Jenny Hammer's Song for Nadia

Jenny Hammer's song for Nadia is beautiful written and beautifully sung.  (I've put the recorded version online on YouTube.  https://youtu.be/AAMRlVrsCug )

 I didn't know Nadia very well, but I think this song can resonate with people in terms of other people who affect our lives even after they've passed on.

Jenny Hammer's Song for Nadia 10/08/17

 There’s one fewer in our midst;

Her absence brings us grieving

Yet a solace knowing this:

All she’s left before her leaving--

Left us with her visions, light, and song.

Altered, thus, the rest of us go on;

So she stays, changing ways and is not gone.

Fly across the waters.

Arc across the sky, beyond the moon, beyond the sun.

Join the ancient others;

Your dance of life’s not done.

Your dance of life’s not done.

Child of muses, child of dreams!

Matter is not what is seems.

It’s the flutter, not the wings 

That’s the lasting of all things.

You flew and still you fly.

You flew and still you fly.

You flew and still you fly.

You flew and still you . . .

Fly across the waters.

Arc across the sky, and then continue past the sun.

Join the ancient others;

You flew and still you fly.

You danced, you sang, and I, now

Fly across the waters.

Arc across the sky, beyond the moon, beyond the sun,

Joining all the others

To celebrate this one.

We celebrate this one.

All celebrate this one and

Fly.

Fly across the waters.

Arc across the sky, beyond the moon, beyond the sun.

Join the ancient others.

Your difference is not done.

Your difference is not done.

Your difference is not done.

Oh, fly.
Fly.

Bernie at CCSF, Where Education Is a Human Right--Free (to Residents)

Bernie Sanders spoke at CCSF this past Friday, and he got the kind of turnout that shows why we need to build the PAEC, the Pacific Arts and Education Center!

These pictures all show why I need a better zoom lens too!

Anyway, it was a very upbeat gathering.  Everyone there seemed to think that education is a human right and that education wasn't an expense for the state but an investment.

CCSF Outreach in the Tenderloin at Sunday Streets with California Bluegrass!

CCSF outreach interacted with more than 100 potential students at Sunday Streets in the Tenderloin on August 20 as a very rousing California Bluegrass Band played beside us. 

 Below you see student ambassador Moises and Danny in the foreground working as the musicians play.

Yes, Danny was back, looking dapper, and he and Josie Loo, a wonderful just-retired counselor willing not to retire from CCSF outreach, were there all day.  The were helped by Carole Meagher, Leslie Milloy of Free City in the Chancelor's Office, Associate Dean of Outreach Alex Guiriba,  student ambassadors Zac Palacios, Moises Rivera,  Claudia Liu (?), and Lillian Ho, who at the end of the day picked up the furniture and material that I delivered in the morning. 

We had visits, too, from faculty like Sue Englander, here with Leslie Milloy.

Here Carole Meagher is proudly pointing to her former student, featured on our Free City flyer.

The file box Denise Selleck and I put together was used for the first time, and I think it's helpful!  

The list is also helpful because we can see at a glance what we have in the file box without opening it and going through each tab.  (Besides, the cookies I baked needed a resting place!)

Carole made the comment that it would be good to have major all-CCSF cards and flyers out and keep things like "Underwater Electronic Basket-Weaving" filed away!

No, we really don't offer Underwater Electronic Basket-weaving, but we do offer a wealth of other things, and what gets put out will be somewhat determined by where we are even though Sunday Streets is supposed to attract people from all over the city.

Here our student ambassadors Moises and Claudia are filing the flyers at the end of the day.

As usual, I met people I usually don't see on the streets, like a woman I know from the Y Stonestown!

And the music played on!

Retirees on Probation

Nancy Husari and Lynn Schneider hosted a relaxing and friend-filled retirement picnic in Alameda in a friend's house by the water. (Forgot to take a scenic picture of the water mass, but the people mass is even lovelier!)

Thomas Lee said the period between retirement in May and the fall semester was "probation," so the teachers have been released from detention and are now subject to a period of good behavior under supervision. (At least two Bobs were there to supervise.)

Of course, probation is also "the process or period of testing or observing the character or abilities of a person in a certain role," and that role would be that of retiree! I think we're all performing so well that our retirement is going to have a long run! Thank you, Lynn and Nancy!

Filing for CCSF-SF

Today Denise Selleck came over with the labels she created from my list, and we filed!

Listing What CCSF Has to Offer

Aeronautics, Directions to CCSF Department of 

Anthropology,  Mission

Architecture Major Transfer Program

ART Ocean Campus

Art Department Register for Classes (Anna Asebedo)

AA-T  Associate in Arts in Studio Arts for Transfer

Bridge to Bioscience Program

Broadcast Electronic Media Arts

Business Web Pages--Intermediate (Noncredit, Mission Center)

Business administration  Office Administration Specialist

Certiport Lab--Microsoft Office and QuickBooks Certificate, Mission Campus

Child Development Certificate and Major

Child Development and Family Studies Department

Child Development Permit Matrix--with Alternative Qualification Options Indicated

Child Development 96 (Now at Mission Camus--only 1 copy!

