The San Mateo County Community College District held a special groundbreaking ceremony for a new solar project at Cañada College that will help cut the school's energy costs in half.
Dignitaries including Redwood City Mayor Jeff Gee, San Mateo County Community College District Board of Trustees President Karen Schwarz, Karim Allana, principal at Allana Buick & Bers Inc., and SMCCCD Chancellor Ron Galatolo were invited to turn the "first shovel of dirt" on the project. A large crowd was welcomed by Cañada College President Larry Buckley, who also took part in the groundbreaking.
This is the first renewable energy project undertaken by the district.
The project, approved by the Board of Trustees in January, includes
installation of ground-mounted solar panels on a 3.5-acre vacant project site
located adjacent to the school’s athletic fields and just above the Farm Hill
Boulevard entrance to campus. Jose Nuñez, vice chancellor of facilities
planning and operations, said Cañada was chosen for the site because it has the
greatest exposure to the sun year-round and is the least visually obtrusive to
neighbors.
The timing for the project was ideal since Proposition 39, the
California Clean Energy Jobs Act passed in 2012, allocates revenue to local
education agencies to support energy efficiency and alternative energy
projects. Prop 39 gives the district $554,000 in funding and the California
Solar Initiative will provide about $870,000 in rebates over a five-year
period.
A ribbon
cutting ceremony will be held upon completion of the project sometime this
summer.
Cañada College will roll out the red carpet for more than 200 high school students on Friday, March 28 as part of Preview Day.
Cañada College Preview Day is the major outreach
event of the spring. Students from the Sequoia Union High School District and Half Moon Bay High School will learn about different academic majors, how to apply for financial aid, and Cañada's popular Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Center.
"This gives our faculty and staff the opportunity to meet with hundreds
of students on one day to explain their programs," said Noel Chavez, Cañada's college recruiter and a former Cañada student. "High school students will learn about our academic and support programs."
Chavez said students will about different degrees offered at the college, student support programs, extracurricular activities and more.
For more information, visit Cañada's Preview Day website or call Chavez at (650) 306-3444.
A dominating three-hit shutout by Cañada pitcher Sam Alton lifted the Colts to a 4-0 victory over San Mateo County rival Skyline and gave the inaugural Golden Horseshoe Trophy to the Colts.
The Golden
Horseshoe is a new trophy awarded to the winner of the annual home
contest between Cañada and their two San Mateo County rivals – Skyline College
and the College of San Mateo. The Colts alternate hosting CSM and Skyline each
season.
Supporting Alton's sensational pitching performance was shortstop Kyle Zirbes, who went 2 for 3 at the plate and stole two bases. Right fielder Cody Barden went 1 for 2 and drove in a pair of runs for Cañada.
The Colts have now won seven of their past eight games and are 12-5 overall and 6-2 in conference play.Cañada will try to extends its winning streak when it travels to the College of San Mateo on Tuesday, March 18 at 2:30 pm.
A chance meeting and a simple sneeze led a Cañada College multimedia
student to produce a five-minute film that will be featured at the Cannes Film
Festival in May.
Sir Wade Neistadt was notified by email last week that his
short film, KERFLOOEY, is one of 26 student-produced films that will be
featured in the Short Film Corner, one of three main sections of the famous French film festival.
In addition, Neistadt’s film will be featured at Universal Studios in Hollywood
in June as part of a three-day red carpet event where industry professionals
host workshops and network with student filmmakers from around the country.
The idea for KERFLOOEY came from Neistadt and Cañada College
classmate Melissa Loi, an aspiring writer. They met in a psychology course
section. “When I met Wade he was trying to add the psychology class I was
already registered for. He came into class and sneezed, I said ‘bless you,’ and
we ended up doing ice breaker work in class. We paired up and became friends,”
Loi said.
