Languages & Literature Division
2016-2017 Accomplishments and Highlights
Division Office
It was a busy year for us all, with lots of work all around! Still our departments were able to accomplish much, as you can see below! As you will see, we are indeed Better Together!
Your friendly, neighborhood Languages & Literature Division Office has been burning the midnight oil as well, in addition to taking on the daily tasks of Palomar College and providing support to the students, staff, and faculty in our division. We have been directly involved in a number of projects affecting a large cross-section of our college, including:
- Emergency Team Preparation & Drills (Building Emergency Plan Team)
- Held successful earthquake, fire, and lockdown drills
- Dual Enrollment (with Glyn Bongolan); scheduling at Escondido, Ramona, and Fallbrook (with Tom Medel, Ryan Williams, and Nicole Puccio);
- New Faculty Orientation and Palomar’s Nuts & Bolts (with Kelly Falcone);
- Onboarding new faculty and staff (with Christine Winterle and Justin Smiley);
- Online Tutoring (with Erin Feld, Najib Manea, Richard Loucks, and Jenny Akins — and welcoming Katy Farrell);
- ASL Interpreter Requests (w/ Monique Dumbrique, Victoria de la Torre, and Denise Vanderstoel)
- Assuring videophone access for our Deaf faculty (Anna Hilton)
- Unassigned PT Faculty Pools (w/Monique Dumbrique and Christine Winterle)
- Accreditation Substantive Change Report (w/Michelle Barton, Marti Snyder, Jack Kahn, Aaron Holmes, Richard Albistegui du Bois, and Tom Medel)
- Multiple Measures (with English, Reading, ESL, and Math, IRP, and IS)
- The new face of Faculty Tea: Faculty Achievement Ceremony of Excellence (FACE) (w/Kelly Falcone, Travis Ritt, Jack Kahn, Justin Smiley, and Debra King)
- Taking on the tasks as needed (scheduling, budgeting, etc.) left by vacancies in World Languages & Reading (Anna Hilton)
- Summer Bridge (Debra Avila, Gabe Sanchez, Rosalinda Tovar, Anna Hilton)
And then have a look at everything going on in our departments! (If you have an accomplishment to add, please send us a comment so that we can update our already impressive list.)
English as a Second Language
ESL Department/Discipline Highlights
- The ESL Department hosted the 2017 San Diego Regional CATESOL conference on April 22 at the San Marcos campus. We invited Kate Kinsella, a well-known educator in our field, as plenary speaker. With a volunteer committee made up of primarily Palomar permanent and part-time faculty and ESL tutors, we had approximately 300 attendees.
- Officer Perez has been going in to our non-credit classes at the Escondido Center in the evening to talk with students about Campus Police, sharing his story, and trying to lower the fear students might have about Campus Police. These efforts contributed to Offer Perez organizing Public Safety Night on the San Marcos campus in the Spring with many ESL evening students in attendance.
- The ESL faculty has actively engaged with their immigrant students to reassure them of their safety on campus during this period of deportations and of harmful policy decisions against immigrants. The faculty has also actively engaged with campus administration and the campus police in order to help the college be more transparent as a safe place for immigrant students.
- ESL Jam experienced unprecedented growth this summer with full classes in the Escondido evening and San Marcos day programs.
ESL Faculty and Staff Accomplishments/Recognition
- Tracy Fung completed her first sabbatical in Fall 20016, producing a low-cost pronunciation textbook for the ESL Program.
- Along with Tracy, we have 6 CALMed ESL faculty members – instructors who have made a conscious effort to keep the cost of course materials affordable to their students by using low or no-cost course materials
- Claudia Hernandez, our Student Support Specialist we hired for the Escondido ESL office last year, has been doing an outstanding job working with students, staff, and admin. She is creative and reliable, helping maintain a strong ESL program in Escondido.
- ESL part-time faculty Roberta Cantow was awarded a SPPF grant to create a Digital Story Telling Project focusing on telling personal stories, stories about the work teachers do to serve students and the like.
- We have hired a great, new tenure-track faculty member, Vickie Mellos.
Reading Services Department
Department/Discipline Highlights
The Reading Department continues to collaborate with other disciplines across our college, including work with Life Sciences, ESL, and English.
Reading Student Accomplishments/Recognition
- Esmeralda Quijada, a former Palomar student who attended our reading sequence while receiving her AA at Palomar, has recently completed her Masters in Literacy and Reading from CSUSM and will begin teaching for Palomar in the fall.
