Gov. board’s top accomplishments

Governing board members make hundreds of decisions though the course of a year and 2013 was no exception. In the third year of the post-Chopra, post-probation period, SWC’s reformist board has driven a number of innovations on campus.

Trustees were asked to list what they thought were the board’s top 10 most important achievements of 2013. Here is what they said:

Humberto Peraza
• Veterans Resource Center opened
• Labor negotiations
• Center status for Otay Mesa and National City satellite campuses
• Funding eight issues of The Sun
• Facility Master Plan
• Fiscal independence from the County Office of Education
• The appointment of Nora Vargas to the board
• Community Benefits Agreement for construction contracts
• An improved budget and COLA
• Revenue generation

“Moving forward on revenue generation I think is the one thing I’ve been talking about since the day I stepped onto this campus,” said Peraza. “I think that is going to be a huge benefit. We’re going to be able to create revenue, we’re going to be able to bring the community to our campus, community is going to be able to use our fields and we’re going to create a revenue to be able to pay for some of the programs that were underfunded during our budget cut times.”

Nora Vargas
• Center status
• Fiscal independence
• Veteran Resource Center
• Facility Master Plan
• Corner Lot projects restarted
• Improved budget
• Student Success Conference
• Better communication with faculty
• New auditor
• Salary restoration

“I was really proud that we were able to (restore salaries for employees),” said Vargas. “Everyone worked so hard at the college (in 2013) and the fact that we can do that is a really powerful thing.”

Norma Hernandez
• Veterans Resource Center
• Open classes for students
• Better resources for network system
• Ellucian upgrade
• Center status
• Internal assessment
• Student Success Policy
• Facility Master Plan
• Community Benefits Agreement
• Improved development of the corner lot

“That corner lot has been controversial to say the least,” said Hernandez. “I feel that was one of our major accomplishments. I’m pleased with the fact that as a board, we were patient, we took time and made sure that we involved all the constituent groups on campus and people from the community so that we could feel good about approving the development of that corner lot.”

Tim Nader
• Renewed focus on student success
• Veteran Resource Center
• Solar Power Initiative
• Funding eight issues of The Sun
• The appointment of Nora Vargas
• Community Benefits Agreement
• Educational Master Plan
• Better security
• A new, clean campus contract.
• More transparent college budget

“The budget that we adopted in September wasn’t all the way there yet,” said Nader. “But it was a significant step in a more positive direction and hopefully we’ll continue seeing the budget move in the direction of more specificity and detail in the future.”

Terri Valladolid
• Appointment of Nora Vargas
• Facility Master Plan
• Center status
• Solar Panel Initiative
• Fiscal independence
• Restored salary for employees
• Student Success Policy
• Veteran Resource Center
• Ellucian upgrade
• Community Benefits Agreement

“We knew (the Community Benefits Agreement) was controversial, so what we tried to do was listen to both sides so went onto this listening campaign,” said Valladolid. “We listened to the union and then we listened to the contractors. We approved it, we’re moving forward, and our goal is make sure that jobs are earmarked for Chula Vista and that we meet our goal so we’re looking forward to making sure that works.”

With contributions by Serina Duarte