Week of May 13, 2024

Hello Clovis Fam,

I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day weekend. It was beautiful.

On Saturday morning, at about 8 a.m., Jade, my 75lb Shepard-Red Heely mix, came to make sure everything was in order at her college house. She takes this job very seriously and she is not to be messed with when she is on security detail. We secured the perimeter and interior of every inch of the grounds at the Willow campus. She and I then had a nice chat with the construction people laying the trenches. She approved of them after letting them know ‘don’t think it.’ They were very professional and considerate. Even though having a trench placed right at the time of graduation was not ideal, they were considerate of the issues and did their best to make the areas clean and safe.

After, I took Jade back home and thanked her for handling her security detail. I went to the Clovis Flea Market with some friends then decided to go to get lunch. We picked a chain place thinking it wouldn’t be too crowded. Lo and behold, I forgot it was Mother’s Day weekend. There was a 20-minute wait at the Olive Garden! Who da think it!!!! 😊 We had a good time though.

On Sunday, I talked to my daughters, my mother, my aunts, and friends and adopted kids from all over the country. All this was done before I went to church service at 9 a.m. I had dinner with my Mormon friends and then with to St. Paul Catholic Newman Center where I had the honor of being invited by the Priest to be a part of their Graduation Mass Ceremony. We had one CCC student graduating and participating that evening, and there were a total of 21 graduates from Clovis, West Hills, FPU, and Fresno State. The degrees ranged from Associate to Doctoral. I was on the stage shaking hands and congratulating the graduates. There were also several other CCC students attending Mass with their families. It was nice. There was a young woman who was graduating from FPU with her bachelor's. She remembered me from when I led a chapel at FPU in early April. She was also a CCC graduate. Father also told us that he was leaving and going to Chicago, to the St. Jude Diocese. He will be at Loyola University and living in Rogers Park. This is where I once lived and I spent many days on the beautiful Lake Michigan as Loyola was on the beach. He gave me an invitation to come visit. I will miss Father and I am glad that he came over to CCC to be in service to our students, faculty, and classified professionals who came to Ash Wednesday and the end-of-semester mass celebration. Although I am not Catholic, he gave me blessings in lieu of my partaking in the holy sacrament.

On Monday morning, I had the pleasure to help get students to go over and get the remarkable breakfast prepared for them. Maricarmen had a team of incredible people grilling potatoes, scrambling dozens and dozens of eggs and they made homemade breakfast burritos. Our grill masters were David and Estefania. They had breakfast croissants, burritos, bagels, fruit, juice, milk, and coffee. The students had smiles and were very glad to see us out and cheering them on to do well on their finals. I left and went to both my President’s Council and then to the Chancellor’s Cabinet. We reviewed ARs and BPs. It was a short meeting as the Chancellor was not there. I returned to campus and again saw lots of smiling people as the evening students were getting hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and impossible burgers. They had grilled onions, sliced tomatoes, and even avocados. David was back on the grill. The burgers were grilled to perfection medium rare. Just the right about of pink 😊. We served 273 people for breakfast and 305 people for dinner. Great job everyone for making students feel valued and cared for.

On Tuesday, I had VPC meeting where we reviewed Cabinet notes and discussed the trenching and budget as well as the progress of the AC3 move. We remain on schedule and Lorrie will be providing an update with more details.

I had a wonderful meeting with Von, Christina, and Ryan to discuss the Belonging Survey results as they provided me with the findings of the recent focus groups that were held last month as a result of the data regenerated from the Integrated 2035 data on students belonging. This survey did a deeper dive and looked specifically at the students from our affinity groups, as well as various ages. We will be presenting the data to the Board at our August Board meeting. We will also be conducting the same focus groups with our faculty and classified professionals to get a sense of our belonging experiences as well. We will use this data to inform how we can improve a sense of belonging for all groups and individuals while on our campus.

After I finished meeting with Von, Crystina, and Ryan, I went to the EOPS and TRiO graduation celebrations at Herndon Campus. It was a wonderful event and you could tell that everyone put a lot of work into making sure each graduate and their families felt special. I got to take pictures with several graduates including my President Medalist and some of the Deans Medalists. There was great food, gift baskets, and lots of tears. Thanks to Cindy and Randy for taking lots of pictures. It was a wonderful tribute to our students. They all said they felt special.

On Wednesday I spent the majority of the day in Madera at the SCCCF Board retreat. We did strategic planning around the following topics: Underlying contradictions to our successful fundraising efforts and we did exercises on the vision for the future. It was a well-attended and good exercise as we look to improve strategies in donor-giving efforts.

