Hi folks, Daren Otten, Superintendent and President here at Copper Mountain College for your board meeting summary from Thursday, May 8th, 2025.
The board did kick off the meeting with several recognitions as we kind of wrap up the end of the year. First of all, presenting a certificate to Student Trustee Mariam Hussain, who used the opportunity to announce that she has chosen to go to UCLA. So, we’re all very proud of Mariam.
Then also acknowledge the retirement of Ilona Mercier. She’s been a fiscal service specialist in the Business Office and has been with the college 24 years. And then retirement and the granting of emeritus status for Professor Steve Parkin, Professor of Chemistry and Physics. Steve was able to make an appearance and uh, it was a very, very, very, touching opportunity for the college to not only acknowledge all of these folks but for Steve in particular who’s been battling some challenges of late. It was really great for everybody to have an opportunity to check in, you know, celebrate a well-earned retirement for both Ilona and Steve and, you know, just really acknowledge the service to not only Copper Mountain College, but the generations of students across the basin.
As they moved into the regular board meeting, the board also acknowledged a Star Award for Chelsea Chastain and welcomed several new employees to the college, including Lori Dreger, who’s the administrative assistant one in human resources and payroll. Mona Lisa Infante, who’s our military-affiliated and veterans counselor, and Dr. Alma Correa, who is our interim dean of planning, research, and institutional effectiveness. Many of you may recall Alma has been with the college before and she has returned. We’re excited to have her back in the uh, in the fold.
As we moved into several just normal reports, there was nothing specifically noteworthy there, although you’re more than welcome to check out the full agenda on Community. But we did have a MESA presentation by Sarah Rodriguez acknowledging the first year of the MESA program. And for those of you who aren’t aware of the MESA program, it is the math, engineering, and science achievement program. And it’s really exciting for the college to have a place for, in particular, STEM students who not only get an opportunity to work with each other, they get an opportunity to work with Sarah and other faculty who, you know, support them mostly on their transfer journey.
There was the first reading of the Workplace Violence Prevention Plan as well as several APs and BPs that were acknowledged by the board as we worked through the various processes of first and second reads. One of the things that did come out of last week’s meeting is also the board did approve the institutional self-evaluation for accreditation. And I just want to take a minute and really thank all of the people who had their fingers on this particular document. Obviously, you know, from the standpoint of Leanne Christensen as our ALO, Mike Reese as our VP of Academic Services, Jane Kwon, all of the standard lead folks. All of the people involved with the standard leads. And then all the way up to the last week or two, faculty members, staff members, Brad Berger, Brittney Blakely, providing feedback as we finalize this particular document. So, what’s happening now at this point is we are doing one more massive review of the document, making sure that all the links work, all of those sort of things. And then the actual document will be submitted to ACCJC at the end of July. It’s due August 1st officially. So that’s where that’s gonna happen is then it will prep towards our visit this next year. So we’re excited to see that process continue forward.
And, you know, I do have to acknowledge that for being in the education business a long time, accreditation can be one of those things that is often dreaded and often steeped in, you know, compliance-based stuff. I’m actually pretty proud of where we’re at as a college. I think this ISER has given us an opportunity to self-reflect in many areas that we know we need to acknowledge. But probably for the first time in my career, I’m actually excited for the visiting team to come out here to Joshua Tree and take a look at the things that we’re proud of, the things we’re doing well, And also acknowledge the things that we have some opportunity to improve. And so this is kind of a new thing for me just from the standpoint of being excited about the next steps in this process.
There was also a couple of other actions the board took. In particular, BP 2015 is an annual review of student member privileges. The board chose to continue to ensure that our student trustee receives their monthly cash stipend. The board also kicked off their annual evaluation process and so what happens with that is that they’ve been provided their evaluation tool that they approved last month. They will do a self-evaluation of their perception of the board. That will be combined into a singular draft document that the board will then review at the July meeting in advance of prepping for the 25-26 goal setting. So that’s what’s gonna happen with that particular document.
Additionally, there were some draft academic calendar items and a few other things that the board acted on. But in particular, I want to highlight that the board approved classified employee reclassifications in the research and planning specialist area. As well as management contracts across all of the managers. There was also through a very good process, a competitive process, ultimately that the trustees awarded the contract to Jorge’s for continuing cafeteria services here And I think we’re all excited to continue to work with Jorge and ensure that we have somebody who is obviously clearly dedicated to the institution.
Finally, the board did extend a contract for an independent contractor to continue to support the nursing program as we worked through some things with the BRN and also as we worked towards national accreditation. And so there’s some pretty exciting things going on there. And of course this week we’ve got all kinds of graduation ceremonies. It’s really an exciting but very busy time of year. And I just wanted to kind of acknowledge and thank everybody for the dedication, the work, the continued support of our students as kind of everything gets crazy for about two, three weeks. There’s a lot that goes on. And the amount of work and the amount of people and the amount of planning from the maintenance and M&O staff who are setting up and tearing down setups in the Bell Center to everybody who’s done all the planning around the various events that we’ve got going on to again, Jorge’s who’s providing food at many of these particular things. Everybody’s really, really busy right now and so Just a great big thank you and an acknowledgement that it’s been again an amazing year as we get a chance to celebrate with our students and their families over the next week or so.
With that, I’ll just let everybody know that the next meeting is on June 12th, 2025. And that’s the end of this report. Have a great week.
