Week of September 1, 2025

Hi Clovis Family,

I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and that you came back well rested, restored, and rejuvenated. I don’t know about you but although I always love and look forward to a three-day weekend, it appears that there is still 5 days of work crushed into 4 days. We were busy last week. It was not a bad busy, just had a lot to do. Well one of our family had more to push through over the Labor Day weekend. Our very own Sherry gave birth to a healthy and precious baby girl named Sabrina Nkauj Huab Xiong. Congratulations to Sherry, her husband, and daughters of the new addition to their family.

I spent this week mostly away from you at off campus meetings and events. On Monday, I went to Madera to pick up a large donation of men’s clothes and shoes from an elderly woman who lost her son and wanted his clothes to go to our students. It was an honor that she thought of us and wanted to support our students in their needs in this way.

On Tuesday, I had a quick lunch with VC Frost to talk briefly about the Canvas concerns, Ag Tech, Study Abroad and mostly about ways to improve communication. I then went directly to our September Board meeting and finished at 9:15 p.m. As a former STEM faculty, I want to thank my lab instructors and CTE instructors for all you do to not only keep our students safe but also to your commitment to provide the rigor of excellence which the lab experience is intended to provide. When our students transfer, especially in STEM, or go directly to the workplace, they are well prepared and are second to none. I applaud you and thank you. I also want to thank those of you that I reached out to and who reached out to me to explain the LHE history and pay structure.

I discovered I had to be up bright at 7 a.m. for a FSU President’s Commission on Teacher Education meeting. This Commission is made up of all education partners both K-12 and community colleges from here to Bakersfield. President Jiménez-Sandoval talked to us about their enrollments and their use of embedded tutoring as a game changer in improving retention and success rates, especially within underserved groups and those in STEM. He informed us of their state budget cuts and their economic impact on the Central Valley; 80% of their graduates stay in the Valley. We learned about their Master of Arts in Education- Multilingual and Multicultural Education, Bilingual Authorization Program (Hmong and Spanish) and their new Ed D. in Education Counseling Ed (Online program). We also were made aware of their Fresno Family Counseling Center (located at Palm and Shaw) as a community resource for mental health needs. They have a sliding scale fee structure with cost ranging from $15-$30 dollars. This student-based program allows their students to get supervised clinical experience while providing our students with access to mental health services. I spent the remainder of the day doing reports and paperwork. I had a special surprise by having our former ASG president Ivan Garcia and his advisor stopped by to tell me goodbye. He starts at Davis in a couple of weeks and wanted to come by to tell me how well prepared he feels as he goes onto this next chapter in his life. He plans to be very involved in their student government and will be serving as an interim senator and will seek out the permanent seat. He will be pursuing Law and has an interest in becoming a JAG officer as well. I told him how proud we are of him and that I would love to have him come back and talk to our students, perhaps speak at a future graduation, and to be a proud and involved Clovis Alum.

Thursday, I spent the day at Merced College at the September F3/Ag Tech meeting. The topic was transcripting for the CBE classes. I requested this meeting since it was my understanding that they had a transcripting process that was working and that we could use their model. We had a team to attend the meeting: James, Whitney, Reynani and myself. I believe that having all of us at the table (non-siloed and an integrated approach) will help us to best communicate our needs as we navigate this process. We found that Merced was not as far along in this process as we had been led to believe. This meeting allowed us to ask questions that were specific to our needs. I enjoyed watching our team discuss needs and future steps. We were the only team, and I was the only president in attendance. We talked about the advertisement of the Ag Tech Program being free when in fact there are costs for parking and health fees which are not covered. We will take the lead and alter our advertisement to ensure that we are communicating true and accurate information to our students. Our integrity is important. We talked about how to navigate this incredibly manual process and impact on staffing. We also were able to assure that funds are allocated for this year. There was some delayed communication on letting the granter know. With VC Frost, also in attendance, funds will be allocated to both Clovis and FCC.

I drove back to Fresno and attended the FCC welcome reception for President Whisenhunt.

Friday morning, I again started at 7:30 a.m. I attended the Fresno Compact Board of Directors Meeting. This is a group of educators and business leaders. The meeting was held at California Health Sciences University. We talked about their impact on providing health and medical providers to our region and the impact of recent Pell grant restrictions (limiting students to $200k in federal loans). This will be a barrier to accessing funding which will negatively impact underrepresented groups who we need to provide culturally relevant medical care to our diverse community. After, I had my annual lunch with Union President Keith Ford. We talked about process and communication improvements between Clovis and the union.

Friday afternoon, I met with our volleyball team and their coaches prior to the start of their first home game, held at Valley Athletics. They and their new coach Mark Rosen looked like a well-oiled machine.

I left there and went directly to our Scholarship Ceremony. It was a beautiful night, a special thank you to the Scholarship Committee. It was a huge undertaking, and you made the night extra special for our students. Deputy Director Holt-McDonald texted me Saturday morning to congratulate us on a student-focused event. A special thank you to Rebecca and her team, Gurdeep and her team, the Foundation staff and Bonnie for making it all come together. We had all prior CCC presidents in attendance, Trustees Parra, Ikeda, and Gomez there and a lot of you. Thank you for coming out and supporting our students and thank you for establishing your own scholarships. I have never seen such a caring and student focused group of people. Wow!!! You are truly an amazing group of people. We gave 193 students, totaling in $134,125 in scholarships. My first year we gave 175 students scholarships, totaling $120K. Thank you for seeing our students, having faith in the rigor of our instruction and the student resources we offer. Thank you for playing a part in the success of our students. Thank you for demonstrating that the “Clovis Spirit” is truly an action and for living our motto that we truly create opportunities one student at a time.

The volleyball team was a well-oiled machine as they won 3 set games against Cerro Coso. Congratulations and way to go team!!! Thank you, James for sending me game updates all throughout the Scholarship Ceremony. I was also telling and texting Dr Bennett the results. She was just as thrilled as I was.

Saturday morning, Jada and I went out for a short walk, she got gipped. But we enjoyed our walk versus hike. I made it to the Clovis Cross-Country Invitational. It was great to see so many people there to support the runners. James committed on there being two college presidents in attendance at an early morning cross country event. Dr Stephens for FPU and I were there. Then Dr. Reyna from Madera was there to cheer on not only our students, but all the runners. This was brutal to watch as the ground was wet, and the course was uphill and downhill at points. I was exhausted and impressed as I watched these young people push through. We ended the invitational with the men winning. Congratulations to CJ and to his teams for an outstanding invitational. I left the invitational and went to volunteer with the Soroptimist at their annual yard sale. All proceeds go toward providing scholarship to women and girl. Last year Clovis students received 36 scholarships. While I was volunteering, one of the members told me that she had been on campus recently and she commented on how clean our campus was. I told her thank you and that the team that takes care of our buildings does so with pride. We have a great team. It is always nice to hear when the community also sees your value and goes out of their way to share it with me. Congratulations to Sergio and his team. You are doing a great job, I see it as do others.

Great week everyone. Thank you for going the distance for our students. Thank you for using your voice to help us be and do our best.

Proud to serve you,

Kim E. Armstrong, Ph.D.