May 23, 2014(El Cajon) -- A Grossmont College student, two sheriff’s deputies and a public safety dispatcher were honored Thursday morning by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department for actions leading to the arrest of a man who accosted a lone female student as she was getting into her car in the Grossmont College parking structure last October.
January 25, 2014 (El Cajon)--Spring semester begins Monday at Grossmont and Cuyamaca colleges with more class offerings, instructors and students than last year as the college district continues an upward trend, thanks to a slow, but steady growth in the state economy.
December 11, 2013 (San Diego)--Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (photo, left, with staff) held a public hearing on access to San Diego higher education on November 21st in San Diego. Highlights from the hearing included statements from educators at both private and public institutions, identifying needs to be met for local students.
Among the issues discussed including diversity, overcrowding, and a need for a new higher education campus in our region.
November 14, 2013 (El Cajon)--The only employee on the Grossmont campus who can remember military service during World War II is Bob Yochum, a graphic artist, who at age 86 still works two days a week.
November 6, 2013 (El Cajon) — Actor Saginaw Grant, a Sac and Fox Indian who has played numerous Native American roles in the movies and on television, said at a Student Veteran Organization event at Grossmont College on Monday, Nov. 4. that every combat veteran comes home with hidden wounds caused by the things they saw or did. However, he said, it’s important that they banish negative thoughts from their minds: “You can’t change those things by thinking about them.”
Grant, who had served in the Marine Corps during the Korean Conflict, said even after separating from the military service, veterans should continue to honor the proud military traditions that have been passed down for generations. Likewise, Grant, who appeared in the 2013 movie The Lone Ranger as the Comanche Chief Big Bear, said that his Indian people should carefully listen and then honor the lessons that have been transmitted for eons in their oral traditions.
October 22, 2013 (El Cajon) – A passerby who witnessed a woman being abducted at knifepoint in the Grossmont College parking lot today scared off the assailant by honking his horn. Sheriff’s deputies located and arrested the suspect, Anthony Washington.
“Washington later confessed he was going to rape the student and do whatever he had to in order to get his way,” said Sergeant Vic Perry.
October 17, 2013 (El Cajon) -- A Box Full of Rocks: The El Cajon Years of Lester Bangs is a new documentary film about legendary music journalist and former San Diegan Lester Bangs. Grossmont College's Creative Writing Program will sponsor a special screening of the film at its annual Lester Bangs Memorial Reading, on Tuesday October 22, 2013 in Room 220 (Building 26). This event will be free and open to the public.
October 17, 2013 (El Cajon) -- With a statewide earthquake drill known as the "Great California Shakeout" planned for 10:17 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 17, panelists in Grossmont College's Griffin Center told students last week, where to expect earthquakes to repeatedly happen, how to best be prepared for them, and what it is like to experience their devastation. Many of these tips are included in the story below.
The panel was a precursor to the Oct. 17 drill in which students, faculty and staff will be advised that in the event that they are inside a building during a real earthquake, they should drop to the floor, get under and hold onto a desk or a table, and cover their heads to prevent materials shaken loose from falling on them. The Oct. 17 drill will last approximately two minutes after which normal classroom activities will resume.
August 29, 2013 (El Cajon) – Dr. Chris Hill, geology professor and former president of the Academic Senate who filled in last college year as acting Vice President for Academic Affairs, was honored as Grossmont College's Distinguished Faculty Member of the year at an academic convocation held on the campus Monday, August 12.
In announcing the award, Sue Gonda, current president of the Academic Senate, said that Hill had created a course studying natural disasters, and had re-instituted courses on California geology and California natural parks. Additionally, Gonda noted, Hill had written numerous articles, papers and abstracts in the field of geology, including those studying landslide movements in California and geologic processes in the Sierra Nevada.
August 26, 2013 (El Cajon) – “The smell of burning bodies was 24 hours a day. Some put their hands on the electric wires and died…killed themselves,” said Rose Schindler, Holocaust survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
Rose and her husband Max were at Grossmont College to give a talk on their shared experiences during the Holocaust to students of the Summer Institute Program (S.I.P.) on July 22. Their goal is to make sure that the world never forgets the horror of the Holocaust, in hopes that such a tragedy will never happen again.
