Fall Conference Welcome Breakfast

The 2023 Fall Conference Welcome breakfast brought together faculty and staff. They welcome a new academic year, by receiving important updates and celebrate accomplishments from the previous year. 

This acdemic year the College of Education and Integrative Studies welcome, new leadership, faculty, and staff.

To start off the Welcome Breakfast, Dr. Sandy Kewanhaptewa-Dixon (Hopi) of GEMS gave the Land Acknowledgement. She shared the draft Land Acknowledgement for Cal Poly Pomona that will be shared with the CPP Senate.

We acknowledge that Cal Poly Pomona resides on the traditional territory and homelands of the California Indians. The Gabrieleno Tongva and Tataavium people are the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar.  We also acknowledge that this land remains the shared space among the Kizh, Serrano, Cahuilla, Rumsen/Ohlone, Acjachemen, and Luiseno people. We acknowledge the spiritual connection and rights as the original stewards and traditional caretakers of this land. We thank them for their strength, perseverance and resistance. Through allyship Cal Poly Pomona will build relationships based on TRUST, CONSISTENCY, and ACCOUNTABILITY with Native/American Indian peoples and tribal nations as we are guest or settlers on these lands.

The CEIS leadership team welcomed the new Dean, Jenelle S. Pitt-Parker and Interim Associate Dean, Neilan Chaturvedi. To lean more about them click here.

Dean Pitt-Parker began the presentation by thanking former staff, Ashley Jones and our former Interim Dean Hend Gilli-Elewy and Associate Dean Joanne Van Boxtel for all their hard work they did for the college.

The leadership team shared a number of updates, highlights and achievements within their departments.

Chair and Professor, Dr. Denise Kennedy of the Department of Early Childhood Studies (ECS) announced some leadership changes. Former Chair, Dr. Nancy Hurbult officially retired and Dr. Denise Kennedy was promoted to Chair and was promoted to Professor(tenured). Dr. Kennedy shared department highlights. The department faculty collectively wrote & published a chapter about how we used student belonging to guide our curriculum redesign. The ECS Faculty published more than 15 journal articles and book chapters and had more than 20 conference presentations.

Chair and Professor, Dr. Jann Pataray-Ching in the Department of Education shared introduced new faculty; Eliud Partida - Single Subject Science, Nirmla Flores - Multiple Subject and Bilingual programs and Cynthia Geary - Multiple Subject and Bilingual programs. Department Initiatives for 2023-2024 are Faculty Search, Special Education, a Joint Faculty Search, Early Childhood Studies, and Master’s program review.

Chair and Professor, Dr. Betty Alford in the Department of Educational Leadership introduced new faculty; Dr. Dayna Mitchell and Dr. Socorro Morales. Some of the department highlights that were shared were the Preliminary Administration Services Program (PASC) - gave positive review. The Educational Leadership Doctoral Program celebrated 9th cohort graduation. The department receviewed a donation  from the Barbara Nakaoka Foundation of $25,000 to fund additional research & dissemination to promote and illuminate practices of equity minded leadership.

Finally, Chair and Professor, Dr. Christina Chavez-Reyes in the Department of Liberal Studies (LS) and IGE introduced new faculty: Dr. Will Cowan and Dr. Anthony Peña (LS). Two faculty in LS were awared tenure and promoted to Associate Professor, Dr. Maya Stovall and Dr. Jeff C. Roy. Department highlights are that the department is on track to house five AREA F courses that show faculty expertise in critical theories across disciplines and two new minors pending, Global Humanities in IGE; Sustainability Education in LS.

The meeting ended with budget updates and information from the faculty union and staff union.

For more information about CEIS, visit https://www.cpp.edu/ceis.