Cityscape - Your Employee Newsletter

September 28, 2020

The Ballot Bowl is On!

Sacramento City College Student Leaders are participating in the California University and College Ballot Bowl to encourage you to register to vote!

The November election is just weeks away and you can make your voice heard by registering and encouraging your friends and family to do the same. Use the Secretary of State Ballot Bowl voter registration link and select SCC! Let’s win this thing and show colleges across the state that Panthers want our voices heard!

Important Dates and Deadlines

The deadline for students to petition for Fall 2020 graduation or certificates is Friday, October 2. Students are advised to meet with a counselor first to make certain all their requirements have been met. Please encourage students to take action now!

Here are some additional key upcoming dates for students:

October 26 - Spring 2021 class schedules posted
October 26 - Current students can update their supplemental applications in eServices
November 12 - Students receive enrollment appointment
November 23 - Priority enrollment begins; more info online

Grad Petitions Due Oct. 2

Students who are graduating in the Fall, must submit their Graduation Petition by Oct. 2. Please help remind students, and here are some tips to pass along:

Submit the online graduation petition – by the deadline. It is the student's responsibility to file a petition for their degree or certificate by the deadline.To qualify for the degree or certificate during the semester of application, all requirements must be completed by the end of the semester in which they petition.
Provide supporting documentation. Official transcripts from colleges outside Los Rios Community College District, course substitution forms, or IGETC/ CSU General Education Certification forms.
Meet with a counselor. Students should consult with an SCC counselor regarding graduation and transfer. For complete degree and certificate information, see the Counseling website or the college catalog.

Open Classes Available

There are still great open classes for students for Fall! Most of these classes are second 8-week classes. Check out the schedule now – and please encourage students to add another class if they can. They will complete sooner and reach their academic goals faster!

Music Accepting Late Enrollments

SCC's Music Program scored an interview with "Good Day Sacramento," featuring Voice and Choral Music Professor Daniel Paulson and two of of our artists-in-residence this Fall – Broadway voice specialist Amanda Flynn and Los Rios graduate Devin Dawson, who just won an ACM Award for Single of the Year for "God's Country," which he co-wrote for Blake Shelton! Late registrations are being accepted for the music courses where students will be able to work with Flynn and Dawson, but they must email Professor Paulson at PaulsoD@scc.losrios.edu ASAP!

New Emergency Hotel Program Provides Shelter for Students

Being houseless while trying to complete a college degree is always exceptionally difficult, but it has become an especially urgent issue during the pandemic. The Los Rios Offices of Philanthropy districtwide are happy to share that we kicked off an Emergency Hotel Program this past spring.

Close to $40,000 in COVID-19 Relief Funds have been provided to students via the campus Cares programs (SCC’s program is Panther Cares) to provide emergency hotel stays for houseless students. This new program has allowed staff to provide houseless students shelter up to two weeks at a discounted rate at an Extended Stay America Hotel.

One recent example of an SCC student supported by the Emergency Hotel Program is Erica. Erica had been living with a relative until she found out that she tested positive for COVID-19. Her relative kicked her out of the house. Finding herself suddenly houseless and very ill at the same time, she reached out to an SCC faculty member she knows, and was referred to the Emergency Hotel Program. We were able to secure a hotel room for her for two weeks.

Erica shared that COVID-19 made her very sick, but having a safe place to stay made all the difference. She thanks all the donors to the COVID-19 relief fund who made this support possible.

“Thank you to everyone who helped to support this program. COVID affects all aspects of life in an unpredictable way. I didn’t think being homeless would ever be a possibility for me until I got COVID, and your support helped me through the two most difficult weeks of my life.”

To donate to Panther Cares and to help support the Emergency Hotel Program, please give here.

Updated Full-Time and Adjunct Faculty Lists on Outlook

Great news — we will be automating the full-time and adjunct faculty distributions lists in Outlook (email)! In the past the lists have had to be updated manually, now the lists will renew each morning to stay up-to-date. The switch will happen on 10/2/20, in the early morning. As part of this upgrade, the names of the distribution lists will be changing. You can see the new and old email distribution list names below:

New DL Names: "SCC-Fulltime Faculty” and “SCC-ADJ Faculty"
Old DL Names: "SCC-Fulltime-Faculty" and "SCC-Adjunct Faculty"

Summer/Fall 2021 Application Opens Oct. 1

The application for Summer and Fall 2021 admissions will be available starting Thursday, October 1. The application process is free and all who apply are guaranteed admission. Please encourage prospective students to apply and join us this summer and/or fall!

Laughter is Great Medicine

Due to COVID-19, most of us unexpectedly find ourselves working remotely and routinely meeting 100% virtually via Zoom. Similar to our Distance Learning (DL) students, we are DWs, Distance Workers. One casualty, due to this distance working, is laughter.

In the weeks to come your LRCCD College Nurses are going to share things we can do to bring some light-heartedness, laughter, and a sense of connectedness into our remote working environments. Collective experiences promote human connection, but remember, moments of connectedness arise less organically in a remote setting. It will take a conscious effort to create spaces where fun, laughter, and connectedness can occur.

Did you know people normally laugh about 18 times per day? And 97% of that time, we’re laughing with others. We are 30 times more likely to laugh with others than to laugh alone. Think about it: When was the last time you laughed alone? Laughing triggers a neurochemical response that results in feelings of pleasure and a sense of euphoria. That all sounds pretty good right about now!

How can we mitigate some of the effects of lack of physical proximity, such as anxiety, loneliness, and stress? We’ve all talked a lot over the last few months about how to “stress less”, which is important. Let’s add “laugh more” into our toolbox now. We don’t have to all sign up for an improv class, but we can all strive to foster some laughter. Here are some tips to get us started:

Slow down. When virtual interaction is all people have, it is important to emotionally connect and reconnect, and not just get work done. Laughter is one of the best ways to keep a team emotionally connected; but we need to give it time and space, even if we have to put off some of the actual work.
Get the video working. Humans are amazingly good at reading both visual and auditory cues when it comes to laughter. For that reason, make sure that everyone can and does attend via video, because that will increase the cue-flow for laughter.
Smile a lot and talk in a slightly higher voice. The simplest and strongest facial signal that laughter is okay is a genuine smile. The main auditory cue is the pitch of our voice. Almost regardless of any culture, a slightly higher pitch in our voice signals that we want to set a lighter rather than more serious tone for the group.
Set the example. Like a yawn, laughter sparks laughter. Laughing yourself is one of the most powerful ways to generate laughter in your group. Be careful, just as people can generally differentiate between genuine and fake smiles, they can tell the difference between real and forced laughter — which leads to the final recommendation.
Get in the mood yourself. We need to start with your own neurochemistry ahead of any meeting. It’s easier to keep laughter going than it is to start cold in front of all the faces on our Zoom screen. Ideally we should take a few seconds to get ourselves laughing in advance.

President Gutierrez's Office Hour

President Gutierrez will be holding an office hour twice a month during the Fall semester. Office hours will be held on the second Friday at 8:30 a.m. and fourth Thursday at 2:30 p.m. The next upcoming office hour will be Friday, Oct. 9, 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 am., 2:30 - 3:30 p.m. Please look for an email prior to each event to sign up. Zoom info will be sent via a calendar invite on the day before the event to those who signed up.