dr. Garcia, Dr. Senecal and Dr. Holcomb.  Time was spent highlighting current Dual Enrollment practices that included a presentation about Piner’s Early College Magnet Program (ECM) and a summary of SRJC’s Outreach Team role in supporting local high school students.  The group was also presented with an overview of new CCAP Dual Enrollment efforts and had a chance to provide feedback on how SRJC can best support high school students and staff as we roll out these new initiatives.  The meeting ended with a tour of the new Lindley Center for STEM Education and Polly O’Meara Doyle Hall. 

Finance & Administrative Services 

• The roofing projects season is underway! The Windsor Warehouse and Race Hall Roof Projects have been completed. The re-roof of Quinn is currently underway and Emeritus and Analy Hall will be re-roofed over the summer. The planetarium and Forsyth are being scheduled, as are other smaller areas that must be addressed. Thank you to the Fac Ops team for all their work on ensuring we have solid infrastructure in place and to the building occupants for your patience! 
   
• The District has created a new process for requesting new facility spaces within the District that the requesting area is not currently occupying. Detailed information on the process and the request form will be shared via a District wide email shortly and can be found on the Finance and Administrative Services website.  
• The conversion of the Student Information System to Banner continues. As part of the implementation, the current Faculty Portal needs to be redesigned and migrated to the New Banner SIS Faculty Portal. The functionality of the Banner SIS Faculty Portal will contain all the important details currently being used so to ensure we capture all the necessary information, considerations, and representation, the Banner SIS Implementation Project Team has created a Banner SIS Faculty Portal Workgroup to assess the system, review the potential changes, and test the new system before going live. The workgroup will span from Spring 2024 through Spring 2025. We are appreciative of all the interest in participating and look forward to this next step in the critical project. More updates will be released later this spring!  
• As part of our continuing efforts to protect your data and account integrity, we will be increasing the minimum required password length from 8 to 12 characters. The good news is you will only have to reset your password once a year, rather than twice. Please watch for additional information coming soon from the IT department and thank you in advance for your part in protecting our technological resources! 

Human Resources 

• The performance evaluation process was reinstated for Classified Professionals and Management Team in Spring 2024. Human Resources provided three training opportunities for supervisors to become familiar with the new performance evaluation process. Performance Evaluations for Classified Professionals should be completed by April 30th, and for Management Team members, by June 30th.  
• Human Resources staff members have worked with District representatives on hiring and onboarding over 43 individuals in March.   
• In collaboration with Academic Affairs, we announced the Cultivating an Ecosystem of Belonging (CEB) Program.  The CEB program's main goal is to increase retention of newly hired Faculty of Color at SRJC. 

Foundation 

• The SRJC Foundation Board of Directors received their second training with Michelle Shireen Muri in the implementation of Community Centric Fundraising Principles. The following day, the SRJC Foundation hosted over 50 nonprofit leaders and community members in a conversation with Michelle Muri regarding community centrism. We are happy to be helping the United Way of the Wine Country facilitate this broader conversation about creating more economic justice in Sonoma County. 
• The Foundation is coordinating the naming celebration of the Brook Tauzer Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in the Doyle Library. SRJC retirees successfully reached their $50,000 goal for the naming and we will have a plaque installed in Brook’s honor in the room. The celebration will be on Friday, April 26th from 1-3 pm, third floor of the Doyle Library. 
• The FY23 SRJC Foundation Annual Report was released in March and can be found at foundation.santarosa.edu/news. 

In community,

Dr. Angélica Garcia, Ed.D.
Superintendent/President
707-527-4431, angelicagarcia@santarosa.edu