August 26, 2013 (El Cajon) - On August 12, Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk, delivered a speech to faculty and staff at Grossmont College on how to reach out to military veterans.
His book, The Long Walk, tells the story of Castner’s outward struggle of serving in combat and inward struggle to find himself again after he had been home for a couple years.
August 15, 2013 (El Cajon) - The Hyde Art Gallery opens its Fall 2013 Semester with “From This Place” – a Sculpture and Installation Exhibition featuring the work of Stephanie Bedwell.
August 15, 2013 (El Cajon)—The Grossmont College Library will put on its reserve bookshelf this Fall Semester a special collection of 25 books and three films on “Muslim Journeys,” made available through a grant provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
August 8, 2013 (El Cajon) – Foreign-trained doctors, nurses and medical technicians may help fill the gap between the number of health care professionals working in the United States today and the larger number expected to be needed when the federal Affordable Care Act goes into effect on January 1, 2014.
Welcome Back Centers at Grossmont College and eight other locations around the United States help to coordinate local efforts to prepare the foreign medical professionals for their American licensing examinations.
August 8, 2013 (El Cajon) – In an effort to keep textbook prices in line with student budgets, Grossmont College Bookstore has introduced a new money-saving option.
Michael Gilchrist, the manager of the bookstore operated by Barnes & Noble, said the new option is called "dynamic pricing for rentals," which allows flexibility in price setting.
“Whereas before there were set prices for rentals – such as 50 percent of the new book price – prices can go even lower to meet competition from online retailers,” Gilchrist said.
August 6, 2013 (El Cajon) – Grossmont College’s Adult Reentry Program will host “A Daring Adventure,” a free orientation for adults interested in returning to school, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. tomorrow in Griffin Gate (Building 60).
July 12, 2013 (El Cajon) --Colleagues on the Grossmont College campus are planning a special blood drive in conjunction with the Bloodmobile’s regular visit to the campus on Sept. 10. They are urging blood donations in memory of Prof. Curtis Stevens, who was such a regal man that in joking awe they called him "His Royal Highness, The Emperor Curtis Stevens."
Blood donations in Dr. Stevens’ memory may be made not only on campus, but also at any of the six San Diego Blood Bank donor centers throughout San Diego County by mentioning his name and reference code C42.
July 1, 2013 (El Cajon) – The day before she was to meet the Grossmont College search committee that would interview her for the job as vice president for academic affairs, Dr. Katrina VanderWoude, vice provost at Rochester College in Michigan, decided to do some interviewing of her own. Visiting the Grossmont College campus incognito, she struck up conversations with students over lunch in Griffin Center, and elsewhere on the campus, to see if she could get a feel for the place at which she later accepted the job.
June 25, 2013 (El Cajon) – Grossmont College will offer a “family-friendly” schedule of theater productions in the 2013-2014 season, starting Oct. 3-12 with Pygmalion, the George Bernard Shaw play that was converted into the musical My Fair Lady, and ending May 8-17 with “a new spin” on Alice in Wonderland, according to Beth Duggan, chair of the Theatre Arts Department.
In between those two offerings, students will also act in, design costumes and build sets for such productions as To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday by Michael Brady (Nov. 14-23); Follow Me by artist Dominic Pangborn (Dec. 6-7, followed by a tour of local elementary schools); Inside the Actors Process by Grossmont faculty member Jerry Hager (Feb. 7 and 8, followed by a tour of local high schools); and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown (March 13-22).
June 12, 2013 (El Cajon)- Over 400 students received degrees at Grossmont Community College’s commencement ceremony on Thursday. Commencement speakers included student Derrick Torrence, a Marine Corps veteran who graduated with his daughter, as well as Reverend Eric Smith, a Navy veteran who also wrote his memoir From Crack to Clergy: Provoking Thoughts published in 2011.
June 3, 2013 (El Cajon) – When nursing students participate in Grossmont College’s traditional “pinning” ceremony Tuesday afternoon, June 4, more of them will be men than ever before—a sign of changing societal attitudes towards what once was considered a profession for women only.
Debbie Yaddow, dean of Allied Health and Nursing, says eight men, or 20 percent of the graduating class of 40 students, are males, compared to what it was like just 30 years ago, when Yaddow graduated from Grossmont’s nursing school, and there were zero males in the class.