I returned to campus just in time to participate in both the Early Child Education end-of-year celebration and the OTA pinning celebration. Both celebrations were personal and meaningful as you could tell that all of our faculty truly give their all to making sure that when their students leave Clovis they are not only well-trained but they were valued, respected, and loved. Celebrating their OTA students were Erin Dolin, Helena Reed, Danny Pavlovich, Allison Reynolds, Rebecca Crouch, Erin Kent, Dean Laura Hill, and VPI Monica Chahal. Celebrating their ECE students were Monica Marquez, Liz Romero, Heather Boynton, Sallie Turpin, Laurie Yates, Emily Kemble, Manuel Bucio, Chao Hang, Miranda Gonzalez, Alisha Rabara, Jodi Driver, Dean Ruben Diaz, and VPI Monica Chahal.

On Thursday I started my day at 7 a.m. at the Mayor of Clovis’ State of the City Breakfast. I then joined Full Council at The Fresno Center where we toured the facilities and talked about the resources they have available and willing to provide to us and our students. In addition to their culturally relevant position in our community, they also have several opportunities for paid internships and training for our students. I am looking forward to strengthening this partnership. We had a special treat where they provided breakfast. Note I had just eaten at the Mayor's Breakfast. So Kira, Lorrie, and I ate again. Because as you know, in most cultures eating together is a way of bonding. I had porridge for the first time! They had Hmong bread. We then had a class on Herbal Healing especially as it pertained to our mental wellbeing. It was a wonderful cultural enlightenment and learning experience.

I then returned to campus and had our first coaching meeting with Achieving the Dream. This meeting was an initial meeting to review our data and views of the college. This meeting allowed them to get to know us and to use the data to select our two coaches assigned to serve us for the next 3 years. One coach will be a Leadership Coach and the other will be a Data Coach. The group on Zoom with me was Teresa, Max, Ryan, and Kira. They will send out a list with bios of the coaches that most fit our needs and we will select those that we think will work best with our college. We will meet and work with our coaches at the orientation meeting in June.

I ended my day in celebration with our Honor’s students. We recognized the passing of one of our founding donors, David Peters, and I am thankful that his vision for the Honors program will continue. The students graduating each came up and said a few words about what the program meant to them personally. As I looked out onto the first row in the center, there were two empty seats. This is where David and Roselle Peters sat last year and smiled as each student spoke, and stayed after and talked to them and gave hugs. They will be missed by me and everyone. Omar Ruiz, Tasha Hutchings, and Michelle Warkentin all did a great job! In attendance to celebrate were Melanie Sanwo, Teresa Mendes, Dawn Hart, Dean James Ortez, Dean Alicia Diaz Wrest, and VPSS Kira Tippins. I am also very proud that we have submitted our application to become a Phi Theta Kappa school. This is an outstanding opportunity to grow our honors program by becoming affiliated with the largest honors society in the world. Thanks to David Cao for stepping up and agreeing to serve as the advisor for Phi Theta Kappa.

Friday was all about Graduation!!!! The graduation team did a fabulous job planning the 2024 graduation exercise. I could not be more proud. Thanks to all of you for coming together, bringing your areas of expertise to the forefront, and making this a wonderful celebration for our soon-to-be alumni. A big thank you to Gurdeep, Emilee, Maricarmen, and the Commencement Advisory Group: Stephanie Babb, Bonnie Boonthavongkham, Reynani Chappel, Siena Flores, Scott Gerety, Karie Hannigan, Teng Her, Lorrie Hopper, Kevin Medeiros, Estefania Ponce, Jake Rosenbery, Sergio Salinas, Roseanne Susoeff, Kira Tippins, Sherry Vang, Amy Yocupicio.

On Saturday I attended the Soroptimist International of Clovis Cottage Tea. It was during this event that I shared a table with 6 of our students who were being recognized by this organization.

On Sunday, after church, I spent the remainder of my day at the CHSU College of Osteopathic Medicine Inaugural Class of 2024 Commencement and Hooding Ceremony.

Also, I am proud to announce that after a full semester of demolition and construction, our new gender-neutral restroom in AC1 is now complete and open for use!!!! As you may recall, we were informed right before Opening Day this spring that they needed to start the demolition. It was loud and we did not have use of that restroom for Opening Day. We redirected all users to restrooms upstairs and down the hall. Thank you all for your patience. It has been well worth the wait. Signage is being finalized but the restrooms are now back in working order. Hooray!!!!!

Thank you everyone for a fabulous semester. You continue to give and give with passion and love. You all model what it means to truly be student-centered and put our students first. This is the Clovis Spirit.

I am proud to serve you. Take care of yourselves, refresh, and practice self-care. Love on your family and friends and know that you are greatly appreciated here too.

In service,

Kim E. Armstrong, Ph.D.