Future Students

The Student Government of Cerro Coso (SGCC) celebrated the achievements of students, faculty, and staff at all CCCC campuses and across all academic programs at their 35^th Annual Spring Awards Luncheon held on May 2, 2019. The following awards were presented:

President’s Outstanding Academic Achievement Awards: Nina Aquino, Noah Bailey, William Banks, Kimberly Borey, Tanya Brown, Olivia Bumbaca, Zulema Castillo, Phillip Chacanaca, Arsh Chaudhry, Nathan Crites, Chance English, Amy Ertl, Tanya Frandsen, Jose Gonzalez, Grace Haddock, Lauren Harris, Ross Hill, Naomi Hillis, Angela Johnson, Katelyn Jones, Anita Keller, Elinelle Lee, Erin Lewis, Donnell Marin, Wolf Milheim, Kaitlyn Morgan, Andrew Ostrom, Kira Peters, Gloria Solorio, Zachary Strazi, Angela Teslaa, Grace Vankirk, and Kayla Waasdorp.

Phi Theta Kappa All-California Academic Team: Chance English and Lauren Harris.

Coca-Cola Academic Team Gold Scholar Chance English.

Coca-Cola Leader of Promise Scholar Lauren Harris.

Honors Transfer Council of California Conference Outstanding Abstract Gideon Ondap.

Department Awards for Outstanding Achievement: Jennifer Martinez, Allied Health; Enrique Franco Martin, Business and Information Technology; Carol Blair, English and Foreign Languages; Olivia Ortiz, Industrial Arts; Brynn Turpin, Mathematics; Christina Litster, Paralegal; Noah Bailey, Science; Carol Blair, Social Sciences; Maria Guishard, Visual and Performing Arts.

Site Student of the Year: Gloria Solorio, Eastern Sierra College Center; Lupita Zamora, East Kern Tehachapi Campus; and Christine Dochterman, Kern River Valley Campus.

Tutor of the Year Blake Sarrett.

CCCC Foundation, Inc. Student Athlete Academic Achievement Award Brock Duffield (Men’s Basketball).

CCCC Excellence in Education Award Child Development Professor Vivian Baker and Digital Media Arts Professor Suzie Ama.

Staff Awards: Sylvia Sotomayor, Web Content Editor – Academic Senate Staff of the Year.  Lacie Galvan, Accounting Technician II – Classified Senate Staff of the Year.

SGCC Awards for Teaching Excellence: Cliff Davis, IWV Full-Time Faculty; Gary Enns, KRV Faculty; Scott Cameron and Lucila Gonzalez-Cirre, Online Faculty; Carlos Wright-Tkacz, ESCC Faculty; and Don Rosenberg, Adjunct Faculty.

Photo Caption: Students receiving Department Awards for Outstanding Achievement (l to r):  Olivia Ortiz, Industrial Arts; Maria Guishard, Visual and Performing Arts; Carol Blair, English and Foreign Languages and Social Sciences; Jennifer Martinez, Allied Health; Enrique Franco Martin, Business and Information Technology;  Brynn Turpin, Mathematics, and Noah Bailey, Science. Not pictures Christina Litster, Paralegal.

View on the Cerro Coso College website.

The public is invited to the grand re-opening of Cerro Coso Community College’s Main Building on Wednesday, May 29, 2019  from 5 to 7pm.

The event will take place in the Main Building of the Ridgecrest Campus located at 3000 College Heights Blvd., in Ridgecrest, CA.

School facilities can have a profound impact on both employee and student outcomes. The Main Building project sought to completely renovate and modernize the original 47,000 sq. ft. building, constructed in 1973, that serves as the hub of the East side of the campus. The student-centered facility is exciting and innovative and designed to foster creativity, collaboration, flexibility, and communication. 

The flexible learning spaces provide students and educators the freedom to adapt to their needs at any given moment. These types of spaces allow users to modify their environment to fit a variety of learning styles and activities, from individual to small group to large group exercises. Adjustable spaces can increase engagement, and foster active teaching and learning to elevate the educational experience.

The project also sought to streamline and digitize the student experience, all while improving the efficiency and service for students. The one-stop student-centered focus provides a central location to seek assistance with registration, financial aid, counseling, assessment, payments, and Access Programs and trained staff to either provide the assistance or make an appropriate referral.

Today’s colleges also need greater access to technology that can result in a more valuable college experience. Technology trends today have a myriad of options to bring digital learning to students and plays an essential role in keeping them informed and engaged. Making sure the network infrastructure was not only up-to-date and sufficient enough to properly support end users now, but would also have the capacity to support future expansion was vital to the project. 

