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DREAMers CAN TRANSFER! A panel with Cañada alumni now attending CSUs and UCs

DREAMers CAN TRANSFER!
Join us for a panel discussion with successful Cañada Transfer Alumni!
Thursday, October 15th in Build. 9-307

Brought to you by the Cañada DREAMers Student Club & Task Force, and the Transfer Center http://canadacollege.edu/transfercenter/

Gilman International Scholarship - Study and Intern Abroad!

Do you want to study and intern abroad? Remember to apply for your Scholarship! The deadline to apply is October 6th, 2015 at 11:59pm Central Time.
http://www.iie.org/Programs/Gilman-Scholarship-Program

What's Happening at Cañada? Week of September 28, 2015

Cañada College Invites the Community to Participate in Citizen Science Project

Cañada College Invites the Community to Participate in Citizen Science Project

 

Public volunteers needed to assist Scientists in their research on Olive Fruit Flies

 
 

 

Who: Cañada College Science & Technology Division, led by Adjunct Biology Professor Diego Nieto is looking for Peninsula residents to assist in its Citizen Science Project.

What: The Citizen Science Project will assist Cañada College in gathering data for olive fruit fly biological control.

Olives have traditionally been a valued community resource in the Woodside-Redwood City area. The olive fruit fly is a global pest, whose larval offspring (i.e. maggots) feed exclusively on olives. Unlike the small fruit flies commonly found in our kitchen that are only capable of depositing eggs in overly ripe or rotten fruit, the olive fruit fly targets ripening fruit to deposit eggs, which makes this robust fly especially problematic for olive growers.  As a result, nearly all unmanaged olives in San Mateo County eventually become infested, which can introduce other contaminants (e.g. bacteria) that intensify fruit rot. 

One of the reasons that this pest has become so problematic in California is that insect predators or parasites that specifically target this pest were absent.   In an effort to fill this void, researchers in the field of “biological control” have collected highly co-evolved parasitoids (i.e. minute wasps) from Sub-Saharan Africa, which is thought to be this pest’s evolutionary point of origin. 

Why We Need Your Help: Psyttalia lounsburyi has begun to disperse into the community surrounding Cañada College.  As it becomes more widely established in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, it will hopefully reduce the olive fruit fly population levels in olive trees found in hillsides and wild areas, urban landscapes, neighborhoods, gardens, and eventually, olive orchards.  

A collaborative “Citizen Science” project exploring the spreading of this insect in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties would greatly help researchers and community members to learn more about the scope and scale of this project.

How You Can Help:  Citizen Science is where public volunteers can assist Scientists in their research.  Scientists benefit from having a lot more data to analyze and a pool of volunteers willing to help. To participate in this project, simply follow the instructions below:

• Collect 50 ripe or ripening olives per olive tree
• Place olives in container immediately after collection
• Five weeks after collection, open the rearing container, place contents onto a clean flat surface, and count the insects
• Provide follow up information/data

Website: A more detailed description of the project can be found at www.canadacollege.edu/olivefruitfly  

To get involved with the project, please contact Diego Nieto at nietod@smccd.edu 

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What's Happening at Cañada? Week of September 21, 2015

District aims to rebuild Coastside adult education

Efforts underway to restore Cabrillo adult school

(Source: Julia Reis - julia@hmbreview.com; from Half Moon Bay Review)

Coastside educators are working to restore the Cabrillo Adult School thanks to renewed efforts at the state level to better carry out and fund adult education.

The recession of 2008 led to the closure of adult schools throughout the state as school districts used funds that had once been dedicated to adult education to avoid making cuts to other programs. Cabrillo Adult School, which held classes at Cunha Intermediate School and Half Moon Bay High School, was closed at the end of the 2008-09 school year.

Not long after, the Half Moon Bay branch of the College of San Mateo closed its office in response to cutbacks in the San Mateo Community College District. Since then, adult education offerings on the Coastside have largely consisted of English as a second language and computer literacy classes through Cañada College. Puente de la Costa Sur has its own slate of courses, as well.

Now, Cabrillo Unified School District is gearing up to offer beginning ESL courses that would feed into Cañada’s semester-long Half Moon Bay class. The coordination with the community college is intentional, a part of state legislation passed in 2013 in response to the spate of adult school closures.

Assembly Bill 86 required districts that still had adult programs to maintain them for two years. In doing so, it also set aside $25 million to provide two-year planning and implementation grants to regional consortia made up of community college districts and school districts. The state’s directive, as outlined in the bill, was that community college and school districts should work together to develop regional plans to better serve local adults’ educational needs and avoid the duplication of services.

In San Mateo County, the consortium is known as Adult-Education College and Career Educational Leadership.

Two years after AB 86’s passage, the state responded by earmarking $500 million in the 2015-16 budget specifically for adult education. This fiscal year, funds will be apportioned first to the school districts and county offices of education that were required to maintain their adult education programs the last two years. Beginning in fall 2016, the money will be appropriated directly to the planning bodies themselves, taking into account providers’ effectiveness and need in the region.