Some graduates celebrate triumph over adversity; Iraq war veteran to graduate with daughter
May 30, 2013 (El Cajon) – A campaign to improve student success is paying off at Grossmont and Cuyamaca colleges, where more than 1,700 graduates will receive a record number of degrees and certificates at commencements in early June.
New programs and services helping students achieve academic goals, along with voters’ approval last fall of a tax plan tempering years of debilitating budget cuts, are credited for the strong numbers.
With many graduates earning multiple credentials, Grossmont College will award more than 2,100 degrees and certificates at its commencement ceremony June 5. The following day, Cuyamaca College will confer 830 of the hard-earned associate degrees and certificates at its commencement.
May 24 2013 (Lemon Grove) -- The Grossmont Symphony Orchestra and Master Chorale will join flautist Suzanne Kennedy at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 29 at St. John of the Cross Catholic Church, 8086 Broadway, in a performance that will feature the works of German, Russian and American composers.
May 24, 2013 (El Cajon)--Grossmont College student Thirada Kingphuang has received from the San Diego Police Foundation a Rita Olsen Memorial scholarship of $2,500 awarded to women pursuing an education preparatory to a career in law enforcement.
Kingphuang left her family and everyone she knew in the rural, teak-forest-covered Uttaradit province of northern Thailand in 2009 to pursue a career in forensic science in California.
May 16, 2013 (El Cajon) – Grossmont College is an official pit stop for “Bike to Work Day 2013,” a nationally recognized event celebrated on the third Friday of May.
Some 50 to 60 riders are expected from 6 to 9 a.m. May 17, in parking lot No. 1 at the intersection of Highwood Drive and Grossmont College Drive on the Grossmont College campus.
Refreshments and support will be available, along with free T-shirts for the first 30 riders. Cyclists needing a break can ride free on any transit system operated by the Metropolitan Transit System or the North County Transit District if space is available. For more information, go to icommutesd.com
May 7, 2013 (El Cajon) – A woman of a certain age contemplates suicide when the phone rings in her San Diego apartment. The caller, believing she is contacting an analyst she read about in a health magazine, launches into her own tale of woe.
So begins “An Ordinary Day,” a one-act play by Dario Fo and Franca Rame, and directed by Martin Katz, a Grossmont College theater arts instructor. The lead character, Julia, finds herself trying to help the woman on the phone, in between encounters with her neighbors, the police and two flower-delivery men. As the tragic-comedy unfolds, it illuminates the themes of zealous commercialism, relationship stress, the notion of betrayal and the exhilaration of contributing to someone else’s life.
April 27, 2013 (El Cajon)--An award winning short-story writer and an Iraqi poet will headline Grossmont College’s Literary Arts Festival April 29 through May 2.
Tobias Wolff, a Stanford professor, won The Story Prize in 2008 for his collection of short stories, “Our Story Begins.” He has published several novels and memoirs, and his work regularly appears in magazines and literary journals, including “The New Yorker,” “The Atlantic” and “Harper’s.” Wolff will read and sign his books from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, May 1.
April 2, 2013 (El Cajon) – “The Anatomy of Hate; A Dialogue to Hope,” an award-winning documentary film directed by Michael Ramsdell and focusing on individual and collective ideologies of hate will be shown during a free screening and Q&A with the director at 3:30 p.m. April 3, in Building 26, Room 220 at Grossmont College.
The 90-minute film follows the director’s six-year journey with groups like the white supremacists and Palestinian militants, as well as U.S. embedded troops in the Middle East. It is juxtaposed with interviews from leading experts in sociology, psychology and neurology to reveal both the emotional and biological factors that make everyone susceptible to acts and ideologies of hate. At the same time, this film posits, these are the very same traits that enable people to rise above the negativity.
August 15, 2013 (El Cajon) - The Hyde Art Gallery opens its Fall 2013 Semester with “From This Place” – a Sculpture and Installation Exhibition featuring the work of Stephanie Bedwell.
April 2, 2013 (El Cajon) – “The Anatomy of Hate; A Dialogue to Hope,” an award-winning documentary film directed by Michael Ramsdell and focusing on individual and collective ideologies of hate will be shown during a free screening and Q&A with the director at 3:30 p.m. April 3, in Building 26, Room 220 at Grossmont College.
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