Office of Student Services Update - August 2024
Good Morning!
Happy August and start of the school year. July was finally a slower month that included some district policy meetings, updated Title IX training on new regulations, and vacation. I think this was the least amount I have worked during vacation in over a decade. A huge thank you to Gurdeep and Alicia for keeping things running smoothly while I was out! Our new EOPS/CalWORKs Director, Dr. Gurpreet Bhogal, started in July, and we made an offer to a new DSPS Director. I would also like to acknowledge and congratulate the following employees on their reclassifications:
- Reynani Chappel – Admissions & Records Manager to Director of Admissions & Records
- Natalie Minas – Program Specialist - Veterans Services – title stayed the same, but classification was adjusted up to match other specialist positions
- Heather Golden – Program Assistant to Program Specialist
- Amy Yocupicio – Outreach Specialist to Outreach Coordinator
Below are some updates from some of the Student Services areas, and we will have lots of beginning-of-the-year reminders coming your way soon.
Outreach
Outreach has been busy preparing for the upcoming recruitment season while helping incoming students register for classes.
On July 31, the last Virtual Extreme Registration will be held from 10am-4:30pm and in-person events will be held on Friday, August 2, from 1-6pm and Saturday, August 3, from 9am-2pm.
The team will join other Student Services offices again for Crush Days on Friday, August 9, and Saturday, August 10, for three sessions.
Following Welcome Week, the team will begin school visits and community events starting August 19, in anticipation of Fall 2025 applications opening on September 3.
Student Activities
As we prepare for the upcoming 2024-2025 academic year, the Student Activities department is excited to welcome students and share our upcoming events with the entire campus!
In collaboration with the Outreach Department, we are excited to welcome our new students for Crush Days, our new student orientation that will take place on Friday, August 9, and Saturday, August 10.
We begin the fall semester with Welcome Week, a week filled with activities, food trucks, treats, music, and much more!
At the end of the month, we will honor our annual celebration for Molly Day with a blood drive and ice cream social to spread kindness across campus.
You can sign up to donate with the California Blood Blank via this link: https://signup.com/go/YcPyVst
You can also view our live calendar via this CALENDAR LINK and keep up with our events throughout our CCC website and Instagram @CCC_Student_Activities!
Admissions & Records / Counseling
Our Counseling and Admissions & Records departments have been hard at work advising new and returning students and supporting our Outreach team with Extreme Reg every Wednesday this summer. Counseling and Admissions & Records will be “all hands on deck” on Friday, August 2 through Saturday, August 3 for Extreme Reg.
Counseling will hit the ground running in August, especially with spring transfer applications for Fresno State. The application is open from August 1 through August 31.
On August 10, our Counselors will lead the Pre-Nursing Seminar at California Health Sciences University. While the event is hosted at CHSU, the event has been created and coordinated by our Counselors and in collaboration with PODER. Huge thanks to Counselors Ryen Hirata, Tuyet Quach, Lee Vang, and Martin Medina. There are over 700 participants who have RSVP’d.
DSP&S
Thanks to the hard work of our Jackie Smith and the CCC DSP&S / CUSD HS “Transition to College” outreach efforts, we are happy to report that our team successfully transitioned 135 high school seniors to comprehensive support services and assisted these students in understanding the differences between IEP/504 plans in high school and Disabled Student Programs & Services in college.
Health & Wellness
The Clovis Community College Wellness Vending Machine is now open and can take payments! Located just across the hall from the Food Pantry in AC2-173, the machine provides students with day, evening, and Saturday access to low-cost health & wellness products!
Title IX
Renee Garcia, Title IX Coordinator, has some important updates:
Earlier this year, the finalization of the 2024 regulations came out. The regulations will be effective August 1, 2024. On June 20, 2024, there was a motion filed in the US District Court for the District of Kansas, which granted a preliminary injunction against hundreds of K-12 schools, as well as colleges. We were one of the schools listed. Due to this order, this put a hold on the implementation of 2024 regulations. At this time, we will need to continue to follow the 2020 regulations.
In addition, under California Assembly Bill (AB) 2683, all students and employees are required to take Title IX training annually. The training video for students has been created and is expected to be available to students August 1, 2024. There is an employee Title IX video available to employees via ASCIP. Employees should have received an email requiring them to complete the training. All students and employees will be required to take the training annually.
TRiO
The TRIO team and SCCCD Grants Office submitted the SSS and STEM 2025-2030 grant proposals to the Department of Education in July. A special thanks to everyone involved who assisted in the grant writing process in such a short timeline.
Veterans Resource Center
Natalie Minas attended the Western Association of Veteran Education Specialists Annual Conference this year in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Joseph Garcia, the VA Executive Director of Education Services, presented at the conference, and Natalie learned a lot of valuable information about upcoming legislation and court decisions that will impact our Veteran students. She also received updates on state and federal programs for our Veteran students, like the fact that the Digital GI Bill is making it possible for students to get paid quicker.
Student Services Personnel Updates
We have a few departures at the end of this summer. Thank you to Destiney Guerrero, Counselor in the Career Center; Chong Yang, Counselor, DSP&S; and Bryana Montemayor, Counselor. We are sad to see you go, but we wish you all the best in your full-time positions.
A warm welcome to our following new staff members:
- Dr. Gurpreet Bhogal, Director of Student Success Programs – EOPS/CARE, NextUp, and CalWORKs
- Stephen Guenzi, Program Assistant – EOPS
- Heather Montag and Felisha Stead, our two new Pre-Doctoral Psychology Interns
EOPS
Our program received additional one-time funding of $200,000, which will help our program be more fully funded and support access for students. We are still approximately $800,000 short in comparison to other programs of our size across the state because of the allocation model’s inadvertent penalties for newer colleges. We continue to advocate at the state level for changes to the model.
A new rule requires that we must check for financial aid eligibility for EOPS students each academic year. For any continuing students to remain eligible for the EOPS program, the student must meet the financial aid eligibility requirements. Due to the new rule, this year we stand to lose 97 students who would have previously qualified to be carryover students. As such, we will need to do a lot more new intakes than ever before.
We are working to set up our book vouchers, supply vouchers and bags, and vendor cards for the fall.
CARE
We have had opportunities for students to attend CARE workshops this summer.
NextUp/Foster Youth
So far, for the summer, we have had 8 new intakes, which is a lot for us.
CalWORKs
Prior to COVID, the program was at 89 students; however, we did face a big downfall due to the COVID pandemic. During the pandemic, students did not have to participate in school or work to receive their funding from the County. The rules are now back to what they used to be. We had 75 students in 23-24 and anticipate even more growth this year.
Thanks,
Kira Tippins
Interim Vice President of Student Services