Future funding availability will dictate how Cabrillo Adult School grows. What’s currently known is that it will serve Half Moon Bay and Pescadero and will eventually be housed at Pilarcitos High School. The school’s principal, Raj Bechar, will serve as its director.

Before its closure, Cabrillo Adult School offered a range of classes, including ESL and citizenship as well as cooking and yoga. However, the passage of AB 86 mandates that districts spend grant funding toward improving five specific types of education programs. These include classes needed for a high school diploma or equivalency, courses for immigrants, programs for disabled adults, apprenticeship and career technical education programs with high employment potential.

The revived adult school will initially focus on offering free beginning ESL courses this fall, with a start date not yet determined since the school is still in need of classroom space and teachers. Helping Bechar lead the school’s restoration is Shari Deghi, whom Cabrillo hired over the summer as its new adult school coordinator. Deghi helped start ESL classes on the coast 25 years ago and has taught at the San Mateo Adult School for the last seven years. She recalls how her interest in teaching ESL was sparked when she first moved to the Coastside and witnessed a man getting arrested for shoplifting because of a misunderstanding caused by a language barrier.

“I said, ‘We have a huge problem in the community. Shouldn’t we be able to talk to each other?’” Deghi said. “Employers have a really hard time finding unskilled laborers because their level of English is so low. There is more employability with more people speaking English. That will help provide more jobs for local people.”

Deghi added that while the adult school’s focus will be on offering ESL classes initially, the goal is for the school to host classes that benefit adults with varying needs, including those who want to acquire skills to advance in their current job or profession.

For Bechar, who assisted with Cañada College’s ESL classes at Cunha when he taught there, restoring the Cabrillo Adult School means that lives will be improved throughout the community, and not just for those taking the classes.

“Many adults have children in the district,” Bechar said. “A child with an educated parent is that much more able to succeed in school, so it helps the entire community.”

"Pillar Point and Half Moon Bay" by Doc Searls from Santa Barbara, USA - 2009_04_19 - Wikipedia

PAUL BRIDENBAUGH - AN EXHIBITION OF RECENT PAINTINGS AT CAÑADA COLLEGE ART GALLERY

PAUL BRIDENBAUGH - AN EXHIBITION OF RECENT PAINTINGS

CAÑADA COLLEGE ART GALLERY

The Cañada College Art Department is pleased to present an exhibition of recent paintings by the artist Paul Bridenbaugh. This art exhibit is at the Cañada College Art Gallery in Building 9. It runs from September 14 through October 15. The gallery is open on Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m., and on Monday and Wednesday, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. OR by appointment.

Visual artist Paul Bridenbaugh presents a selection of recent paintings at Cañada College in Redwood City, Calif. These highly cryptic non-objective oil paintings reference a range of lolspeak idioms, video game explosion sounds, east Asian slang, emojis, and invented words taken from personal communications. Bridenbaugh works with oil paints on stretched linen canvases, wood, and aluminum panels.

Bridenbaugh received an M.F.A. in Painting from Columbia University in New York City, and a B.A. in Painting from the University of California at Santa Cruz. His work has been exhibited at numerous venues in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and Mexico City. He is an Associate Professor of Art and Art Gallery director at Skyline College in San Bruno, California. Bridenbaugh lives and works in the San Francisco Bay area.

For more information about this show or the gallery you can contact Bill Morales at 306-3343, or moralesw@smccd.edu.

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USA TODAY College Recognizes Cañada College as One of the Top 10 Community Colleges in Northern California

NorCal vs SoCal community colleges: Who makes the grade?

Surfers vs. tree huggers. Giants vs. Dodgers. Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley. It’s no secret that the unofficial rivalry between Northern and Southern California runs deep, and the list of points of spirited contention goes on — even when it comes to education.

We love a good rivalry. With plenty of unique slang choices and the option of shady redwoods or sunny beaches all in the same state, we knew we had to pit NorCal versus SoCal for ultimate community college supremacy. We took four of the main metrics in our original methodology that ranked all community colleges in California — university transfer rate, student-faculty ratio, affordability and distance education — and compared the 10 top colleges in both regions to see who makes the grade for each metric.

NorCal: A+ for transfer rate

There are three main reasons why students usually enroll in community colleges: some sign up to get a professional certification or vocational degree, some are there just to learn a new skill or brush up on a knowledge area, and some hope to tackle some general education requirements before transferring to university to take their major-concentration coursework. This particular metric concerns itself with that last group, those who springboard out of junior college into a bachelor’s- or master’s-level program at a school in the University of California (UC) or California State University (CSU) system.

Community colleges in Northern California took the top spot when it comes to these transfer rates per 1,000 students, with two schools in particular — Hartnell College and the College of San Mateo — standing significantly ahead of the others. In fact, the 10 colleges representing the NorCal region produced nearly 60% more transfer students than their counterparts in the southern half of the state.

