With 2024 wrapping up soon, Cerritos College is implementing new helpful opportunities to campus life and student services in 2025. From campus-spanning construction to scrapping MyCerritos, the college is in for a big round of change.

The Vice President of Student Services Robyn Brammer , Vice President of Business Services Felipe Lopez and Vice President of Academic Affairs Frank Mixson shared their areas’ plans for the coming year as they seek to fulfill the goal of the Students First Framework – graduating 50% of students in five years or less.

Construction and Renovation

The college’s physical landscape is rapidly changing as construction and renovation projects are both beginning and finishing in 2025.

Renovations to the Health Science building are nearing completion – according to Lopez. It’s planned to be completed in March and should be moved into over the summer semester.

Health occupation, dental hygiene, cosmetology, child development and physical therapy will all be moving into the building once it’s completed.

Lopez also talked about how construction is also progressing on the massive new Student Services and Administration building which is set to be completed in December, 2026.

The steel of this $100 million project is completed and the plumbing, electrical and interior walls are currently being worked on.

Once it’s done, it’ll house the administrative and student services side of the campus – it’ll contain the bookstore, president’s office, board meeting room, counseling, admissions and records, financial aid and more.

Not long after the new Student Services and Administration building is completed, the new student housing project is estimated to open in spring of 2027, according to Brammer.

In addition to these buildings, the college is also about to begin construction on a solar project in its parking lots which should begin in December, 2024 and finish in December, 2025 – a year later.

Bots and Fraud

The college is continuing its efforts to tackle the ongoing fraud problem plaguing community colleges in which fake bot students are being used to steal financial aid.

According to a statement from Brammer and Mixson, progress is being made as the college has completed its initial review of N2N’s and its LightLeap AI Fraud Detection service for California Community Colleges.

N2N uses a three-module system that looks at various parts of the enrollment process to find bots before they can get financial aid.

It found an estimated 97% of bots in the first module at Foothill De Anza Community College – the remaining bots were found in the next two modules. Brammer noted that eight colleges are working with N2N.

Brammer said that Cerritos College acted fast after learning about the system and its successes and quickly began a test at the college which found significantly more fraud than was being found before.

Brammer and Mixson said in a statement that, after the testing was completed, the college placed identity holds on over 3,000 applicants and is exploring the purchase of N2N’s system – they added that they would provide another update in January.

“Foothill De Anza called it a silver bullet – they said this was their solution to fraud so we’re hoping it’s our silver bullet too and we can keep moving forward,” she added.

Financial Aid

Students struggled with receiving access to financial aid this year, but Brammer clarified that the college didn’t have much control over the cause of those issues and that financial aid wouldn’t be impacted by them again this year.

Brammer explained that the first major issue with financial aid aid this year was due to a delay in the application process on the federal side by two months.

This delay rippled throughout the whole system and was a major contributor to the delays in funding.

The application process went smoothly this year, however, so the college shouldn’t be affected by this federal-level issue again.

Brammer also explained how issues with version of the college’s backend PeopleSoft service had led students taking less than six units to not be calculated correctly and the college had to do an emergency system update to get it ready on time.

“That was a bit of a perfect storm because we didn’t even know that the issue existed in the older version of the Peoplesoft system until the semester was beginning to start.”

Additionally, she said that the team in charge of the system had caught it before it went out so they could start addressing the issue instead of waiting.

She added that the college has updated the system and will do so again over the winter break so she doesn’t think there’ll be as much of an issue again this coming year.

Students First Framework

The SFF is Cerritos College’s new guiding document – it features a series of levers that will guide the college into achieving its goal of having 50% of its students graduate in 5 years or less.

“I believe in the Student First Framework… I think that every time a student touches our campus and they are here, that they’ve entrusted us with their future,” Brammer said.

She continued, “I take that very seriously – that’s a sacred honor for us to be able to make sure we’re meeting their needs for them to graduate.

“If they don’t graduate and we’ve missed an opportunity for them to reach that dream and earn the education that we all know is so valuable, that there’s a great sense of loss.

“Part of where we’re going to be focusing on in spring is doing everything possible to see some of those metrics rise because each of those metrics is a student…”

Mixson also shared his thoughts on how he plans to work with faculty on the SFF.

“I think it is important to note that the Students First Framework does not fall on the faculty for implementation.

“They are a very important component of the implementation, but the whole campus must be part of the implementation if it is to be successful, from the faculty, to facilities. Everyone working together towards the implementation. 

“Nevertheless, the faculty are a very important part of the implementation, and we will work with them through the planning process to understand what levers and strategies each department wishes to address and how we can support them in addressing them.”

Response to Trump’s Plans on Immigration and the Department of Education

Lopez believes that it’s a little early to determine what President-elect Donald Trump will do regarding education, but doesn’t believe that the Department of Education will be gotten rid of.

Lopez continued and said that, during Trump’s first term, he was actually a big supporter of community colleges – Lopez hopes that stays the same in his second term.

According to The Atlantic in 2018, “In the course of promoting his infrastructure plan, [Trump], a bit perplexingly, dismissed the country’s community colleges, suggesting he doesn’t know what purpose they serve. ‘We do not know what a ‘community college’ means,’ [Trump said]”

While Lopez holds a more optimistic message about Trump’s reelection, Brammer released a flyer informing students and faculty on what to do if there are federal immigration officials on campus.

It tells people not to panic, ask for identification, and to notify the vice president of Student Services, that being Brammer herself – she highlights that she’s the first person that should be contacted by the government in such matters.

