Each year, the President’s Council holds a special breakfast to honor grantees that have been supported by the President’s Innovation Fund. This fund provides seed money to allow faculty and staff to develop exclusive projects and host special events.
The breakfast included many special guest speakers, including Honorary Chairman Gene Mullin, who talked about the value of community colleges.
“The community college experience has long been a staple of California. It is going to be more crucial as we move through a prolonged period of great educational needs and limited state resources. There is clearly no better educational bargain.”
“Community colleges have the most difficult job in higher education,” Mullin continued. “Their task is not to select those who will be successful, but to make successful those who come into the community colleges.”
President Victoria Morrow was also in attendance, providing a few remarks on her observations of community colleges. She spoke about her 30 years of experience working in college system.
“Based on that experience, I know what a wonderful college should look like,” she said. “A college ought to be committed to its students and their success. It ought to be filled with creative people; faculty and staff, people who are always looking for the way to do it better.”
“Skyline College is so much more, in terms of a wonderful college. When I ask them [Skyline’s faculty and staff] what they are most proud of, they say ‘helping students achieve their potential and fulfill their dreams.'”
In spite of crushing budget challenges, Skyline’s staff continues to burst with ideas. President Morrow explains that President’s Innovation Fund projects include collective traits such as “openness to trying out new ways of doing things, creativity based on the awareness of the needs of students, collaboration, initiative and leadership, and a commitment to service to our students and our community.”
The President’s Innovation Fund has supported such events as the commemoration ceremony of Skyline’s 35th Anniversary, the WOW! Women on Writing Conference, the Kababayan Program, Common Ground, The Museum of Tolerance’s Film Festival, and the Skyline Stars Transfer Student Hall of Fame.
