香蕉视频

Dear 香蕉视频 community,

Wednesday’s Board agenda has been posted and, as always, I invite you to review the reports in Section 2. These include updates from Cabinet members, the Student Senate, and the Academic Senate. It’s a great way to stay informed about what is happening across our district.

The agenda includes a number of retirements. Congratulations to all our retirees this year! One of these is English instructor Kathryn Calkins, who was recently named the full-time Excellent Educator by the Academic Senate. Congratulations to Kathryn, as well as to Daniel Lewis, this year’s part-time Excellent Educator.

I invite you all to attend the Employee Recognition event tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. in the Theatre. Kathryn and Daniel, along with a number of as-yet-unknown awardees, will be honored, including our Employees of the Year for classified and confidential staff. This relatively new event has quickly become a highlight. If you haven’t attended recently, I encourage you to join us. A dessert bar will follow at 2:00 p.m.

Also retiring is Dr. Larry Grandy, who has taught music at 香蕉视频 for 48 years. I’m delighted to share that Larry has been selected as this year’s speaker for the May 22 Commencement ceremony. He is also being honored with two special “Larry’s Favorites” concerts, led by his colleagues in the Music Department, on May 1 and 2. Please see the recent email from Dalton Fitzgerald for ticket information.

We look forward to seeing everyone at Commencement. Many thanks to the 50+ administrators who have so far volunteered again to help with the ceremony - you were a tremendous help last year. If you have not yet signed up, we can still use additional volunteers. Please contact Brianne Brichacek if you are interested.

Many other end-of-term events are taking place in the coming weeks. Here is the list so far:

There are many other events happening as well. Culture Fest will take place this Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. outside the Redwood Grove and Library. The event will include a dedication of the new cherry blossom grove, donated by the North State Japanese Culture Club; many members of our Japanese and Japanese American community will be in attendance. The popular Japanese woodblock print exhibit in the Art Gallery will close that same day, with a reception at noon. On Friday, guest author Luis Alberto Urrea will give a reading at 7:30 p.m. in the 400 Building as part of the English Department’s Creative Writing Festival.

I had the opportunity this past month to participate in two off-campus professional learning experiences: the League for Innovation in the Community College conference in Indianapolis and an IEPI Community of Practice for far northern community colleges, held at Butte College. I was joined by a mix of administrators and faculty, and a key takeaway for all of us was the importance of being proactive in response to the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence. A few highlights:

• There is a critical need to increase AI fluency among faculty, staff, and students. The pace of technological change requires ongoing learning opportunities and a culture that encourages exploration, collaboration, and adaptability.
• Efforts to restrict or “police” AI use are not sustainable. Instead, institutions must intentionally integrate AI into teaching, learning, and operations, with clear guidance on appropriate and ethical use.
• AI is increasingly a core workforce competency. Students must graduate with the ability to use AI effectively and ethically within their fields, requiring integration into program-level conversations and outcomes.
• Participants emphasized the importance of engaging students directly, recognizing that many are already using AI. Understanding student perspectives will help ensure relevance and effectiveness in curriculum and services.
• AI presents opportunities to improve efficiency, decision-making, and student services (e.g., data analysis, workflow optimization, fraud detection, and wellness tools).

Discussions with participants, as well as within the executive leadership team, suggest we are making good progress through initiatives such as the AI Ambassadors and the AI Taskforce. However, there is clearly more work to be done, starting with building AI fluency across the institution. You can expect to hear more about this as we move into the fall semester.

Meanwhile, the Chancellor's Office is partnering with Playlab, a platform that provides free AI-building tools for faculty, classified professionals, and administrators. It can help you design, build, and deploy AI tools tailored to the specific challenges you see in your workplaces. We have our own private, secure Playlab workspace and can build and share tools within our community while keeping institutional data in the right place. There are several training opportunities. Also, the Playlab tools are also being featured in the “Reclaiming Joy” webinar hosted this Friday by our library team. This is aimed primarily at faculty, and you can find information about it in the recent Canvas Announcement - Flex eligible opportunities. The descriptor: Ensuring our courses are compliant and inclusively designed is important – but the demands of teaching consume enormous time and energy. As a result, they often crowd out the relational, creative work that drew us to education in the first place. In this session, three CCC educators share the custom AI chatbots they built for faculty using Playlab to fast-track compliance tasks. By offloading the overhead to AI, faculty are reclaiming time and mental energy to invest where it matters most: building genuine relationships with students.

A final President’s Office Hour will take place Monday, May 4 at 11:00 a.m., just outside of Starbucks in the Library foyer. We will send a reminder; please feel free to stop by.

Finally, my days are filled not only with end-of-semester events in these final six weeks, but also with faculty and administrator interviews—15 separate searches so far, with more to come. Thank you again to everyone involved in these efforts, including deans, vice presidents, faculty, staff, and our outstanding HR team. I look forward to welcoming many new colleagues in the months ahead.

Have a great week!

Best,

Frank