UPDATE – For those who missed the live stream, a captioned, accessible version is available now.
August 21, 2020 – Santa Fe College’s fall convocation took a look back at the last several months as the college dealt with the COVID-19 global pandemic, while still looking forward to opportunities to engage students both in-person and virtually.
SF President Paul Broadie II, Ph.D., began his first convocation as college president by welcoming the District Board of Trustees, the SF Foundation and thanking the faculty and staff for their efforts in supporting students. The president, the provost Dr. Ed Bonahue and Vice President for Student Affairs, Dr. Naima Brown, took time to acknowledge the faculty and staff who were able to quickly shift more than 1,000 courses from in-person to online, continue all student services seamlessly and went above and beyond their normal efforts to help students succeed.
While recognizing that the new fall term will bring its own, unique challenges, leadership gave the faculty and staff encouragement to continue to persevere. In his remarks to the college community, Provost Bonahue said that because of the work of the faculty, the student course completion rate for the spring term was 78.3%, a half-point higher than the college’s five-year historical average.
Dr. Brown reminded faculty and staff to encourage students to contact the college if they have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by applying for a grant funded by the CARES Act. Students, who are eligible for federal financial aid can visit sfcollege.edu/covidaid for additional information. She also spoke about the importance of mental health and reminded faculty that students can utilize the services of the SF Counseling Center if needed.
President Broadie talked about the importance of workforce development, career training and the need for the college to expose underserved populations to the benefit of a college education in order to close equity gaps. He also talked about improvements to the college including the construction that began on the Blount Center expansion project and the renovations to the Lyceum (formerly the E-Auditorium), the Student Health Care Center and the Building I Physics Lab.
Convocation wrapped up with President Broadie interviewing current SF Foundation President Barbara Anderson and past President Patsy Blount and talking about how scholarship funding from the SF Foundation continues to change lives by making a college education accessible to so many people.
The fall term begins Monday.