Neistadt, who grew up in Apple Valley and attended Granite
Hills High School, transferred to Cañada from CSU San Marcos because he wanted
to be in Silicon Valley to pursue his dream of making films. “I researched community
colleges in the area and Cañada was the only school with both a good computer
science program and multimedia program. When I visited the school last spring, I
met Paul Naas, program coordinator for the Multimedia Art & Technology
Program, and he convinced me Cañada was the right place for me.”
Neistadt began refining his video editing and special
effects skills under the tutelage of Cañada faculty, many who have worked at major
studios such as Disney, Pixar and Wildbrain. “The storytelling the faculty has
done over the years for those studios is experience that a motivated student
can draw from,” Naas said. “It’s pretty unique among community college
animation and multimedia programs. Wade’s the kind of student who digs deeper
into a subject – asking questions, incorporating feedback, and leveraging the
knowledge and experience of faculty to make his projects better.”
What Neistadt couldn’t foresee was the simple sneeze that
led him to meet Loi would be the catalyst for the creation of Manly Man, the
protagonist in KERFLOOEY.
When Neistadt learned last November that Campus MovieFest, the
world’s largest student film festival and a premier outlet for the next generation
of filmmakers, would be at Cañada to host a competition, he was determined to
enter. He ran into Loi, a graduate of Carlmont High School, at the Cañada
College Learning Center and they talked about the competition and began
reviewing five-minute films on YouTube created by their favorite stars. That’s
when Loi had an idea.
“I thought it would be cool to make a movie about a
superhero, since everyone seems obsessed with comic book characters…but maybe a
superhero that can’t quite save the world at the moment.”
Manly Man, Sub City’s local superhero, was born but, unlike
most superheroes, he wasn’t invincible. He was fighting a cold at the same time
he was saving Sub City from the fearsome Madame Mayhem. As the story unfolds, every Manly
Man sneeze brings Madame Mayhem closer to defeat while giving Neistadt an
opportunity to display the special effects skills he refined in his Cañada classes. “I remembered that sneeze from our first meeting,” Loi said. “I began
thinking about how people love comic books and they love to laugh. Comedy is a
popular genre because it makes people happy and sometimes making people happy
means purposefully falling on top of a garbage can several times.”
“Melissa wrote the story and it was brilliant,” Neistadt
said. “I couldn’t have made this movie without her.”
They entered their film in the Campus MovieFest competition
at Cañada and received a Silver Tripod Award for “Best Special Effects,” a Best
Actor Award for Neistadt’s portrayal of Manly Man, and, to their amazement, the
Best Picture Award.
“At the campus awards ceremony, we were told that Campus
MovieFest has the opportunity to send about 30 student films to the Cannes Film
Festival,” Neistadt said. “I was shocked to find out our film was chosen.”
Naas said having a film at Cannes is a major accomplishment
for any filmmaker. “For a student filmmaker to achieve this is spectacular. I’m
thrilled Wade’s hard work is being acknowledged. He has a very cinematic eye
and several of the shots in the film are quite innovative.”
Loi said the movie’s success has surprised her. “I honestly
didn’t expect this much attention to come out of our little movie, but I guess
because I’m one of the film’s creators, all I see are the little things that
went wrong.”
Manly Man’s sneezes will lead Neistadt to the Villa
Maupassant Hotel in the south of France May 12-26 where KERFLOOEY will be
featured at the film festival.
“While I’m there, I will be walking the red carpet with
actors, directors, producers, and all sorts of celebrities,” he said. “I’ll be
watching the world premiers of the Cannes Official Selection, going to
workshops and Q&A sessions and making connections with a bunch of amazing
and talented people. I still can’t believe this is happening.”
The College District Board of Trustees voted unanimously
on February 26 not to renew the District's parcel tax.Board President Karen Schwarz expressed the
Board's deep appreciation to San Mateo County voters who agreed four years ago
to tax themselves to help the District through a fiscal crisis brought on by
years of state budget reductions.
"The parcel tax--the first ever for a community
college district in California--allowed our Colleges to offer hundreds of
classes to tens of thousands of students who otherwise wouldn't have been
served," she said.At the time, the
Colleges were facing unprecedented demand for classes, due to the recession and
widespread unemployment.At one point,
President Schwarz said, there were more than 13,000 students on wait lists for
classes.
