Alaa Aissi Awarded Prestigious Scholarship

Alaa Aissi

2014 Cañada Graduate Alaa Aissi has been awarded the Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholarship from UC Berkeley. The scholarship is the most prestigious and the highest honor awarded by the university to an undergraduate. It attracts, retains, and graduates the most sought-after students in the world. After the pool of over 90,000 Cal applicants is thoroughly reviewed, only the top 1 percent of incoming students are invited to be interviewed by Berkeley faculty. From there only two hundred students receive the scholarship. Benefits of the scholarship include a Faculty Mentor, research fellowship opportunity, further networking with faculty and fellow scholars throughout their academic careers, along with a monetary award. Upon receiving this honor, Alaa expressed, “I am humbled by the opportunity to have received this scholarship and to be a part of the Regents’ and Chancellor¹s Scholars Association. I am looking forward to being lauded at the Chancellor¹s residence at this fall’s reception and advance my capacity to contribute to my community."

Huang Joins A2B Staff

Tracy Huang

Tracy Huang will join the research and grant program staff early in June. For the past 10 years, she has been a research analyst at SRI International – conducting research in early childhood and K-12 education, including school readiness, early childhood program evaluation, services for young children with disabilities, and educational assessment. She has also provided evaluation consultation and services to a variety of agencies, including recipients of the U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation Fund (i3); San Francisco Unified School District; and county mental health service agencies in California. In addition, she has worked at the City University of New York’s assessment and institutional research department. She holds a Ed.D from Teachers College, Columbia University. Please welcome Tracy to Cañada College.

Theater Lobby Renovation

Lobby today

Last fall, Vice Chancellor for Facilities Management, Jose Nuñez, initiated a project to complete a facelift of the Theater Lobby using District Deferred Maintenance and remaining Bond funds. To fulfill this initiative, President Buckley assembled a project group, which included faculty and staff from the college’s Performing Arts and Art programs as well as Interior Design Professor Elsa Torres. Professor Torres included three of her students who had the opportunity to work closely with the architectural firm, LCA Architects. 

The group has met several times over the past couple of months to assist in developing design ideas which would include: improving display cases for student art work, new carpeting, new doors, baffling panels, and light fixtures. The goal has been to develop a more inviting and modern lobby to welcome the community and our students. 

Proposal rendering

Architect Brent Randall, listening to the ideas and practical needs of the users, incorporated them into a proposed design. He indicated how much he enjoyed working with the Interior Design students and how impressed he was with the creativity, enthusiasm, and insight they brought to the project.

In addition to the Theater Lobby, the refurbishment project includes replacing carpeting and lights in the Theater House itself. The carpets and lights have not been updated in more than a decade, during the last theater refurbishment. Current planning includes additional baffling on the west interior to limit noise from reaching the second floor walkway that overlooks the Lobby. Should there be no unforeseen circumstances that might delay the project, work could begin as early as this summer.

Meet Lale Yurtseven, New Business Instructor

Lale Yurtseven

Please welcome Lale Yurtseven, who will be joining our full-time Business faculty. Ms. Yurtseven will be teaching courses across the Business curriculum.

Ms. Yurtseven is Turkish, grew up in Germany, and is multi-lingual, speaking English, German, and Turkish.

She holds an M.B.A. in International Management and a B.A. in International Relations from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She has been an adjunct faculty member, teaching Business, at both De Anza and West Valley Colleges for over eight years. She has also served as a grant manager promoting business and education collaboration throughout the California Community Colleges system.

She started an Entrepreneurship Center at West Valley College, where she counseled students and community members who are interested in starting a business.

Prior to her experience in education, Ms. Yurtseven worked in management positions at both fortune 500 companies as well as startup companies. She also founded an information technology company, and continues to serve on its board to this day.

Andrés Roemer to Give Keynote at Graduation

Dr. Andrés Roemer, the Consul General of Mexico in San Francisco, is a diplomat, journalist, civil servant, and scholar. He was born and raised in Mexico City and has earned degrees from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley. He is the grandson of orchestra conductor Ernesto Roemer and has had a career as a shaper of policy and opinion in Mexico on political, social, economic and cultural matters. The recipient of various cultural awards and prizes, he was the creator and producer of popular TV Azteca Network and Project 40 programs including Between the Public and Private, In the ring, Think about Thinking, Ciudad de las Ideas, and the Roemer Report.

