Gavilan President: Centennial continues with more events

Courtesy of Gavilan College President Kathleen Rose:

Hello college community, I hope your semester has gotten off to a great start. We are in the final few months of our Centennial Year , and what a year it has been so far! This spring the events continue with Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Bach to Blues, the Economic Symposium, and of course, our 100th Commencement on May 22nd when we will celebrate graduates and alumni in a major way.

Other events on campus this spring include athletic competitions in men and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s baseball and softball, and beach volleyball. Come out and support the Rams this spring! Our updated athletic facilities are well-used and the heated pool is appreciated by our students both by our credit students and by our community members. Everywhere you look on campus, there is activity and life…from the STEM meadows to the new electric car charging stations, Gavilan College is a hub of learning and growth, 100 years strong.

In addition to our full slate of college activities and outreach events, I wanted to draw your attention to Gavilan’s support of the upcoming 2020 Census and supporting all students/staff/faculty/community members to vote.  The Census determines California’s federal funding for important community services that help support our families and fair share of representation in California and Washington D.C.. Local agencies will be here to recruit students who are interested in taking census information this spring during this important event.

Gavilan College shares our centennial with the celebration of 100 years of the women’s suffrage movement and the right for women to vote. This movement was a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States. One of my favorite historical benchmarks of this movement was in 1848, when a group of activists—mostly women, but some men—gathered in Seneca Falls,  New York  to discuss the problem of women’s rights. They were invited there by the reformers  Elizabeth Cady Stanton  and  Lucretia Mott . I had the opportunity to visit the National Women’s Hall of Fame and learn more about the Senaca Falls Convention (close to my hometown of Canandaigua NY) and was so inspired by these women’s stories. You can learn more about women’s suffrage and the journey to win to right to vote during the Learn Think VOTE events scheduled in February and March.

Have a great semester and I will see you on campus!