Dr. Jose Fierro, Cerritos College president, held his first President’s Hour, an open forum, in which anyone from Cerritos College can come to the president with questions or concerns that they might have.
Albert Wilomovsky, instructional tutorial coordinator, took the opportunity to ask about current efforts being made in order to better prepare students in basic English language skills.
He requested Fierro take a look into the performance data after an English readiness lab/tutor program was eradicated a couple of years ago, to see if the elimination of this resource helped or hindered the performance of students.
Fierro, agreed to look at the data and to make sure that if the results weren’t positive to go ahead and see what else can be done.
“We’ve never had a president who has done this [President’s Hour] and it just shows that he’s invested in student success,” Wilmovsky concluded.
“I’ve seen that there are a lot of people on this campus who are invested in student success, but I do believe there has been a problem of miscommunication,” Fierro stated.
Alice Miller, English professor said, “I was so glad to hear that you will be adding more counsellors, but I was wondering if counsellors could link closer with instructors so that we also make them aware of the things they need to do.
“Success courses are being implemented on other campuses and have seen them be successful, how can we make that happen at Cerritos?”
He said that there are plans in the works to implement college readiness courses for incoming students, so that they have a clear path of their journey at Cerritos. However, there are complicated logistics to get through before that can happen.
Such as creating a new general educational plan and reassessing which courses would be mandatory.
The president addressed that the campus has many people with great initiatives, however his method of getting things done are to grab a couple of these ideas see them to completion and move forward.
“One of the hardest things I had to do when I first got here was to sit around and do nothing because I had to watch and learn what was happening on this campus,” the president said.
He believes that trying to push forward all initiatives at once isn’t an efficient method to get things done.
“The more initiatives you have the less successful you are because you need to spread your resources amongst all these ideas,” he expressed.
Fierro, has decided to make President’s hour a monthly open forum to be held on every second Thursday of each month.
He will try hosting the event at different times until a set time can be established to improve turnout.
He hopes that with this new avenue of open communication people can come together to help him improve Cerritos College.
