CMC President's Board of Trustees recap and news for December 2024

Hi folks, Daren Otten, Superintendent/President at Copper Mountain College. And this is the report that stems from last Thursday, December 12th’s Board meeting. The Board meeting did start with a closed session, as they normally do with a couple of items. The only thing that did come as an action item that was out of that is the Board did report that they have completed my annual evaluation.

Moving into kind of the regular items, there was a lot of pomp and circumstance at last week’s Board meeting, and it really started with public comment by Rob Wanless about the HOWL and then a resolution both by the Academic Senate as well as the Board of Trustees for outgoing board president, long-time trustee, and longtime faculty member here at Copper Mountain College, Greg Gilbert, as this was his last meeting. And so the resolutions were presented, Greg had an opportunity to speak to the room, and we took a break for a few minutes to get an opportunity to have the folks in the room check in with Greg.

I want to thank everybody who showed up for that. It was really a great turnout. Greg was absolutely touched. He was thrilled that so many people did show up to, you know, celebrate his very long tenure with the institution. And just on a personal note, you know, over the years, I’ve gotten to know Greg very well. And it meant a lot for him to have the outpouring of love and support that you all showed to him So thank you for that and thank you on behalf of him.

As we moved into kind of the bulk of the work, the first thing that had to happen is that we did do our annual reorganization meeting that started with swearing in all the new Trustees and returning Trustees. And so that was where things started. And the first order of business once swearing in, in this case, it was Mary Lombardo, Dick Rogers, Tyler Fowlkes, Anna Stump. Chuck Uyeda was not at this meeting. But in any case, after swearing those folks in, we facilitated a conversation to determine the next Board President. And the Board is determined that Mary Lombardo will again be Board President for this particular year for 2025. Following that up, there was the Vice President was again Dick Rogers and Clerk of the Board is Chuck Uyeda,

There’s also a couple of additional appointed positions that the Board needed to make decisions on, and that included the representative to county schools, which ended up as Anna Stump and the representative of the Board of Trustees to the Foundation, which is Chuck Uyeda. So, ultimately the Board is reorganized into that configuration for this upcoming year.

Then we obviously moved into just the regular bulk of the business with the normal reports across the boards of all of the people who traditionally report and a Student Showcase, specifically on a gentleman by the name of Christian Serrano, who I did want to highlight briefly. Currently the Active Duty Marine was nominated by Heather Gilmore and really had a unique story about finding his way back to higher education at this point in his career in the Marine Corps. Then it was really just an inspiring reminder of why we all do what we do on behalf of students.

Moving into additional items there the Board did briefly discuss the County Board of Elections for 2025, and then Heather Sanchez and Evelyn Sheffield presented a kind of an overview of our existing CTE programs and a vision for where our CTE programs are going to go over the next several years. I have to say I was really excited and I know the board was very excited to hear some of the ideas and thoughts and really the opportunities for students to align not only education here at Copper Mountain College, but align with local work as they earn degrees and certificates.

Many consent agenda items were covered and normal types of business around things, around curriculum and payroll, etc. But the last thing that I really kind of just wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of is that the Board did approve the reclassifications of two individuals, obviously paid our bills, but then looked forward to next month’s meeting which is going to have a very truncated turnaround. We’re doing agenda reviews and those sort of things this week already for the January meeting, where they will be doing things like reviewing the Mission Statement on an annual basis and continuing our march forward on accreditation.

So with that, that is your kind of overview of last week’s Board meeting and I wish everybody a happy holidays. Enjoy some time off over the next week or two and I hope you get to spend some time with friends and family and I look forward to seeing everybody in 2025. Happy New Year.