"Ourfiscal
situation has stabilized and improved," President Schwarz said,
attributing it to a rebounding economy.Therefore, she said, the College District will not ask voters for a
renewal of the tax, which will expire in June.
President Schwarz again thanked voters for their support
which helped the District "weather the storm" of fiscal exigency four
years ago.
Cañada College has launched a digital marketing campaign in
Mexico to attract qualified applications from prospective students. The
campaign includes a Spanish-language landing page, banner ads, and a white
paper called “How to get into top U.S. universities.”
The digital campaign aims to educate prospective Mexican students
on the benefits of starting their higher education in the U.S. at a community
college. Students can earn an associate degree within two to three years for as
little as $20,000 and transfer to top four-year universities in the U.S. Cañada
College has transfer agreement guarantees with universities within the
California State University (CSU) system, University of California (UC) system,
and select private universities including Notre Dame de Namur and Golden Gate
University. The campaign also features former Cañada students who have
transferred and graduated from four-year universities including UC Berkeley.
Cañada College is recognized for
its STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) Center, which is
funded by the National Science Foundation. Professor Amelito Enriquez received
the Presidential Award for Excellence in in Science, Mathematics, and
Engineering Mentoring by President Barack Obama in 2011. Cañada’s Math Jam
Program, an intensive math placement preparation and campus-wide success
program, was recently named America’s top community college program for
increasing achievement for Latino students.
Cañada College is located in
Redwood City at the edge of Silicon Valley between San Jose and San Francisco.
Its location provides students with internship opportunities in high-tech
companies. The college has state-of-the-art computer and science labs. The Library
and Learning Center provide academic support services such as free one-on-one
tutoring and more than 5,000 books and journals both onsite and online.
Cañada’s smaller community of less than 7,000 students provides a friendly,
student-centered, learning environment.
How does the bacterium Helicobacter pylori survive and persist in the stomach? Julie Huang, a fourth year graduate student in Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford, will share her findings in the second lecture of the popular Cañada College STEM Speaker Series.
Held in both the fall and spring semesters, the STEM Speaker Series features professionals from various science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields talking about their careers, research, and educational paths, as well as providing advice for current and future college students. The event is free and open to the public.
Cathy Lipe, Director of Cañada's Math, Engineering, & Science Achievement Program, said Huang was one of the most interesting presenters at the fall STEM Research Poster Expo. "She is going to be of particular interest to biology students and students interested in careers in medicine," Lipe said.
Huang grew up in East Los Angeles and is a first generation college student. She attended the California Institute of Technology where she received a Bachelor of Science in Geobiology. After Caltech, Huang received a Fulbright Fellowship to spend a year doing research at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Germany. Her passion for scientific research motivated her to pursue a PhD in microbiology. Her research investigates how the bacterium Helicobacter pylori survives and persists in the stomach.
H. pylori is a spiral-shaped bacterium commonly found in the stomach. The bacteria's shape and the way they move allow them to penetrate the stomach's protective mucous lining, where they produce substances that weaken the lining and make the stomach more susceptible to damage from gastric acids.The bacteria can also attach to cells of the stomach, causing stomach inflammation, and can stimulate the production of excess stomach acid. Over time, infection with the bacteria can also increase the risk of stomach cancer.
Although it is not known how H. pylori infection is spread, scientists believe it may be contracted through food and water. According to the National Institutes of Health, approximately 20 percent of people under 40 years old and half of adults over 60 years old in the U.S. are infected, with higher rates in developing countries.
Dignitaries including Redwood City Mayor Jeff Gee, San Mateo County Community College District Board of Trustees President Karen Schwarz, Karim Allana, principal at Allana Buick & Bers Inc., and SMCCCD Chancellor Ron Galatolo were invited to turn the "first shovel of dirt" on the project. A large crowd was welcomed by Cañada College President Larry Buckley, who also took part in the groundbreaking.
