Happy 2021!

Before we gratefully and gladly leave 2020 in our tracks, let's take a moment to look back at what we accomplished as a campus community in a year unlike any other in our collective lifetimes.

• In March, within a two-week period, we shifted all our instruction and support services to a completely online environment.  We were fortunate in that we already had in place a robust framework for online learning, built over the past twenty years into one of the most successful online programs in the state.
• Faculty who had not engaged as fully in online teaching stepped up and did what was necessary in terms of training and mutual support to provide new learning environments for our students.
• Our student and administrative services functions shifted as well, incorporating chat rooms, "Cranium Cafe," and other technological avenues to stay connected to our students.
• Our custodians and facilities employees that were termed "essential employees" steadfastly came to work and ensured that our facilities were disinfected and clean at all times.
• Two Foundations worked to support our students:  The Los Angeles Community College Foundation spearheaded efforts to provide thousands of laptop computers, while the West Los Angeles College Foundation and its new Board of Directors focused on supporting our basic needs/outreach efforts.
• Several new employees started at West, often without having been physically on campus, but their reports were consistent in how they were made to feel welcomed, valued, and an integral part of our community.
• We learned that Zoom was much more than a word to denote fast movement; it became an operating lifestyle (but certainly shortened commute time between meetings).

And in all this, you balanced home, children, and other responsibilities in a world that continues to be shaped by distressing news and events that span the political and public health spectrum and that have seen so many of our fellow residents in Los Angeles County fall victim to the coronavirus--including one of our own adjunct faculty members.

You have my fervent thanks for all that you have done--and what we all must keep doing as we enter 2021--to keep students at the forefront and to encourage them to keep trying, to stay in school, to keep their eyes on their educational goals.  We will need their talents and their leadership in a post-pandemic world, and they will be able to achieve their potential because you were there to help them.  I can think of no more honorable way to make an impact on our society and on the world at large.