Summer 2014
Volume 1, Issue 1
O F F I CE O F I N S TR U C TI O N
H I G H L I G H TS A ND E V E N TS
GRADUATION STORIES – 2014
Faculty were asked to submit stories of special student successes which would be highlighted at the 2014
graduation ceremony. Although not all of the stories could be read, it is important to acknowledge the
performance and accomplishments of each of these students.
Stories of the following students were submitted:
Adrianne Mee
Adrianna Mee came to Cabrillo after having lost her way for a brief time
with drug use. She is now in recovery. At first she didn't have any
direction or goals and was not sure that she was college material. After a
couple of semesters, Adrianna enrolled on a full-time basis. She took a
sociology class, fell in love with it, and said that everything made sense.
She knew this was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
Sociology gave her hope.
Adrianna has been accepted to Berkeley's Sociology program with a 4.0
GPA.
During her time at Cabrillo, she has been deeply involved in volunteer
campus and community work, bringing recovery meetings into local
hospitals and institutions, playing support roles at Barrios Unidos, the
Santa Cruz Coalition to Overcome Racism, the Resource Center for
Nonviolence, and an organization that brings writing and arts workshops
into the local maximum security jail--the Inside Out Writing Project, where
she has been a tireless, passionate leader for most of her time at
Cabrillo. Adrianna intends to continue community organizing, particularly
in the area of transformative writing, a phrase she coined after being
involved in the Inside Out writing project.
She served as Vice President of Cabrillo's Student Solidarity Club, and
participated in the Sociology UnClub and the Cabrillo Outdoor Club. Last
year she won Cabrillo's prestigious Rosemarie Greiner Peace
Award. Adrianna has been an outstanding student and formidable force
for positive change on campus and in the wider community.
Adrianna said that she realized that education is not about a grade, but
about a journey and an experience.
"…education is not
about a grade, but
about a journey and an
experience."
Anamaria Guzman
Anamaria was born in Michoacan, Mexico and had six siblings. When she was nine years old her parents
moved her and her two sisters to Stockton, California where she attended a migrant school. At eleven
years old she was taken out of sixth grade and started working full time with her mom and dad in the
fields.
Anamaria never went to middle school or high school. When her mother decided to attend Adult School,
Anamaria and two of her sisters joined her. This is where she learned English. She loved school and told
her parents she wanted to continue with her studies but this did not happened until after she was married.
She was married in January 1988 and enrolled in the Center for Employment Training by May of that
year. Along with her CET Office Skills Training, she completed her GED. Anamaria had two children and
also began working at WIC. Twenty-three years ago, when she began at WIC, Cathy Cavanaugh, her
director and also a Cabrillo College teacher, mentored and encouraged her to go back to school.
She started taking one class per semester at Cabrillo in 2002. She placed herself on the waiting list for
the Nursing Program in 2009 and currently she is on the list to start the Nursing Program in the Spring of
2015. While on the waiting list, Anamaria continued taking classes at Cabrillo and will graduate today with
an AS degree.
She plans to graduate from the Nursing Program in the Spring of 2017 with an AS degree in Nursing.
Robbie DeMarco
In 2008, Robbie DeMarco found himself serving his first and only jail time: a four month sentence in Santa
Cruz County Jail for a drug-related crime. A couple of months after his release from jail, he learned about
a learning community program at Cabrillo College that helps students develop solid academic foundations
with supportive teachers, and Robbie enrolled in the ACE Program.
As a reentry, basic skills student, Robbie beat the odds to become a top-notch student who has excelled
during his time at Cabrillo. In 2010 Robbie was featured on the front page the Cabrillo Foundation's
newsletter as a local success story, and he won the Martin Luther King Essay award in 2011. As part of
his Human Services course, Robbie completed an internship at the Salvation Army's homeless shelter in
Watsonville.
For the last two years, Robbie has been working with at-risk students as a student intern at the Cabrillo
Learning Communities Center where he has helped countless students navigate the transition to
college. He has a keen ability to make potential students feel welcome and reassured in the enrollment
process. He has been a champion for students who want to utilize higher education to turn their lives
around. Robbie has a 3.7 GPA and has been accepted to the UC Berkeley Sociology Program where he
will transfer this fall.
Linda Mc Cann
This is about the importance of keeping a promise. Linda Mc Cann was a young bride in December of
1976. She was only 20. She was as committed to her insatiable desire to learn as she was to her new
husband. As we all know – you can have a goal in life, but things can get in the way. There are detours
that come with personal growth – moves out of the county, children, caretaking of elders and negotiating
schedules, making a living.
Her mother, Sandy Bergen, would lovingly encourage Linda to continue her education. Linda promised
her mother that she would get a degree. She dabbled in education attending Seattle Pacific, and traveling
to London to see what she could, and experience a different education. Years passed and her interests
changed.
Years passed again, and her interests remained the same. The constant was her Cabrillo College. She
wandered through interests in interior design, archeology, philosophy and history. She passed her math
requirements, enjoyed the choices available every time she went back to Cabrillo, especially the History
of the Middle East this past semester.
And, today she is walking to accept her degree – an Associate of Science. Thirty-eight years have passed
since the promise was made and today, Mom, the promise has been fulfilled.
Grecia Corzo
Grecia Corzo spent her youth both in foster care and raised by relatives after the tragic death of her
parents. With an unstable home life and little supervision, Grecia was a troubled and angry child who
spent time in juvenile hall on several occasions.
Grecia started her college journey at the College of San Mateo in 2005. She took 19 units because she
was in a hurry to graduate from college and gain employment. Being a part-time student and stressing
about the need to work full time, she found herself dropping out of college on more than one occasion,
thinking that maybe school just wasn’t for her.