Child Development Lab Center, Mission Campus (in English and Spanish)

Cinema Department of CCSF

Citizenship Classes, Chinatown Campus

Community Health Worker Certificate Program

          Post-Prison Health Worker Certificate

Computer Science Department

          Basic Computer Concepts Certificate Mission Campus

Construction Classes at Evans (Other side is Blueprint reading)

Construction Introduction to Construction Management Mission Center

Construction Management Courses (mission, Ocean, Chinatown/NB

Custodial Training Evans Center

English for Janitors (only 1 copy but interesting to see)

ESL Classes for Adults (Noncredit, all campuses)

ESL   Mission Campus  (Second side has all campus listed)

Ethnic Studies,  Introduction to  Ocean Campus

Financial Aid

          The California Dream Act

Foreign Language Classes

          Day

          Evening and Saturday

          Japanese

Free City Walls Torn Down and Barriers Busted cards

Free City Frequently Asked Questions

Free City College!  Enroll Now

GED  Mission Center

GED John Adams

HARTS 4 ALL Homeless/At Risk Transitional Students Program

Health

          Community Health Worker Certificate  Ocean?

          Youth Worker Certificate (Hlth 65)  Southeast Center

Health Occupations John Adams

Humanities:  Comparative Religions

IDST

          Ways of Faith

          Beautiful booklet--perhaps one to be displayed on tables

Interior Design

Journalism

Latin American & Latino/a Studies (Colonial History of Latin America) Ocean Campus

Latin American & Latino Studies, Art 105  Ancient Art and Architecture of Latin America

Latinas in the U.S.  "Voces"    Ocean Campus

Math Rocks  (Algebra, Southeast Center)

Matriculation--All-in-One-Day  (last session given is July 29) 

Medical Office Certificate

Middle East Studies

Mission Center Programs/Services

Music Dept.  Class Schedule--for table display?

Older Adults

Physical Education Dance and Athletics

Placement Tests

Puente

Spanish for Bilinguals (Español para bilingües)

Theatre Arts (2 different pamphlets, small supply)

Trauma Prevention and Recovery Certificate

Veteran (Student Veteran)  Health Program

Visual Media Design program brochure Ocean and Mission

Women Studies

          Womn 25 Introduction to Women's Studies:  Feminism Demystified

          The Politics of Sexual Violence

Working Adult Degree Program

Today's outreach at Sunday Streets on Valencia (between 15th and 16th Streets), was awesome, but we really need an awning!

(Here awesome counselor Donna Hayes, sans awning, gives information to a passerby.)

This is not the first time we've asked for an awning, and we've heard arguments against having one, but today we were all melting in the sun--and even the apples used for weights melted.  Almost every group had an awning except ours, which made it hard to find our group when I left to get a coconut down the street.  I walked right past our spot and only realized I'd passed it when I saw the Golden Warriors awning. I've also been told that people couldn't find us when they were really looking.

So for comfort and for visibility, we need an awning, and Elgy Gillespie has volunteered to provide one. 

This morning other volunteers and staff provided some other good suggestions too.

We can avoid too much clutter--one set of flyers burying others--if we have flyers organized into accordion files.  Denise Selleck volunteered to spend an hour helping me get this started.

Denise also suggested that we have a couple of bulletin boards set up like a poster session at conferences so that people could see at a glance some of what CCSF has to offer.

These posters could possibly be attached to the proverbial awning or put on easels.

Student ambassadors suggested having departments color code their flyers so we can spot them more easily, distinguishing one from another.  Because colors are limited but flyers seem not to be, we may be able to achieve the same result if we file our flyers and have that bulletin boards!

Another suggestion from our student ambassadors was to rotate what we focus on each time. For example, today we wanted to be sure that Free City was prominent.  At the same time we became familiar with where to locate flyers for the specific interests expressed by the passers by.

We should have a flyer giving the dates, times, and locations  that the placement tests will be given.  I think Leslie Milloy said they'd been giving them daily (or was it weekly?) on the Ocean Campus. 

We did have the flyer giving information on the one-day testing and matriculation process of native English speakers. 

We need to make the application process simpler and more user-friendly.  Someone from UC Santa Cruz said theirs was a lot easier to use than City College's. 

CCSF also needs to remove the stumbling block of insisting that students declare a major.  Other colleges make it possible to say "Undecided," but students applying for CCSF can't choose that response.

Donna Hayes also said that some colleges indicate after each major  for which ones students can get financial aid.  Our students need that information too. 

The courses and departments students asked about were almost as diverse as our college itself and included

A public speaking class for people in business who need help with their English pronunciation

Environmental Science

Drawing and painting

Ceramics

Child Development

physical fitness

Advanced Japanese

Beginning Spanish

Diagnostic Imaging

Social Justice

College credit courses for high school students at Sacred Heart and Wallenberg

As usual the police, including one who's taking Administrative Justice at CCSF, came by. 

It's NOT usual for the CCSF chancellor to come by, so  Mark Rocha's doing that was very much appreciated.  I had the chance to talk to him about both about decisions he'd made at Pasadena Community College and his degrees in engineering (relating to his work after  Hurricane Sandy) and in literature.

For several outreach events, Board of Trustees President Thea Selby has been an active participant, which provides both inspiration and a model to follow.  Today, for example, she took several Free City postcards and approached people.  When one would-be student said she had had trouble applying and had, therefore, given up, Thea found a student ambassador to help her with the process.

I'd heard good things about Leslie Milloy, so I was glad that she showed up and helped out, giving me the chance to let her know the good things being said behind her back!

I got a coconut and then a refill, found out what all the white tents on campus were one week, saw Mission Dolores friends of a CCSF instructor who became a priest, and got to see Kathe Burke in an improvided soccer game with a toddler.  I even got to tell student ambassadors about "The Big Sick" and "Kedi" but very briefly because we were BUSY!!!