Bottom line: If admission to a 4-year school in the UC or CSU system the long-term goal that aligns with your career goals, definitely consider starting your educational path at a NorCal community college.

SoCal: A+ for distance education

Accessibility to unconventional methods of instruction can represent a college’s commitment to education for a diverse range of people, and the number of distance education students enrolled at an institution can serve as a measure of the strength of its dedication to accessibility. The winner in this category wasn’t quite as clear-cut as the others, so let’s take a look at some of the detail in the data.

The top spot for students enrolled exclusively in distance education went to community colleges in Southern California, with Palo Verde College‘s 31 percent blowing away the rest of the field. West Hills College – Lemoore was the star performer among community colleges in Northern California, ranking No. 1 overall for students enrolled in any sort of distance education at all with 43 percent. The second place schools in each region — Mendocino College in NorCal and Taft College in SoCal — each had 33 percent of their students taking some form of distance education, with Taft taking a slight edge in the all-online percentage. We’re going to give this one to SoCal by a nose, but it could potentially go either way.

Bottom line: California seems to be a haven for students who need diverse learning options, and you can likely find the flexibility you need in either part of the state, but keep in mind that SoCal has more students exclusively enrolled in online education.

NorCal: A+ for student-faculty ratio

It’s widely agreed that fewer students per teacher tends to make for instruction that’s more personalized, and more personalized instruction is often more effective. Schools in our study ran the gamut of student-faculty ratios, ranging from as high as 48 students per faculty member to as low as 16.

Yet community colleges in Northern California were clear winners on this metric. No fewer than three schools included in our study — Mendocino College, College of Marin and Feather River Community College in Quincy — had student-faculty ratios that ranked in the top 10 percent statewide, and both San Jose City College and Cañada College ranked not far behind, in the upper quintile.

Los Angeles Southwest College took the top spot among community colleges in Southern California with a finish in the top 40 percent, but it wasn’t enough to tip the scales.

Bottom line: It’s important to remember how crucial access to professors and instructors can be — especially when you consider the throngs of students a bigger university lecture hall can fit. Consider a NorCal community college if better chances at engaging with your faculty sound appealing.

SoCal: A+ for affordability

The burden of student loan debt has been a hot topic over the last several years, particularly since tuition expenses have gone up thousands of dollars per student per year at some institutions. California may be the most affordable state overall for two-year colleges, but there’s quite a bit of variation from region to region.

This metric was another one with a clear winner, this time favoring schools in SoCal over their northern counterparts. We gave each school an affordability score based on where it ranked in relation to others, and the average score of 4.5 for community colleges in Southern California came in well ahead of the 2.8 average earned by NorCal schools, on a ten-point scale. Santa Ana College in Orange County took the top spot on this list, followed by four members of the LACCD: Los Angeles City College, East Los Angeles College, Los Angeles Trade Technical College and Los Angeles Southwest College. The most affordable school up north, Cañada College in Redwood City, was less affordable than all but the four most expensive schools we sampled in SoCal.

Bottom line: Like we mentioned at the start, California as a whole has some pretty affordable 2-year schools, but if the total cost you’re facing for community college — including tuition, fees, books and supplies — is your deciding factor, consider attending one in sunny SoCal.

Wait, so who makes the grade?

Each region got top marks in exactly two of our four metrics, which might make it seem at first as though they’re just plain equal, but it’s important to consider the details of what you’re looking for in an education that meets your career goals. If you’re looking for a community college experience with smaller classes, then you’re more likely to find what you’re after at community colleges in Northern California. However, if affordability is your main objective, SoCal might be the place for you.

Here’s a list of all the schools we looked at, and once you check out if any of these could be a good fit, make some longer-term educational goals and check out more information about campus-based colleges in California:

Best Northern California community colleges:

1. West Hill College – Lemorre
2. Porterville College
3. San Jose City College
4. Mendocino College
5. Hartnell College
6. College of Marin
7. Contra Costa College
8. College of San Mateo
9. Cañada College
10. Feather River Community College

Best Southern California community colleges:

1. Norco College
2. Los Angeles Trade Technical College
3. Los Angeles City College
4. Bakersfield College
5. Palo Verde College
6. Taft College
7. East Los Angeles College
8. Imperial Valley College
9. Los Angeles Southwest College
10. Santa Ana College

Link to article: http://college.usatoday.com/2015/07/30/norcal-vs-socal-community-colleges/

Sources:
1. “University of California Origin of New Undergraduates, Academic Year: 2013,” California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, Report Issued Oct. 29, 2014, accessed April 2, 2015, https://www.elcamino.edu/administration/ir/docs/acadperformance/New%20EnrCCCUCCampus13-14.pdf
2. Tuition and Fees by Sector and State over Time, Trends in Higher Education, The College Board, accessed June 23, 2014, http://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/tuition-fees-sector-state-time
3. IPEDs Data Center, National Center for Education Statistics, accessed April 2015, https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/

A version of this article originally appeared on Schools.com and was written by Aimee Hosler.