- Philip Burbidge, a former reading student in Carla Thomson’s Read 110 class, received his BA in French and Linguistics from UCLA and has been accepted to Oxford University Class of 2019 MPhil in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology
- Sandy Lind, a former reading student in several of Melinda Carrillo’s reading classes at Palomar and a current hourly tutor in Reading, has received her BA in Human Development, graduating Magna Cum Laude from CSUSM.
- Cheyne Nelson, a former reading student at Palomar and current Reading tutor, has received his BA in Literature and Writing from CSUSM and will pursue his Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies from Westminster Seminary CA.
- Jacalyn Young (formerly Reyes), a former reading student and current Reading tutor at Palomar, will receive her BA in Literature and Writing from CSUSM this fall.
- Marissa Medina, a former reading student and reading tutor at Palomar College, has completed her AA degree and will transfer to Montana State in Fall 2017.
Reading Faculty & Staff Accomplishments/Recognition
- Erin Feld, associate professor in Reading Services, as been accepted to the Claremont Graduate University’s PhD in higher education program in the fall. She will go on sabbatical in spring 2018.
- Karla Stanley, adjunct faculty Reading Services, completed her POET training this summer and is now prepared to teach on-line at Palomar.
- Melinda Carrillo’s son, Larry James Carrillo, has been accepted to the PhD program in History at the University of Chicago for Fall 2017.
English & Humanities Department
TBA
Speech & ASL Department
TBA
World Languages Department
Department/Discipline Highlights
- We have an incredible group of student/peer tutors in the WLRC! In Spring 2017 for the first time we offered tutoring in all 7 languages, and it was wonderful to see the success of peer tutoring services for our students.
- For the first time ever, we have FT faculty and discipline coordinators in 5 languages!
- We have created a new AA-T in Spanish and had our first graduates in Spanish in 2016-17.
- We now offer a brand new “Spanish for Heritage Speakers” track of courses in Spanish lead by Dr. Elena Villa.
- In Fall 2017, we are offering fully online classes in Italian and Spanish.
- Beginning in summer, we now offer hybrid classes in Japanese.
- The big news for me…. We finally have two (2!) full-time staff in World Languages!!!!! Judith is now permanent as the ISA III and Monique Meza is our new ADA officially for WL.
- In World Languages, we held the highly successful Café International event in the SU in Spring 2017.
- We co-hosted the 5th annual World Languages Symposium with CSUSM and MiraCosta in Fall 2016.
- We held WL film series last year, hosting multilingual film nights on campus in 2016-17. German, French, Spanish and Italian.
- WL attended both “Tarde de Familia” events in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 and we had a very well-staffed table every time. We never miss this event.
WL Faculty & Staff Accomplishments/Recognition
- We have three faculty working toward tenure: Beatrice Manneh, Scott Nelson, and Elena Villa Fernandez de Castro.
- Beatrice Manneh held German Board Game nights in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017.
- Scott Nelson held monthly Italian Conversation Hour in Spring 2017.
- Chantal Maher is collaborating with French faculty at MiraCosta to create a French Film Festival for North County students.
STAR (Students Taking Academic Responsibility) Tutoring Center
TBA
Teaching & Learning Center (TLC) @ San Marcos
TBA
FYE Accomplishments
TBA
Summer Bridge Accomplishments for 2017
TBA
TLC Workshops
TBA
Teaching & Learning Center (TLC) @ Escondido
- SPRING 2017 was very productive at the TLC in Escondido!
Tutoring consisted of 2,185 sessions / 987 hours / 28.5 min. average session
Proctoring had 167 exams proctored out of 210 dropped off.
Counseling had 153 sessions attended out of 205 booked.
Skillshops offered were 16 serving a total 153 students.
Student surveys showed overall positive feedback regarding our center and tutoring services.
SUMMER 2017
- ESL Jam ran more smoothly.
- We had 25 students (7 more than last year) with 14 of them placing into a higher level than before!
- Last Thursday we helped 13 of the 14 register for ESL for the fall.
- This cohort of students were so grateful for their instructor, tutors, and support staff that they even gave us certificates of recognition! It was very sweet.
As always, we couldn’t do this without our wonderful tutoring and support staff. All current tutors and some new faces will be returning in the fall!
Grants/Allocations
We continue to receive Basic Skills Initiative (BSI) allocations and are positively impacted as well by AEBG (Adult Education Block Grant) and both Credit and Non-Credit Student Success and Support Program funds. We are also participating in a regional BSI Partnership allocation (through Grossmont College) designed to strengthen ties, in our case, among Palomar, CSUSM, and our local high schools. Palomar, like other colleges in the California Community College system, works to strengthen our impact on disproportionately impacted students with Student Equity funds as well.