CMC Earns 2026-2027 Military Friendly Schools® Designation
March 25, 2026
Copper Mountain College has earned the 2026-2027 Military Friendly® Schools Designation recognized as a Military Friendly and Military Spouse Friendly School. Institutions earning the Military Friendly Schools® designation were evaluated using both public data sources and responses from a proprietary survey. Over 3,200 companies participated in the Military Friendly® survey. Methodology, criteria, and weightings were… Read more »
President Daren Otten Chosen for Aspen Institute Presidents Fellowship
March 25, 2026
Joshua Tree, March 25, 2026 – Today, the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program (Aspen) announced that Daren Otten, Superintendent/President at Copper Mountain College, is one of 23 community college presidents selected to participate in the third cohort of the Aspen Presidents Fellowship, a unique year-long professional development experience supported by JPMorganChase. During the program, presidents… Read more »
CMC President’s Board of Trustees recap and news for January 2026
January 13, 2026
Hi folks, Darren Otten, Superintendent/President at Copper Mountain College. This is your follow up report from last week’s board meeting of Thursday, January 8, 2026. Coming out of closed session, the board did announce that they had settled a pending litigation item associated with a former employee, and that particular item is being managed by… Read more »
CMC President’s Board of Trustees recap and news for December 2025
December 12, 2025
Hi folks. This is Daren Otten, Superintendent/President of Copper Mountain College. This is the follow-up from yesterday’s December 11, 2025 board report. The board did have a closed session where they went through several items, but the primary item was they completed my annual evaluation. And so they did report that out as we went… Read more »
CMC’s EMT Students Conduct Food Drive
December 08, 2025
CMC’s EMT students are a compassionate and caring bunch. EMT students participate in ride-outs with local agencies to provide care in the field, but this year’s students wanted to do more. Together, this semester’s EMT class initiated a food drive and collected canned foods for donation. They were pleased with the results. Yet one more… Read more »
CMC Stories: Notes from the fire line
December 02, 2025
Note from Cody Almanza, graduate of Copper Mountain College Wildland Fire Academy #10, summer 2025, veteran, now working in the Umqua National Forest, Oregon: This summer marked a major turning point in my career as I completed my wildland firefighting training and transitioned toward building a permanent life in Oregon. After earning my S-130, S-190,… Read more »
CMC President’s Board of Trustees recap and news for November 2025
November 18, 2025
Hi, folks. Daren Otten, Superintendent/President here of Copper Mountain College, with a recap of last week’s board meetings. And I say board meetings, plural, because we had the joint meeting between CMC trustees and the Morongo Unified School District School board members. And so just a couple of quick updates from that meeting. In particular,… Read more »
Read the November 2025 Issue of the Cacti Chronicles
November 12, 2025
Read the digital edition of the November 2025 issue of CMC’s award-winning print/digital newspaper, the Cacti Chronicles. Featuring a photo of CMC student Kei Bjork on the cover as she participates in the first Color Run on campus, the paper’s 32-pages are filled with news and information about Copper Mountain College life. From an aspiring… Read more »
16th Annual Festival of Wreaths Returns November 23, 2025
November 12, 2025
Join the local tradition that keeps on giving – Copper Mountain College Foundation’s annual Festival of Wreaths. Started in 2010, Copper Mountain College Foundation’s Festival of Wreaths has evolved into the premier holiday kickoff event of the Morongo Basin. The Bell Center on the CMC campus transforms into a hi-desert winter wonderland the Sunday before… Read more »
CMC President’s Board of Trustees recap and news for October 2025
October 29, 2025
Hi, folks. Daren Otten, Superintendent/President at Copper Mountain College, and this is the Board of Trustees regular meeting agenda from October 9, 2025 follow up report. There were a couple of things that happened in closed session, though there was no action taken coming out of it. Although the Board of Trustees has started my… Read more »