He has authored 16 books and 2 stage plays that examine such diverse topics as: happiness, art, love, water, soccer, law, economics, crime, evolutionary psychology, government, and public policy. He is a passionate communicator of humanistic science. He is a tireless advocate for human rights, and a leader in building firmer Mexican and American political, economic, and cultural relations. He is the Curator and Founder of the City of Ideas and Brilliant Minds International Festival, which is held annually in the Mexican State of Puebla.

Dr. Roemer is a Senior Visiting Scholar in Cultural Codes and Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

He has been awarded numerous national and international awards, including the prestigious Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award from the University of California, Berkeley, for his outstanding public service to the people of Mexico. He has been the recipient of the Promotion of Science Award, presented by Nobel Prize winner, Mario Molina and the President of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, Arturo Menchaca. In 2009, he received a National Theatre Award for best author for his play,The Other Einstein. Finally, in 2006, the Microsoft Corporation created the Andres Roemer Award, in his honor, given annually to distinguished individuals for their service to the worldwide community of scholars.

Dr. Roemer is among Mexico's most internationally recognized public intellectuals. Devoting his personal and professional life to empowering individuals to question accepted beliefs and the order of society's complexities, he has emerged as one of the most distinguished Mexican leaders of the 21st Century.

Paul Roscelli Presented Above and Beyond Award

On May 13, 2014, the SMCCCD Board of Trustees bestowed on Paul Roscelli, Cañada College Professor of Economics, the Above and Beyond Award. Paul was honored for his outstanding work as advisor to Beta Zeta Nu, Cañada College’s Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa (PTK), the international honors society for two-year colleges. Over the past decade, in large part due to Paul’s extraordinary efforts, the chapter has been honored as one of the premier chapters in the nation.

In 2013, it was recognized at the honor society's international convention as a distinguished chapter and was later and named the Most Distinguished Chapter in the Nevada-California Region. Beta Zeta Nu also received PTK’s College Project Award for its organization of the Evening of Academic Excellence, which annually recognizes the area's top high school scholars and received the Honors in Action Award for a study on academic integrity. Beta Zeta Nu was the only West Coast chapter to be named to the Top 10 Most Distinguished Chapters polling in 2013. It was the second consecutive year Beta Zeta Nu earned the honor.

In January 2014, Paul was named a Phi Theta Kappa Faculty Scholar. He was just one of 26 community college instructors selected from among nearly 3,000 Phi Theta Kappa Chapters. He was invited to attend the Phi Theta Kappa Annual Faculty Scholar Conference in the British Virgin Islands. As a Faculty Scholar, Paul will lead Honor Student seminar discussions at PTK's Honors Institute, which will be held in June at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Cañada Hosts ACCEL

On May 2, 2014, the Adult Education, College, and Career Educational Leadership Consortium (ACCEL) held a major meeting at Canada College. Over sixty teachers, professors, student services professionals, and administrators spent a productive and inspiring afternoon. The ACCEL work is a mobilization in response to the AB 86 legislation with leadership from the three colleges in our district and the major adult schools along with support from community based organizations, non-profits, libraries, the County Office of Education, and other providers of adult education across the county. This work is funded by the AB 86 Adult Education Consortium Planning Grants in which the state provided $22.5 million. The goal is to redesign an educational system that creates linkages for students across adult schools and community colleges to accelerate academic and career success.

Four teams have been formed to cover the county–Coast, South, Central, and North. Co-directing two of the groups from Cañada are Jenny Castello, Professor of ESL, and Nadya Sigona, Counselor. We also have Dr. Larry Buckley, President, Dr. David Johnson, Dean, Diana Tedone, Librarian, Ray Lapuz, Professor of Mathematics, and Noel Chavez, Outreach Coordinator, serving in various capacities. Codirecting this entire project for the district is Dr Gregory Anderson, Vice President of Instruction.

In less than a year, the ACCEL coalition will prepare a comprehensive plan for the ongoing coordination and integration of adult education. Your colleagues mentioned above along with partners from across the county are laying the groundwork for ongoing funding of hundreds of millions of dollars.