Cerritos College presented its new Students First Framework to students, staff, faculty, management and guests at the Performing Arts Center during the 2024-25 Convocation on Aug. 29 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The SFF is an evolution of the College’s old Educational Master Plan – it outlines the goals of the college and general strategies of how it will achieve its ultimate goal: graduating 50% of students in five years or less of college.
According to the SFF, only 29% of students are graduating within that timeframe as of right now.
Cerritos College President, Dr. Jose Fierro, talked about why it’s important to meet these goals.
“Why do we need to do this? We have a lot of characters in the community that need the ability to access an education of high value, to get a degree and to enter the workforce.”
“We are truly creating the economy and societies of tomorrow. The work that we do to beat this game is incredibly important in order to cement the foundations of the next generation,” Fierro said.
This game theme was present, not just through Fierro’s speeches, but also through the Are You Smarter Than a VP game that sporadically happened during the convocation and helped drive audience engagement.
Also featured throughout the convocation were speakers from various parts of the college such as Jacqueline Cardona, a Teacher TRAC mentor; Puente’s Rosa Carillo and Daniel Gardner; Umoja’s Shelia Hill and Damon Cagnolatti; Frank Mixson, the vice president of academic affairs; and Wendy Wright from the retail management program on campus.
Cardona, who is also a former student and part of the first graduating cohort of Teacher TRAC, described how the program helped her become a teacher and help the same working-class neighborhood that she grew up in.
Cagnolatti and Hil, on a similar note, highlighted how the Umoja program has improved the success rates of Black students who participate in it and the amount of Umoja graduates.
This ties into the first of the four levers that make up the SFF – equitable access. One of the college’s key goals is to ensure that “every learner has equitable access to an educational pathway,” as described in the SFF document.
The other levers include completion, career & transfer success and institutional health.
Institutional health, that being the well-being of faculty and staff on campus, is of particular note as the college is currently in negotiations over health care with the Cerritos College Faculty Federation, the faculty union which represents about a thousand faculty members on campus.
At the convocation, many attendees could be seen wearing red shirts to demonstrate their support for the union, in addition to a union booth at the entrance.
Lynn Wang, the president of the CCFF and a former student of the college, says that they’re planning a huge action at the board meeting on Sept. 11 to make sure people don’t lose their health care coverage when the deadline hits in October.
Fierro, for his part, said that there was nothing wrong with the red shirts and that he was fine with the display of unity. He also believes that negotiations should be concluding soon.
As for the SFF, Corona Ramirez loved the space they had to contribute to the framework as it was being developed.
Mixson, who also taught at the college for 20 years before becoming a dean and eventually a vice president, said that he was a leader in the development of the SFF, but he was just in front of a great team of faculty, staff, administrator who worked together to develop a retreat in which people around campus could help provide input.
He added, “I know that, with that faculty teaching those students, and with the outstanding services that we provide in getting students into classes and getting them the academic support they need – I believe that we can achieve our goals.”