In 2009, she became a mother. Realizing that her child might someday follow in her footsteps, Grecia
found a determination to improve her life. She began to think that there was nothing she couldn’t do, and
so she began her journey as a college student once again. Although she struggled with hardships and at
times felt that she wanted to give up, she persevered.
As a Latina speaker, she has returned to the same juvenile hall where she was a previous resident to
express her story in the hopes of helping others. She has supported her husband, enabling him to
become a 2014 UCSC graduate. Grecia is very proud of having raised a family while pursuing her college
dream. She is currently the head of her household, a wife, and a mother to two wonderful, intelligent
young girls.
Grecia never gave up on her dream. She plans to become a probation officer and states she will use her
knowledge to better the lives of less fortunate young people. For the first time in her life, she feels
extremely confident and is looking forward to a future made brighter by attaining a college degree.
Grecia is graduating with an AA in Liberal Arts & Science, and an AA in Criminal Justice.
Ella Bracamonte
Ella Bracamonte was attending Cabrillo as a high school student, but did not intend to go to college
beyond her high school graduation. She was accomplished in martial arts, working on her black belt
and thought she would have a career in martial arts. But she started her math coursework here,
beginning at the Math 254 level, and then on to Math 154. Then a bad accident caused nerve damage
to one of her legs and left her unable to walk. It was a crucial time in which she had to redefine her
goals, and she decided to attend Cabrillo as a full-time student.
During her first semester, she used the trolley services to get to her classes, as she was still not
walking well enough to get to classes. During that semester, she suffered a stroke that caused her to
be paralyzed on one side and subject to seizures. Looking back on that time now, even though she
had to start all over in relearning how to walk, Ella calls it her “stroke of genius” because it made her
realize how much she really did want to attend college. Instead of strengthening her body, she
decided she would do all she could to strengthen her mind.
In Math 152, the next semester, she had an SI leader she really clicked with. The next semester, she
took part in the Math 4 PREP group and realized how many people there were who were really excited
about math. That was her kick start, she recounts, I went off like a rocket from there. I discovered an
environment where I could thrive in my new sport, my new martial art, mathematics. She continued to
take classes and make progress, and then was a peer tutor for another group of PREP students. She
loved being part of what she calls a “circle of inspiration,” inspiring others by sharing her own love for
the subject and being inspired in turn by others. It was the support and the environment she felt in this
Math 4 experience that made her decide to major in mathematics. She says, “I love how MESA and
the MLC together make a big math and science family."
Meanwhile, as she continued to make her progress in classes, she also made progress physically.
"Now my mind and my body are both working," she says. She manages to be grateful for the event
that took her mobility away for a while, because it allowed her to discover how she loves to learn.
Ella has been accepted as a mathematics major at UC Davis and at UC Santa Barbara. She will take
a deferred enrollment to continue an internship with the Soquel Creek Water District and go on to work
for them full-time for the next year. But she will be staying sharp with her math during that time so that
she can go on to become a math teacher one day, combining two of her passions that she discovered
at Cabrillo—learning mathematics and helping others learn mathematics.
Event:
Event Date:
Time:
Location:
Submitted by:
STEM Expo
July 3rd, 2014
6:00-9:00pm
STEM Center (rm 834)
Kelli Horner -STEM/Engr Department
Come support our new and current Cabrillo students, presenting their science, technology, engineering
and math (STEM) summer projects to their family and friends in the new STEM Center! Local STEM
professionals and Cabrillo Instructors will also be sharing their academic and life stories will all
attendees, after student presentations and dinner. Please PSVP to Kelli Horner at
kehorner@cabrillo.edu or 831-477-3235.
Event/Highlight Title:
Celebrate Summer
Event Date: June-August
Time: Monday –Thursday
Location: Library
Submitted by: Sylvia
Description of Event/Highlight: Displays
Return of the Swallows Migration, Nesting, Behavior & Conservation
THE BOUNTY OF SUMMER
Event Title:
Event Date:
Time:
Location:
Submitted by:
Oral Pathology Made Easy by Dr. William Carpenter
Saturday, December 6, 2014
9 AM to 12 PM
Horticulture Center, room 505
Joanne Noto - Dental Hygiene
This event will honor Dr. Stan Post, MS, DDS, who recently retired
after 23 years as a clinical instructor in the Cabrillo Dental
Hygiene Program. We look forward to sharing this event with
members of the Cabrillo community who have been treated in
their personal dental offices or in the Dental Hygiene Clinic by
dental hygiene professionals whom Dr. Post has taught.
We encourage each member of the Cabrillo community to discuss
this event honoring Dr. Post with their hygienists.
“ T he Oral Pathology course will provide a clinical approach for
the clinician to diagnose the various oral mucosal lesions. The
clinical outline covering the classification of white, red
pigmented, vesicular, bullous, ulcerative and intra-oral swellings
will be presented.
“The clinico-pathologic correlation will be addressed and the
differential diagnosis and diagnostic aids discussed. Emphasis will
be given to commonly occurring lesions with comparison to oral
malignancies”.
Dr. William Carpenter is a professor at University of the Pacific,
Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco. He is an
oral pathology and oral medicine specialist and is Chair of
Pathology and Medicine at UOP. Each year since 1997 Dr.
Carpenter has graciously been a guest lecturer on oral pathology
to the second year dental hygiene students. We are pleased that
he will share his expertise with the dental and dental hygiene
community as we honor Dr. Stan Post in December.
Have a Wonderful Summer!
"This event will
honor Dr. Stan Post,
MS, DDS, who
recently retired
after 23 years as a
clinical instructor
in the Cabrillo
Dental Hygiene
Program."
"We encourage each
member of the
Cabrillo community
to discuss this event
honoring Dr. Post
with their
hygienists."