It also states that information about student information can’t be released to law enforcement officials without receiving official district permission from Brammer.

“We have to abide by federal laws, but we can also differentiate between what is a federal issue and what we can own,” she said, “And so we have to make sure those are all clear… if or when we encounter those situations.”

The flyer goes on to say that the Cerritos College Campus Police Department will not enforce federal immigration laws in accordance with District Resolution No. #16-1207E and will continue to follow the California Trust Act which doesn’t let minor infractions trigger deportations.

Additionally, it states law enforcement officials don’t have complete access to all areas of campus without permission and that there aren’t different rules for international students.

Brammer mentioned that Cerritos College President Dr.Jose Fierro will meet with undocumented students soon for a town forum to address their concerns.

She also said that the college is trying to learn more and heard through an advocate in Washington, D.C. that the government is more likely to focus more on prisons than schools.

Student Services

Brammer shared how Student Services is looking busy as it plans to shake up much of the college’s services in its efforts to help fulfill the goals set out in the SFF.

One of the biggest changes being made by Student Services is the new student education planning platform, HighPoint Degree Planner – it is completely different from the existing ed planner and will have 230 academic plans.

It launched on Dec. 9 to a limited set of students, but will start opening up to more students in spring of next year.

She also highlighted that one of their goals is to increase the number of students in spring that enroll in summer classes and increase the percentage of students who complete 15 or more degree-applicable units by the end of the year by 75%.

To help with these goals, a new online catalogue is being integrated into everything the college does and webpages are going to change and point to things in the catalogue to help people find things.

Additionally, the state is rolling out common course numbering which will increase the number of digits in class names from three to four in an effort to standardize the system between community colleges and ensure that classes with the same title at different colleges will be similar content-wise.

Brammer gave PSYCH 100 changing to PSYCH-C 1000 as an example of what the change would look like.

She said that Cerritos College is starting with six classes, then 25 next year, then up to 50 the next year, then all of the classes will be updated eventually in the future.

On the topic of standardization, the college is combining the CSU and UC transfer plans into a single one called CALGETC.

As for implementing some of these plans, Brammer mentioned how communication on campus was a key concern at a recent Student Services retreat – so she’s working on ideas to improve communication.

Brammer said, “The employees that are working frontlines and the ones that are working directly with students often have the most insightful perspective on what needs to happen for change to occur.

“We want to make sure their voices are heard and we’re paying attention to what they’re seeing since they’re going to know what those problems are before any of us will.”

Additionally, the college is partnering with Bellflower High School and the Downey Unified School District to help enroll high school students into the college.

Student Services Divisions

Brammer showcased the work that various divisions in Student Services will be undergoing in 2025.

Enrollment services is going to update People Tools and create a new portal to replace MyCerritos with a new layout for staff and faculty – testing begins in January, 2025, and will go live on Feb. 21, 2025.

It is also set to debut a new schedule builder in April which should improve the ability for students to enroll in classes and work with their schedules easier.

Counseling is going to start the first bachelor’s degree at Cerritos College in dental hygiene in February, 2025.

On a different note, counseling is also changing academic probation and recovery – specifically changing some language and strategies to focus more on working to help students grow and improve.

Student life and leadership is planning to encourage students to finish faster by giving them pins based on their unit completion.

The continuing education division is going to help students by providing credit recovery programs over the summer for students that don’t pass classes in high school to help them make up that high school credit – as well as encouraging them to continue their education at the college.

The student equity and success division is also preparing for its upcoming study abroad sessions to Taiwan and Japan in summer, 2025.

The division’s veterans command center created through federal funding is also going to continue its special work programs for veterans on campus in 2025.

Additionally, it’s hosting a new Gradapalooza as a way to combine all of the different student services graduation celebrations on campus into one big fair on April 25, 2025.

As for student accessibility needs, the college is going to do high school outreach to help disabled students bridge the gap between the two, work on streamlining the process for ADHD evaluations and do more to support the needs of male students with disabilities as there are more disabled male students than non-disabled male students.

Academic Affairs

Mixson shared that Academic Affairs will be moving to provide additional academic resources for students in the coming year. 

In particular, he highlighted that the college is planning to offer more discipline-specific tutoring services for general education courses with the assistance of faculty in said disciplines.

On a similar note, he stated that the college will be adding more support for math and english classes.

Additionally, he added that Academic Affairs is continuing to work on developing schedules that fit the needs of students in order to complete their educational goals in a timely manner.

As for communication with students, Mixson said that Academic Affairs will continue to communicate the changes that it’s making with students – as well as providing them the opportunity to give their input on these changes and make an impact.

“By implementing the plans outlined above, we believe we are taking another step in that direction [providing students with the best possible educational experience],” Mixson said.

Closing Thoughts

Brammer shared that she would love to get the student perspective and feedback on ways the college can improve.

“It’s a lot of change occurring – which is exciting, but also, you know, daunting,” she said.

“Our goal in Academic Affairs is always to provide students with the best possible educational experience,” Mixson said.

Lopez shared that he’s going to work to make sure Business Services plans will meet the needs of the campus.

“We have a lot going on – some of the projects we’re working on are updating the IT and Facilities Master Plan.”

Lopez is also in charge of the responsibilities of the director of physical plant and construction services as the spot is currently vacant and the college is seeking a replacement.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated on Dec. 29 with information from Vice President of Academic Affairs Frank Mixson. We’ve also added an update on the N2N pilot.