Over spring break Geraldine M. Perri, Ph.D. superintendent/president of Citrus College was recognized as the only two-year college president to receive an International Shirley B. Gordon Award of Distinction in San Antonio, Texas for her support of the Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) honors club.
“I’m really proud, but I’m more pleased for our students that set this in motion for Citrus to be a college of completion,” Perri said.
PTK recognized Perri because she came from the New York City community college system and as a vice president at San Diego Mesa College, she was inducted into PTK as an honorary member in 2000. Her PTK support carried over to Citrus College.
“The most important and substantial impact that Dr. Perri has on PTK is with the Institution for Completion,” Nicole Wassef, PTK beta neweta chapter president said.
In 2012, former PTK leader Alejandra Morales and advisor Brian Waddington approached Perri about their plan to turn Citrus College into a college of completion, and presented their idea at convocation to faculty and staff about improving community college student’s completion rates.
Then PTK students spoke at convocation to faculty and staff members and presented how Citrus College can improve students completion rates by their support in a pledge which consists of talking to students in class about completion, giving out a completion checklist to students, with the first checkbox written, “I will show up for class.”
“This award is symbolic of how [Citrus College] would go that extra step to help [students] become successful,” Waddington said.
The Shirley B. Gordon Award representation extends not only to Phi Theta Kappa and Perri, but also reflects Citrus College students and faculty passion for education.
“This award really is not an award for me, this award is basically validation of the PTK students who said to me, will you work with us to kick off the college of completion initiative,” Perri said.
After receiving a plaque giving Citrus College a completion title, Perri and the Steering Committee researched what other colleges were doing to increase completion rates and compared what methods would or wouldn’t work for Citrus College.
“What’s good of being a college of completion when you don’t have the students success story behind it,” Perri said. “This is all about students, individual students and how we can help each one.”
From extensive research, Perri and the Steering Committee concluded they need money to create an Institute for Completion, which focuses on incoming freshmen to get higher placement test scores and allows them to have a student coach.
A student coach can be any former or higher level student at Citrus College to guide freshman onto a positive start.
“A new position in the college will be completion coaches, who would get a case load of freshmen students and track them via text, tweet, or email to inform them about workshops and study groups,” Perri said.
To fund the IFC, Perri and the Citrus College Foundation created the President’s Circle for local businesses to donate towards the IFC.
“We went out to banks, mortgage and gas companies, we went out to all different companies to kick of the President’s Circle,” Perri said.
According to Perri, in three years the President’s Circle has raised $400,000 to fund the Institute for Completion and will open towards the end of the spring semester.
“I feel that it’s awesome that Dr. Perri, the faculty and staff members are doing more with it and that it’s not just something that happened and it is over, because it’s something continuing on and it’s fantastic,” Morales said.