Wrought with challenges from the very beginning, this construction project transformed the Ridgecrest campus. Ultimately, it will improve the quality of life for students, faculty, staff, and the community as a whole.

“The complexity, attractiveness, unique challenges overcome, workmanship, innovation, and safety of this long three year project has resulted in creating an inspiring, innovative, energy efficient and flexible environment that will meet the needs of today’s college students,” said Jill Board President. “And we are excited to share it with our community.”

The Main Building Modernization Project was funded by Measures G and Measure J. “We were overwhelmed by the confidence shown by voters who supported both of these construction bond measures to make essential campus improvements and technology upgrades to provide first-class education to our students and better prepare them for university transfer and high demand, high skill jobs. Please join us in seeing the incredible results of this project.”

Guests will be given tours, information, promotional material, and refreshments. Parking will not be enforced.   

For more information please contact the College Public Information office at 760-384-6262.

View on the Cerro Coso College website.

As graduation excitement builds at the Ridgecrest campus, it is joined by the anticipation of a possible new addition to the fence that surrounds the college sculpture garden.

The student fence panel project is an ongoing endeavor of the Visual and Performing Arts Department, which gives advanced students the opportunity to create large scale, outdoor public art. It is a long-term project, taking many years to accomplish, and involving students from incredibly diverse backgrounds and artistic interests. It also engages the public in both an immediate and enduring appreciation of art, and serves to beautify the Cerro Coso Ridgecrest campus in a thoughtful manner. 

Former Visual and Performing Arts Outstanding Student of the Year James Gray constructed the most recent addition to the project. Gray is a non-traditional student—a military veteran who once served on a naval aircraft carrier. During his service, he worked in close quarters with a large number of people, whose mission involved dependence on efficient structure, loyalty to the group, and singularity of vision. This experience strongly influences his art, and leads us to contemplate the connections between workplace, home, and life purpose.

“The design of the honeycomb structure is both visually pleasing and incredibly efficient. These hexagon shapes save energy, and use the minimal amount of material necessary to build a large, interlocking hive. In the future, I would also like to make several singular bee sculptures and place them around the campus. Bees can travel very far, and this would tie the rest of the campus to the sculpture garden,” said Gray of his work.

The new sculpture complements the landscape and other works of art in Cerro Coso’s sculpture garden, a top destination for photographers and visitors at the college.

View on the Cerro Coso College website.

With hundreds of family members and friends in attendance, nearly 469 graduates of Cerro Coso Community College degree and certification programs celebrated the achievement of one more milestone on their journey as lifelong learners at the May 10, 2019, Commencement in the gymnasium of the Dr. Raymond A. McCue Athletic Complex.

A total of 469 graduates earned 559 Associate Degrees and 272 Certificates of Achievement from the college for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Among the graduates were 61 Phi Theta Kappa members of the international honor society for community colleges and 12 from the Honors Program.

The college also recognized 7 CCCC Foundation President’s Award recipients for maintaining a cumulative 4.0 GPA to meet all graduation requirements.

Student speakers Chance English (IWV), Elinelle Lee (IWV), and Christine Dockterman (KRV) shared their inspirational stories with their classmates.

Author, motivational speaker, owner, and president of Revitalize Now, LLC, Dianne Toliver was selected as the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Speaker. A 1978 graduate of Cerro Coso, Toliver shared a few thoughts regarding the ways Cerro Coso prepared her for a successful career in corporate America. “The staff at Cerro Coso challenged me to find my passion, go outside my comfort zone, take calculated risks, embrace, the value of education, and believe in myself,” she said to the assembly. “Thanks to the encouragement of my professors and the college staff, I boldly accepted new challenges. I participated in essay contests and various events which took me to the floor of the California Assembly and Senate, and board rooms of Southern California Edison and the Bank of America. Bottom line…Cerro Coso prepared me for a world I never knew existed.” In addition to her degree from Cerro Coso Community College, Tolliver holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from California State University, Northridge, a Master of Science in Public Administration from California State University, Bakersfield, and holds a number of certifications. 

Professor of Counseling Jan Moline served as the faculty Marshal and The Cerro Coso Band conducted by Ms. Debra Veit provided the music for the event.

View on the Cerro Coso College website.

Cerro Coso Community College (CCCC) has announced that Ms. Dianne Tolliver will be the Alumni Speaker at its 46^th Commencement Exercise on Friday, May 10 in the Gymnasium of the Dr. Raymond A. McCue Sports Complex.

Commencement will begin at 6 p.m.

Tolliver grew up in Ridgecrest as Dianne Butler and graduated from Burroughs High School and Cerro Coso (1978).

