Hi folks, this is Daren Otten, Superintendent/President here, Copper Mountain College. This is your Board of Trustees regular meeting follow-up report from Thursday, November 14th, 2024
Overarching, it was a very lightly attended meeting from the standpoint of many participants because many of our general presenters, such as Jenn Anderson, Nicole Virtue, many of our managers were all over at the SCCJC training that was going on in Riverside for the region, and it happened to be right on our board meeting. So that meant that I got the personal pleasure of providing many reports to the Board of Trustees, but it really was started out with a very fun kind of thing celebrating the legacy of Liz Meyer.
So Liz Meyer, as you all know, retired from the Board of Trustees back in July, and the Board of Trustees presented a resolution in her honor recognizing her service to the college, recognizing her service to Morongo Unified, recognizing her service to really the community. For many folks that may not be aware that she served as mayor for Twentynine, she served as a councilwoman for Twentynine. She was a Spanish teacher in Morongo Unified for her career before her career. And it really was a touching tribute that Eva Kinsman, who many of you also know, who is a former trustee, came back and read to Liz and presented to her on behalf of the Board of Trustees.
So it really was just truly an amazing kick-off of a meeting to recognize and honor Liz’s service. For me personally, Liz really has been a friend and a mentor as I’ve continued to grow in this role as superintendent, president and somebody who, you know, on a regular basis, you know, has been more than willing to kind of help coach me along and help make sure that there are things that I don’t forget. So I, along with the Board of Trustees, just want to recognize and thank Liz for all of her time and support.
The other things that came out of that particular meeting are kind of as follows There was no action taken out of closed session. There were several new employees that were introduced at the meeting, and ultimately there were several reports that were presented and some of which I got to present on behalf of other folks.
But one of the things that I did want to highlight for the college is that we did have to restate our enrollment report to the Chancellor. We found an error in calculation associated with the way that credit/noncredit accounting for enrollment was being reported to the State of California. This unfortunately has downward implications on our enrollments for 23/24. So this is last year.
The challenge with this, of course, is that that will ultimately impact some of our enrollment apportionment as we go forward. But it should be noted that that is done on a three-year running average. So while we were down almost 200 FTE overall, it will be broken into a three year average with the previous years funded at 1448. So the good news is, is that, you know, it minimizes the impact of that reduced enrollment recalculation, but it is still impacting and will impact our bottom line as we move forward.
Now, the good news for this term is that we continue to once again be up year over year. And so I’m happy to report that our enrollment numbers for fall 24 are very strong. And I hope that that trend continues through the spring.
As we looked at other things that were going on, specifically at that meeting, the academic Senate presented Malika Holden, who was an art student in Chloe Allred’s class, and Lee Kolb (?), she goes by, really presented a unique journey to Copper Mountain College in partial assistance by the U.S. military and really finding her voice as both an artist and a desert resident. Her story was both inspiring and really reminded all of us of the power of both education and the opportunities that the U.S. military provides people across this entire country.
For other things that were going on at the particular meeting, we had several board policies that were shared with the board and many items around consent agendas and other items that came forward. One of the things in the consent calendar that I did just want to make sure everybody was aware of is that we are finally moving forward with much of the common course numbering. And this is a big undertaking that, for example, English C 1000 will be English C 1000 at every California community college and ultimately will clearly articulate and align with that same course at either CSUs or UCs.
Now, this is a huge undertaking when we talk about it through the lens of just our general education curriculum. But when you talk about scaling it to all the courses that we are taking across the entire state of California at 116 different colleges, it’s a huge, momentous task. And I just want to do a big shout out to the Curriculum Committee for the ongoing work that they continue to do in that particular space.
Other than that, as we move towards kind of the end of the agenda, the board did approve the reclassification of two individuals, our science lab technician position and our catalog and education planning system specialist. Both of those job descriptions were updated to be reflective. Those three classes went through our collectively bargain process in our committee process to ultimately make that recommendation to the board of trustees.
As we move forward, looking towards December, we will be swearing in several new trustees and the board will be going through their annual reorganization. So, for everybody, as just kind of the operational items for December, Board President Greg Gilbert will convene both the closed session and kick off the general meeting with the agenda, then including the swearing in of the new members of the Board of Trustees. At the time when the new members are sworn in Trustee Gilbert will no longer be on the Board of Trustees. And so the assumption and while I’ve still got a few logistics to work through, the assumption is the current vice president, which is Dick Rogers, will take over the meeting specifically for the annual organizational meeting, where the board will select the board president, the board vice president clerk of the board, and ultimately representatives to both the Foundation and the county Office of Education.
So that will be going on at the December board meeting. And of course, that’ll be exciting seeing a few new faces. And as the community gets to know the new board members, as we get to know the new board members and as they get to know us, I know it will be a good opportunity to really re-ground our who we are speeches as we talk to them and as we kind of work to educate about what it is we do here at Copper Mountain College. So I’m truly looking forward to that and I’m looking forward to all of you to have a chance to get an opportunity to meet and engage with the board.
Final reminders. This is Tuesday before the wreath auction. I hope to see many of you on Sunday. And I wish everyone a safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving next Thursday. And I hope you all enjoy a little bit of time off towards the end of the week.
See you next month.
