Hi, folks. Darren Otten here, Superintendent/President of Copper Mountain College. This is a follow up from last week’s board meeting on Thursday, August 14, 2025.
First and foremost, I want to hope everybody had a great Flex Week. Appreciated seeing everybody at All Staff Day last week and then I hope everybody’s off to a great new semester here this week. It’s been super fun to see all of the students on campus, and I know that the parking lot’s been full, so that’s been fun as well.
Kind of following up on that particular thing. This was actually a very short meeting and there was no action that came out of closed session. But we did have several new employees that were introduced. Got a chance to meet Rebecca Blankenship, Mary Dramis and Molly Baltazar. And it was exciting to see a couple of the new employees come and talk to the board. Regular reports were there, but Sandy Smith highlighted all of the upcoming events that are coming for the 25th anniversary, and I hope everybody this year gets a chance to really kind of help celebrate, enjoy the celebration. It’s going to be a fun year with a lot of activities associated with 25 years of CMC being an independent college.
Quick reminder for folks that the Board of Trustees annual goals. First reading was last month, and there will be a second reading for both the Board of Trustee Goals and my goals in September. There is feedback still being solicited, so if you have some things, feel free to email me Ariana or feel free to share with the board at the September meeting.
Reminder that Community Education courses and course lists are out, and encourage your friends and family if they’re interested in those type of ongoing, individual kind of growth courses.
The board approved BP three thousand eight hundred ten updates and then ultimately moved right into acknowledging the initial proposals with CMCFA between them and the district. And so I know those negotiations will be getting underway this year.
And then we just looked forward to September, where it’s going to, again, be a very busy meeting. We’ve got the annual budget going on. We’ve got the goals that we mentioned earlier. There’ll be an accreditation update, as we’ve been doing, as well as kind of prepping for our joint meeting in November with MUSD, the educational master planning updates, as well as our annual institutional effectiveness report.
That is the report from last week’s board meeting. Have a great semester.
