The Peralta Colleges Board of Trustees voted to demonstrate its support of the principles of the Occupy Movement by beginning the process of moving its assets from large banking institutions.
The resolution, first introduced by Trustees Abel Guillén and Nicky González-Yuen, asks Peralta’s Chancellor, Wise E. Allen, to provide the Board of Trustees with a list of recommendations by January 31, 2012, on how best to bring about a timely, efficient and responsible redirection of financial resources maintained, influenced or controlled by the District and its subsidiary organizations, consistent with the spirit of this resolution’s clauses and consistent with all legal and administrative requirements and necessities
The Peralta Colleges – Berkeley City College, College of Alameda, Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland – serve 30,000 students, employ more than 1,500 teachers and staff, and have an annual budget of $140 million.
There is much to celebrate this holiday season, and I want to take this opportunity, as the year winds down, to review some of our important accomplishments over the last year and to underscore that even in these difficult budgetary times, we have achieved so much and have so much to be proud of.
I am proud of what we have done and want to thank everyone for her or his hard work this past year in making these accomplishments possible. In the face of the difficult circumstances imposed on us by the State, the Peralta Family – as it always does – has pulled together and given our students their best, and made all of us proud. As we end the year and get ready to ring in 2012, let me point out some of our achievements in 2011 and note the many accomplishments that we have to celebrate this year.
The Peralta Colleges (Berkeley City College, College of Alameda and Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland) Board of Trustees voted in its to demonstrate its support of the principles of the Occupy Movement by beginning the process of moving its assets from large banking institutions.
The resolution, first introduced by Trustee Abel Guillén, asks the Peralta’s Chancellor, Wise E. Allen, to provide the Board of Trustees with a list of recommendations by January 31, 2012, on how best to bring about a timely, efficient and responsible redirection of financial resources maintained, influenced or controlled by the District and its subsidiary organizations consistent with the spirit of this resolution’s clauses and consistent with all legal and administrative requirements and necessities
The Peralta Colleges – Berkeley City College, College of Alameda, Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland – serve 30,000 students, employ more than 1,500 teachers and staff, and have an annual budget of $140 million.
OAKLAND, Calif., November 29, 2011 – In its recent report, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services assigned its “A+” long-term rating to Peralta Community College District, assigned its “AA-“ long-term rating on Peralta’s General Obligation, and “A+” long-term rating on the District’s pension obligation bonds outstanding.
Standard and Poor’s also assigned its “A+” long term rating to the refunding bonds while Moody’s assigned its “A1” rating, without a negative rating.
Peralta Community College District placed $53,505,000 in bonds in the market to sell; and orders to purchase bonds exceeded $178,000,000.
“Simply put, we had more buyers than we had bonds,” stated Peralta Community College District Chancellor Wise Allen.
With Occupy Oakland’s planned general strike and mass day of action set for Wednesday, November 2, the Peralta Community College District, and its four colleges will be open for classes as usual.
While we support Occupy Oakland’s efforts, we must continue our mission of teaching, educating students, and serving our community each and everyday.
We encourage our colleges and our faculty and staff to hold teach-ins on their campuses about the history of general strikes and organizing for economic justice.
We appreciate how passionately people may feel about these issues affecting our community and support your right to peaceful protest.
However, our first and foremost concern is the health, welfare and safety of our students and staff during Occupy Oakland’s day of action.
In signing a number of bills into law this month, California Governor Jerry Brown signed two bills that will improve the lives of community college students across the state. One bill helps to ensure the health of students by enforcing non-smoking policies, and the other allows undocumented students to serve on district boards within the 112-community college system. Both bills contained language that the Peralta Community College District in Oakland helped draft.
Signed on October 10, Assembly Bill 795 authored by Marty Block (D-San Diego), contains amendments drafted by Peralta Community College District that would provide an important tool for community college districts seeking to enforce non-smoking policies on their campuses.
“Peralta Community College District has long had smoking policies at our colleges, but would have found those policies difficult to enforce,” said Chancellor Wise Allen. “The passage of AB 795 would better ensure that the four Peralta Community Colleges remain a healthy place for students to learn.”
Welcome to Board Spotlight. The October 11 meeting kicked off with a strong show of support for the Merritt College Children’s Center. The Board received a final report from the Financial Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT). And Chancellor Wise Allen announces some exciting changes to California law.
We are pleased to announce that Peralta TV’s documentary, “Merritt College: Home of the Black Panthers,” has been accepted for consideration at the Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the country.
The documentary, which won a national Gold Medallion Award in 2009 for the best college television/film production, is narrated by Congresswomen Barbara Lee and tells the story of the origins of the Black Panther Party at Merritt College through exclusive interviews and rare archival footage. The film, which was shown at the United Nations as part of events honoring the victims of slavery, features Bobby Seale, Richard Aoki, Ericka Huggins, David Hillard, Emory Douglas, Elbert “Big Man” Howard and other Party members as well as several past presidents of Merritt College, including Chancellor Wise Allen.
A trailer for the film can be seen here: http://blackpanthersthemovie.com/
The documentary’s IMDb page (still under construction) is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2062588/
OAKLAND, Calif., October 3, 2011 – Peralta Community College District General Counsel Thuy Nguyen will receive the Trailblazer Award from the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California (VABANC) at it’s 13th annual scholarship awards banquet on October 7, 2011.
“I am very honored to receive this award,” said Nguyen. “To personally be recognized by your peers means so much.”
Nguyen’s story began in Vietnam. She states, “At three years old, we fled the country and drifted at sea for 25 days until a fisherman found us.” Her family’s journey then took them to Japan and then to South America to Paraguay. “ It was the Refugee Act of 1978 that brought us the United States,” Nguyen recalled. “We lived in Wichita, Kansas, then moved to New Orleans and finally to Oakland in 1989.”
After graduating from Oakland’s Castlemont High School, Nguyen matriculated to Yale and earned her law degree from UCLA.
Dear Peralta Family,
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