Her diverse professional career spans over 30 years. She was a Senior Vice President for Growth and Innovation at Engineering Solutions and Products, LLC. Prior to that she served as Vice President at L-3 Communications, and Senior Vice President at S.A.I.C. and Director of the Government Contract Support Center. While at S.A.I.C. she received two separate CEO Achievement Awards for Excellence. Before S.A.I.C., she served as Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Program Operations at Boeing Information Services.

Today she is an author, industry recognized motivational speaker, change agent, leadership coach, facilitator, and owner and president of Revitalize Now, LLC, based in Oakton, Virginia.

In addition to her degree from Cerro Coso Community College, Tolliver holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from California State University, Northridge, a Master of Science in Public Administration from California State University, Bakersfield, and holds a number of certifications.

“We are delight that the 2019 graduates of CCCC will be addressed by our alumna Dianne Tolliver. She is not only a great supporter of higher education, having served on our alumni board many years ago, but she is also a role model for students launching careers,” said Natalie Dorrell, Director of Institutional Advancement. “Dianne has demonstrated a work ethic second to none; her discipline and drive are an inspiration.”

The Class of 2019 can look to Tolliver for insights on their new beginnings as graduates as they take the quality and value of the skills they have learned into the workforce.

Student speakers for May 10^th will include Chance English (IWV), Elinelle Lee (IWV), and Christine Dochterman (KRV).

Special thanks to the Cerro Coso Community College Foundation for their role in helping students to achieve their educational goals.

The Cerro Coso Community College Band conducted by Ms. Debra Veit will provide music for the festivities.

View on the Cerro Coso College website.

The CCCC Foundation’s President’s Circle offers a unique opportunity to join a select group of like-minded people united to make dreams come true for others.

On Tuesday, April 23^rd, a group of people with a common goal joined together to hear directly from students on their research at Cerro Coso.

Special thanks go out to representatives in attendance from Coso Operating, Ridgecrest Regional Hospital, Saalex, Jacobs, Alta One, Searles Valley Minerals, and Desert Valley’s Federal Credit Union.

“As part of the President’s Circle, you share a special place of distinction in shaping the Cerro Coso community through your boundless generosity,” said College President Jill Board.

Attendees had the opportunity to hear from Phi Theta Kappa Officers on the results of their Honors in Action project, and a few presentations by Honors students on their research recently presented at the Honors Transfer Council of California (HTCC) Research Conference at the University of California, Irvine.

President’s Circle members invest in world-class teaching, cutting-edge academic programs, and distinguished research designed to deliver the knowledge and tools that will positively impact the student experience, meet local workforce needs, and improve the community. By becoming a leadership supporter, with a $1,000 donation or more, President’s Circle members ensure that Cerro Coso Community College continues building its academic strength, elevates its services to the profession, and increases the financial security of its students.

Anyone interested in joining the Cerro Coso Community College Foundation’s President’s Circle is encouraged to contact Natalie Dorrell, Director of Institutional Advancement at 760-384-6260.

Picture Caption: Presenters at the CCCC Foundation’s Spring President’s Circle brunch included students l to r: Gideon Ondap, Rachel Quan, Michael Skipworth, Cameron Reese (in front), Nicole Hu, Carol Blair, Emma Gilmartin, and Abigail Voigt.

View on the Cerro Coso College website.

Cerro Coso Community College is deeply saddened by the loss of Ruth Cooper. She was a founding member of the Fire Mountain Foundation now called the Cerro Coso Community College Foundation and was the first woman to serve as president serving on the board from 1977 to 2008. A visionary leader with a compassionate heart, Ruth cared deeply about the people of the Indian Wells Valley.

“It has been a great privilege to have worked with Ruth in many capacities over the years,” stated Cerro Coso President Jill Board. “Ruth was one of the most prominent and respected voices in support of education in the Indian Wells Valley. She strongly believed that higher education opens doors and opportunities to a better future. Her leadership and support helped shape the CCCC Foundation into what it is today. We will miss her tremendous contribution to the community, exemplary leadership, and dedication to the college.”

The CCCC Foundation is a vital support system for Cerro Coso students, providing valuable resources to help students complete their programs and succeed in their particular areas of study. Ruth led the organization with integrity and a strong commitment to academic excellence and student success. She was a trusted advisor and has been in the forefront as an advocate for the college.

We have lost not only one of the Foundation’s founders and most faithful benefactors, but we have lost a most gifted leader whose success, generosity, service, integrity, and zest for life well lived should be an example for us all. Our hearts go out to her family and to the extended community of family and friends who held her dear.

View on the Cerro Coso College website.